The Great American Teach-In; better than sleeping in

I was 11 years old when my Dad's theater showed To Sir with Love for the first time. The first time seeing it sparked a dream of being a teacher like Sidney Poitier.

I made it happen, for 16 years that haven't lost their luster even after I found another dream job. Today theose occupations converge, as the Great American Teach-In is celebrated at schools across the nation. Professionals from all kinds of careers will donate a few hours to, hopefully, strike a spark in someone out there in those desks, like Poitier did for a ragtag bunch of British students.

I'm doing double duty, first at Steinbrenner High School in Lutz then at John Hopkins Middle School in St. Petersburg. Sure, I have a lot of work piled up before the Thanksgiving holiday but that'll have to wait. Some of these students have been shoved aside by other considerations, I'm sure, and I won't contribute to that.

Not today. Not after last night's screening of Precious, a movie based on the power of education in a dreadfully unfortunate girl's life, and one of the best I've seen in 2009. I can imagine a lot of young people will see Precious and be inspired in some way, as I was in 1967.

If you're not involved in the Teach-In, you can do other things to support our youth today.

For one, Papa John's pizza is donating a portion of its proceeds today (not online orders, though) if you just say "NIE" when you place an order. NIE stands for Newspapers in Education, which the Times heartily supports with year-round involvement.

Or you can just take a minute to ask a student how he or she is doing in class. Make a point of reminding them how important education will be to their lives, even if they bristle at the thought right now. You never know when such words will make a difference.

Now I'm off. Can't be tardy, you know.

Former Times teen movie critic Scott Foundas named associate program director for Film Society of Lincoln Center

Before Billy Norris, before Mina Asayesh-Brown, the first St. Petersburg Times teenage movie critic was a highly capable and confident young man named Scott Foundas, who could occasionally get on my nerves because he had this knack for being right.

Scott went on to the University of Southern California where he earned a degree in Cinema and Television Studies. That led to an enviable career as a film critic for such publications as Variety  and L.A. Weekly, where he became film editor and chief critic. Scott became a regular participant in international film festivals, on film selection committees, juries, expert panels and penning essays for programs. (You get a feel for his movie tastes in the brief clip above, shot when he arrived at Cannes.)

I see Scott about once a year, usually at the Telluride Film Festival where he'll introduce me to someone famous as the guy who got him started in film criticism. My standard response is "Yes, the student has become the teacher." But I'm not sure it was ever the other way around.

Now comes news that Scott has been appointed associate program director for the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York. Among his duties will be programming films for the prestigious New York Film Festival. Scott has served on that festival's selection committee since 2007.

"There is no better place and no better opportunity I can think of as a natural next step from a film critic desk, than having a voice in what this renowned organization offers by way of programming," Scott said in a news release received this morning. "I now get to experience world cinema from the driver's seat."

Executive director Mara Manus added: "Scott's writing is an exhilarating dialogue with artists and audiences alike. It is this vibrancy, along with Scott's deep film knowledge, that will contribute greatly to our growing organization, ensuring we continue to offer (audiences) a vital place of serious film culture."

It couldn't happen to a smarter guy. Congratulations, bud.

Oscar winning screenwriter Paul Haggis and wife resign from Church of Scientology

Hollywood Reporter blogger Roger Friedman is reporting a notable crack in the bond between Hollywood celebrities and the Church of Scientology. Academy Award winning director-screenwriter Paul Haggis (Crash, Million Dollar Baby, Letters from Iwo Jima) reportedly sent a resignation letter to Scientology "celebrity wrangler" Tommy Davis explaining his break from the church.

Friedman blogs that two issues led to Haggis' decision: the church's support of California's Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage, and the church ordering Haggis and his wife, actor Deborah Rennard (TV's Dallas) to end relations with her parents -- who led the couple to the church and later resigned -- for violating some unidentified church tenet.

"You might recall that my wife was ordered to disconnect from her parents because of something absolutely trivial they supposedly did twenty-five years ago when they resigned from the church," Haggis wrote. "This is a lovely retired couple, never said a negative word about Scientology to me or anyone else I know – hardly raving maniacs or enemies of the church. In fact it was they who introduced my wife to Scientology.

"Although it caused her terrible personal pain, my wife broke off all contact with them. I refused to do so. I’ve never been good at following orders, especially when I find them morally reprehensible. For a year and a half, despite her protestations, my wife did not speak to her parents and they had limited access to their grandchild. It was a terrible time."

On the topic of supporting Proposition 8, Haggis wrote: "Despite all the church’s words about promoting freedom and human rights, its name is now in the public record alongside those who promote bigotry and intolerance, homophobia and fear."

