Like a chicken with its head cut off.

I'm on vacation, which must mean it's time for another Florida Film Festival.  The 19th installment of what is steadily becoming one of the premiere fests in the southeast will focus on what has long been one of its charms, Southern hospitality.  With the Enzian as its main location, the dinner theater will once again be a host of not only movies, but a series of food and wine celebrations.  And as is customary, an interesting slate of food-related films will populate the schedule.

A nice slate of special guests will be on hand to appear also, starting with tonight's guests for the Opening Night Film, Paper Man--co-director Michele Mulroney and stars Kieran Culkin and Emma Stone.  But the guests I'm most excited to see are veteran actors Seymour Cassell and Gena Rowlands.  The two are on hand to celebrate the life and career of the late director and actor (and husband to Rowlands) John Cassavetes with a screening of his 1968 now landmark film, Faces.  Beyond the food and the wine and guests and the long lines and the running (or driving) back-and-forth between theaters, the Florida Film Festival (as with most fests) is about the celebration of independent filmmaking.  To many, Cassavetes is the godfather of what we consider the independent movement in cinema in this country and it seems appropriate that as FFF, with it's welcome home theme this year, has brought it all full circle by welcoming the legacy of a such an important figure.

Faces is also one of the great retro films on hand this year.  One is Chinatown.  Roman Polanski, sadly, could not make it.  Another is the closing night film, Psycho, a celebration of the 50th anniversary of one of Alfred Hitchcock's masterpieces.

But it's the new films, the ones few have seen, that make up the fabric of any given festival.  As always some will be good, some will be bad.  Hopefully, a couple will even be great.  For the next ten days I'll be busy trying to figure which ones are which.