Not to make light of a medical condition that apparently is common enough to make drug companies grotesquely rich in providing a remedy, but you know that TV commercial with the rushed disclaimer of side efffects including how having an erection for four hours or more might prompt one to go see a doctor? I'm sure that's been the inspiration for many a witty comment or comic bit of business. Well, check out this recent story from The Associated Press:

10-Year Erection Nets Ex-Handyman $400,000

A former handyman from Rhode Island has won more than $400,000 in a lawsuit over a penile implant that gave him a 10-year erection. Charles "Chick" Lennon, 68, received the steel-and-plastic implant in 1996, about two years before Viagra went on the market. The Dura-II is designed to allow impotent men to position the penis upward for sex and then lower it. But Lennon could not position his penis downward. He said he could no longer hug people, ride a bike, swim or wear bathing trunks because of the pain and embarrassment. He has become a recluse, his lawyer said. Lennon cannot get the implant removed because of health problems, including open-heart surgery, his lawyer said.

Insert (sorry) pun here. Geez, it's like something out of a Twilight Zone episode. How long (sorry again), if ever, did that thing work properly? And who (or what!) broke it? May we all avoid a similar fate in our journey through middle age.

--Matthew

This past weekend's Art House Project/Sundance Channel Film Series presentation of John Cameron Mitchell's HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH (what could be better at 12:30 in the afternoon on a hot summer day?) featured a very special guest--Producer Christine Vachon of Killer Films. Christine was in town as part of the Masters in Residence program at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, and as we've done in the past with such artists as Saul Williams and DJ Spooky, Spalding Gray, Alan Berliner, and Eric Bogosian, Enzian and the ACA co-produced an event for their Community Outreach.

Not that this glorious, funny, touching, irreverent, and wildly inventive rock musical needed any bonuses, but having Christine intro the film and do Q & A afterwards was terrific. Though she was flying off the next day to Montreal for more preproduction work on the Todd Haynes Bob Dylan pic (I'm Not There), the passionately indie producer was generous with her time, very friendly, and incredibly informative. This is a woman not afraid to take chances, believes strongly in the creativity of the filmmakers she works with, and has phenomenal taste. A sampling of titles of her work that has graced Enzian's screen either for a regular engagement or special presentation in the Florida Film Festival over the years would include: Poison, Kids, I Shot Andy Warhol, Kiss Me Guido, Happiness, I'm Losing You, Hedwig, Far From Heaven, The Company, and The Notorious Bettie Page. Other films such as Safe, Velvet Goldmine, Boys Don't Cry, One Hour Photo, Party Monster, A Dirty Shame, and Camp we wish we could've played.

So it was great she finally got to visit the theater that has taken such good care of so many of "her babies" over the years. Thanks again to Christine and the ACA for a fine event and providing a little something extra to our second Art House Project presentation (after May's kick-off with an archive print of the Coen Bros.' Blood Simple).

--Matthew

I'm sorry. I just can't help it. Billy Zane, in his purple costume and black eye mask, may as well be making these critical calls at crucial times during the USA World Cup contests and the last couple of games in the NBA Finals. Dirk's "fouls" as D. (however-I-spell-my-first-name) Wade twice drove to the basket late were bad enough, but to award Ghana a penalty kick mere moments after an actual momentum swing (and a real goal for the US) was a complete farce. Do refs who make phantom calls study the same phantom rulebook?

I shouldn't get this upset over a series where neither team means anything to me and a sport that I only follow once every four years. And of course the bottom line is that even without these calls, the Mavs and the USA soccer team just didn't get the job done. Letting your foot off the throat of your opponent, shooting incessantly from the outside even though nothing's going in, taking a total of 4 shots on goal in 3 games (!), playing people out of position and keeping a potential offensive spark on the bench until it's way too late--it's all part of the same losing process, no matter how badly the refs suck or what infractions they're hallucinating.

