Ted
29. Ray
30. Ray
1
Ray
Three stars.
That’s what I’m giving Miami Vice II: Back to the Beach. It’s not a bad movie with its muscular camerawork and steely blues and grays à la 2004’s Collateral. Like the first installment, it didn’t paint Miami in pastels or reek of ’80s’ vice. This movie is just unnecessary. Did we really need to see Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx running side-by-side through the streets of Miami chasing drug lords again? No, we didn’t. Did we need Michael Mann casting Miami as a bullet-riddled metropolis through gritty shootouts and inky skylines one more time? Nope! But Miami Vice opened at number one in the summer of 2006, grossing more than $50 million in its first weekend, and it held up modestly after that. It had good box office “mojo” (Sonny’s aptly named go-fast boat in the movie). And in Hollywood, if your movie makes a hefty profit (cha-ching!), you’re guaranteed a sequel. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Think: Basic Instinct II and a taut-faced Sharon Stone showing off what God (and, apparently, her plastic surgeon and Botox technician) gave her while she recites some truly terrible dialogue. That’s why I slaughtered the film in my review, commenting tritely, “Follow your basic instinct and stay away!”
Before I dissect any more movies, perhaps I should introduce myself. My name is Ray Martinez, and movies are my life. Sometimes, my life feels like a movie. I can see the trailer playing in my head now. Coming to a theater you, The Miami Movie Critic starring Ray Martinez in his debut performance. The camera zooms in on me sitting in a mostly empty theater screening another movie just like I did this afternoon. So yes, I write 700-word critiques on the latest films for South Florida’s biggest newspaper, The Miami News. I attend at least three screenings a week at the new Carnival Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Miami or at the South Beach AMC theater on Lincoln Road, where I just caught Miami Vice II.
As the credits roll, I emerge from the darkness of the chilly theater into the buttery afternoon light of South Beach, my home. I light a cigarette, my fifth of the day. (I can’t seem to quit the evil weed.) Bronzed rollerbladers breeze by as I stroll back to my car. I’m heading to the News building across the calm glassy waters of Biscayne Bay that part Miami and Miami Beach. I want to get my review done today so I can relax with the guys tonight at Score (not just a place but a goal), but I’ll get to that in a minute.
Everyone thinks I have the best job in the world. Sometimes, I feel that way. Other times, I never want to see another movie again because it doesn’t leave me much time for off-screen romances. I have a passionate love affair with my craft, and I know most other movie critics have a love-hate relationship with their jobs. To understand what we go through you have to be a member of our club, but I’ll do my best to explain. My job, like a cigarette, is also my illicit lover; it seduces me and, at times, abuses me. My work also serves to distract me from dating other men, the same way my clingy Cuban family does, but I’ll introduce the Martinez clan in just a bit.
On a sun-dappled Miami day like today, when I screen a movie that is marginally entertaining on multiple levels, I have a lot to work with in my review, and that makes my job rewarding. I dash back to my cubicle on the fourth floor of the News building—a five-story, mustard-colored fortress anchored off the bay—and return to my computer screen, analyzing the plot, the lighting, the acting, and the pace of the film. Not that I can’t get sidetracked. Between sentences, I may catch myself gazing out the window at the colossal cruise ships docked at the Port of Miami, imagining how those metal vessels stay afloat. I notice how the sun glistens against the aqua bay water like a liquid carpet of shimmering crystals. It’s highly distracting, but that’s Miami, a tropical wonderland. If it were a movie, it would be called Pastel Paradiso because it overdoses on art deco. And I mean that in a good way. Like a tie-dye tapestry, the pale blues of the sky mix with the peach and candy-pink building tops of South Beach. Miami is a living, washed-out canvas of watercolors, and I wouldn’t want to work or live anywhere else. We could use more trees for shady respites, but that’s something a Metro reporter can talk to you about. I write reviews, not news.
So yes, this gig has its perks beyond my postcard office view. I watch movies for free and then write what I think. It doesn’t get any better than that. Well, it does. I also get to travel to Toronto, New York, and L.A. for movie junkets to interview stars and directors about their latest projects. In 2007, I interviewed Brad Pitt in New York City for Ocean’s 13, which for the record was the film equivalent of empty calories, but you didn’t feel like you were duped by Danny Ocean. Pitt’s rugged masculine sexuality mixed with his angelic beauty threw me off balance. I kept losing my focus, even dropping my digital recorder twice. When I replayed the 15-minute interview, (that’s as much time as you can expect from a big star), I noticed how much I stumbled over my words. How embarrassing or, as we say in Spanish, “Qué pena!”
So that’s one perk, the up-close (if not personal) chats with beautiful Hollywood actors that I wouldn’t have a shot with in this lifetime. And did I mention the fabulous views from work?
My fellow reporters and writers have critic-envy, and I can see why, but I earned my place at the News after years of freelancing and writing obits. Also, my little mug shot accompanies each of my reviews in the paper and online, which makes me feel important, like an authority. In Miami, it’s all about the scene and being seen, and having my Kodak moment out there helps in the status department and, occasionally, with dates. Only columnists get their picture in the paper, and I’m the only critic outside the sports and Metro departments who has his photo run with each commentary.
Racso, my straight, macho twin brother, makes fun of that photo all the time. He gets off on being my big brother (by four minutes, people!) and my biggest critic, especially of my pack-a-day smoking habit. He refers to me as “Miami movie boy” to his colleagues at Coral Gables High, where he teaches English and writing. He also makes fun of my blog, which is called “Rated R, for Ray.” (Hey, my editors came up with that.) Racso also thinks it’s really gay with its Art Deco, pink-colored fonts and movie reel images, but then he takes it back when he wants to tag along for the screening of a big blockbuster. (I got him in for free to watch The Da Vinci Code, and he bragged about it to his students and faculty members the next day.) I love my brother and he loves me, and despite our competitiveness and constant brotherly bashing, I know he’ll always have my back even if he doesn’t agree with all my reviews in the paper and on my blog. Speaking of my blog, I use that to respond to readers’ emails, of which I get plenty. That brings me to my next point.
That’s part of the downside to what I do. Everyone has an opinion about my opinion, and folks in Miami don’t hold back what they really want to say, tossing me rotten tomatoes via email in both English and en español. My mailbox swarms with some of the nastiest letters out there, but that’s understandable. People are passionate about the movies, whether they like them or not. Going to a movie and being whisked away into another world is a personal experience, and I know I wield a lot influence in that arena. When people see a movie after reading my review and disagree with my perspective, they blame me for their bad time. They chew me out with such comments as “You stupid idiot. Pirates of the Caribbean was great. What movie were you watching that night?” or “You should be rated R, for ridiculous. You thought United 93 was good? It made me want to leave the theater screaming. You owe me $8 asshole!” Hey, it’s hard out there for a movie critic, as the song goes from Hustle and Flow (which I gave four stars, by the way).
Speaking of Hustle and Flow, I almost got hit by a car just now as I was crossing Lincoln Road at Alton Road. I have to learn to control my tendency to start forming reviews in my head the moment I leave a screening. (I even do it during the occasional date.) As I wait for the light to change, I take a deep drag from my cigarette while cherry-red convertibles and sports cars with spinning rims zoom by me in a blur of mechanical purrs. Traffic grows worse by the day as more people move to our town, a mere ten minute drive to the News. Sometimes, I bike to work along the Venetian Causeway, which connects a series of residential islands with inspired Italian names like San Marco and Dilido. After spending hours in a movie theater a few times a week and being stuck behind a desk writing reviews, I savor the