Tampa Film Fan

summer classic movie series at tampa theatre

It’s okay if it’s a million degrees outside in the summer, because you can spend Sunday afternoons watching classic films in the cool comfort of the Tampa Theatre. They’ve released their Summer Classic Movie Series schedule:

(all times 3 p.m. unless otherwise noted)

May 28 — silent film Beyond the Rocks
June 4 — 42nd Street
June 11 — Breakfast at Tiffany’s (with audience costume parade)
June 18 — To Kill A Mockingbird
June 24 & 25 — The Wizard of Oz (with audience costume parade)
July 2 — Born Yesterday
July 9 — It Came From Outerspace (in 3-D)
July 15 & 16 — Casablanca
July 23 at 2 p.m. — Sing-A-Long Mary Poppins (with audience costume parade)
July 30 at 2 p.m. — Sing-A-Long Mary Poppins (with audience costume parade)
August 6 — Rear Window
August 12 & 13 — Gone With The Wind (with audience costume parade)
August 20 — Arsenic and Old Lace
August 27 — silent film The Black Pirate

local film news:pop gun pictures, pheromone films, suncreen film fest, hocus focus productions

*Local film studio Pop Gun Pictures has a lot of projects keeping them busy these days, including: feature film BabyDoll, a horror/comedy being shot in Tampa and the surrounding areas (in association with Sub-Genre Films and Pheromone Films) and feature film As Night Falls, currently in pre-production.

*Local film studio Pheromone Films premiered their new sci-fi/action/thriller film Unearthed at the end of last month (it was invitation-only and I didn’t get one…sniff…) and are busy booking future screenings.

*The new Sunscreen Film Festival recently got a mention in the Tampa Bay Business Journal.

*Hocus Focus Productions has their movie 008 available for viewing. The email I received described it as “only slightly improved and still very rough, especially in the sound area, 008 is a comedy about a relief agent who never gets to work because the guy he backs up JUST WON’T DIE!”

Also, their three main trailers, including the new teaser for All Wrapped Up, are online at http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=20970284
(IT IS NOT A SITE FOR THE KIDDIES).

sunrise cinemas in the news again

Tampa Bay’s 10 News joins the discussion of Sunrise Cinemas possibly being replaced by condos.

would you like a mcdvd?

Ohmigosh……McDonald’s is testing DVD rentals from a DVD vending machine at some of their locations. It would make my life easier. Right now, I have to drive the quarter-block from Mickey D’s to Hollywood Video for a burgers-and-movies night.

I wonder if they’ll stock Supersize Me. I’m guessing not.

film fan finding:scary movie 4

Here’s the recipe for Scary Movie 4: begin with the same Scary Movie main characters; add one cup of War of the Worlds, one cup of The Grudge, two tablespoons of The Village and Saw; sprinkle with assorted film parodies and pop culture references; serve lukewarm with a side order of buttered popcorn and a large soda.

As with its predecessors, you know pretty much what to expect: a mixture of stupidity and laugh-out-loud hilarity. Seeing Craig Bierko imitate Tom Cruise on Oprah at the very end of the movie is well worth the price of admission.

Film Fan Finding: B+

bionicon in tampa in june

Fans of The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, listen up: the first ever BioniCon will be in Tampa June 23-25. And Lindsey Wagner will be there! Click here for info.

film fan finding:ice age:the meltdown

If you liked the first Ice Age movie, you’ll like Ice Age:The Meltdown also. Ray Romano still voices Manny, the grumpy but good-hearted mammoth. Denis Leary is the menacing but good-hearted sabertooth tiger Diego. John Leguizamo is the wacky but good-hearted sloth Sid. This time the main characters are searching for a new home, since theirs will very soon be underwater when global warming kicks in and the ice starts melting.

During their journey, Manny finds romance, Diego faces his fear of water, and Sid temporarily becomes Sloth King (and yep, it’s hilarious). There were some great new characters (Queen Latifah was wonderful as the voice of the mammoth Ellie) and some very funny songs, but somehow it seemed a little less entertaining than the first one. A little paler, perhaps. Maybe it’s because the novelty of the characters has worn off. Maybe it’s because I kept having flashbacks of Ray Romano’s character on the TV show Everybody Loves Raymond. During Manny’s conversations with (and attempted wooing of) Ellie, I kept expecting to hear Romano’s nasally TV whine “Debra! What are you doing? C’mon Ma! Leave us alone!”

Not as good as the original, but amusing enough (with a couple of hearty laughs thrown in thanks to the character of Sid).

Film Fan Finding: B+

cinema treasures

( with authors Andreas Fuchs and Ross Melnick — that’s me in the middle) (click on photo to enlarge) 

As soon as you finish reading this, visit the incredible website www.cinematreasures.org. Or go check it out now, but come back to finish reading this post.

