Cover of Rick Ross

By ALEXANDRA LEON

Police have identified a body found outside a house owned by rapper Rick Ross.

Gregory Paul Nesbitt, 39, was shot dead early Wednesday morning outside the rapper’s Miami Gardens house.

Miami Gardens police say Ross was not present at the time of the death and are not treating him as a suspect but they still want to talk to him as part of the investigation.

Ross, who has a different mailing address, uses the property as a recording studio and often lets friends stay at the property.

A car belonging to Nesbitt was removed from the property by police.

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Image via Wikipedia

By ELAINE WALKER

Time to belly up to the bar for a martini or a Manhattan. Go ahead and splurge — make it with Grey Goose or Crown Royal.

The economy may not have rebounded enough to justify a luxury car or exotic vacation, but the affordable luxury of a super-premium cocktail is back in vogue in Miami and across the country. After a brief slowdown during the recession, when consumers cut back on drinking at bars and restaurants, the spirits industry is once again on the upswing.

U.S. spirits volume in 2011 rose 2.7 percent from the prior year, while sales grew 4 percent to $19.92 billion, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States. Some of that growth has come from consumers shifting from beer to spirits, as market share for spirits rose to 33.6 percent while beer declined to 49.2 percent. Wine also gained share, growing to 17.1 percent.

And the biggest jumps have come from the super-premium brands, where sales volume jumped 8.9 percent during 2011.

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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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