Photos courtesy Dana Keith

MBC's first film: The Sunset Boulevard screening at the Marlin Hotel in 1993

Miami Beach Cinematheque director Dana Keith finds it difficult to make time for anything else but cinema. That's particularly true this week; his art house is in the middle of hosting screenings for the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, which included an appearance by James Franco whose film, Interior. Leather Bar, encores tonight at MBC. Meanwhile, the theater's regular programming continues, while Keith tries to book an extra month's worth of film in advance before he makes his annual trek to the Cannes Film Festival in the middle of May.

Oh yeah, and the theater is also celebrating is 20th anniversary of presenting independent and art house films on Miami Beach.

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When we last heard from porn star (or, as she put it, "mattress actress") Lisa Ann, it was the summer of 2012. Ann was headed to Tampa, Florida, to reprise the role that made her famous: a Sarah Palin look-alike in the modern cinema classic Who's Nailin' Paylin?.

But now, Lisa Ann has moved on to classier projects. Don't worry, she's still a porn star -- but she's also the subject of a documentary about women in the adult film industry called Aroused.

See also:
- Porn Star Lisa Ann on Performing as Sarah Palin in Tampa: "I'm Not Really an Actress. I'm a Mattress Actress"

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Iron Man 3, opening Friday, is partially set in Miami.

It's been a huge week for Miami on the big screen. Last Friday, Pain & Gain opened nationwide, bringing Pete Collins' New Times tale of bodybuilders' extortion schemes gone wrong to audiences across the nation. Meanwhile, in theaters from Japan to Portugal, Iron Man 3 wowed Marvel fans, creating enormous expectations for American viewers who'll pack cineplexes to see it when it opens in the States this weekend.

Both movies were made, at least in part, in Miami. Michael Bay spent months on various locations around town to capture that inimitable Miami ambiance. Iron Man 3 director Shane Black, meanwhile, brought his cameras to Vizcaya and a couple of other Miami locales. But until now, we didn't know just how much Miami we'd get to see in the third installment of the Tony Stark saga.

Turns out it's a pretty hefty chunk of the film. That means Miami is the star of two consecutive number one box office hits (unless something beats Iron Man 3 this Friday, which: no). And she's a versatile actress too, because once you get past the explosions and the testosterone, these two films couldn't be more different. Here's why.

See also:
- First Iron Man 3 Trailer: Kick-Ass Villains, Awesome Explosions, and Tony Stark as Zombie Jesus
- Iron Man 3 : Robert Downey Jr., Don Cheadle, and Guy Pearce On Location in Miami
- Pain & Gain: Mark Wahlberg and The Rock Are American Idiots Gone Bad

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Courtarro / Flickr CC

Big pimpin', Wookie-style.

Calling all Ewoks, all Obi-Wans, all Princess Leias and Chewbaccas. Come out, you Han Solos and Darth Vaders, you Yodas and R2-D2s.

There's a party for all you Star Wars cosplayers right here in Miami. Yes, Jabba the Hut, there's even room for you.

Brickell's Spazio Nightclub is hosting Star Wars Cantina Cosplay night this Thursday, letting George Lucas fans get their geek on with character performances, music, free vodka and more.

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Congratulations, Florida. You did it.

You've committed to being one of the most emphatically stupid states in the country. You've put in the time, out-crazying formidable competitors like West Virginia and Texas for years. Through hard work, dedication, and nutso batshittery, you've climbed the ranks of ill repute, earning first the nickname "America's Wang," then a Fark tag, then a Twitter account devoted to your idiot locals.

And now you've really hit the big time. Michael Bay made an utterly ridiculous movie about how utterly ridiculous you are, and moviegoers nationwide paid $20 million to see it on the big screen because: Floriduh.

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The Iceman, the first film in Gathr's Preview Series, screens tonight.

Wanna see that hot new film from Sundance or Cannes? Miami cinephiles often wait for months, even up to a full year, for buzzworthy movies to hit our indie screens. Oftentimes, U.S. theatrical premieres come and go in New York and L.A., while the wait continues in South Florida, as Miami film buffs keep their fingers crossed.

Enter the Gathr Preview Series, which tonight will host a preview screening of the Michael Shannon and Winona Ryder drama The Iceman. Working with major independent film distributors, including Kino-Lorber Films, Music Box Films, and Focus Features, the series will bring premiere films to the Miami area ahead of many major cities.

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Courtesy Paramount Pictures

Johnson in Pain & Gain

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson scared? Pffft! The Rock isn't supposed to fear anything. He's climbed to the mountain top of Hollywood and he's been king of the World Wide Entertainment professional wrestling circuit. I mean, he played the Tooth Fairy, for crissakes! What the heck would make the chiseled former University of Miami football-playing bad boy tremble with fright and anxiety? Well, playing the role of a born again Christian, sober ex-con who spirals into a cocaine-fueled criminal rampage after he is recruited by a conniving, scheming body builder named Daniel Lugo to torture and extort millions in cash from wealthy victims.

