With Michael Bay's big-screen adaptation of Pain & Gain opening atop the box office this weekend, masses of moviegoers discovered what Miamians already knew: Pete Collins' tale of bodybuilders gone bad is one hell of a great yarn.

But the Sun Gym Gang's capers barely scratch the surface of Miami's real-life, made-for-movies madness. The Magic City rolls out of bed, rubs its eyes, and then picks better stories out of its teeth than most cities can manufacture in a decade. Here are ten other true Miami tales that deserve a Hollywood treatment:

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Yes, Ponce de Leon is an asshole. But does he matter?

Last week, T. D. Allman sent Florida the worst birthday card ever. The author's widely shared column in the New York Times trashed Ponce de León and bemoaned celebrations of his "purported discovery" of the peninsula in 1513 as a "fiesta of illusion." OK, so Ponce was a racist, imperialist dunderhead. But he's OUR racist, imperialist dunderhead. And what's more, Allman was wrong in arguing that Ponce didn't achieve anything, says Dr. Paul George, professor of history at Miami Dade College.

"He did open the gates to the colonization of Florida," George says. "He documented his voyage, which whetted the appetite of other Spaniards to go after gold in Florida. That is significant." That's not to say there aren't some other historical myths worth busting on Florida's 500th birthday, though. Riptide asked George to share his favorites.

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Nope.

Stephen Ross wants your money. The billionaire Miami Dolphins owner might tell you otherwise, arguing that the $200 million he supposedly needs to renovate Sun Life Stadium will come from raising taxes on tourists. But don't be fooled. The next time you and your wife want some sexy time at a local hotel, Ross will be screwing you too.

Besides, that $200 million could be put to better use than on a Hail Mary to get another Super Bowl. If Ross gets his way, the only guarantee is that he will get to pimp out his personal sports palace while the team keeps underperforming. So here are three other ways we can better spend the money, from fixing infrastructure to shutting up a basketball blowhard:

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Alex Izaguirre

Uncle Luke, the man whose booty shaking madness made the U.S. Supreme Court stand up for free speech gets as nasty as he wants to be for Miami New Times. This week, Luke makes his predictions for the new year.

What will happen in 2013 to capture people's attention? Who will do something to make us say, "WTF?" Well, I have some predictions:

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Another year down. Thousands more blog posts committed to Riptide's digital page. So what better way to look back at the previous year than to look at the posts that racked up the most page views on this here humble blog. Of course, that makes the year of 2012 look like it was dominated by the Miami Zombie, the Trayvon Martin case, and Florida women who like to masturbate on road sides.

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The world didn't end after all on December 21, so now we all gotta make amends for our bad behavior in 2012. Our New Year's resolutions last year all failed, of course, whether it was taking abuelita to church every Sunday or deleting our Facebook accounts because Mark Zuckerberg is a privacy-pirating prick. That's why January 1 is so glorious: We can wipe the slate clean.

Here are Riptide's 2013 resolutions for ten of our favorite local denizens.

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Here at Miami New Times we publish one in-depth, 5,000 word feature a week. We're one of the few publications in Miami that does so regularly. It's kind of our thing.

Of course, some tend to resonate more with others. Here are our ten most popular features of the year, as determined by page views. If you haven't read them, you should. Everyone else has.

See also:
- 15 Best Miami New Times Covers of 2012
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There are a lot of things that go down in Miami that, if we were sane, would make us ashamed to live here. Of course, true Miamians don't really experience "shame" like other humans do. We prefer to fixate on the positive. You know, the things that we can brag about. So here are ten things that made us proud to be a Miamian this year.

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Miami is not a normal place, and we really wouldn't expect the ghosts that haunt this town to be your average ghouls either. Let's be honest, this place is certainly crazy enough that we're pretty sure there has to be some paranormal activity going on. More »

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