The State of Film

And The Winner Is

As I write this, I await the beginning of the Academy Awards. I will forego the predictions but have read all the predictions. I have seen “The Life of Pi”, “Silver Linings Playbook”, and “Les Misérables” where UA, Regal, and AMC rule, and salty popcorn, bathtub-sized soft drinks, and GMO laden snacks command exorbitant prices. To tell the truth, these venues, with runaway 14 year-old wreaking havoc on all sense and sensibility are more punishment than sanctuary, so it is with great jouissance that I can celebrate the local film scene as never before. Never have the connoisseur, enthusiast, and junkie had so many opportunities to see foreign, independent, and documentary films.

Apart from Oscar, Miami has just completed its 30th version of the Miami International Film Festival, or XXX as MIFF blithely logoed it. Miami Dade College is behind this festival as it is behind the Book Fair and so many other great community affairs. No, none of the films were XXX nor screened at dodgy theathers, but many will also never make it to the corporate screens either. Instead, what MIFF does, and where it does it, gives the film maven plenty of places to pursue the big screen fantasies going on around the world. And we denizens of the bottom of the Sunshine State can now view great cinema every day of the week in a number of locales. 

I wrote about the Coral Gables Art Cinema last year, so this is a good time to give them and all the local art houses a big shout out again. This column will be devoid of any criticism or controversy. Not only do all the theaters curate great selections, as of course does the MIFF and other local film events, but the Coral Gables venue particularly can be accessed by googling Miami cinemateque, Coral Gables Cinema, and a few others. All roads lead to the CGAC, which also has a cool little cafe thing going as well.

MDC is also the driver behind Calle Ocho’s TowerTheater which routinely screens great films, many of which are in original Spanish language of course with English subtitles. This landmark, built and launched in 1926, is again a great gathering place and paragon of modest majesty for both new and the nostalgic film buffs, after having been restored and revived in the 2000’s. For those aesthetes with the special fondness for the bygone, the Tower is choice #1. Across the street is Azucar for ice cream.

Another long running venue for the movie devotee is the Bill Cosford Cinema on the campus of the University of Miami. I always liked the Cosford because it made me feel young. However, recent accomodations to what someone thought was a changing demographic -- young people -- have made mass market films on their later go-round a complement to the offbeat and international. Two vending machines are on the concourse.

When the Miami Beach Cinematheque, AKA MBC, is not participating in a local film festival it still offers a wide-ranging selection of films. As its website points out, Dana Keith is the founder, director, driving force, and film connoisseur behind it all. I don’t know if Dana is also popping the corn, but to find out, you must go to the 1927, historic Carl Fischer-designed City Hall on Washington Avenue near Espanola Way. Of course, MBC has a bookstore/gallery/cafe space.

Last are the two O Cinema spaces, the original edgier one in Wynwood, and the newer, more classic spot in Miami Shores, also known as MTC, Miami Theater Center where it shares space with what is now known as playground. MTC was founded as the Shores Theater in 1946. Both O’s are part of the non-profit which happened thanks to matching funds from the Knight Foundation. When they can, the O Wynwood screens films like those about Bob Marley, the Cream’s Ginger Baker, and controversial prison revolutionary Mumia Abu-Jamal. MTC prefers features about the geriatric, the royal, and the indigent European in search of salvation. Wynwood serves chocolate ganache treats and in Miami Shores, there’s a Starbucks down the street.

In Miami, these are good times for filmgoers -- every day of the week.

The Death of Wynwood

For a while now, I have been thinking that the end is near. Since there is no such profession as an actual “future of the neighborhood” fact checker, the question remains -- Is the end of Wynwood near? Let’s say a little perspective is in order.

First, it is entirely fair dinkum to assume that some of our reading population does not know what I’m talking about. If you have a decent relationship with your college aged children and they have tats, piercings, or an inclination to speak of craft beer, GMO’s, or baristas, you are aware of the district near Midtown where Art Basel spinoffs and graffiti artists began digging in about a dozen years ago thanks to a desire, a need, and a beloved pioneer named Tony Goldman. If you have never visited Wynwood, perhaps this analogy will do.

Remember the time before Ocean Drive was reborn. Art Deco structures populated a mostly decrepit, neglected stretch of what would become really valuable real estate between South 5th and South 15th on South Beach. Like a phoenix, it became grand in a short time after having fallen into Scarface disrepair. On the other hand, today, it is a desperate, immature, ugly 20 something visited by most of us only when our least sophisticated relatives make that once in a lifetime visit to South Florida and want to visit the Clevelander.

Illustration two is Lincoln Road, still pleasant though no one I know goes there very much any more because it’s too crowded. (Thank Groucho Marx for the joke) With the recent opening of European mass market God H&M, the transformation is virtually complete and fully corporatized. If you are a small business, I’ve got two words for you -- side streets -- because as former New York mayoral candidate Jimmy McMillan squealed, “The Rent is Too Damn High.”

So while I am certainly ahead of myself, simultaneously, I am not. Adjacent to Wynwood, the Design District has added Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Dior, and Prada. Hello Design District. Goodbye Bal Harbor. (and its claustrophobia) Target lives alongside Loehmann’s, Supercuts, Foot Locker, and Subway in midtown Miami, also next to Wynwood, so can you hear the clock ticking yet? Hipsters, artists, and franchises do not mix!

