Florida Film Festival: 3 to see today

The Florida Film Festival this weekend and you need to be three people to be able to take in all the great events – so start splitting into those alters NOW because there’s a lot of stuff you don’t want to miss.

I’ll be bringing you some updates throughout the week but there are three movies running today, any of which would be a great catch (All shows are at REGAL in Winter Park; see schedule for details):

7 PM: Bomber

This is a dark British comedy about a young man who has no desire whatsoever to be on a road trip with his parents, who need one, and his father’s quiet personal effort to make up for events of World War II. Crisp, funny and relatable on many levels – bound to be a festival favorite.

9 PM: Punching the Clown

Kind of like “Anvil! The Story of Anvil” was two years ago, “Punching the Clown” is a must-see for aspiring musicians albeit a very, very different kind of film. I’m just going to quote the blurb on the Film Festival website for this one (since I wrote it):

“ If you mixed the Barenaked Ladies and Larry David, you’d get a reasonable approximation of Henry Phillips, a struggling singer/songwriter whose witty lyrics and acoustic compositions are heads above what you might think of as comedy songs. After a disastrous screw-up at a religious fundraiser, Henry abandons the road to try his luck in L.A. He’s doing okay when two miscommunications occur—one that could make him and one that could break him. …This fresh, sharp, sophisticated farce stars the real-life Henry Phillips, who co-wrote this award-winning film with college pal Gregori Viens. It’s …an authentic, sugar-free look at how the fame game works and how one misunderstanding can change everything.”

8:30: Best Worst Movie

Anyone familiar with the struggle of being in any aspect of the art world can only imagine what it must be like to be struggling along in your career and suddenly find yourself tagged as being in THE Worst Movie Ever Made. Ever. Bar None. Makes Ed Wood look like Frank Capra. That kind of thing.

Such was the fate of the cast of “Troll 2" which evidently had nothing to do with “Troll” or anything else in the known universe. Twenty years later Michael Paul Stephenson, who starred in the film when he was 8, made a documentary about the weird arc of the success of a failure and how the rest of the cast – including the Italian director - reacts to being part of something that’s famous for falling flat on it’s face – albeit with the best and most artistically circuitous intentions.

I LOVED this movie and if you’re a fan of documentaries, cult films, horror films or just those stories of how a confluence of single events can lead to something deeply, deeply weird, it’s a must-see. AND Troll 2 – the real thing - will be showing at midnight this weekend!

More recommendations as the week goes on....