By Samir Mathur, Contributing writer
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1. All my Florida Film Festival coverage: Florida Film Festival 2012
2. All films + times: Florida Film Festival website
Tonight's big (sold out) event is at Enzian at 7.30pm: "An Evening with Cloris Leachman". Though younger audiences may only know Ms. Leachman from 'Dancing with the Stars' or 'Raising Hope', they should probably be aware of her lengthy, prestigious career. As far as I'm concerned, her brief cameo in 'The Muppet Movie' puts her in my personal Hall of Fame for life. As well as a Q&A, there will be a screening of 'The Last Picture Show', the amazing 1971 film for which she won an Oscar. Tickets for this one moved pretty swiftly, so expect another long standby line.
Elsewhere today, there's only one film playing that I've already seen, and I sure didn't like it! See 'The Sheik and I' for yourself at Regal WPV at 4pm, because it's worth watching and thinking about.
Other notable titles today include 'Under African Skies' (Regal, 9.30pm), a documentary about Paul Simon's 'Graceland' album; Norwegian action thriller 'Headhunters' (Regal, 8.45pm) which stars Nikolaj Coster-Waldau from 'Game of Thrones'; and serious-looking Josh Lucas vehicle 'Hide Away' (Regal, 6.45pm). I've been hearing very good things about competition narrative features 'Think of Me' (Enzian, 1.30pm) and 'Dog Years' (Enzian, 4.30pm).
And for the nightbirds, tonight you have three equally compelling choices of midnight movies. There's 'John Dies at the End' (Enzian, midnight), the highly-anticipated Don Coscarelli/Paul Giamatti joint; terrifying-looking horror flick 'Lovely Molly' (Regal, 11pm); and finally something called 'Karate-Robo Zaborgar' (Regal, midnight), whose synopsis you really have to read:
Japan’s scientists, politicians, and businessmen are in grave danger. The evil secret society Sigma, led by the nefarious Dr. Akunomiya and aided by Miss Borg, a beautiful man-hating cyborg, has been stealing their DNA and using it to build a giant cybernetic robot. The only man who can stop them is secret agent Daimon, who rides a motorcycle that also happens to be his robot pal with mad karate skills. But when Daimon develops feelings for the villainous Miss Borg, our heroes have a falling out that could ruin everything. And then who’s going to stop the robot rugby girls with chest dragons?
Feel free to make your own recommendations in the comments!
