The 20th anniversary is traditionally about china.
But pack up the fine dishes. The 20th anniversary of the Virginia Film Festival is all about fireworks.
Judging by the success of last year’s God-related films, this year’s theme—Kin Flicks—should ignite even more interesting debates.
Family in film could be Jerry Mathers as the Beaver or Jack Nicholson as a Shining example of the not-so-perfect dad. Maybe there isn’t even a dad. Or maybe there are three men and a baby.
Kin comes is all sizes and shapes.
It will be interesting to see who Richard Herskowitz will line up for our viewing pleasure from Nov. 1-4.
While you know the festival director already has many irons in the family fire, he also wants your imput.
Who are your favorite movie moms and dads? Who are your favorite film families?
The possibilities are endless. The Fondas ( I love Jane Fonda), the Derns, the Wilsons, the Baldwins, the Douglases, the Redgraves (they’ve already been, but bring them back). Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine. I personally like the Barrymores. Drew could share all sorts of family-related facts and films.
So, drop Richard a line (http://www.vafilm.blogspot.com). Your favorite star or film might be the perfect setting for our place.
One sure contender is “Joshua,” a “creepy” family film with ties right here in town. There’s a mom, a dad, a son, a daughter ... and a Sundance award. The film, produced in part by Charlottesville’s Temple Fennell for ATO Pictures, won the Excellence in Cinematography Award last month at Sundance for Benoit Debie’s camera work. Dave Matthews, who also has a link to ATO, recorded “Fly” for the film.
And, that opens the door for all sorts of fireworks for the 20th-anniversary festivities.

Imagine my dismay when I discovered in today’s Daily Progress that garlic—raw, in pill form or frozen juice concentrate—does not lower cholesterol.

It’s part of a recently published study that checked out the tasty root’s power to drop the artery clotting substance. “The garlic products, all extensively characterized chemically, had neither a statistically detectable effect nor clinically relevant effect on plasma lipid concentrations in adults with moderate hypercholesterolaemia,” wrote lead author Christopher Gardner from Stanford University Medical School. “The results of this trial should not be generalized to other populations or health effects. Garlic might lower LDL in specific subpopulations, such as those with higher LDL concentrations, or may have other beneficial health effects.”

Um, right.

It’s a shame that garlic has apparently been dethroned. I was enjoying decreasing my cholesterol by making garlic chicken salads, 16-clove garlic chicken, garlic pork steaks, fettuccine al fredo smothered in garlic, garlic shrimp, garlicky gazpacho soup, garlic bread, garlic mashed potatoes and garlic-stuffed hamburgers.

When I lived in Denver I used to keep cholesterol at bay by visiting the Saucy Noodle restaurant where a sign at the entrance warned “You don’t like garlic, you go home.” Luckily, I like garlic and enjoyed some of the best mile high Italian food available.

While the cholesterol benefit is debunked, there’s still one benefit of garlic that hasn’t been scientifically overturned. Garlic wards off vampires: There hasn’t been an attack reported in years.

Another benefit has been proved through personal research that shows that, if you eat enough garlic, you can pretty much keep everyone away.

I’m shocked that political correctness has infected the National Rifle Association and its minions.

PCs latest victim is poor, poor, pitiful outdoors writer Jim Zumbo. A successful hunter with a TV show, numerous product reviews in numerous magazines and other hunting related media concerns, he made one lousy remark about assault rifles having no place in hunting, called the guns “terrorist rifles” and found the entire gun-owning world out gunning for him.

You see, in the gun world you can’t hate on one gun or another. You can’t say you don’t like a revolver (I like revolvers. I like them a lot, but I’m queer like that) or an AK-47 (I really like AKs, especially the one I fired that was converted to full automatic blamity-blamity-blamity-blamity, but I’m queer like that, too) or a Winchester Model 94. (You can’t hate on a Winchester 94: I own one.)