The letter's authenticity was reportedly verified by Friedman through an unnamed friend of Haggis. You can read the entire letter as posted by Friedman here.

The Church of Scientology prides itself on celebrity connections -- Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Kirstie Alley among them -- and David is responsible for their relations with the church. He's the son of another Scientology celeb, Oscar nominated actor Anne Archer.

Hurting from the economic meltdown? Michael Moore wants to give you a free movie (guess which one?)

Filmmaker and political prankster  Michael Moore is putting your lack of money where his mouth is.

Perhaps caving to online criticism, Moore and Overture Films announced Wednesday that free screenings of his film Capitalism: A Love Story will be offered Thursday night at select theaters across the nation. Moore's detractors have snarked on Web sites about his profiting from the economic downturn his movie addresses.

Only one Tampa Bay area theater is participating in the first-come, first-served giveaway: Muvico Starlite 20, 18002 Highwood Preserve Parkway in north Tampa. Show time is 7:30 p.m. No pass is required; just show up and if seats are available, you'll get in.

A news release from Overture's representative in Florida stated the offer is open to "those who have been hit by mortgage foreclosures and income loss as a result of the economic crisis." It's an honor system effort since the representative said by telephone that no financial background checks or proof of money troubles are required.

Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Orlando: Scream dreams from the silver screen

Elsewhere on tampabay.com, you'll find reviews of the most popular Halloween frightfests in Florida, including my take on the annual Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Orlando Resort.

Why did I get the gig? Because Universal always does a great job of exploiting its horror legacy, from Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff to Chucky from Child's Play. They each have a haunted house at the theme park devoted to their bloody exploits, and the ques leading to terror can be scarier than the monsters. But allow me to share a few more available attractions.

Long lines aren’t your cup of blood? No problem. Scores of zombies, cannibals and mutants wander the park, lunging at visitors. The ghoul rule is: You don’t touch them and they don’t touch you. Break it and you may get bounced from the park, no argument and no refund.

The main entrance leads to Containment, a faux chemical catastrophe with dense green fog making monsters hard to detect until it’s too late. World War II soldier-zombies continue fighting a War of the Living Dead on one street, while the Lights, Camera, Hacktion “director” swings a mean (but bladeless) chainsaw at guests on another.

Apocalypse: City of Cannibals is what it sounds like, with actors munching on bogus body parts. Another tie-in with an upcoming movie, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, is the tamest of the attractions, befitting the film’s PG rating. The Horrorwood Die-In Theater shows movie clips on an outdoor screen; that isn’t popcorn those zombie moviegoers are eating.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show tribute returns with the cult flick displayed above actors dancing and singing live (not lip-synched).

Universal also opens several mainstay rides including Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, The Simpson’s Ride, Revenge of the Mummy, Men in Black: Alien Attack and, on peak nights, Jaws.

You can’t experience everything in one Halloween Horror Night, so Universal offers the Frequent Fear Pass ($69.99) allowing visits every Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday through Oct. 31. Good for your wallet, if your heart and feet can take it.

James Cameron's Avatar trailer in IMAX 3D: The future of movies in 16 minutes

Crowds in movie theaters are common on Friday nights. That’s show biz.

Moviegoers filling seats solely to view a preview trailer? That’s an event.

It happened last night at AMC Veterans 24 in Tampa and 100 other IMAX-3D theaters across North America, in a publicity stunt unlike any in ballyhoo history.

Twentieth-Century Fox invited thousands of science fiction fans to a 16-minute preview of Avatar, a futuristic adventure that is James Cameron’s first feature film since 1997’s Titanic. Cameron welcomed viewers in a brief, filmed introduction, promising that scenes shown were culled from the film's first half "so there are no spoilers."

Cameron famously proclaimed himself "king of the world" at the Oscars, as his Titanic hero did at that massive ship's bow in the Oscar winning movie, the highest grossing film of all time. He may claim the crown of "king of the universe" on Dec. 18 when Avatar debuts in theaters in its final cut and full glory.

In my years as a moviegoer, I've never seen any visual spectacle like it.

The sight is something beyond the motion-capture technology director Bob Zemeckis introduced in The Polar Express and continues in A Christmas Tale this November, with actors appearing realistically non-human yet something like flesh and blood. Backgrounds are intricately detailed while the camera swoops and dives through action, with mobility previously unseen.

Avatar is a futuristic epic set on the moon Pandora, inhabited by a race of humanoids called the Na'vi. Humans have invaded the peaceful species, even using their genetic makeup to create "avatars;" humans taking on the Na'vi's powder blue complexion, Spockish ears and glitter-lizard physiques that are hard to kill.