I am not complaining as it is inevitable for change to occur, but the folks who were first to the dance -- those with bikes and spray cans, will soon be stopped by the new bouncer they used to tag walls with. That said, Wynwood is entering its next transformation, and expect the avalanche to occur much more quickly than you think. Food trucks and their generators quickly wear out their welcome when NW 2nd Avenue is bumper to bumper and the masses prefer t-shirts to canvases.

When this occurs, some will be disappointed, but fret not; the transformation will continue elsewhere. Till then, though you might want to check out Model City or Little Haiti, my money is on whether anyone can spell Allapattah?

Miami's Best of 2012

1. Pulse Art Fair, Miami Project, Art Asia during Art Basel
2. Critical Mass Bicycle Rides (on the last Friday of every month)
3. Miami Heat becoming NBA Champs and Lebron doing his magnificent dance
4. The Artist being held over for several weeks at the Coral Gables Art Cinema 
5. Marley, 144 minutes of reggae rapture and respect screened at the O Cinema 
6. Black Violin laying low at the South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center
7. Miami Book Fair International: Miami Dade College keeping it literary for 29 years
8. Zak the Baker, Panther Coffee, Lagniappe: art, craft, eating, and drinking
9. ULTRA musicfestival: massive electronic music bacchanal in Bayfront Park
10. Miami Made Festival at the Arsht: free, local, and creative

Thanks New Times

Art Basel/Scope/Context

Critical Mass November

If the best things in life are free, the Critical Mass is the gift that keeps on giving. One good thing about cities like Miami, like LA, and like New York is the idea that anyone -- even the rich and famous, can go about their business without getting mobbed. Perhaps going to the mall may be a bad idea, but I've been driving through Coconut Grove and seen Lebron floating the black, convertible, sports car with the big grin on his face, so it's no surprise that he, Dwyane Wade, Mario Chalmers, and friends have gotten involved with street culture in the city.

I've been dedicated to Critical Mass since the beginning. It's an international movement, but the MIA has fallen in love with it. Lots of people deserve credit for this here. Rydel Deed deserves big local love.

When I first rode, there were about 150 people. Since then, I have seen nearly 2000. Every month, the same corkers show up, the same leaders, the same announcers of the rules, the same brothers with sound systems blaring, and of course, the usual bunch of nuts. It is, however, an absolutely splendid, transcendent affair.

Art Basel: Miami Heat, Invader, Banksy, Graffiti

I just read that Art Basel Miami is the largest Art Fair in our hemisphere. I read that hotel occupancies for the week are through the roof with the average room rate in its highest, high season mode. Rooms are harder to get during Basel than any other event of the year, especially the upper end. In other words, good luck finding a bargain. The predicted local windfall: over 500 million. Naturally everyone is getting in the act. Aside from all the major events which trickle down from the main one, expect that many places will  feature a DJ, sponsor a party, and produce a show this coming week. Everybody, everywhere!

Even the Heat are involved. There is a mural on NE 29th Street painted last year and retouched last weekend by Serge Toussaint featuring the Miami Heat NBA champs from 2012. Also last year, local artist NFN Kalyan created a glass sculpture of Lebron featuring what amounted to King James being frozen and illuminated. Kalyan's work appeared at Red Dot in 2011. ESPN’s Jared Zwerling has been talking up the Art of Basketball: Heat Wave, in which street artists capture various images of the Heat’s run to the title last year. The NBA, of course, has given its stamp of approval.

Miami takes on outer space courtesy of Paris’ Space Invader. Perhaps you’ve caught a glimpse of 20 or so tile installations lurking mysteriously throughout the city recently? Invader’s contribution to Art Basel will be the exhibition of his latest takeover: Miami. Art4 Space will present the documentation of the spacecraft he launched here last summer. This will take place in a booth with the Jonathon Levine Gallery at Pulse in Midtown. Invader will distribute a map during the fair if you want to go see everything subsequently.

In 2001, Exit Through the Gift Shop was nominated for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards. Though it did not win the Oscar, the film wove a tale in which a filmaker tried to follow British stencil artist Banksy but to no avail. Banksy Out of Context at Art Miami will reveal 5 massively heavy, representative pieces rescued and now privately owned. Never will salvage be so valuable. There will be those who argue about whether this should have been saved or not. Street art, like Buddhist sand paintings, may be made to be destroyed.

Though the highly hyped UR1 festival fell through -- sorry Kanye, sorry Lenny Kravitz -- big time musicians will also play here, like popular, Amer-Chilean Nicolas Jaar who will appear in Wynwood at Bardot. Listen to Mi Mujer for the vibe. On December 6th at the Gusman, Former Sonic Youth guitarist (born in coral Gables) Thurston Moore will be here to reminisce about Kurt Kobain at KURT, a multimedia art, dance, and film fest. Flying Lotus will appear at Grand Central. Canadian band Metric will play the Scoop kickoff party. Food will also play a role, with a comeback by pop-up Vietnamese Phuc Yea! and Phuc Mei! -- no kidding -- holding court at Scope. Expect to see our ubiquitous food trucks clogging local arteries in a new way; traffic should be dreadful.

Last shout goes out to the muralists. Last week, San Francisco’s Chor Boogie, South Africa’s Faith 47, her Chinese Beloved Dal, and Puerto Rico/Miami based La Pandilla were among those out and about painting walls in the city. The big remaining question is what will painted in the empty space where Shepard Fairey’s iconic Aang San Suu Kyi once sat.

So now that we are up to our necks in articles, in paint, in murals, in music, and in food -- all in -- it’s time to take the plunge before Art Basel becomes too big too enjoy forevermore.