(almost) bearable. Now under the Audacy um- brella, its annual festival on Fort Lauderdale Beach (known as Audacy Beach Festival) has been taken to the max, with Twenty One Pilots, the Lumineers, Lil Nas X, and more gracing its main stage in the December 2021 edition. In oh so many ways, the Shark rocks — and it had bet- ter not even think of leaving us. BES T TALK RADIO PERS ONALIT Y Marc Hochman WQAM-AM (560) AND 790 THE TICKET (WAXY-AM 790) @RADIOMARCHOCHMAN (INSTAGRAM) What do you say about the man that has seen, done, and talked about it all throughout his il- lustrious radio broadcasting career? You point out how his public love affair with the McDon- ald’s McRib — without pickles, by the way — is a horrific food take, but he is loved anyway. Hochman is like the LeBron James of sports radio: He makes everyone around him better. His current domination of the afternoon drive simulcast on both WQAM and 790 The Ticket (WAXY) is akin to LeBron playing for the Lak- ers and Clippers simultaneously. Could he do it? Probably. Does Hochman do this daily? Yes. Advantage, Hochman. The trifecta of Hoch- man, Channing Crowder, and Alex Solana on the airwaves every day makes South Florida that much better of a sports town. And it makes us incredibly thankful. BES T FL A CK Abbie Lipton DUREEANDCOMPANY.COM Journalists get a lot of emails. Like...a lot. When publicists send their generic pitch let- ters with that standard copy-and-paste lan- guage where they just change the name up top (and sometimes forget to do even that), they’re almost surely bound for the trash bin, unread. The mark of a good flack is one who does the research. And it shows. Abbie Lipton of Durée & Company will never, not ever, send you a generic pitch. She tailors her emails to the reporter and pitches stories the writer would likely take an interest in. The account director represents a range of clients, from art to food, including the Museum of Contempo- rary Art North Miami (MOCA) and the Eat Me Guilt Free brand. She also knows that building individual rapport with a reporter goes a long way. When a writer receives a pitch from Abbie, both parties are aware that it may well turn out to be a good story. BES T S CHOOL School for Advanced Studies 11011 SW 104TH STREET, T-301 MIAMI, 33176 305-237-0510 SASDREAMFACTORY.ORG According to U.S. News & World Report’s ex- haustive study of 24,000 public high schools in the nation, the School for Advanced Studies isn’t just the best school in Miami, it’s the best in the state of Florida, and fourth-best in the entire country. Spread out over Miami Dade College’s five campuses (Homestead, Kendall, North, West, and Wolfson), SAS allows high school juniors and seniors to use their last two RAKONTUR NETFLIX.COM Billy Corben and Alfred Spellman, founders of the production company Rakontur, have been friends and filmmaking partners since their high school days in the 1990s. In fact, they snagged this honor last year for 537 Votes, an incisive look back at Miami-Dade’s pivotal role in the 2000 presidential election. But their 2021 documentary Cocaine Cowboys: The Kings of Miami, just might be the most #Be- causeMiami tale of them all. The six-part docuseries opens with a catchy theme song by local boy Pitbull and chronicles the story of how local childhood pals Augusto “Willy” Fal- con and Salvador “Sal” Magluta (AKA Willy and Sal) went from dealing dime bags to con- trolling America’s most robust cocaine empire during the 1970s and ‘80s. Through archival videos and interviews with former prosecu- tors, drug smugglers, and journalists, the series illustrates how the duo trafficked millions of dollars’ worth of cocaine from Colombia into the United States, all while somehow staying one step ahead of the law. The series, available for streaming on Netflix, is the third in Rakon- tur’s Cocaine Cowboys series and draws heavily on former New Times staff writer Jim De- Fede’s dogged coverage of the rise and fall of Willy and Sal. Slow claps for local journalism! BES T MOVIE SHOT ON LOCATION YOUTU.BE/_BGGT--YXF0 Do you dream of a shirtless Hugh Jackman floating in a water tank with suction cups 21 21 years to a head start in college by simultane- ously earning their associate’s degree. A pub- lic institution, SAS is open to any Miami-Dade resident who meets the grade and testing re- quirements with an impartial lottery deciding who gets in in the event there’s an excess of qualified candidates. Merit mixed with luck — it’s an admission policy that makes for a stu- dent body that matches Miami’s diversity. BES T FILM DIRE CTOR Chris Molina CHRISMOLINAFILM.COM An up-and-coming director must possess au- thenticity, tenacity, and above all, curiosity. Chris Molina possesses all these traits, making him an exciting, emerging filmmaker. Over the past few years, he’s been a behind-the-scenes fixture with various film productions, festivals, and collectives, absorbing the film culture of South Florida. He’s channeled that energy into his own films, like the confessional and insight- ful, Is That All There Is? (2020), and, most re- cently, The Truth of a Thousand Nights (2021), which won “Best Film” at this year’s Miami Film Festival. Molina has also supported his fellow filmmakers through the creation of the Sun Pass Film Festival and its new offshoot, Anita’s Film Festival. That kind of involvement is essential to Molina’s own art. Already a two- time Sundance Ignite finalist and recent artist- in-residence at Oolite Arts, Molina is becoming a marquee name in South Florida’s film scene. BES T MIAMI DOCUMENTAR Y miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com BEST OF MIAMI® 2022 BEST OF MIAMI® 2022 NEW TIMES NEW TIMES JUNE 23-29, 2022 JUNE 23-29, 2022 Cocaine The K ings Co Miami wbo y o f s: R e m i n ic s e nc e
