A recent Travel+Leisure survey indicated that visitors thought more of Tampa than locals did, while in New York, the locals had the higher opinion of their home.
After seeing The Punisher at a special screening Thursday night, I'm convinced one of the reasons New Yorkers beam about the Big Apple is that the city has been featured so often in motion pictures.
From the first scene of The Punisher, in which the movie's famed logo dissolves into the Tampa skyline, you can't help but get excited if you care anything about this city.
Understand that this is not the feel-good movie of the summer. The Punisher punishes, and while there is enough of a plot to make it interesting, there's enough violence to shock a father who has spent the past decade watching primarily G and PG movies.
Between the violence, however, you revel over identifying different scenes. "Hey, that's the Laurel Street bridge. That diner is Goody Goody. There's the Columbia."
Surprisingly, one of the biggest exterior locations is a red brick building at Cass Street and Nebraska Avenue across from Union Station. As I've made my way from the Times building to the Selmon Expressway, I've driven by that building 700 zillion times, but I've never looked at it as a movie backdrop.
"Today's code enforcement problems are tomorrow's Hollywood sets," joked Mayor Pam Iorio, who watched the film with about 400 other notables and crew members at the Channelside Theater Thursday night.
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KUDOS TO lawyer Delano Stewart, who received the prestigious Herb Goldberg Award from the Hillsborough Bar Trial Lawyers Section Friday. The award is given each year to someone who has exhibited excellence throughout their law career, as well as integrity and a concern for the community. Previous winners include William Reece Smith and John Germany.
Stewart, 68, Hillsborough County's first black public defender, has exhibited all those traits in a career that reaches its 40th year in May. Not only has he devoted his life to fighting segregation, he's been a mentor or partner to five lawyers who have gone on to become judges.
"It's been a marvelous ride," Stewart told his fellow lawyers at a luncheon in the University Club. "The law is the pinnacle of democracy's idealism."
Attorney Chris Knopik, public defender Deborah Goins and court administrator Mike Bridenback also were honored Friday.
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HERE WE GO AGAIN: The president of a promotion company that operates Warren Sapp's Web site, QBKilla.com, called Friday to say the former Bucs defensive tackle would not appear at a farewell party Friday night at Faze 2 Lounge, as I reported in Friday's edition.
Pete Larios, president of Studio 419, said Sapp was instead scheduled to play in the Mike Alstott charity golf event and then travel to Miami on Friday. Larios blamed the misunderstanding on the promoter, Signature Events and Marketing, and not on Faze 2.
Emory Green of Signature Events said his client was told Sapp initially supported the Faze 2 party idea, and then changed his mind. He promised there would be other NFL players in attendance and insisted the event would go on.
All I know is that in the past two years, various promoters have falsely promised to deliver Shaquille O'Neal, Tony Bennett, Alexander O'Neal, Mary J. Blige, Michelle Branch, Boyz II Men and Kenny G. I'm ready to give up.
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THERE WERE TWO PROBLEMS with The Punisher, one big and one small. The small one is that John Travolta referred to Ybor as "Little Cuba." Maybe producers didn't use the real name because the context was unflattering and they didn't want to offend a district where people had been so helpful.
The big problem is that the overall experience of seeing Tampa on the big screen has left me craving more. I do indeed hope that Tampa can become a prime outlet for Hollywood folks.
