OPENING Night Films – 10/05 Tampa Theatre
THE MATTACHINE FAMILY – 7pm
Andy Vallentine, 2023, USA, 98 min.
Guests from the film will be in attendance!
Oscar (Juan Pablo di Pace, Mamma Mia) and Thomas (Nico Tortorella, Scream 4) meet cute, get married, have charming friends and burgeoning careers. Fate steps in and the two agree to be foster parents to a little boy, Arthur. When Arthur is reunited with his birth mother, Thomas realizes he loves being a dad. Oscar’s acting career has finally taken off, and to say that Thomas’ desire to be a dad is terrible timing would be wildly understated. Thomas’ best friend, Leah (Emily Hampshire of Schitt’s Creek) struggles with infertility and the old friends find themselves sharing an unexpected journey together. Mattachine Family is a sweet celebration of true friendship and finding family at exactly the right time. (Sunny Hall)
BIG EASY QUEENS – 9:30pm
Erynn Dalton, 2023, Florida, 71 min.
Guests from the film will be in attendance and will provide a cabaret pre-show!
Seems like a perfect time in Florida for campy gangland humor. Fort Lauderdale Director Erynn Dalton (The Gravedigger) delivers this raucous delight. Miss Minnie Bouvèé (Eric Swanson) is a full-bodied queen of the Big Easy underworld who finds herself under threat by a mysterious masked predator and the fragrance of gardenias, a “sore spot of torment” from Miss Minnie’s past. Adding to her distress is the return of her former lover, Jackson, a conniving rake looking for money. Never mind that Jackson dumped her 20 years ago to marry her younger sister, Mimi Bouvèé-Truvé, (Benjamin Shaevitz) a demure housewife who can catapult from a dainty deb in a pink frilly apron to a foul mouth terror when she disapproves of the caterer’s quote. Enter Miss Minnie’s longtime nemesis, Poodles Makenzie (deliciously delivered by Jennifer McClain), “a psychopath with a hideous coiffure,” who seeks to destroy Miss Minnie and everything she holds dear. Robert Leleux’s script of giggle worthy turns of phrase, “theirs is a romantic intrigue” along with excellent singing and gorgeous costumes are a delightful dressing to the bloody mayhem and murder splayed across the screen with glorious delight. (Sunny Hall)
