Every May, the city of Cannes, on the chic southern shores of France’s famed Côte d’Azur, hosts the world-renowned Cannes Film Festival where actors, directors and world-premiere movies take center stage. The most glamorous people stay in Cannes’ most glamorous hotel, the Cannes Majestic Barrière. I know, because I saw them when I roomed at […]
In August 2000, the world-renowned Ritz-Carlton chain opened a new, 200-acre resort on the white-sand shores of Rose Hall Jamaica, just 15 minutes from Montego Bay airport. In just a year, Ritz-Carlton Rose Hall, Jamaica has become one of the island’s most elegant and well-maintained resorts. Its graceful, seductive, gray-taupe, horseshoe-shaped, 5-story building beckons vacationers […]
The British came to Barbados in 1627 and used slave labor to work the sugar plantations that produced world-class rum. From 1834, when slavery was abolished, through the 20th century, the island’s economy was dependent on sugar, rum, and molasses production. After Barbados won independence from the UK in 1966, tourism and manufacturing gradually surpassed […]
If you’re thinking of a Florida vacation, but would rather skip the over-populated, see-and-be-seen sands of South Beach, Sunny Isles Beach, Miami offers a quieter, more family-friendly and adult-happy alternative. Same sun, shores and waters … fewer thongs and six-pack abs. Sunny Isles Beach The Haulover Bridge, completed in 1925, connects Miami Beach to the […]
TV news reports have depicted Jamaican government forces battling a drug gang in the Tivoli Gardens section of Kingston, a city on Jamaica’s southeast coast. That mayhem caused the State Department to issue a Travel Alert for that Kingston, which expires June 23. Tivoli is only one section of a vast city frequented largely by […]
When the 22nd annual St. Lucia Jazz & Arts Festival came to a rollicking close May 12, over 50 artists had whipped audiences into frenzy and sustained a cool vibe that lasted for 13 days. When they weren’t listening to toe-tapping music on Pigeon Island National Landmark, festivalgoers dined out, went sailing, sightseeing, beach hopping, […]
The annual Seabreeze Jazz Festival is a major stop on the jazz festival circuit. The four-day weekend soiree draws a burgeoning audience of 20,000 music lovers from Florida, Georgia, Alabama—41 states in all and ten countries. They come to Panama City Beach to hear international musicians sing and play their instruments in a style […]
By Dwight Brown NNPA Film Critic You can tell you’re watching a Quentin Tarantino film if it’s ultra violent, unsettling, the humor is off-putting, scenes are inflated, it’s controversial and the “N” word flows like the Mighty Mississippi. Hence, Django Unchained. The movie’s original, pre-Civil War Spaghetti-Western premise is novel and has merit. According to […]
By Dwight Brown NNPA Film Critic In the beginning, it was seemingly a cut-and-dry case of absolute depravity, known as “the Central Park Jogger”: Lone white Wall Street woman jogging at night in the park. Black and Latino youths “wilding,” creating mayhem, violence and committing gang rape. In 1980s, racially divided New York City, the […]
By Dwight Brown NNPA Film Critic 50 years and 23 films later, the James Bond 007 franchise is alive, well and kicking. This latest installment, which firmly cements Daniel Craig as one of the best Bonds ever, feels more serious, less gimmicky, more geared towards mature adults. The action, eventful though not spectacular, is thoughtfully […]