To the NHL's credit, hockey's officiating in the Stanley Cup Finals seemed pretty damn good compared to these other clowns. Unless you're an Oilers fan and then I'm sure you have your own laundry list of bad calls to bitch about. Think we'll just worry about the baseball umps for a while...

--Matthew

Talk about havin' a bad day! Soon-to-be Gotham Award-winner Mark Cuban started out yesterday getting fined $250,000 by the NBA for "gross misconduct" (he apparently said some very naughty things about the refs and the league in general to Commissioner David Stern at the end of game 5's overtime loss), and finished it watching the Miami Heat celebrate their first championship on the Mavericks' home floor. Ouch.

Dallas was younger, deeper, faster, more talented, and even had the home court advantage, but unfortunately they did not have the one key ingredient that Miami did--Dwayne Wade, an unstoppable superstar who played like the second coming of Jordan and stepped up his game to an amazing level in the NBA Finals. This third-year guard from Marquette was simply sick (even when he was recovering from the flu), averaging about 35 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, and too many intangibles that the Mavs never had an answer for. This guy owned every 4th quarter (when the great players really come through), and singlehandedly turned the series around with his heroics late in game 3 when the Heat were down by 13 at home with a little more than 6 minutes left in the game. Dallas repeatedly withered at crunch time and Miami's veterans did what they were supposed to. Hell, they even won 4 in a row without a truly major contribution from Shaq (?!), and became only the third team in something like 28 or 29 tries to come back from an 0-2 deficit and win the Finals.

As far as what a nice story it is that old veterans such as Payton, Mourning, and Walker are finally getting their championship, I don't buy it. Guys like Ewing, Stockton, Malone, and Barkley never won it, so why should I care that these three (who I've loathed over the years as rivals of the Magic and the Knicks) will be getting fitted for a ring?

The night before the NBA Finals came to a close, the NHL also shut the door on its "comeback" season (yeah, that lost season from a strike really helped the sport, as we could all tell from the ratings). Congratulations to the Carolina Hurricanes for their first ever title (their previous incarnation as the Hartford Whalers never produced a ring), and to the Edmonton Oilers for an exciting comeback and ultimately making it a series worth watching . I may be dating myself, but isn't it a bit strange that the Stanley Cup has gone to teams from Tampa, Florida and North Carolina the last two years? So much for the traditional powers...

I think I've just been red-carded by the ref from Uruguay!

--Matthew

Well, it looks like another Central Florida landmark and slice of Orlando history has gone to that great strip club in the sky. Casselberry's very own Club Juana, a mainstay of "the finest in erotic dancing" and T&A for the past 43 years (across the street from the Jai-Alai Fronton of course), shut its doors for good this past weekend. Claiming something about eminent domain and the Florida Department of Transportation using the land for a highway overpass, the family owned business got paid off to the tune of $3.4 million to stop the music, collect the pasties, and cap the bottles. This is the same Club Juana that got national coverage on HBO a few years back when they had their "actress/dancers" recite Shakespeare and perform Macbeth in the buff to skate around local obscenity laws.

I'm actually a bit disappointed I went out of town for Father's Day. After driving by the club probably hundreds, if not thousands of times over the past two decades, I think I would've felt it was my civic duty to check it out for the first (and last) time on its closing night. Rumor has it that a group of Florida Film Festival jurors and panelists were compelled to visit another local landmark, Club Harem (formerly "The Booby Trap"--you've got to see it to believe it!), as they continued their late night, post-Revel debauchery the closing weekend of the festival. If we had known Club Juana was headed out to pasture, they could've added it to their itinerary. And apparently Circus Circus down the street is also on its last legs. Though I've been to exactly one strip club in my life many years ago, it is kind of sad to see the old stand-bys going the way of the drive-in.