What Mr. Zumbo did would be akin to making a negative remark about the Nation of Islam at an NAACP rally or saying an elected official, who is Islamic, should not be sworn in on a Koran. It might be the way he feels and it might be within his First Amendment right to say it, but it just isn’t correct in the existing political climate—in this case the NRA and gun owners—and, therefore, isn’t politically correct.

What he should have said is this: I like hunting with guns designed specifically for hunting, although hunting with whatever gun you like is also good and there is nothing at all wrong about not hunting at all if you don’t believe in hunting. It’s fun to be outdoors, although people with allergies who cannot be outdoors can find many fun things to do indoors, although they may want to consider not firing their weapons indoors.

For all of his 40 years of working in the media, Mr. Zumbo apparently never learned the Entertainment Tonight/Television News theory of the First Amendment:

Exercising free speech is easy when you don’t have anything to say.

DISCLAIMER: I used to belong to the NRA. I also belonged to the ACLU, but now that I live in Charlottesville, I don’t join organizations that require me to pay dues

The Oscars are over, but the talk continues.
Not that Marty, Mirren and Whitaker were the winners. They were pretty much a given.
The talk is about Cate Blanchett’s earrings, Nicole Kidman’s hair and Jennifer Hudson’s space-age shrug.
Although, all in all, Oscar was mostly a night of fashion dos instead of don’ts.
Speaking of fashion, the Daily Progress prognosticators pretty much nailed the fashionable costume category. Only Josh Barney missed the fact that you can’t beat the period dress of Marie Antoinette. Although you have to give the devil his sartorial due ... Barney went with “Prada.”
And in fitting fashion, it was a night for the ladies. Community editor L.E. Andres and yours truly tied for first place by correctly predicting 10 of 14 Oscar categories. Why, oh why, did I change from my first choice of “Happy Feet” for best animated film? There are penguins in every room of my house.
Entertainment editor Jane Norris finished in third place with nine correct, while special guest Maria Prudente was next in line with eight.
Prudente, an actress at Albemarle High School, had a little help from her friends. Her classmates in the AHS drama department all cast ballots to determine Prudente’s finale choices. It was team effort. And they did a pretty darn good job, besting our trio of boys.
Ben Wood had six right, Barney had five, while David A. Maurer, well, he did get four correct this year.
The one category that stumped us all was foreign film. Everyone went with Pan’s Labyrinth, but the Oscar is flying to Germany.
While the curtain has closed and the party dresses are back on their hangers, the acting is not over.
Prudente and her fellow cast-mates have earned rave reviews for their production of “Black Comedy.” In fact, the high school company is heading to Atlanta to compete in the Southeastern Theater Conference. Only 10 teams nationwide were invited to attend.
If you would like to give them a hand, the troupe is in the process of collecting funds to pay for the trip. Call 975-9300, Ext. 4213. Tell them Oscar sent you.
Now, give me that paper crown of greatness.

This is seriously unscientific with a huge degree of error. I mean, hey, I ain’t no rocket surgeon or nothing, but I just wonder why the older folks down on The Corner are so much less friendly than the folks up on West Main Street near the train station.

These are areas with two very different demographics and two different ways of dealing with strangers. Down on Main Street, when I approach someone who obviously lives around there, we make eye contact and I nod and say ‘hey.’ They nod and say ‘hey’ back and we pass like two ships around the buoy. Maybe we don’t feel terribly comfortable around each other, especially if my hair is cut cop short and our races are different, but as we acknowledge each other you get a sense of respect for one another.

I like getting respect. It’s kind of like getting approval and nowadays it’s hard to find approval unless you’re buying groceries with your debit card.

On The Corner, it’s a different story. When I approach someone who obviously works down there, he/she goes out of the way to avoid eye contact. He looks at the ground. She looks over my shoulder. Both of those ladies stared straight ahead, looking well past me to the point that I actually had to touch myself to make sure I really existed.

I say hi to that guy—about my age—and he doesn’t nod nor look nor blink.  He’s got an Anzio stare and the world on his mind.

I like The Corner. It’s a nice place with cool stores, great restaurants and a sweet milieu. Now if the pedestrians would lighten up a little....