In fact, Johnson almost backed out of his role as Paul Doyle in blockbuster movie director Michael Bay's passion project Pain & Gain a week before the filming began in Miami last March. The flick is based on a Miami New Times 30,000 word feature story penned by former Miami crime reporter Pete Collins in 1999. It recounts the sordid, grimy tale of the Sun Gym Gang, a crew of bumbling, body-building sociopaths who almost killed one guy after torturing him for his loot, and suceeded in killing their next two victims, yet failed to get their cash, luxury cars, big ass yacht, and waterfront pimp pad.

Doyle is a composite character based on two, maybe three, of the real life criminals who participated in the Sun Gym caper. It's a complex dark role for the Rock, who had to be convinced by Bay to dive into Doyle. Johnson - who declined to comment about his part-time home in Southwest Ranches, citing privacy - talked instead about his struggles to accept the Pain & Gain character he was playing in a recent interview with Cultist.

See also:
- Pain & Gain: Mark Wahlberg and The Rock Are American Idiots Gone Bad

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Cameron Diaz, makin' Miami proud.

LA sucks. There's so much smog there you can hardly shoot a movie in the sunshine.

That's why all the great films of our time shot in golden quality natural UV come to South Florida.

The latest, Pain & Gain, opens in theaters tonight. But it's just one of many classic flicks that have been shot in the county of Dade.

Here are our top ten.

See also:
- Pain & Gain : Six Things Michael Bay Got Wrong
- Pain & Gain : From New Times Story to Michael Bay Film

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Photos courtesy Paramount Pictures

If you see Pain & Gain, Michael Bay's made-in-Miami dark comedy about a bodybuilder extortion scheme gone awry, before you read the original New Times story on which it was based, there's a good chance you'll like it. It's colorful and exciting and genuinely funny at times; its cast does an admirable job; and relative to other Bay films, this one is less, well, Bay-ish. As summertime action blockbusters go, you can do worse.

If, on the other hand, you're familiar with the details of the original story, Pain & Gain's gonna piss you right off.

The film is mostly true to real life, at least by Hollywood "based on true events" standards. But the characters, events, and other aspects of Pete Collins' story that Bay changes have far-reaching repercussions, creating an alternate reality in which the bad guys aren't so bad, the good guys aren't so good, and Miami somehow looks even more disastrously insane than it is in real life. Here are six of the most blatant examples.

See also:
- Pain & Gain: Mark Wahlberg and The Rock Are American Idiots Gone Bad
- Mark Wahlberg on Leading the Sun Gym Gang, Michael Bay, and Cocaine Cowboys
- Pain & Gain Premiere: Mark Wahlberg's Rhymes and Ed Harris' 'Roid Rage on the Red Carpet (VIDEO)
- Pain & Gain: From New Times Story to Michael Bay Film

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Courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Mark Wahlberg as Daniel Lugo

A New York native with a smooth tongue and a disarming smile, Daniel Lugo was fresh from serving a 15-month federal prison stint for fraud when he landed at Sun Gym in 1992. He'd earned his prison time by snookering $71,200 from people who believed he could get loans from a Hong Kong bank. The bank never existed, and Lugo ran off with the cash. At Sun Gym, a hard-core bodybuilding joint just north of Miami Lakes, Lugo quickly worked his way up to manager.

Using his manipulative charms, he also recruited a gang of none-too-bright gym rats -- led by a sadistic Trinidadian named Adrian Doorbal -- to pull off a pair of brazen heists in 1994 and 1995: abducting a wealthy businessman named Marc Schiller and, six months later, kidnapping Frank Griga, a phone-sex-line millionaire, and his girlfriend, Krisztina Furton. Lugo helped murder Griga and Furton and then dismember their bodies. And now he's sitting on death row for his vicious crimes.

It was all part of Lugo's sick, fiendish plot to get filthy rich as quickly as he could. He was the perfect character for Mark Wahlberg, the onetime Calvin Klein underwear spokesman who shot to Hollywood superstardom for playing another detestable human, porn star Dirk Diggler, in 1997's Boogie Nights.
A couple of weeks ago, Wahlberg was in Miami to promote Pain & Gain, the Michael Bay movie based on a Miami New Times story that told the macabre exploits of Lugo and the Sun Gym Gang.

Wahlberg sat down with New Times to give his take on playing a steroid-pumping scumbag.

See also:
- Pain & Gain: Mark Wahlberg and The Rock Are American Idiots Gone Bad
- Pain & Gain Premiere: Mark Wahlberg's Rhymes and Ed Harris' 'Roid Rage on the Red Carpet (VIDEO)
- Pain & Gain 's New Red-Band Trailer: Midgets, Macklemore, and Monk Getting Tased
- Pain & Gain: From New Times Story to Michael Bay Film

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