Is 'Zero Dark Thirty' 2012's Best Film?

-via the Washington Post:

NEW YORK — Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty” continued to gather awards momentum as the National Board of Review named the Osama bin Laden hunt docudrama the best film of the year.

The board is the second notable group to name “Zero Dark Thirty” best film, following the New York Film Critics Circle. The two early awards suggest the film may be the Academy Awards frontrunner, four years after Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker” triumphed at the Oscars.

LA Times: 'Zero Dark Thirty' hunts for Bin Laden -- and more

The day Zorita and her snake slowed traffic to a crawl in downtown Miami

Miami Daily News, Feb. 22, 1939.

Wednesday, Feb. 22, 1939: A 21 year-old exotic dancer named "Zorita" takes her snake for a noon-time stroll on busy Flagler Street in downtown Miami.

A large crowd gathers to watch the spectacle, spilling into the street. Traffic soon slows to a crawl.

The cops are called and Zorita and her snake are on their way to police department.

"The only way we could disperse the crowd and free traffic from a snarl was to bring her and the snake in," one of the cops told his bosses.

The Miami Daily News quotes a few veteran cops as saying, "The whole thing smacks of a publicity gag."

Publicity? No way, says Zorita, "We only were taking the morning breeze."

Two days later, this ad runs in the back pages of the Daily News.

Miami Daily News, Feb. 24, 1939.

That ad in the News was just the first of hundreds of ads for Zorita and her snake that would run in Miami newspapers over the next four decades.

Miami Daily News, May 27, 1955.

Miami News, Dec. 14, 1958.

Zorita died in 2001 at age 85.

From the Miami Herald, Nov. 14, 2001:

Zorita started dancing professionally when she was 19.

Her daughter Tawny Petillo doesn't know where her mother got the name Zorita. "She told me a lot of stories, but she never told me that one. She liked to sound exotic," Petillo said. "All I know is it had a `Z' in it, and you could make it into a snake ."

In her signature, Zorita would put a little curve on the ``Z'' so it looked like the head of a snake with a little line, like a tongue, coming out of it.

"When she first started, she was on the road an awful lot. She did a lot of shows in Baltimore and Chicago, California, Panama and other places," Petillo said. "Once I arrived, she sort of settled into the Miami Beach area."

Zorita still traveled for some shows, but she was based in Dade County and danced at places like Miami's Gaiety Burlesque and Martha Raye's Five O'Clock Club before she opened her own nightclub, Zorita 's Show Bar, on Collins Avenue and 176th Street in Sunny Isles Beach in the 1960s.

Zorita wore long, sequined gowns and lush fur wraps as well as her boa constrictor wrapped around her body.

"She may have been an exotic dancer, but she was very, very classy," Petillo said.

And it seemed as if she was always on exhibit with her snake . Though people probably did not know she had two snakes , Oscar and Elmer, which she alternated in her routines. Zorita also had a snake handler that would care for and feed them.

A regular at Roberts Drugstore on Flagler Street in Riverside (now East Little Havana), she used to eat breakfast at 3 a.m. with her snake in a basket beside her. She fed it crumbs. She once walked the snake on a leash like a pet down Collins Avenue and was quickly arrested. It was what she wanted, her daughter said.

"She'd do almost anything for a little publicity," said Petillo. "She raised quite a few eyebrows."

Loose Talk

A random collection of quotes in the news today:

"It was an interesting enough series, but it wasn’t a good image at all. It was all shooting and blood." -Miami Beach Mayor Matti Herrera Bower, quoted in the Financial Times on the impact "Miami Vice" had on Miami Beach's image. (-via rakontur)

This is NOT a scene from "Miami Vice."



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The parents of 8 year-old Jillian Thomas let her feed a wild animal at Orlando's Seaworld and then are shocked when it acts like a wild animal and bites Jillian.

"Everyone just imagines dolphins as smiling, non-biting animals with knobby teeth. You forget these are wild animals." -Jillian's mother, Amy Thomas, quoted in the Orlando Sentinel.

This is NOT the dolphin that bit little Jillian:



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And finally, Ocean Drive magazine arts editor Brett Sokol, writing in the New York Times, nullifies celebrity author Tom Wolfe's depiction of Miami in the novel, "Back to Blood."

"In the end, they [Florida voters] rejected every one of the most eyebrow-raising proposals — from property tax breaks for snowbirds, to restrictions on abortion, to, yes, further tightening of the embargo on Cuba. That kind of patient thoughtfulness may not make for as exciting a headline as anti-Castro demonstrators, or celebrities behaving badly. But for those of us who actually live in Miami — who don’t merely parachute in to deliver glib verdicts — it’s reason to be hopeful about the future."

Miami Herald Deathwatch (cont.)

December 18, 2012.

If you depend upon the Miami Herald's website to get your news, that's an important day.

Miami Herald publisher David Landsberg says that's when the paper plans to start charging readers to access its website.

In a November 14 email to the Herald newsroom, Landsberg proudly proclaimed: "We have transformed our business to become 24/7 information specialists, with the ability to deliver breaking news through a variety of digital platforms in addition to our print newspapers."

So, with less than three weeks to go before the Herald starts charging you to read their stories, you might be wondering how the "24/7 information specialists" at the Herald are gearing up for the transition.

I'm here to report they're not even close to being ready.

Here's a story that's been on the Herald's website all day Sunday. It's about a Miami-Dade corrections officer who was shot and killed in Miami Gardens a little before 8pm Saturday night. 

But the "24/7 information specialists" at the Herald didn't post a story - if a four sentence rewrite of a police press release can be called "a story" - until just before 9am Sunday morning...more than 12 hours after the murder occurred.

In the meantime, another "man was shot and killed at a Miami Gardens gas station," Sunday afternoon according to Local 10.

Which means the "24/7 information specialists" at the Herald might have something posted on their website by Monday morning. Or, maybe not.

And remember, in less than three weeks, you're going to be asked to pay to read crap like this.

miami-dade corrections officer shot miami gardens, Andrew Johnson, corrections officer, miami gerdens

The way we were...Jan., 1928: Al Capone visits Miami for the first time...It's 'warmer than California'

Al Capone visits Miami for the first time and comments on the weather....

"Miami's climate is more healthful than Chicago's and warmer than California - that's why I'm here."

...and the real estate market....

"I believe now is the time to buy down here and I'm thinking of going into the market rather heavily. I don't believe there will be any sensational climb in values [...] for five years, but I'm contented to wait that long."

From the Miami Daily News, Jan. 10, 1928.

Click here to enlarge.

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Curbed Miami: Al Capone's house

Miami Archives: Al Capone and the St. Valentine's Day Massacre

Miami Archives: Al Capone on the brink of death

Miami Archives: Al Capone's Palm Island home - Then and now

Stuff we like

-Via PetaPixel.com:

Check out this curious 25-second time-lapse/composite video that shows every airplane that landed at San Diego International Airport on Black Friday a week ago between 10:30am and 3pm. The giant planes whiz by overhead as if they’re part of a fighter jet squadron heading off to battle — not something you’d expect to see with commercial planes at an airport. It was created by photography and film professor Cy Kuckenbaker.

Make sure you stick with the video until the end for a visual surprise.


Landings at San Diego Int Airport Nov 23, 2012 from Cy Kuckenbaker on Vimeo.