Film: Now that journeyman actress Melissa Leo has won an Oscar (for The Fighter), she should gain the clout to get her films general distribution, but t hasn’t happened yet. That is why her first-rate performance as a drug-addicted mom struggling with submitting herself to a rehab clinic in Why Stop Now is opening locally at the Mos’Art Theatre in Lake Park, even in this relatively slow post-Labor Day period. The film also contains some nice performances by Jesse Eisenberg (of The Social Network) as Leo’s piano prodigy son and Tracy Morgan (of TV’s 30 Rock) as her drug dealer. The film itself is kind of a soft screwball comedy, about Eisenberg’s difficulties with an audition to get into a music conservatory, complicated by his efforts to help his mother and his entanglements with her shady drug connections. Go for the actors, particularly Leo. Playing this week through Thursday at Mos’Art Theatre, (561) 337-6763.
Theater: This weekend, Gable Stage in Coral Gables opens the area premiere of Lynn Nottage’s 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner Ruined, a story set in the contemporary Congo, about a hard-working madam who tries to keep her brothel open despite the civil war that rages just outside her doors. Squint and you can see the roots of Nottage’s inspiration, Bertholt Brecht’s classic anti-war drama, Mother Courage and Her Children. Artistic director Joseph Adler brings together a large cast that includes some of the best minority performers in South Florida, including Lela Elam, Marckenson Charles, Renata Eastlick and Jade Wheeler. Running through Oct. 7. Call (305) 445-1119 for tickets.
Art: Opening at the Miami Art Museum is Rashid Johnson: Message to Our Folks, the first major museum solo exhibition for New York-based artist Rashid Johnson. In the exhibition, Johnson explores the complexities and contradictions of black identity by utilizing commonplace objects of his childhood such as record albums, books, mirrors, tiles, rugs, CB radios, shea butter, plants and wood. A sculptor and photographer, Johnson calls this process “hijacking the domestic.” The exhibition, which runs through Nov. 4, also includes references to experimental musician Sun Ra, jazz great Miles Davis, rap group Public Enemy and author and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois. For more information, visit miamiartmuseum.org or call (305) 375-3000.