A giant white poodle named Gucci sits tall on a blue cabana chair on the porch, peering suspiciously through the sliding-glass door into the sparkling Deerfield Beach kitchen. The dog seems to trust only the aging mobster sitting inside in his blue pajamas. Save a few loose, barely visible strands...
A sense of deja vu hangs like a pall over "Eclectic Collectives," and with good reason. This first group exhibition by the New River Arts & Crafts Association, now at ArtServe in Fort Lauderdale, is dominated by the kind of bland, innocuous art so often shown and sold at those...
After the Dolphins' pathetic wildcard playoff loss to the Denver Broncos, Super Bowl Sunday in South Florida should be a day of mourning. But the biggest bowl of 'em all will take place in South Florida, at Pro Player Stadium in Miami-Dade. So, like it or not, it's party time...
A rustle in the brush and the faint flap of wings send Jeff Palmer's finger to the trigger. As his prey perches on a fallen tree trunk and begins to case the bait, Palmer fires a few shots through a gash in the green netting stretched across his camouflaged shack...
For better or worse, the father figure in Larry Clark's ironically titled Another Day in Paradise turns out to be Mel, a foul-mouthed, 40-year-old junkie wearing a devil's-red tennis shirt. His notion of good counsel is showing his surrogate son how to disable the burglar alarm at a medical clinic...
Thursday February 18 Everyone's heard of the guy, but how many folks, outside of the art world, really know anything about him? Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) is now famous for his depictions of the nightlife of the Montmartre section of Paris in his paintings and drawings. But he began his...
Since it opened last October, Picture Perfect Cakes in Davie has produced "photo cakes" topped with wedding pictures in color or black-and-white; baby pictures; a shot of a curly-haired, '70s-looking guy grooving with an electric guitar; and a photo of a kid with a baseball bat. Cakes have been made...
Looking at the paintings of Purvis Young, I kept getting the sense, sometimes unsettling, that I'd seen some of the imagery before. A few dramatic strokes of blue and green paint on paper, for instance, summoned Salvador Dali's take on Don Quixote. Another spare piece on glossy, wrinkled, black paper,...
This is the season during which British playwright David Hare is printing his own currency on Broadway. In April the much ballyhooed The Blue Room, starring a naked Nicole Kidman, will be joined by a New York production of Amy's View, featuring theater luminary Judi Dench. Soon after that Hare...
The great attorneys of our time -- Tom Cruise, Susan Sarandon, Tom Hanks -- must now make room in the firm for a new partner. John Travolta, who in past lives has been a disco king, a hip hit man, and a deep-fried presidential candidate, reinvents himself in A Civil...
Not Coy About Her Praise For Pastor Bob The article on Pastor Bob Coy was a very accurate description of what he is all about ("Channeling Jesus," Paul Demko, December 31). I will admit I had some doubts. After all, how could a man who had such a life of...
Al Jones strode to the microphone at Hollywood City Hall last week to address a proposal that could revolutionize politics in Broward County. The teacher and former Dania city commissioner was attending a town hall meeting called by the county commission to discuss next month's seemingly arcane referendum question: Should...
Elinor Blake wants to meet at the library. She's a frequent visitor there. Not necessarily for the books, though she's an avid reader; it's the music. Rows of used CDs await. Fine recordings of the European masters -- Debussy, Chopin, and the like. So here she stands, out on Santa...
The 16th Miami Film Festival continues this week with even more international fare. On the must-see list are Thursday's presentation of a sublime offering from French newcomer Erick Zonca that created quite a stir at Cannes, The Dreamlife of Angels. Friday Buena Vista Social Club showcases famed German director Wim...
She's the Medea of all stage mothers, the most frightening diva of the American musical theater. That would be Mama Rose, of course, the stardom-fixated monster at the center of Gypsy. Since 1959 audiences have clung to her poisonous apron strings, happily singing along. Ethel Merman, Angela Lansbury, and Tyne...
The Black Crowes By Your Side (Columbia) Like any small group of world-class, highly paid performers -- from sports teams to rock 'n' roll bands -- when things take a downward turn, an individual or two pays the price. For the Black Crowes, after two subpar-selling records, the heads that...
A woman in Steve Martin's Picasso at the Lapin Agile makes this comment about the famous painter: "He says that occasionally there is a 'Picasso' and he is him." You can substitute the word genius for Picasso and get the sense of what this phrase means. The comedy appears to...
A restaurant that lacks business can do several things to remedy the situation. It can a) close down and remodel, then have a splashy grand reopening for the press; b) change its name, hoping to pass itself off as a new eatery and attract unwitting customers; c) revamp and lower...
Dania Bitch This letter is in reference to Sean Rowe's story on Dania Beach's hard-line code enforcement ("A Fine Mess," December 3). If Donald Kahn were any kind of lawyer, he would begin tossing nukes back at Dania Beach: $10 million fine for cops driving on his [client's] lawn; $10...
Jimmy Cagney brought the same electric physicality to gangsters that he did to song-and-dance men. He gave a bright-eyed mug like his character in The Public Enemy extraordinary powers of attraction and repulsion. In The General, Brendan Gleeson enacts a real-life criminal chieftain -- Dublin's notorious Martin Cahill -- with...
William Duane Elledge had a moment of flawed prophecy on March 27, 1975. The 24-year-old drifter and carnival worker known as Willie the Kid had just been sentenced to die in the electric chair for the grisly murder of Margaret Anne Strack in Hollywood. Elledge granted an interview to a...
Frankincense and myrrh are readily available at health food stores for $20 a pound -- high for meat but average for herbs. Their only obvious use is for skin care. (They work.) My question is, why were they considered such valuable gifts by the Magi? Did the ancient Palestinians have...