--Matthew

You can't tell from the TV ratings on NBC, but there are actually a few of us sports-fanatic types that are watching the Stanley Cup Finals of the National Hockey League. And this is after the first two games were only available on some obscure cable channel called the Outdoor Life Network or OLN (renamed "Versus" soon I believe). As a lifelong Chicago Blackhawks fan (who have been pathetic for the last decade or so), I could care less whether or not the Carolina Hurricanes (formerly the Hartford Whalers) or the Edmonton Oilers take the cup. But I do tend to pull for the underdog, and the Oilers have filled that role admirably. The first 8th seed to make the finals in the current playoff format, they stormed out to a 3 goal lead in Game 1 on the road before the roof caved in. Not only did they end up losing 5-4, they also lost their stud starting goalie Dwayne Roloson with a knee injury for the duration of the series. The next game in Carolina they got waxed 5-0. Ouch! Series over, right? Not so fast my friend.

Backup goalie Jussi Markkanen picked up his play, and Edmonton went home for Game 3 and won 2-1. Carolina won a tough Game 4 on the road 2-1, returning home for Game 5 on Wednesday up 3-1 and a chance to win it all in front of their fans on their home ice. They scored on 3 of 6 power plays to send the game into sudden death overtime (always exciting in the playoffs), and when an Oiler defenseman was called for a tripping penalty about 3 minutes in, I'm sure Hurricane fans everywhere were licking their chops. But down a man, the Oilers' Fernando Pisani intercepted a lazy pass in Carolina's end of the ice and scored on a gorgeous shot in the upper left hand corner of the goal--the first short-handed overtime goal in Stanley Cup Finals history!

So it's back to Edmonton for Game 6 Saturday night. Even if the Oilers still end up losing the series, they should be commended for battling back mightily and providing some thrilling playoff action--at least for the handful of us diehards still tuning in.

--Matthew

Neither tropical storm-worthy rain showers nor a power outage right in the middle of the new Deepa Mehta film could dampen the success of this past weekend's 12th annual South Asian Film Festival. Never discount the power of a pretty face and the press--with the image of the stunning, former Miss World Aishwarya Rai in THE MISTRESS OF SPICES staring out from the cover of the Orlando Sentinel Calendar section, and very good-to-excellent reviews for all four features beginning on page 3, this became a record-setting year for the festival. Two of the five screenings actually had dozens of stand-bys turned away, and more Series Passes were sold than at any other time in the history of the festival. Not to mention the quickest we've ever sold out of Kingfisher beer and enough orders of samosas to keep the kitchen smelling like curry for months. So thanks to all of our sponsors, our distributors, my co-producer Jasbir Mehta and the Asian Cultural Association, and evidently the best lineup of films we've ever had: THE MISTRESS OF SPICES, AMU, BOMBAY CALLING, LUCKY, and WATER.

WATER returns to Enzian later this month (after A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION) for its regular theatrical run in Central Florida, and we're all looking forward to it--especially the 200+ who were so rudely interrupted by Mother Nature on Sunday.

--Matthew

After a really hot, really busy weekend with lots of sold out shows and fun with henna, we crash landed back in reality. Not ten days into the 2006 hurricane season and we already have Alberto breathing down our necks. Enzian lost power yesterday afternoon in the middle of our South Asian Film Festival screening of appropriately enough...WATER! Today it has already rained so much, I sent Betsy home early to avoid rush hour in a tropical storm. If things are going to get ugly this early in the season, I can't wait to see what August and September bring...Enzian The Floating Cinema?!

I'm sure Pixar's CARS will have made a jillion dollars in its opening weekend, but I must say I'm not excited in the least to check it out. Anytime you've got quotes from Access Hollywood (Scott Mantz--who?), Maria ("you can always use me if you can't find anyone else") Salas from NBC-TV/Miami, and Gene ("I'm not Horatio Sanz") Shalit from the Today Show on the opening day full-page ads, I'm running in the other direction. As much as I enjoyed (dare I say it, even loved) some of Pixar's other feature efforts, this one has left me cold since I began seeing the glaringly unfunny trailers for it a year and a half ago. Maybe if I was a Nascar fan or my kids were smaller and attendance was mandatory...

