Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Still, it was a close call, and you can see why: Florida, like California, has always
fostered dreams and fantasies. Only in Florida, they come to life as theme parks.
Actually, Hollywood has returned to Florida time and again to film both TV shows and
movies. Some of the more notable popular films include the Marx Bros farce
Cocoanuts,
Creature from the Black Lagoon
(filmed at Wakulla Springs),
The Truman Show
(filmed at
Seaside),
Ulee's Gold, Donnie Brasco, Get Shorty, Hoot
and
Miami Blues
.
Florida, as setting, has been a main character in a number of TV shows. In the 1960s,
the most famous were
Flipper,
about a boy and his dolphin, and
I Dream of Jeannie.
Set in
Cocoa Beach,
Jeannie
was Florida all over: an astronaut discovers a pinup-gorgeous fe-
male genie in a bottle, only she never quite fulfills his wishes in the way he wants.
In the 1980s, Miami was never the same after
Miami Vice
hit the air. This groundbreak-
ing cop drama made it OK to wear sport coats over T-shirts and helped inspire the renova-
tion of South Beach's then-dilapidated historic district. The popular, more recent
CSI:
Miami
owed a debt to actor Don Johnson and
Miami Vice
.
What's fascinating about modern Miami cinematic media is its willingness to peer past
the pastel and deco. Of course, shows such as
Miami Vice
were always comfortable with
Miami's seedy side. but recent forays into film and television are looking at the savagery
and darkness that seem to lurk side by side with the glittery celebrity facade. Shows such
as
Dexter
have dipped past Miami's glamor directly into her bucket of weirdness.
It's also worth noting that Miami is one of the centers of American Spanish-language
media, especially film and television. The first Spanish-language presidential debate in the
United States was hosted at the University of Miami on Univision, while Spanish-lan-
guage network Telemundo is based in Hialeah, a suburb of Miami.
The 1960 movie of Glendon Swarthout's novel
Where the Boys Are
is largely responsible
for spring break as we know it today. It's a bawdy, cautionary coming-of-age tale about
four Midwest coeds visiting Fort Lauderdale for sun, sand and sex.
Two of the best film festivals in the US are the Miami International Film Festival
(
www.miamifilmfestival.com
; March), a showcase for Latin cinema, and the up-and-com-
ing Florida Film Festival (
www.floridafilmfestival.com
; April) in Orlando.