What’s HOT This Weekend in Miami . . .

Jan 18th 2008

Categories: Front Page, Just For Fun, Life & Style

HOT INSPIRATION
Put a little ‘kitsch’ in your step . . . with “Promises of Paradise: Staging Mid-Century Miami“, an exhibition of furniture, fabric, clothing, etc., and photos of architecture from the 1950s when Morris Lapidus designed the Fontainebleau, the Eden Roc, and the Americana, being offered by the Bass Museum on Miami Beach. Faux, fabulous, flamboyant, frivilous, and fun: Open 10 AM to 5 PM Tuesday through Saturday; 11 AM to 5 PM Sunday; but closed Monday; the exhibit runs through April 13th. 2121 Park Avenue, Miami Beach (Tickets are $8 adults, $6 seniors/students). For more information, call 305-673-7530 or visit www.bassmuseum.org.

HOT MUSIC | HOT MOVES
. . . and some ‘move’ in your groove! “Global Cuba“ is a six-week festival of Cuban music, ranging from jazz to fusion to progressive rock to timba and rumba. Cuban musicians who have emigrated all over the world and fused their art and music with their new surroundings and influences will be performing beginning this Sunday afternoon at 5:00 at “Speigelworld“. Running every Sunday at 5:00 through February 17th, tickets for each show are $28. Check their web site for a list of performers.
What is “Speigelworld“? Well, it’s where you can get FREE Salsa Lessons every Wednesday night from 8:00-9:30 (through February 13th). Spiegelworld describes itself as a traveling venue. Everyone finds an excuse to come south for the winter! Spiegelworld is held in Collins Park, between 21 and 22nd Street behind Collins Avenue, on Miami Beach. Call 305-358-5885 for more information.

HOT MOVIES
For those who are counting down . . . one more weekend to go before “RAMBO” (IV) on January 25th!
There are 4 HOT NEW MOVIES opening this weekend:

“Cloverfield“
A much-anticipated monster movie shot like home video. A lot of hype has surrounded it on the web (much like the ground-breaking “Blair Witch Project”). Violating my arbitrary 1 hour 36 minute rule (which is that a movie has to be longer than that to be any good) at 1 hour 24 minutes, it’s sure to be bad, but it may be creative enough to make it worthwhile. It has been described by one reviewer as “the first big-budget Hollywood picture in history to go to so much trouble trying to look like junk. [T]he ultimate movie for people who don’t feel a cataclysm has really happened until they can videotape it, upload it and stream it live to the rest of the world.” Should be fun to see the statue of liberty shots (joining “Planet of the Apes”, “Ghostbusters 2″, and “The Day AFter Tomorrow”, movies that featured Lady Liberty in creative ways)

“Mad Money“
The 3rd movie directed by Callie Khouri [a name you should know since she won an Oscar (best original screenplay), a Writer's Guild award, a BAFTA, and a Golden Glode for her first script "Thelma and Louise"], “Mad Money” stars Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah, and Katie Holmes as 3 women working in the Federal Reserve who plan to steal money before it goes to the shredder. Described as a “[strained contrivance with dubious morality ]” by a Baltimore Sun reporter, who says, as we can predict that the fun “such as it is, comes from watching how things ended up going so wrong.”

There Will Be Blood movie poster “There Will Be Blood”
While Day-Lewis gives what may be a career-best performance, Writer/Director [Paul Thomas] Anderson’s screenplay of “There Will be Blood (loosely based on Upton Sinclair’s “Oil”) is not worthy of the level of quality that Day-Lewis’s talent tries to bring it up to. The character of Daniel Plainview is interesting, but the story line is too singularly his, and so is the dialogue. Ciaran Hinds is completely wasted in the movie, saying maybe 3 lines. Even when Day-Lewis’s character asks direct questions of others they hardly ever answer. It’s as if he almost never stops talking except when the discordant soundtrack takes over and gives you a sense of danger about to happen. There is danger involved in drilling for oil, and Day-Lewis’s character erupts with equal force to the derricks, and more frequently. The ending might be a great “best served cold” revenge story but the beginning was not well set up for this. It’s a little vague and confusing in the plot, and drags a little two hours in. Overall, the performance is well worth the price of admission, but it is not the great movie that Day-Lewis’s performance in it deserves–it seems like an incredible painting in a average frame.

DANIEL DAY LEWIS’ role choices reveal a heavily literary bent . . . “A Room With A View” • “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”• “My Left Foot” (Academy Award for “Best Actor”) • “The Last of the Mohicans” • “In the Name of the Father” (nominated for “Best Actor”) • “The Age of Innocence” • “Gangs of New York” (nominated for “Best Actor”). If you don’t like the movie, I doubt you will be disappointed in the performance of Daniel Day-Lewis.

“27 Dresses”
“27 Dresses” stars Katherine Heigl from “Knocked Up” and James Marsden, he was also “Cyclops” from the “X-men” series (you know, the sexy one with glasses) and the Prince from “Enchanted“. Should be at least as good as “My Best Friend’s Wedding” and chick-flick lovers are sure to not be disappointed!