A high school student’s film got a theatrical release — at more than 15 theaters, from Miami to West Palm Beach. That’s quite a feat for our local lady, Shayne Leighton, who wrote a dark romance about high school and demonic, immortal creatures when she was a senior at Alexander…
It may seem hard to believe, but there was a time when the music industry had a handle on technology. But now, some gazillion illegal downloads later, it’s a struggle to find a business model that won’t be obsolete with the invention of the next i-gadget. Thankfully, there are events…
What’s better than watching burly men ride on a big, muscular beast? Nothing. So luckily this time, you don’t have to travel to Kentucky for it. Here, at the Davie Arena, you can sit on those metal bleachers and watch 30 cowboys ride atop angry bulls, pray for their survival,…
The Mai-Kai Restaurant is like an oasis in the desert. You know this town can be a land full of look-alike bars and restaurants, where this one represents Polynesian shows, outlandish décor, and dishes from all over the Orient. And on Saturday, the stakes are raised even higher because DJ…
Ironically, almost a decade later, the September 11 attacks remain a divisive event. Some people use it as an opportunity to express latent prejudices (see the Ground Zero mosque) while some see it as a defining moment in how Americans can maintain what defines our cultural character. And then there…
The beauty of this one is, you have all day to remember. CNN will be a maudlin Ferris wheel all day, while Fox News stokes the shards of hurt and fury that are still, nine years on, floating like kidney stones through your bloodstream. There will probably be footage of…
Though usually only children bother to mark half years, the charitable drinkers at the Young Professionals for Covenant House mark the halfway point to St. Patrick’s Day, the foremost of drinking holidays. That’s fitting for a group of 21- to 45-year-olds who drink to raise money for youths under 21…
Recently there was a moment, one of those Oprah “aha moments,” when you swore off human beings as suitable drinking buddies for good. There you were gingerly holding back your coworker’s daiquiri-soaked ponytail, crammed into a bathroom stall overlooking a porcelain throne, and it just came to you: Humans can…
To be on TV or not to be on TV. That’s the question facing Andrew Rally, the protagonist of the play I Hate Hamlet. Rally is caught between a chaste girlfriend, the ghost of legendary actor John Barrymore, and a Hollywood executive. His girlfriend and Barrymore’s ghost want him to…
Take one part Broadway musical Rent, a dash of Romeo and Juliet, and a heaping pile of gay angst and you have Bare, a pop-opera musical that follows two gay high school students in a tale of love and rebellion at a Catholic boarding school. Sure, this means the musical…
Sure, we all know Miami-Dade public libraries are packed with freeloaders getting their Tom Clancy fix, trawling YouTube for funny crotch shot videos, or digging through art book stacks and back issues of National Geographic for X-rated peeks at the female anatomy. But there’s also another kind of library patron,…
Ever wonder what a bunch of bowling balls melted together would look like? Probably not. But now that the image is in your head, it needs to be seen. You’ll find those melded-together bowling balls — or what appear to be those, anyway — at the Art and Culture Center…
“This song is about seeing my ex-girlfriend with another dude in the produce section of Wal-Mart and ducking behind the cantaloupes so she wouldn’t see me. But then she saw me anyway. It’s called ‘Feelin’ Like a Melon.’ ” See, at an open-mic night, you never know what you’re going to…
Having directed the first Resident Evil and written every installment since, crap auteur Paul W.S. Anderson returns behind the camera to put series hero (now his wife) Milla Jovovich through the 3-D paces. It’s unclear why Resident Evil—at four films and a decade’s time—is the most successful video-game-turned-film franchise ever,…
Lebanon, written and directed by Samuel Maoz, is the strongest new movie of any kind I’ve seen in 2010. Like Ari Folman’s groundbreaking animation Waltz With Bashir before it, Lebanon is a film by a traumatized veteran. But where Waltz With Bashir is mainly concerned with the recollection of that…
“What really matters is what you like, not what you are like,” says John Cusack in High Fidelity, a very good romantic comedy about a 30something man who can’t maintain a relationship, partially because he’s holding on to stale record-nerd dreams. Going the Distance is a not-very-good romantic comedy about…
Despite the repeated and increasingly exasperated attempts of a lifelong best friend, I cannot quite experience Evil Dead as a “fun” film. It’s the very thing that grates on my nerves that also drives its fan boys crazy. To wit: This B-grade cheese fest, in addition to being a showcase…
Disney darlings, the Jonas Brothers already have to elude legions of fans trying to get close to them, so it’s fitting that singer Joe Jonas would tether this rabid support into a charity event. This Labor Day, supporters can take part in the Joe Jonas iWin 5K Fun Run/Walk, taking…
When Carlos Mencia first brought racist road signs, Peter Boyle reading hate mail, and terrorist snacks to the American television audience in July of 2005, certain critics slagged him as Comedy Central’s cheap replacement for Dave Chappelle. No doubt, there were a few too many similarities between Mind of Mencia…
If you’ve never taken a trip to Miami’s boondocks (AKA Palmetto Bay), you should make it a point to hit up the sprawling greens of Deering Estate (16701 SW 72nd Ave., Miami) for the Labor Day Blues Picnic. Coming at the tail-end of three months of lovemaking, waking and baking,…
Cinema Paradiso (503 SE 6 Street, Fort Lauderdale) will host what can only be described as a survey course in the history of comedic movies for its “Comedy-A-Thon.” Except this won’t involve quizzes, papers, or homework — it is Labor Day, after all. Even though school has started, our summer…
The Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival is holding a 75th anniversary celebration for 20th Century Fox, and what better film to kick off the celebration than the Citizen Kane of the teen movie genre – Porky’s, a movie filmed right in our own backyard. FLIFF is following up the screening…
