Donald Thoms-Capello stars with Lee Perkins in The Red Machine, a throwback to '40s crime movies that promises clever plotting and a twisty ending. Fri., March 25 at 7:30 at CinéBistro in Hyde Park.
Brook McCarter hosts the goriest game show ever in The Uh-Oh Show, a horror-comedy from director Herschell Gordon Lewis that screens as part of a double-feature with Gregory Kurczynski's Risen. Sat., March 26 at 9:30 p.m. at Muvico Centro Ybor 20.
Based on an Oliver Sacks essay, opening night film The Music Never Stopped follows an estranged father and son ((J.K. Simmons and Lou Taylor Pucci) who reunite after 20 years when the son develops a brain tumor that leaves him living as though the world (and especially the music) stopped advancing after 1969. Thurs., March 24 at 7:30 p.m. at the Tampa Theatre.
South Florida was ground zero for smuggling marijuana into the U.S. in the 1970s. The documentary Square Grouper: The Godfathers of Ganja delves deep into the heady days of the Carter administration to recount three stories involving Miami and the demon weed. Sun., March 25 at 4:30 p.m. at the Tampa Theatre at again at 7:30 p.m. at the S.H. Kress and Co. Building.
Win Win is the story of an attorney and high school wrestling coach (Paul Giamatti) who takes in the grandson (Alex Shaffer) of an elderly client. The kid turns out to be a star athlete, but before he can wrestle away his demons, his mother (Melanie Lynskey) shows up fresh from rehab, flat broke and threatening to take her son back. Fri., March 25 at 7:45 p.m. at CinéBistro in Hyde Park.
Faced with the loss of his mother, filmmaker Mark Wexler explores ways to extend one's life (possibly indefinitely) in the documentary How To Live Forever — and maybe decides that the quest for immortality is really missing the point of life. Sat., March 26 at 4:30 p.m. at CinéBistro in Hyde Park.
A "Focus On Florida" selection, Civil Indigent tracks the eccentric and outspoken Francis 'Pat' Fitzpatrick, as he leads the charge against a meal limit imposed on a homeless shelter in downtown Gainesville. Sat., March 26 at 11:15 a.m. at CinéBistro in Hyde Park.
This article appears in Mar 24-30, 2011.