The Miami Herald from Miami, Florida • 43

VISUAL ARTS: RECYCLING IMAGINATION IN HAITI MOVIES: RENE TOP 20 OF DECADE City Memoirs1 is two youthful filmmakers tribute to swagger BY LYDIA MARTIN lmartinMiamiHerald com Things are turning ugly on the set of Magic City Memoirs an independent feature film about growing up in Miami with too much privilege and too much access made by a crew of insiders who get that much more to the city than those cliched aerials of swaying palms speeding boats and Art Deco hotels splashing neon toward the sea Director Aaron Salgado who has a degree in film-making from New York University and producer Jaydee Freixas who graduated from the University of film school are sweating one of their first Hollywood-style meltdowns Gus Penna the director of photography is throwing a fit because the lighting just right And as the kegs of beer that lured about 200 college-age extras to this posh waterfront house on Key Biscayne begin to dry up folks are starting to bail All that standing around waiting for shots to be set up? Not so glamorous light was not filtering through the crowd the way the DP wanted it Freixas 26 says a few days later clock was ticking I wanted to lock the gates Aaron and I were having a heated argument And in the middle of it some guy comes over and says so funny just like But the HBO series glorifies Hollywood Magic City Memoirs currently in postproduction is as Miami as any feature film has ever been South Florida has lc-'g been the darling of Hollywood filmmakers who like the dazzle of our slick tropical scenery and many movies exploit the vistas: 2 Fast 2 Furious Something About Mary Bird Cage Bad Boys But those films typically use Miami only as backdrop and rarely tell its stories Magic City Memoirs which recently inspired TURN TO MAGIC CITY 4M It- PHOTOS BY JOSHUA PREZANT FOR THE MIAMI HERALO THE PARTY LIFE: Producer Jaydee Freixas left and director Aaron Salgado shoot a scene of a high-school party at a house on Key Biscayne for Magic City Memoirs TELEVISION get a second chance on cable BOOKS Shining a bright light on marriage BY CONNIE OGLE cogleia''MiamiHerald com Elizabeth Gilbert wants you to understand one thing: not a wedding basher Actually she wants you to understand a lot of things particularly about marriage and its effect on people and society In her entertaining new book Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage (Viking $2695) Gilbert dissects the institution its history and possible future in anticipation of her having to engage in it again Unwillingly totally understand the desire to be a princess for a says Gilbert who TURN TO GILBERT 8M REVIEW OF ELIZABETH SM BY GLENN GARVIN ggarvinja-MiamiHerald com Did viewers hate a free-swinging satirical cartoon that trashed both NPR-worshipping vegans and chastity nuts who conduct creepy father-daughter marriages? Or could they just not find it among the summer TV moonscape of mindless game shows and hashed-over reality series? Comedy Central is betting on the latter The cable network has picked up the 13 little-seen episodes of The Goode Family that aired on ABC before its cancellation last summer and is showing them at 10 pm Mondays And if an audience shows up this time the show will go back into production The Goode Family about the dippy misadventures of the most politically correct family they even had a dog named Che had just four million viewers for its debut in May and the number had dwindled to around two million by the time ABC swung the axe in August But producers think the show has a much better shot on cable was a summer series which meant it TURN TO GOODE FAMILY 16M THE GOODE MiamiHeraldcom Click on Entertainment for original review of the show.