ENTERTAINMENT
September 17, 2003 | Elaine Dutka, Times Staff Writer
WHEN "Scarface" came out 20 years ago, Brian De Palma's outlaw immigrant saga was greeted with scathing reviews ("one of the largest empty vessels to float on an ocean of celluloid," wrote the Los Angeles Times' Sheila Benson) and lukewarm box office. The picture was considered one of the lesser lights in the director's canon of works, which included "Carrie," "Blow Out" and "Dressed to Kill."
ENTERTAINMENT
December 23, 2000 | STEVE APPLEFORD, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES
Scarface is a traditionalist, a gangsta veteran committed to hip-hop's core elements, to tough talk about "money and power," but with enough modern flavor to keep his voice alive. It's fueled a lasting solo career far beyond his role with the notorious Houston group the Geto Boys, even as most of his contemporaries have fallen away. At the House of Blues on Thursday, Scarface was joined by his Geto Boys collaborator Willie D.
ENTERTAINMENT
March 14, 1998 | BRETT JOHNSON
Cronyism has overrun hip-hop to the extent that where you're from has become less important than whom you roll with. Today, survival-hungry rappers run in creative cliques, with several artists riding the popularity wave of one stellar peer. With notable exceptions--the Wu-Tang Clan's spinoffs and reunion double CD and Master P's entire No Limit Records roster--originality usually suffers and redundancy rules when like minds coalesce.
ENTERTAINMENT
March 20, 1997
U2's position at the top of the national album chart with its new "Pop" collection lasted only a week. Rapper Scarface's "Untouchable" took over at No. 1 with sales of nearly 169,000 copies, pushing "Pop" to No. 2, based on sales of about 150,000, according to SoundScan. Sales of "Pop," however, are expected to pick up again when U2 begins its world tour next month in Las Vegas and is the subject of a one-hour prime-time ABC-TV special set to air April 26.
NEWS
March 16, 1997 | KATHERINE HUTT, ASSOCIATED PRESS
The flashy cocaine cowboys of South Florida's infamous 1980s are gone. But the drugs keep coming, thanks to a quietly effective 1990s breed of trafficker. South Florida is home to even more traffickers now than it was a decade ago, says James Milford, acting deputy administrator for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. "Miami is the North American headquarters for the South American cartels," says Pam Brown, spokeswoman for the DEA's Miami's field office. "They haven't gone away.