By ELINOR J. BRECHER
Miami Herald

Ronald L. Smith

Born April 12, 1952, Ronald Louis Smith, helped define the upbeat, splashy “Miami Sound’’ that made stars of the Sunshine Band, Gloria Estefan and others with whom he played.

He started on a trumpet that his father salvaged from the trash, and became a drum major, “doing the funky chicken,’’ at both Edison and Jackson Senior high schools, said his son, Ron Jr.

With his guitarist brother, Jerome, and friend Robert Johnson, Smith founded the Ocean Liner Band, for a time the show band for another Miami star, Betty Wright.
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By JORDAN LEVIN

Liam Scarlett has been putting other dancers in motion for almost as long as he has been dancing. He choreographed his first ballet when he was 11, the same year he entered the Royal Ballet School in London.

"I liked organizing people," the 25-year-old Briton says. "I liked patterns. Like a massive chess game, or a flock of birds when you see them change direction and you’re like, ‘Wow, they’re in perfect formation.’ "

The latest flock of dancers Scarlett has set into flight is the Miami City Ballet troupe, which presents the world premiere of his newest work, Viscera, this weekend at the Kravis Center, after runs in Miami and Fort Lauderdale.

South Florida audiences are the first in the nation to glimpse one of ballet’s hottest new choreographic talents in his first full U.S. production – a potential coup for MCB.

Scarlett’s dances for the Royal Ballet have earned raves since the company’s school began presenting his student works in 2004.

Commissioning a new ballet is risky business, as MCB learned in 2008 when Twyla Tharp’s Nightspot proved to be a costly dud. The Scarlett is the company’s first premiere by an outside choreographer since then.

MCB artistic director Edward Villella is thrilled that he and his troupe are playing a part in the rise of Scarlett, whom he believes could be an important new talent.

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By CHRISTINE DOLEN

After gigs in Fort Lauderdale, Miami and all over the country, New Jersey’s most famous quartet is back onstage at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. And oh, what a night the guys deliver. Matinees too.

Jersey Boys, the hit-packed story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, is one of those musicals that could and should tour for years. More than six years after its Broadway opening, the best of the jukebox musicals is still doing great business in New York and on tour, for so many reasons.

The show features a terrific streets-to-stardom script by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, craftsmen who are adept at weaving facts, drama and laughs into a compelling whole. Director Des McAnuff keeps the show flowing as flawlessly as a Four Seasons classic, building to the moment when Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi don matching jackets and blast into pop music’s stratosphere with “Sherry”. Then, just as the hits kept coming for Valli and the Seasons, Jersey Boys keeps on thrilling the audience for the rest of its 2½-hour running time.

Directions, invite a friend

Told from the shifting perspectives of each original group member, Jersey Boys explains how four different guys coalesced into hitmakers now enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Producer-lyricist Bob Crewe (still being played on tour by the wry Jonathan Hadley) had plenty to do with the Seasons’ success, certainly. But Jersey Boys argues that it was the magical combination of Gaudio’s music and Valli’s voice, with its huge range and distinctive falsetto, that set the group apart.
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By DANIEL CHANG

Broward County’s oldest steakhouse remains under reconstruction following an August fire that forced its closure, but Jack Studiale, the second-generation owner of Tropical Acres in Dania Beach, said he is aiming to reopen the landmark restaurant by late January or early February.

Studiale said he has been meeting with a bevy of state, county and local inspectors in preparation for reopening.

Given the restaurant’s age — it opened on Griffin Road in 1949 and was rebuilt following a fire in 1964 — he has had to update some of the infrastructure, such as widening drains from three to four inches, which has caused unexpected delays.

Inside, the restaurant boasts a new look that hearkens back to its Old Florida charm, including tongue-and-grove wood panels found under the dropped ceilings.

