All the hype this weekend is focused on the bloody arrival of dysfunctional-superhero saga Watchmen, as grim, brutal and overlong a movie as likely to play the multiplexes this year (read my review).
Better news: The third annual Gasparilla International Film Festival continues through Saturday. The Tampa Bay Jewish Film Festival continues through March 15.
And still playing Tampa Bay area screens are gorgeous looking animated movie Coraline and quite a few 2008 films that landed Oscar wins and nominations, or should have notched Academy Awards attention.
All of the latter group — including Slumdog Millionaire, Defiance, Gran Torino, The Wrestler, The Reader, Milk, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Waltz With Bashir, Frost/Nixon, Rachel Getting Married and The Dark Knight — are far more satisfying than Watchmen.
Also opening 3/6:
Fanboys, the tale of five Star Wars fanatics who break into George Lucas’s Skywalker Ranch in 1998 to steal a print of Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace (released in 1999). The road-trip comedy includes a brawl between Star Wars fans and Trekkies. Seth Rogen makes a cameo, as do Princess Leia, er, Carrie Fisher and fellow Star Wars cast member Billy Dee Williams; William Shatner (Captain Kirk, of Star Trek); and Kevin Smith. “The most appealing aspect of the movie is that the guys and gal at the center of it don’t just love the Star Wars saga for its own sake,” Michael Sragow writes in the Baltimore Sun. “They love the way they feel about each other when they’re escaping into its universe and sharing all the wonder and the trivia.
Alternatives:
- Tampa Theatre – Two Lovers , the well-reviewed new drama starring Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw; cast also includes Isabella Rossellini and Elias Koteas (through March 11)
- Beach Theatre (St. Petersburg Beach) – Slumdog Millionaire
- Burns Court (Sarasota) – Milk, Slumdog Millionaire, Waltz with Bashir, Two Lovers