Going to the Tampa Theatre is always fun, but last Wednesday was even better than usual. I went to hear authors Ross Melnick and Andreas Fuchs talk about their book Cinema Treasures:A New Look at Classic Movie Theaters and discuss how the movie-going experience has changed over the last 80 years. Melnick is a film historian and co-founder of www.cinematreasures.org, a wonderful website that lists all sorts of information about historic movie theaters. Fuchs is a writer and a third-generation cinema operator who works with exhibitors worldwide. This event was sponsored by the new Tampa Theatre volunteer committee Restoration, which works to preserve and restore the 1920’s majesty of the theater.

About 50-60 people attended the lecture, which kicked off with Restoration committee chair Elinor Boushall welcoming everyone and introducing Tampa Theatre President John Bell. Bell in turn introduced the speakers of the evening, Fuchs and Melnick. They began with an explanation of the Cinema Treasures website and had a PowerPoint presentation with screen shots of various pages of the site and many old photos.

What started out as a labor of love with two people capturing information on historic movie palaces grew into an interactive archive where anyone can submit details and photos of local historic movie theaters. People post comments (”did you know that such-and-such theater was just torn down”) and share favorite memories (”I proposed to my wife in that theater in 1947″).

Melnick then launched into a brief history of theaters in America: how and when they began, that 1946 had the highest rate of movie-going ever, the gimmicks used in the 50’s to combat TV (like CinemaScope) and that 1968-1972 was the lowest point for theaters until the movie blockbusters (like Jaws) emerged to bring them out of their slump. During the introduction I learned that Melnick had finished his comps for his Ph.D. the week before coming to Tampa. I think he was still in “academic mode” because he read more than he talked to the audience. I still enjoyed it, but I felt like I wasn’t able to absorb all of it because he read a little too fast.

Fuchs then took over and talked about some of the local theaters that didn’t survive — the Alcazar, the Strand and the Ritz, among others. He talked about the Tampa Theatre’s efforts to continue to show films and attract audiences. The theater offers a wide range of programming (including concerts and other things besides screening films), gives tours, embraces its history by posting personal remembrances on the website, and is constantly trying to preserve its architecture while upgrading the projection and sound equipment. He gave the statistic that there were 563 films released in 2006, an new record. Capitalizing on the wondrous experience of coming to a majestic, historic theater is the only way for these types of theaters to stay alive in a world of videostores, direct-mailed DVDs, pay-per-view and internet downloading.

Both Melnick and Fuchs obviously love movies and movie palaces and are enthusiastic about both preserving the actual theaters and preserving the memories people have of those theaters.

Kudos to the Tampa Theatre (or “the Tampa” as Melnick and Fuchs called it) for a great evening and, more importantly, for 80 years of being a cinema treasure.

diamond teeth mary film

On May 4, Pete Gallagher, host of WMNF’s Florida Folk Show, will show his film about the life of blues great Diamond Teeth Mary at the St. Pete Museum of History. For more information or to puchase tickets, click here.

in the spotlight:local filmmaker pete bauer

I recently had a chance to learn a little bit about local filmmaker, writer and jack-of-all-trades Pete Bauer. Bauer has written over fourteen screenplays, two of which have won awards. He’s written and directed a number of projects on both film and video, including a short called Justice, which won six awards at the Saints and Sinners Film Festival, and the feature The Box, which screened at the TamBay Film Festival.

A UF graduate who has acted professionally in regional theater, film, television and radio, Bauer has a Real Job as a global IT manager for a local multi-billion dollar company, but his passion has always been filmmaking. A self-described “Hitchcock nut” who finds inspiration in DePalma and Spielberg, he admits to “a guilty pleasure appreciation for Michael Bay’s style over substance approach.”

Bauer had a book published of interviews with ten filmmakers involved in the “microcinema revoluation” when digital filmmaking was starting about five years ago. Originally titled 20 Questions:The Interview Series, his book is at a new publisher and is being re-released as The Microcinema Revolution. He hopes to follow up with more books, depending on the success of the re-release.

His microcinema efforts in the secular realm are produced through his company Local Talent Productions. His faith-based projects are handled at Sonlight Pictures. Bauer thinks that the “Christian film market is very under-utilized, mainly because the products have been low in quality, overly preachy and no one has found the right business model to effectively fill content in that niche market.”

Bauer describes his blog Surviving in Safety Harbor as “a pretty effective overview of my personality…a lot of film, a lot of faith, with a dose of sarcasm layered with my opinion.” Considering himself a writer first and a director second, Bauer started his blog in August to get back to writing and promised himself he’d post a daily entry for at least a year.

Bauer’s current projects include a draft of an action/suspense thriller with Christian themes called Severed and a secular thriller called Mute. He says he is “trying to merge my love of Hitchcock and Spielberg with my faith. Don’t know if the mixture will end up tasting like a fine wine or moonshine, but I’m giving it a shot.”