Carrying through
It would have been a lot easier for me to approach the Central Florida Film & Video Festival’s Friday’s midnight screening of “Planet of the Apes” as mindless fun if I hadn’t just learned that its costar, Roddy McDowall, was afflicted with terminal cancer. A few months earlier, I had attended a photo-lecture by McDowall…
High numbers mark low points
In Florida’s runoff primary last week, 93 percent of registered voters statewide had something better to do (97.7 percent in Dade), and that doesn’t count all those who had something better to do all year than even register. We did manage one activist record: With three months to go, we’ve already set the mark for…
Sentimental goo
Movie: What Dreams May Come
Hard knocks
Movie: The Thief
Expert capture of tortuous teen years
Movie: Whatever
Crawling with humor
Movie: Antz
Fowl play
Movie: Clay Pigeons
Sentimental goo
Movie: What Dreams May Come
Hard knocks
Movie: The Thief
Expert capture of tortuous teen years
Movie: Whatever
Crawling with humor
Movie: Antz
Fowl play
Movie: Clay Pigeons
Faked out
Something had apparently gone horribly wrong during the “Women on the Edge” shorts program Thursday night at the Central Florida Film & Video Festival. As I took my seat for the 7:40 p.m. showing of “The Band,” a festival emissary was breaking the news to a pair of disappointed attendees that the aborted “Natalie Merchant’s…
Mayor lauds black removal
Mayor Glenda Hood and City Commissioner Daisy Lynum made a field trip to Charlotte, N.C., last week to inspect and praise that city’s black removal efforts and gentrification of a formerly crime-plagued neighborhood. Marvelling at luxurious, empty apartment buildings in Charlotte’s First Ward, Lynum told Sentinel reporter Dan Tracy the effort could be used as…
Farmworkers not working
When Lake Apopka’s muck farms closed down this past summer, some 2,200 workers lost their jobs. Advocates at the Farmworker Association of Florida warned that, without culturally sensitive social workers and job-training programs, almost all of those workers would be left destitute. And so, it appears, that has happened. Despite $373,000 in federal training funds,…
Hitting the Hyatt
The Orlando Airport Hyatt has to pay its taxes — $3.8 million worth. That was the ruling last week by Judge Rogers Turner in a five-year-old lawsuit by Orange County Tax Assessor Richard Crotty. The Airport Authority, which owns the hotel and pays Hyatt to manage it, argued that the hotel serves a “public purpose”…
A stormy relationship
Bobbi Meyer, telling a Washington Post reporter in June that a contributing factor to her pending divorce was her husband’s nasty comments about her watching The Weather Channel for hours at a time: “To tell you the truth, I found it very hard to understand how he could sit there and watch old episodes of…
Put those callers on hold
At last — a technological device we truly need! Leave it to the Japanese to find a way for us to combat the intrusiveness of modern technological gadgetry … with another gadget. In this case, the technological Darth Vader that we’re combating are those clamorous, infuriating cell phones. No matter where you are — in…
Happy campers
The young guy in front of me was wearing a fake afro, a wide belt and bell-bottoms as I queued up for tickets to Wednesday’s Central Florida Film & Video Festival program. Spotting his distinctive attire, Frameworks Alliance’s Melodie Malfa called to him from across the promenade. “Are you here for ‘Avenging Disco Godfather?'” she…
Haxanâ??s horror takes realism to the extreme
Central Florida’s film industry has been the subject of hype for some time now. But hometown filmmakers may at last be preparing the area’s first major independent film success. When Orlando-based Haxan Films was profiled in April on “Split Screen” — a half-hour show focusing on indie film and shown locally on the Bravo channel…
Dead wrong
Randy Freeman stands up formally to ask his question, with challenge in his voice. “Who called it the ‘Ocoee Massacre,'” he demands. Twenty-five feet away, on a small riser in the corner of the coffee shop at Border’s Books on the outskirts of Ocoee, Cathleen Armstead stammers as she explains that Zora Neale Hurston, Central…
Dead wrong
Randy Freeman stands up formally to ask his question, with challenge in his voice. “Who called it the ‘Ocoee Massacre,'” he demands. Twenty-five feet away, on a small riser in the corner of the coffee shop at Border’s Books on the outskirts of Ocoee, Cathleen Armstead stammers as she explains that Zora Neale Hurston, Central…
How a bill becomes a law (almost)
Everyone remembers it — the excruciatingly dull chapter in high-school government class that explained how a bill becomes a law. But if you didn’t get it, don’t despair. Events surrounding a recent piece of legislation suggest that some members of Congress may not have gotten it, either. For them, the process would seem to depend…
Review – Psycho Circus
Artist: KISS
Review – Duck and Cover
Artist: Mad Caddies
Review – Whitey Ford Sings the Blues
Artist: Everlast
Review – Psycho Circus
Artist: KISS
Review – Mechanical Animals
Artist: Marilyn Manson
Review – Mechanical Animals
Artist: Marilyn Manson
Review – Duck and Cover
Artist: Mad Caddies
Review – Psycho Circus
Artist: KISS
Review – Whitey Ford Sings the Blues
Artist: Everlast
Review – Mechanical Animals
Artist: Marilyn Manson
Review – Duck and Cover
Artist: Mad Caddies
Review – Psycho Circus
Artist: KISS
Review – Whitey Ford Sings the Blues
Artist: Everlast
Review – Mechanical Animals
Artist: Marilyn Manson
Tuning in
The men were truly separated from the boys Tuesday night at the Central Florida Film & Video Festival, as the “TV Stench” program of shorts attracted an audience ready and willing to examine the crippling influence of America’s favorite appliance on its intellectual and emotional development … and perhaps their own as well. The first…
Acid rockers reinvent retro-pop
When Officers Friday and Gannon busted hippies in the old “Dragnet” television series, the action was accompanied by trippy, spaced-out music unavailable on any existing record at the time. Boston band Jack Drag concocted something close to “Dragnet’s” freaked-out, acid-party music on their 1997 album “Unisex Headwave.” This year singer/songwriter/guitarist John Dragonetti, bassist Joe Klompus…
Parenting as monkey business
No matter where you are in life, you’re “at that age.” You’re “at that age” when you crawl, when you sprout zits and when your biological clock goes off like a parking lot full of car alarms. I’m “at that age,” but while my peers crave babies, I want a monkey. A monkey would never…
Theories of relativity
After a weekend suffused with political broadsides, I decided it was best to opt out of the Cuban and Italian shorts being screened at Monday night’s installment of the Central Florida Film & Video Festival. Friday’s imbroglio had left me burned out on the Cuban issue for a while, and the festival schedule ensured that…
Sandwich some midday culture
Cheap, cultural and delicious, the fall Bach’s Lunch series is now under way every Thursday at the Cathedral Church of Saint Luke (130 N. Magnolia Ave., 849-0680), through Nov. 19. The free portion of the program begins at noon with a half-hour concert by artists ranging from Orlando Swing Band (Oct. 1) to Orlando Regional…