One such hybrid is Jake Scully (Sam Worthington), a formerly paralyzed soldier shown in one scene being transformed by a doctor (Sigourney Weaver) into an avatar. Later sequences showed Jake bronco-busting a winged creature to use for transportation, and being rescued from what resembled a hammerhead dinosaur and an elaborate dung beetle by a Na'vi warrior (Zoe Saldana).

Yes, this is definitely sci-fi geek material. And Cameron's poor reputation as a wordsmith is evident in snippets of comic book-level dialogue.

But the look, the vibrancy, the you've-never-seen-this-before thrill of lush alien landscapes, multi-colored creatures and vivid, vertiginous action suggests that Avatar will be a landmark in movie technology.

Viewers departing the preview readily agreed.

"It was incredible," Anthony Morales, 24, of Tampa said in the theater lobby. "It was unlike anything I've ever seen, It's different. I don't have the words for it. I'm speechless."

The IMAX auditorium at Veterans 24 was nearly two-thirds filled for the 6 p.m. screening, with dozens waiting in line for the 7 p.m. show. This was a chance to view a trailer only seen previously by visitors to the recent Comic-Con convention in San Diego, where response prompted Fox to arrange Friday night's nationwide exposure. There are no plans to show this extended trailer again on such a scale.

Tickets were available free of charge at the movie’s official Web site, with most claimed Monday within hours after the site opened. Moviegoers were limited to two tickets. E-mail confirmations were sent, and viewers had to provide a copy of the e-mail and photo ID at the entrance to discourage scalping.

That didn’t stop some recipients from hawking their e-mailed ducats on online auction sites. One wishful New Jersey entrepreneur offered his tickets for $1000.00 on eBay – a fantasy nearly as astonishing as Avatar’s sneak peek. Anyone who bought tickets from such a source likely wouldn't be admitted since the ticket was assigned to someone else's name.

Movie lovers who didn't get into theaters Friday night will have to settle for the Avatar's two-minute teaser trailer currently online, sans the large IMAX screen, and polarized 3D glasses and effects.

"I went online and looked at the little trailer they had, and it's nothing like this,"  Tampa resident Matt Nimmo, 37, said. "You have to see it in 3D to get the full effect."

As an added bonus, Veterans 24 offered Avatar viewers first crack at tickets for the film's 12:01 a.m. screening on Dec. 18, three hours before they went on sale online. The guests could also stay to see any movie Friday night for cheaper matinee prices, and got a free bag of popcorn for buying a large soft drink.

Michael Jackson rehearsal footage movie on a faster track, and two obscure King of Pop movie projects surface

Hollywood Reporter.com reports that Sony's bid has increased for the Michael Jackson concert rehearsal footage shot by AEG before his death. With at least four other studios reportedly in the chase (Fox, Relativity, Paramount, Universal), Sony is offering $60 million for the rights, with plans to release it theatrically in October. Sony owns the rights to Jackson's music library.

Initial reports were that Sony intended to debut the quasi-concert flick around Christmas. Now that timetable has been moved up to Halloween weekend. You know, when the zombies rise up.

Meanwhile, B-movie filmmaker Bryan Michael Stoller claims that he and Jackson had worked for seven years on a movie adaptation of the book They Cage the Animals at Night by Jennings Michael Burch. The book is based on Burch's childhood experiences bouncing around foster homes, a situation to which Stoller claims Jackson felt closely connected.

You can hear Stoller telling his side of the story, plus Jackson asking Burch about his experiences in the video clip posted above.

"Michael told me often he felt like he grew up as an orphan, like a foster kid, because he never was in one home," Stoller told Hollywood Reporter. "To him every hotel was like a different foster home. He said he used to sit in the window and see kids playing outside and cry because he couldn't be part of that."

The movie approached production with a budget of between $12 million and $20 million through Icon Productions (home to another, umm, unusual artist, Mel Gibson) but was shelved. Details of when and why are sketchy, with Icon and Stoller each claiming various degrees of interest/disinterest. Stoller claims that three months before his death, Jackson proposed making They Cage the Animals at Night as an indle for $8 million.

Stoller previously worked with Jackson on the 2005 straight-to-video comedy Miss Cast Away and the Island Girls, starring Eric Roberts and Charlie Schlatter. Blockbuster Video briefly offered the movie but pulled it after Jackson's child molestation case blew up in the media. It's so obscure that I didn't notice it referenced in the postmortem orgy of Jackson memorials, much less hear of it before.

Miss Cast Away and the Island Girls is available for $14.99 plus shipping at Amazon.com.

The attached video clip also includes a chunk of Jackson's cameo appearance in that movie (as the world's savior, no less).