Tropical Acres, at 2500 Griffin Rd., closed in August after a fire gutted the kitchen and spread smoke throughout the dining rooms and banquet halls. An investigation showed the cause to be accidental, with the fire starting in a rear laundry room.

By FRED TASKER

Beer for the holidays? Why not? It’s certainly in the right spirit. Kindly old Ben Franklin once said: “Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

Beer is cheap. Beer is festive. And with all the fancy craft beers out there these days, you can be as much of a snob about beer as about wine. Beer has lots of technicalities about it — yeast strains, hops varieties, International Bitterness Units, Plato gravity scales — you can drone on about it at parties when your wine friends are nattering about vintages and malolactic fermentation.

Brewers, more than winemakers, get into the holiday spirit. There are lots of beers crafted just for that Christmas. Brewers call them seasonal beers, put pictures of Santa on the label and spice them with things like cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, even dried fruit.

In fact, Sugar Plum Brown Ale, made in Tampa with several of those ingredients, advertises that it goes well with fruitcake. Did you ever hear a winemaker make that claim?
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Miss USA 2010 Rima Fakih (Image via Wikipedia)

By DAVID SMILEY

The Miss USA pageant, with its rich history of scantily clad women and more recent reputation for steamy scandal, may return to a locale that is known for embracing both.

Representatives with Miss Universe, the pageant’s parent company, are entertaining moving the event and its 51 contestants — along with their evening gowns, swimsuits and tear-proof mascara and all — from Las Vegas to South Beach.

“We hope it happens,” said Lacey Abbott, director of ACT Productions, a South Florida promoter that approached both Miss Universe and local and regional government officials this month about hosting the pageant in 2012 at the Miami Beach Convention Center. “I think we’re close.”

For now, however, money may be a sticking point.

Despite being co-owned by Donald Trump and NBC, pageant representatives have apparently asked that South Florida pony up $1 million in cash and services to help host Miss USA, which would include not only the televised final but film shoots of contestants cavorting around South Beach for three weeks.

That number, according to the city, was lowered from an initial request of $3 million, and could be paid from a number of sources, including private sponsors.

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Jean Desjardin and Berenice Bejo star in 'The Artist.'

By RENE RODRIGUEZ

Although it started out weakly, 2011 turned out to be a strong year for world-class filmmakers: Terrence Malick, Steven Spielberg, Pedro Almodovar, Martin Scorsese, Michel Hazanavicius — wait, who?

The French writer-director, previously best known for directing a pair of James Bond spoofs, may not have been widely known in the United States as recently as a few months ago. But a slew of critics’ groups have rewarded his film The Artist with accolades, and the movie racked up six Golden Globes nominations earlier this week. And now The Artist, which opens Friday, is the film to beat for the Best Picture Oscar — and at this moment, looks pretty much unstoppable.

Backed by the formidable marketing department of The Weinstein Co. (The King’s Speech), The Artist seems destined to achieve something even more surprising that critical praise: Luring moviegoers into the theater in large numbers to watch a silent film shot in black-and-white and starring two actors who were mostly unknown outside of France until now. Hazanavicius, who had previously directed two OSS 117 James Bond spoofs, admits he has been surprised by the mainstream acceptance of The Artist, since he originally conceived of the film as an exercise in craft and technique.

“My initial motivation was really to see if I could tell a story using this format,” he says. “I have always loved the experience of watching silent movies and the way they work on the audience. I thought making a silent movie would be a perfect way to speak about silent movies. But I didn’t have the story in mind at the time. That all came later.”
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Alexander Payne’s The Descendants, the comic drama starring George Clooney as a man whose life is upended after his wife is seriously injured in a boating accident, won three awards at the Florida Film Critics Circle’s year-end honors, include Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress (for Shailene Woodley) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash.)

Michael Fassbender was named Best Actor for his portrayal of a sex addict in the NC-17 drama Shame. Michelle Williams won Best Actress for her performance as Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn. Albert Brooks collected yet another Best Supporting Actor honor for his turn as a murderous gangster in Drive.

