Forbidden Film: The Florida Film Festival

        Murderous priests wielding razor-sharp dildos, a mega-star’s dad doing old ladies for the money and Rock Hudson seducing girls. You’re either down the rabbit hole or in Florida.

         And lucky you (I think) it’s the latter, specifically The Florida Film Festival which starts tomorrow. As a member of the narrative features selection committee I can tell you it’s going to be a great program – with concepts Original Cinema, Forbidden Films, Temptation, Indulgance and Redemption, how could it not be?

         Before we get to that I want to take you waaaaaaay back to the very first entry in this blog which was about "Sita Sings the Blues" and animated feature, one my committee chose for the festival and one of the most innovative films I’ve ever seen.

        If animation, Indian Gods and a monkey army weren’t enough, the best thing about this movie is that director Nina Paley made it as the result of a break-up. Those of us who attempt to fix heartache by drinking, eating, fleeing or bitching have much to learn from Nina Paley mainly that the best revenge is being absolutely spectacular.

        

         The FFF’s Forbidden Films are movies which were a little overheated for their times but which went on to become classics, which just goes to show you,: if you don’t go over the top you never get to see the other side.

         We’re lucky enough to have several celebs from three of the Forbidden Films joining us. Glenn Close from  “Fatal Attraction.” Jon Voight of “Midnight Cowboy,” and legendary director Ken Russell and ground-breaking screenwriter (and UCF’s own) Barry Sandler who will give us the skinny on “Crimes of Passion” the provocative film branded Kathleen Turner’s perfection on everybody’s brain and cemented Anthony Perkins’ status as the all-time greatest player of psychopaths ever (see the clip below). Also on the bill, Federico Felliini’s “La Dolce Vita,” about a hard-partying gossip mag writer in 1960’s Rome and which gave us the term “paparazzi” after its character Paparazzo.

         Finally there’s the not-so-forbidden “Pillow Talk” starring Rock Hudson and Doris Day, the Enzian's Winter Park Popcorn Flick next Tuesday. This romantic comedy is charming from tip-to-tail: a womanizing songwriter and a prim designer irritate the bejesus out of each other – and of course fall in love - through a party line (and one point during which, our boy Rock has to feign being gay to throw her off). A party line was a shared phone line - kind of like an involuntary conference call. Back then it was considered a nuisance having people in in your business. Nowadays if people don’t get up in our business – Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, IM, comments, chat – it means we have techno-cooties. “Pillow Talk” harkens back to an era when people liked to talk to each other (gasp!) one at a goddamn time.

         “Pillow Talk,” by the way, is an old-fashioned term referring to an intimate conversation between romantic partners, i.e., the stuff you talk about with your heads hit the pillow. Pillow talk is one of my favorite things in the world and “Pillow Talk” is one of my most sentimentally beloved movies and I’m happy to say I’ll be introducing it Tuesday night.

         I’ll be recommending other films throughout the week, here in the blog and on Facebook and Twitter, but in the meantime, check out the schedule and events. See you there!