Film, TV & Streaming

Bad Teacher and the downside of equal rights in Hollywood

Blank City: A self-defeating user-friendly primer on the “no wave” science

This is the strange but true tale of how I recently spoke with Jackie Gleason, one of the most beloved South Florida entertainers in history. I must admit, it’s impossible to exactly explain the logistics, because he’s been dead since June 24th, 1987.    In homage to Mr. Gleason, I have…

We knew last night’s episode of Basketball Wives was going to be good when Royce Reed told Rafer Alston’s fiancée Ashley Walker, “I’m not ghetto, but I’m hood.” So that means what exactly? While she tries to explain the Evelyn Lozada brawl from the last episode, from we understand, it…

Road to Nowhere is the first feature by Monte Hellman the Great since 1989’s Silent Night, Deadly Night 3, an ignoble last chapter, that, for an artist who at his peak (Two-Lane Blacktop, Cockfighter) superbly combined an absurdist worldview and snapshot-authentic Middle America. But rather than rehashing the old hits,…

The VH1 hit-show Mob Wives is looking to expand its programming to another city. Miami is on the short list along with Chicago and Vegas. Would the 305 be a good choice? Yes. After all, everyone knows there are six, not five boroughs of New York City: the Bronx, Queens,…

It’s 10 minutes before a human character appears on-screen in Green Lantern, a personality-free franchise-launcher that opens this weekend. Via a heavily CGI’d prologue, we learn that The Universe is patrolled by a group of multi-species warriors called The Green Lantern Corps–with each member issued an actual camping lantern, which…

Romantic Comedies can be a lot like your romantic relationships. Some are great the first time out and make you certain that they’ll be the “one” forever, only for you to find out on a second date or when you see it on DVD that they weren’t all that wonderful…

In Submarine, which opens this weekend, Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts), a rampant 15-year-old only child, has two presiding preoccupations, detailed in rapid voiceover: a broody classmate, Jordana (Yasmin Paige), and the flatlined sex life of his parents (show-stealers Noah Taylor and Sally Hawkins), brought to crisis by the arrival of…

Having the Dallas Mavericks win the NBA Title probably seemed like a good idea for the rest of the country, at least for a couple of days. Heck, Dirk Nowitzki even became a household name, kind of. But the truth is, when the Miami Heat lost on Sunday, America was…

The Tree of Life: Better than a masterpiece

Miami, the city of sex and scandal, sure is a lame lay in the reality TV sack. We starfished it, (sex on your back, limbs sprawled, motionless) through sleeper series like Miami Social, Khloe and Kourtney Take Miami, the most boring season of Jersey Shore ever, Miami StInk, and 8th…

Good luck finding Miami-based belly dancer Tamalyn Dallal standing still. The performer, teacher, and choreographer also writes books, produces CDs, and now directs films. Catch her latest creation, Zanzibar Dance, Trance, and Devotion, at the Miami Beach Cinematheque on Thursday, with a Q&A session with Dallal following the documentary screening.Zanzibar…

We know. We know. The last thing you want to read about after the Heat’s loss on Sunday is basketball, but thankfully, Basketball Wives has very little to do with dunks and hoops. On last night’s third episode, we learned if there is one event we hope to attend in…

As boarding-school bodice-rippers go, this assured debut by British director and girls’-school alumna Jordan Scott fairly bursts with pent-up carnality trying to ripen under rigid autocracy laden with lesbian denial. Shot in a lushly wild corner of Ireland, Cracks looks as lovely as a colorized old postcard, all vibrant vermilions…

The gnarliest of the master’s recent works, Jean-Luc Godard’s Film Socialisme starts with the first half shot almost entirely on video, and provides a dense, visually ravishing metaphor for Western Civilization: Europe is allegorized as a Mediterranean luxury cruise ship in which the casino doubles as a chapel and philosopher…

Film Socialisme: Jean-Luc Godard’s take on Europe then and now

Super 8: J.J. Abrams’s superfun, superloud catastrophe flick

Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff at O Cinema June 11 and 12

​Given the recent burst of arts-driven culture in Miami, many of us are learning what it’s like to live as artists. (Translation: we are creative and poor.) In the independent film Gabi on the Roof in July, which opens tomorrow at O Cinema, idealistic 20-year-old Gabi vies for her older…

John Rodriguez and his friends, brothers Gilberto and Fernando Gomez, are the Miami-based, indie production company, Full Moon Productions. They’re currently raising funds to get their absurdist comedy film, Unemployed Wolfman, produced via the community funding site Indie GoGo. Rodriguez and Gilberto have worked as production assistants on Man v…

Thought last week of Basketball Wives was good? Episode two didn’t disappoint either. When we spoke to Jennifer Williams a few months back, we got the feeling she and Evelyn Lozada were growing apart. Last night’s episode proved that might indeed be true. Jennifer can’t really take her friend seriously…