For my money, the animated film that's on screen now (though not quite the nearly 4000 that Disney's little auto movie is parked on) and well worth your attention is DreamWorks's very entertaining OVER THE HEDGE. This funny and clever tale of a group of forest animals up against suburban sprawl has a nice satiric bite, stunning animation (the non-human detail is jaw-dropping!), and the perfectly cast voice talents of Bruce Willis, Gary Shandling, Steve Carrell, Wanda Sykes, William Shatner, Nick Nolte, and others. The fact that their characters take on some of the actors' mannerisms and personalities is a joy. Hell, it even has songs by Ben Folds, including a cool cover of The Clash's "Lost in the Supermarket" over the end credits. Believe me, you do not need to bring a child with you to go see this movie--in fact, the adults in the audience were laughing a lot harder than the kids. But if you do, I'm sure they'll thank you for it and appreciate that it's 33 minutes shorter (83 vs. 116) than that other animated blockbuster.

--Matthew

With all the hype about yesterday's calendar date (06/06/06), the pointless but perfectly timed release (from a marketing standpoint anyway) of THE OMEN remake, and sports radio dangling a "Who's your candidate for the anti-Christ in sports today?" subject for discussion (no kidding!), I thought I might actually make it through the day unscathed. That was until I turned on the TV last evening.

Not only was I assaulted by the husky crooning of ex-Doobie Brother/AdultContemporary megastar Michael McDonald on two consecutive communication system commercials--one for Verizon Business with "Ooh Ooh Child" on the soundtrack, the other with a cover of The Four Tops' "I'll Be There" for a company I've already forgotten--but the "best" was still to come. The caricature formerly known as David Lee Roth was actually the musical guest on Jay Leno/The Tonight Show, and proceeded to perform a bluegrass version of the Van Halen (and later Aztec Camera) classic, "Jump." The 7-piece string band he had accompanying him sounded fine, but Roth was as embarassingly lame as it comes. I thought this guy was retired and doing the radio talk show host thing...too bad.

We're all heading South in a handbasket...

--Matthew

Excellent news about two Florida Film Festival 2006 award winners hit the wire recently, and like proud parents, we couldn't be happier or more excited about filmmakers Sian Heder and Mike Akel's success. Sian's wonderful short film, MOTHER--which is just begging to be made into a feature--followed up its Oscar-qualifying Grand Jury Award for Best Narrative Short by getting into competition at the Cannes Film Festival (the first film from her AFI program to do so). She apparently wowed the jury there as well, since MOTHER shared Third Prize in the Cinefondation Awards with Agnes Kocsis' A VIRUS.

Last week's announcement of the very impressive Los Angeles Film Festival lineup featured a familiar (and friendly) face amongst all those predominantly World Premieres in the Narrative Feature Competition: CHALK, Mike Akel's hilarious mockumentary about a year in the life of a small group of Texas high school teachers. Winner of a Special Jury Award for Ensemble Acting at FFF in April, this comedy is so well-crafted and evokes such a great resonse from audiences, that it wouldn't surprise me if it gets grabbed up soon by some lucky distributor. Truly honest and funny films about the teaching experience are few and far between, and there is an untapped market with vast potential for a gem like this one.

--Matthew

The year-long celebration of the Sundance Institute's 25th anniversary kicked off in style Tuesday night in Central Florida with a gorgeous archive print of the Coen Bros.' darkly funny and incredibly well-crafted first feature, BLOOD SIMPLE (1984). As one of only 14 theaters nationwide selected to highlight independent film classics from Sundance's rich history, Enzian is thrilled to be presenting one of these landmarks per month and hopefully programming some shorts as well. Next up is John Cameron Mitchell's glorious adaptation of his musical, HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH (2001) on Saturday, June 24 at 12:30 PM. And courtesy of the Masters-in-Residence Outreach Program at Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, heavyweight producer Christine Vachon of Killer Films will be in attendance to intro the film and do Q&A afterwards. We're all looking forward to a fun and informative time--I loved this movie when I saw it at Sundance, and I liked it even more the second time (a rarity for me!) when Enzian opened the film in Orlando a few months later. This should be special...

--Matthew