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Film: hot ticket
By Times staff
© St. Petersburg Times
published August 1, 2002
Jim Fitzpatrick has been many things around the Tampa Bay area: a sports hero with the Tampa Bay Bandits of the defunct USFL, an actor who made good on the soap opera All My Children and even Tarzan at Busch Gardens.
Now he returns with another title: independent filmmaker with a charitable project.
Fitzpatrick wrote, directed and stars in An American Reunion. The film co-stars Fitzpatrick's wife, Jodi Knotts. Reunion focuses on a spirited gathering of former high school classmates that sours when one of them threatens to kill herself. Some footage was filmed at Clearwater Beach, although the bulk of the film was produced in Southern California, where Fitzpatrick and Knotts live with their two children.
An American Reunion was inspired by tragedy. Fitzpatrick's prom date at Seminole High School in 1977 committed suicide, and that loss still haunts him. See Friday's Floridian for an interview with Fitzpatrick.
An American Reunion will be shown at 7 p.m. Monday at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, benefitting the Sun Coast Hospital Foundation, particularly its suicide prevention program. Fitzpatrick and several cast members will attend, along with actors John Castellanos (The Young and the Restless), Maria Conchita Alonso (Moscow on the Hudson) and Lorenzo Lamas (The Immortal, Renegade).
Tax-deductible tickets are $25 for the screening and a postshow cocktail party catered by Hooters restaurants and Alessi Bakery. Tickets are available through TBPAC at the box office or by phone at (813) 229-7827 or toll-free 1-800-955-1045, and at Ticketmaster outlets.
Saints and Sinners Film Festival
Florida's ambitiously independent filmmakers will be showcased Saturday at the Saints and Sinners Film Festival at St. Petersburg's State Theater.
Fourteen entries are divided into two categories: Sinners (horror flicks, a popular theme among budding auteurs) and Saints (non-horror comedy and drama). A jury composed of filmmakers and journalists (including St. Petersburg Times film critic Steve Persall) will select a winner in each category.
The lineup includes two films produced in Tampa, Icon Studios' feature-length Bleed and Present Day Productions' short film, Afterlife. Works being shown out of competition include Unwrapping Amelia, Child of the Apocalypse and Wool.
Screenings begin at 4 p.m. and continue until around 11 p.m. at the theater, 687 Central Ave., St. Petersburg. Tickets are $7 at the door. They can be bought in advance at Ticketmaster outlets (a service charge will be added).
One film to be screened out of competition at midnight is a doozy for cult-film aficionados: Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger 4, produced by the infamously irreverent Troma Films, continuing the saga of a superhero created by radioactive waste. Several of the film's stars and Troma executives will attend, along with the Tromettes, likely making this the only movie studio with cheerleaders.
Troma is also co-hosting (with Renegade Films and Ghostly Productions) an event Sunday at Club Masquerade in Ybor City in connection with the Vans Warped concert tour.
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