Kirby Dick's 'Outrage' about closeted gay politicians showing July 15 at Tampa Pitcher Show (not that there's anything wrong with that)

One the year's most controversial documentaries -- Kirby Dick's Outrage -- is getting a one-night-only engagement July 15 at an unlikely place: the suds-and-cinema showcase, Tampa Pitcher Show. It's part of a monthly film series sponsored by community radio WMNF-FM 88.5. Show time is 7 p.m. and tickets are going fast.

One of the film's "stars" is Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, one of several politicians Dick accuses of being closeted homosexuals.

What Outrage seeks isn’t embarrassment but ending hypocrisy by politicians living one way and voting another. Other targets include former New York City Mayor Ed Koch and former Idaho Sen. Larry Craig with his infamous public restroom arrest, after repeatedly voting against assistance for AIDS and hate crime victims.

But it's the inclusion of Crist that's making Outrage a hot topic in the Sunshine State.

"When Kirby Dick was filming the movie, he sent a film crew to WMNF, a few days before the governor's wedding, to shoot a call-in show that was talking about the protest being planned at the governor's wedding," said the station's director of news and public affairs Rob Lorei. "The footage of WMNF didn't make it into the (finished) film but the movie was on our radar."

That must be high-intensity radar. Dick claims “a brilliantly orchestrated conspiracy” keeps gay politicians in the closet. Some may say the same about the extremely limited release of Outrage (although to be fair, none of Dick’s films have been widely seen in theaters).

At its peak, Outrage only played in 18 theaters nationwide, for a number of reasons, including Dick's previous documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated, which took the MPAA ratings board to task for judging sex in films more harshly than violence. Dick declined to submit Outrage for an MPAA rating, and many theater chains are skittish about playing unrated movies.

Beyond that, it’s all about money. The audience for Outrage is a narrow niche compared to, say, the latest Transformers flick, and the distributor, Magnolia Pictures, is too small to afford striking and transporting hundreds of prints to theaters. Dick’s name certainly isn’t as marketable as Oscar winners Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine) or Errol Morris (The Fog of War).

My column on Outrage and its insinuations about Crist will be published online and in print Monday.

Is the movie fair and balanced about our governor? Hardly. But it's a fascinating watch.

Wonder about those people clamoring for Michael Jackson memorial tickets? Here's a free movie to inform you at SnagFilms.com, a don't-miss site for film fans

Tuesday's memorial service for Michael Jackson in Los Angeles is the hottest ticket ever, with nearly 17,000 seats at Staples Center offered and more than 1.6 million fans applying online. L.A. officials are urging everyone without tickets to stay away from the area but you know that won't happen.

What kind of people will spend hours, even days on vigil outside the arena without any chance of getting into the show? The same kind of Jackson fans who haunted the L.A. courthouse during the pop star's 2004-2005 trial for sexual misconduct with a minor, and the gates of Neverland where Jackson returned during adjournments.

We Are the Children is a 57-minute documentary crafted by Dianna Dilworth from hundreds of hours of interviews during the trial with uber-devoted Jacksonphiles, who aren't necessarily the social misfits and loony types that cynics would presume them to be. It's a perfect companion piece (maybe antidote) to the wall-to-wall TV coverage of Jackson's postmortem celebrity. Just click on this link to watch it.

Listen to these fans' stories of lifelong devotion, watch them coo over collections of MJ memorabilia, hear them defend a man who the masses convicted long before he was acquitted, and become fascinated with the effects of vicarious celebrity on ordinary folks. It's a interesting watch, worth the time and occasional commercials SnagFilms.com drops into the mix to pay the bills.

We Are the Children never was distributed to theaters, as some fine works aren't in a box office-driven industry. SnagFilms gives those nearly-forgotten movies an online home, free of charge to visitors, with a library of titles that I read about in industry publications but rarely have a chance to see.

Movies like Inside John Lennon, which is smartly being paired with the Jackson documentary under the banner "Taken Too Soon." You can also find the drop-out-of-society documentary Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa, which several readers asked about coming to Tampa Bay theaters and never did. Many of SnagFilms' offerings are political in nature and unabashedly biased in content, with something out there for folks on both sides of the fence.

You can also find socially conscious documentaries such as The Times of Harvey Milk, Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me and Skid Row, in which Pras from the Fugees spends time with L.A. homeless community.Or you can revisit National Geographic-style docs on exploring Titanic, confronting sharks, asteroids and UFOs, or chasing tornadoes.

The price is right. The movies are better. Check it out.

R.I.P Michael Jackson. Just ease on down the road.

There will be plenty memories of Michael but this just seems right, right now.