The 3D fantasy Hugo won Best Director (Martin Scorsese) and Best Art Direction. Michael Hazanavicius won Best Original Screenplay for The Artist, his homage to the Hollywood silent film era. Pedro Almodovar’s The Skin I Live In was named Best Foreign Language Film and Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin won Best Animated Film. Emmanuel Lubezki won Best Cinematography for The Tree of Life and Project Nim earned the Best Documentary prize.

Martha Marcy May Marlene star Elizabeth Olsen won the Pauline Kael Breakout Award.
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By RUEBEN PEREIRA

Billions of blistering barnacles! Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson’s The Adventures of Tintin hits theaters Wednesday. Here are 10 things you should know about the world-famous adventurer before you catch the movie.

1. It’s spelled “Tintin,” not “Tin Tin” and certainly not “Rin-Tin-Tin.”

2. The Adventures of Tintin is based on a series of 24 comic books created by Belgian artist Hergé (real name Georges Remi) that follow a young reporter/detective named Tintin, his scrappy wire fox terrier Snowy and boisterous best friend Captain Haddock as they travel the globe, solving mysteries, seeking treasures and adventures. Think of him as a cross between a young Indiana Jones and James Bond, minus the womanizing, with a dash of the Hardy Boys thrown in for good measure.

3. The 24 Tintin titles, published between 1929 and 1986, have been translated into over 100 languages and have sold more than 200 million copies. Not bad for a series barely known in the United States. A large reason for Tintin’s timeless and worldwide appeal is attributed to Hergé’s meticulously researched stories and striking animation, which drew from numerous political and cultural events of the 20th century including colonialism, Nazism, archaeological discoveries, human rights, the space race, the Cold War and even UFOs.
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Sean Penn

Political tempers flared between two celebrities when half-Cuban actress Maria Conchita Alonso and Academy Award-winning actor Sean Penn exchanged heated insults at Los Angeles Airport, the actress told radio station WMAL on Tuesday.

Alonso, a sometime-Miami resident whose parents have both seen their countries — Cuba and Venezuela — fall under leftist leaders Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, called Penn, a “communist” after he called her “a pig.”

The former beauty queen who first became famous for her 1984 role in Moscow on the Hudson told the L.A. radio personalities the incident happened Sunday in front of her wheelchair-bound mother and dozens of passengers and airport staff.

The two actors, who co-starred in Colors in 1988 met accidently at LAX while waiting for information on Penn’s and Alonso’s mother’s lost luggage.

Maria Conchita Alonso

“I go ‘Hello,’ and he smiles and says, ‘Oh, you lost your bag too?” Alonso told Steve Malzberg on WMAL. “And I’m like, ‘No, my mother (lost her bag).’ And at that moment he recognizes me because he didn’t recognize me before, and he goes, ‘Oh, it’s you.’”

Alonso says she told Penn, who has called Chavez a friend, she wanted to speak with him about the Venezuelan leader and Penn blew up at her.

“He goes,” she said: “I don’t want to talk to you. You speak badly about me. You insult me on TV,” Alonso told the station.

Alonso says the conversation escalated when Penn accused Alonso’s brother of attempting to assassinate Chavez, which Alonso says is not true, the station’s said on its website.

“So I’m like, ‘You are in favor of Hugo Chavez and [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad.’ Because I also saw a picture of footage from TV where Chavez and Ahmadinejad are together and Sean Penn is next to them. And, you know, he’s like ‘I’ve never said that about Ahmadinejad. You’re a pig.’ And I go to him: ‘And you are a communist, Sean Penn!’”

Alonso, who is known for her role in the movies The Running Man and Predator 2, had not interacted with Penn since criticizing him for supporting socialist Venezuelan.

Penn, who won his best actor Oscar for Milk, has recently been active in Haiti creating a foundation following the deadly 2010 earthquake.