From the mid-1990s to somewhere around 2006, Hollywood bankrolled a number of romantic entertainments targeted to — though not made exclusively for — black audiences. Pictures like Love Jones, Brown Sugar, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, and Something New provided a showcase for actors of color, a refreshing change…
Weight-loss and weight-gain performances are tricky things. Robert De Niro’s heavily mannered turn in Raging Bull just has to be great — he gained 60 pounds for it, didn’t he? For his role in The Machinist, Christian Bale dropped to a sub-skeletal 122 pounds; he looked like a walking, talking…
Miami’s racial diversity isn’t celebrated nearly enough. The Magic City’s widely known as a town of Cubans, but what about the large groups of other ethnicities that call South Florida home? Name just about any place on the map, and you’ll find a robust minority group, from Canadians and Russians…
Birth of the Living Dead.The zombification of America got its start in 1968, when George A. Romero and a bunch of his friends and colleagues released Night of the Living Dead, the scrappy little horror movie that not only served as patient zero in the ongoing pop-cultural zombie apocalypse, it…
Among the Avengers, Thor should reign supreme. Sure, Captain America is the de facto leader, but even he — like the others — is just a jacked-up human. Thor is a god. Or if not quite a god, as he demurs, he’s the next best thing: a flying titan with…
Over the past few years, our view of modern China — at least as culled from news reports — is that of a country whose economy has grown so fast that the center cannot hold. Put another way: How can the inhabitants of one country possibly buy so many luxury…
“Wherever you live in this world, basically… you are alone. Even if [we] have support systems, we’re really alone.” Those words, shorn of sentimentality, are offered — and received — as motherly balm in the documentary When I Walk. Filmmaker Jason DaSilva, having turned his camera on himself to capture…
Richard Curtis has so much to tell us about life. Seize the day! Show people you love them before it’s too late! Don’t let the right one get away! His movies — those he writes, directs, or both — are so packed with info-feeling that they become restless jumbles of…
The title All Is Lost promises despair, especially with Robert Redford looking so stolid and weathered and still-got-it golden on the poster. Could this near-silent, you-are-there survival story be another of Redford’s yawps of boomer gloom? Another complaint, like The Company You Keep, about the realization that the world we…
She was a lonely princess. He was a cocky civilian. And after she escaped the palace, the unlikely couple fell in love. It’s the plot of Roman Holiday and — according to this soapy romance from director Oliver Hirschbiegel — the true-enough story of the last two years of Princess…
Here’s how disastrous the MPAA rating system has become. How I Live Now, Kevin Macdonald’s stellar adaptation of Meg Rosoff’s uncommonly smart and insightful near-future young adult novel, has won an R rating. The film is apocalyptic in the most literal sense, as in, an apocalypse occurs, harrowing the characters…
While guest-hosting a TV variety show in 1964, Dean Martin ridiculed a hot new rock ’n’ roll act with his trademark blend of cocksure innuendo, aw-shucks buffoonery, and inebriated syntax: “Now, something for the youngsters — five singing boys from England. . . . They’re called the Rollin’ Stones. I…
Photo by Jay Maidment – © 2012 MVLFFLLC. TM &2012 Marvel. All Rights Reserved. Thor: The Dark World just doesn’t compare to the 2011 original, in spite of its few redeeming qualities. That’s the consensus among this paper’s film critics on this week’s Voice Film Club podcast, available now. Listen…
Hollywood, like most other industries in the U.S., has a woman problem. The ratio of male to female characters in films is two to one, making it twice as difficult for lady actors to land a role as their male counterparts. When women do snag a little screen time, they’re…
The zombification of America got its start in 1968, when George A. Romero and a bunch of his friends and colleagues released Night of the Living Dead, the scrappy little horror movie that could not only serve as patient zero in the ongoing pop-cultural zombie apocalypse, it also revolutionized horror…
Wynwood is once again catering to all you freaks and fanatics. Its propagandic method of choice? Gory, strange films to lure the outcasts to the cinema. Guess Last Vegas is too “mainstream” for you people. Guess the new Tom Hanks flick won’t cut it. There’s just no pleasing you. Maybe…
The skies were crying yesterday over the BankUnited Center, as if Effie Trinket herself were in the building doing a reaping for the Hunger Games. But then, pockets of sunshine emerged — if only briefly — signifying fans’ happiness. They were, after all, inside the very same building as cast…
screen grab from Grey’s Anatomy Thriler episodeGrey’s Anatomy’s take on the Miami’s face-eating zombie.Shonda Rhimes is hitting the bottom of the barrel when it comes to story ideas for the tenth season of her medical drama Grey’s Anatomy. Rhimes, the creator, writer, and executive producer of the show, brought Miami’s…
You guys, the victors are coming! Members of the cast of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire will make a most humble stop in Miami today, as part of their National Victory Tour. Inspired by the Victor’s Tour that happens in the novel by Suzanne Collins and that will be seen…
In theory, Miami Art Week, anchored by Art Basel, is a string of days in which the world’s most cultured individuals descend on South Florida to appreciate fine culture. But as anyone who’s actually participated in Art Basel’s myriad parties, VIP lounges, and secret shows knows, it’s also about seeing…
Here at Cultist, we don’t break a lot of gossippy celebrity news. Partly it’s because we don’t play nice with the agents and handlers of stars people care about. And partly it’s because, well, we don’t really care about that stuff all that much. So it’s extra-nice when someone else…
Between Pain and Gain, his new HBO project on Miami athletes, and now, a TNT series casting in South Florida, Dwayne Johnson can’t seem to stay away from the 305. Thank you, universe. So what do we know about this new show? The Rock will be helping regular folks in…
