Documentary filmmaker Robert Kenner doesn’t go in front of the camera to make a point like Michael Moore (Fahrenheit 9/11, Occupy Los Angeles) or Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold). But he’s no less of a…
MOSI Festival of Chocolate lets visitors go cocoa crazy
The Festival of Chocolate returns to MOSI this weekend, turning the whole museum into a feast for the senses. From chocolate-inspired fashions to chocolate muffins, gelato, barbecue sauce, brownies and the Chocolate Irish Car Bomb, there’s plenty to tantalize the…
Allure of the Foreign: Child 44 and 6 Thrillers Set Abroad
We have myriad euphemisms for how someone dies ahead of his time, but murder by any other name is still a ghastly business in the politically charged thriller Child 44 and other mysteries set abroad. Based on the acclaimed novel…
The Many Layers of the Late Paul Walker
Paul Walker’s piercing blue eyes stare out over a steering wheel in “Furious 7” with fiery determination that can’t help but leaving viewers feeling bittersweet. Walker died in November 2013 at age forty in a high-speed car crash during a…
The Final Four and 12 Basketball Films
With Tampa’s Amalie Arena hosting the NCAA Women’s Final Four, we can’t help but have hoop dreams. Not the renowned 1994 documentary of that name, specifically, but basketball films in general. Like other sports, basketball inspires its share of dramatic…
Going Scottish
I had a bit of what the Scots call Guid Luck when interviewing Alan T. McHale, president of the organizing committee for this weekend’s Highland Games and Festival in Dunedin. McHale was on the go, so I interviewed him through an…
“The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” Not Worth The Stay
I love Judi Dench. I first noticed her in 1998’s “Shakespeare in Love,” where her tart-tongued Queen Elizabeth scored her an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. She made a hell of an impression in less than seven minutes of screen…
Get glowing at “Zoominations,” a Chinese lantern festival
A 30-foot-tall Chinese gate at the Lowry Park Zoo entrance here in Tampa acts as a red-and-gold threshold to wondrous sights: illuminated displays of giant temples, dragons, lotus flowers, even pandas in a bamboo forest. Zoominations is the official name…
Oscar Contenders 2015: Best Directors
I’ll be watching the Oscars on Sunday — won’t you? Today at Word and Film, I look at the five nominees for Best Director: Wes Anderson (“The Grand Budapest Hotel”), Alejandro González Iñárritu (“Birdman”), Richard Linklater (“Boyhood”), Bennett Miller (“Foxcatcher”) and Morten…