Cool It Down

We’re seeking any opportunity to retreat from the oppressive heat, and fewer places are cooler (in every sense of the word) than the cinema. But ugh — the very thought of dealing with the insane summer blockbuster crowds and the just plain rude audiences is enough to make us want to toss our cookies into the nearest available popcorn bucket. Fortunately there are some atypical cinematic offerings being screened around town, giving us the opportunity to avoid overlong lines and cackling teenagers, while laying our eyes on something truly refreshing.

Lovers of classic film should head to the Miami Beach Regional Library for a screening of Esther Williams’s 1944 classic Bathing Beauty. Even in this, her first role, Williams performed the kind of flames-and-fountains aquatic acrobatics that made her a legend. See it at 11 a.m. Call 305-535-4219, or visit www.mdpls.org. For those who are about to rock, we suggest you head to the Museum of Contemporary Art (770 NE 125th St., North Miami), where the exhibit “Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967” is ongoing. To add multimedia context and fresh life to the edgy exhibition, MoCA will be screening Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell at 2 p.m. In case you didn’t know, Arthur Russell was an avant-garde cellist, singer/songwriter, gay activist, and disco producer who enjoyed immeasurable influence over the New York music and art scene in the Seventies and Eighties. Admission is five bucks. Visit www.mocanomi.org for a schedule of upcoming screenings.
Sat., July 12, 2008