Light has shined on the art house scene in South Florida! Miami has really and truly been a wasteland for foreign and independent cinema for quite some time now. Not since the glory days of Lion Video, New Concept Video and the random art house theaters on the beach of yesteryear have I seen anything worth frothing at the mouth for. The excitement of seeing something new and exciting has officially left the building. I have heard great things of Miami Beach's Cinematheque, but unfortunately I have not heard of anything playing there to really make me want to jump out of my seat. Cinema Paradiso in Ft. Lauderdale is a great venue with a great eye for film, but it's just not Miami. So for a while now I have shaken my fists and ranted my hater rants about the lack of great cinema in Miami but all that has changed as of last week. Filling the void in the halls of celluloid relevancy, the OH-WOW Gallery has chosen to open its doors, kick back, slip on some chancletas and sit back while you invade their house, drink their free beer and eat their free popcorn. Amazingly, someone in Miami is showing you a great movie at no charge and feeding you booze...and they don't want to sleep with you, well they do, but not like that.
I have been to art shows at OH-WOW (including the amazing Scott Campbell show) and had heard about secret ambitious rumblings at the gallery, but this leap of good faith made me call up my good bud Luke for an outing. We arrived, got some beers, plopped our asses down, and escaped. What I'm talking about is the OH-WOW Gallery's movie screening series, which rocks. For the month of July, they will be screening art related documentaries at no charge, and their selection is not too shabby. I missed the first one (a screening of "The Cool School") but made it a point to check out their second screening last Thursday, which was a beautiful gem ."Captured" is a film about Clayton Patterson, a man that has photographed, lived, breathed, ate and shat the Lower East Side since 1979. The movie itself was an absolute testament to what was and always will be the blood and balls of what we know of the L.E.S., which is to always represent the lowest common denominator. For decades, the Lower East Side was a haven for the dirty, grimy, scary and the always interesting. Clayton Patterson made it his home, and one day decided to photograph it. Over, and over, and over. This eccentric photographer's eye scanned over the decades that defined this neighborhood magnifying it to reveal that and so much more. A true reflection of a scene that was really not a "scene" as defined by todays social cliques, but rather a refuge for the junkies, the homeless and the revolutionary minds of the eighties, this film penetrates. It puts the ugly scars, the bloody track marks and the dirty fingernails of Manhattan on display, but also puts the heart and soul of a city on a pedestal. Whether you've lived in New York or not, the Lower East Side matters. If the Statue of Liberty had a middle finger, it would be the L.E.S. From junkies to drag queens, Bad Brains and the Thompson Square Park Riots, Clayton was there, with his fucking camera, getting arrested (and selling his baseball caps) and in the muthafucking potaje of things.
All in all,a great film and a great place to see it at, I hope the OH-WOW gallery makes it a habit to do cool things like this more often (and I did hear of some very cool plans for future screenings, but I'm not going to ruin their surprise). The way it went down was like this; I knew (A) a good movie was playing (Captured), I knew (B) I hadn't hung out with my homeboy Luke in a while, and (C) I knew the cost was ZERO, so (D) I knew that shit would be dope...and I was muthafuckin' RIGHT!!! Check out "Captured" ASAP and do yourself a favor and go catch a flick at OH-WOW, you will not hate me, you will high five me and buy me beers.
OH-WOW is located at:
3100 NW 7 Avenue
Miami, Florida, 33127
305-633-9345
EARLY WARNING: Begin sharpening your claws now for the crudefest that will be: Neckface's first Miami solo show ever...at OH-WOW...on Halloween night, 2009. start. drooling.
