Before he was one of cinema’s finest dramatists (All About My Mother, Talk to Her, Volver, Broken Embraces), writer-director Pedro Almodóvar was a provocateur and a satirist. The 63-year-old filmmaker harks back to that past with his first comedy in nearly 25 years, I’m So Excited!, a lighthearted, ensemble-driven bit…
The Heat Would Be More Likable if It Stopped Yelling Everything
With the final season of Dexter quickly approaching — it starts this Sunday! — it’s only fitting to pay tribute to the city where it all began: our vibrant Miami. Even though Dexter himself (Michael C. Hall) says in the pilot: “Miami is a great place for me, great place…
Twice, Darlene Love had to stop midverse, dropping the microphone to her side in frustration. She was coming through the speakers scratchy and thin, this only hours before she was to sing at the premiere of a documentary about her voice. “We could do five sessions in a day, and…
The Real Housewives of Miami are back, and in more ways than one. As if two seasons of the self-obsessed ladies was not enough, right? Yesterday, the ladies unleashed a media blitz on the world every bit as powerful as World War Z’s zombie takeover, with a new trailer and…
When you walk into the Miami-Dade Public Library’s film archive in downtown Miami, you encounter a unique scent. It’s bitter to the nostrils and smells somewhat like vinegar. Turns out that’s the odor of decay particular to film. Donald Chauncey, a longtime film archivist working for the library as a…
Yesterday, we told you about Rolling Stone’s dire predictions for the future of Miami — namely, that the whole place will be irreparably flooded and hurricane-wrecked by the year 2030. The filmmakers of Borscht Corp and their marine biologist collaborators at Coral Morphologic had something to say about that: “Duh,…
The Transformers Ride in 3D at Universal Studios Orlando had its grand opening yesterday, an event made all the more spectacular with explosions, a flyover, and appearances from the Transformers themselves. It was a showcase worthy of a Michael Bay movie–quite appropriate, as the ride takes after Bay’s modern Transformers…
So you lost your summer internship with the yakuza after they saw that your back was covered with temporary Spongebob tattoos. Not to worry! There’s still a chance to score big during the summer hustle, as long as you don’t run your lemonade stand like some piss-stained wuss. Run it…
The newest addition to Universal Studios in Orlando is a Simpsons-themed area that is the ultimate in fan service — and it’s only getting bigger. And tastier. Cultist took a VIP tour of the town’s current offerings as well as a literal taste of things to come. While there was…
In Joss Whedon’s The Avengers, Iron Man gets off a good burn on Thor during their intramural fight in the woods: “Shakespeare in the park?” he says. “Doth mother know you weareth her drapes?” Like any good Shakespearean pastiche, The Avengers began in media res, with a glowy cube thing…
The American Black Film Festival Returns With Murder, Tiny Comedians, and Basketball Smooches
You’re either with Brit Marling or you’re against her. The 29-year-old blond filmmaker (who describes herself on Twitter as a tree climber/actor/writer/producer) catapulted out of obscurity in 2011 with two obfuscatory indies — Sound of My Voice and the mournful sci-fi drama Another Earth. Marling specializes in films about faith,…
Delicacy of touch isn’t a particularly valued commodity among American filmmakers. We like pioneer swagger in our directors; particularly in the age of the blockbuster, open-ended questions and eyelash-fringe feelings are suspect. That’s why it’s always been hard to know how to categorize Sofia Coppola, one of our most gifted…
It’s to the great detriment of The Kings of Summer that it follows the identically premised Mud by just weeks. Both films tell bittersweet coming-of-age stories about teenage friends who learn how to become men in a soon-to-be-corrupted Eden, and both are questionably embellished by a predictable teen romance, an…
Rama Burshtein’s Fill the Void opens on green leaves, smiling faces, lush billows of fabric that when pieced together, the sensuous images accumulating into a fuller picture, become a wedding dress, tulle and silk diffusing the glow. Engagements, weddings, births, and deaths: This film is a more traditional kind of…
Terrorizing children in their bedrooms remains the existential concern of the toothy blobs, hams, and pop-pom-furred Wild Things that populate Monsters movies, many of whom look like gummy nothings long stuck to the bottom of Pixar’s junk drawer. Their very lives depend upon coaxing night-screams from human kids, a premise…
In World War Z, All That Matters Is Brad Pitt
I recognize that, even coming from a father of two preteen daughters, that might sound alarmist, so let me elaborate—the Disney Channel and its prime competitor, Nickelodeon’s Teen Nick, are a pox upon our tween nation, corrosive forces that impart more awful messages than any of Disney’s retrograde princess films…
In One Track Heart, after reciting a spiritualist maxim about servitude or self-abnegation or the like, Krishna Das has the unfortunate habit of letting his gaze linger on the camera, eyebrows raised, head just perceptibly nodding as if to say “How indisputably cool was that?” Jeffrey Kagel, the subject of…
When Breakup at a Wedding has its Miami premiere at O Cinema tomorrow night, there may be almost as many Miami natives on screen as in the theater. That’s because the director and the star of the comedy are brothers Victor and Philip Quinaz, who are returning home with their…
When the 17th annual American Black Film Festival kicks off in Miami Beach this weekend, one of the highlights is sure to be Fruitvale Station, based on a true story of a young man killed by a cop in an Oakland train station. The film won top prizes at Sundance…
