‘That’s A Wrap’ — Schneider’s 1st CineFlix Film Fest Was Fun For Everyone!

full-cineflix-team-garyI can’t even begin to tell you how much fun I had the week of Oct. 31-Nov. 3 at the Cobb Grove 16 theater, as actor/director John Schneider brought his first CineFlix Independent Film Festival to Wesley Chapel.

First of all, Schneider and his producer Alicia Allain of Maven Entertainment were on site all week and five of the 22 films featured in the festival were films they produced together. In addition, Schneider and several of the other filmmakers with films being shown during the festival also were at the theater to answer questions at virtually every showing.

Best of all, I felt honored and privileged to have gotten the opportunity to interview — for WCNT-tv (Wesley Chapel & New Tampa Television) — Schneider and his fellow filmmakers Edo Natasha and Quantae Love of “Popolo” and Trent Dion Soto of “Among the Discarded” before the festival started. Schneider said that he has had enough of still being best known for his most famous starring role as Bo Duke in “The Dukes of Hazzard,” despite also having starred as Superman’s father on “Smallville,” and the fact he currently is starring in Tyler Perry’s popular “The Haves and the Have Nots” on the Oprah Winfrey Network. His twice-flooded John Schneider Studios in Louisiana was the setting for most of his films, although many of the other entries in the festival — including “Popolo” and “Among the Discarded” — were filmed elsewhere.

john-solo-stillNo matter where they were shot, however, Schneider and Allain’s first-of-its-kind independent film festival, which gave these indie filmmakers not only a showcase for their work, but also gives them a cut of the festival’s sales proceeds, was a blast.

I’m not going to lie that the theaters were packed for the festival, but those of us who did attend any of the 22 films did not go home disappointed.

Of the films I saw, my favorite was Schneider’s own legal thriller “Inadmissible,” where he plays a hard-smoking, hard-drinking District Attorney named Bryce Danos who is trying to put away the son of a major mob figure. It’s definitely an exciting, edge-of-your-seat adventure and Schneider appreciated it when I said Danos could kick the butt of Tom Cruise’s Jack Reacher character.

I did also love “Popolo,” which is the story of a former soldier who opens a martial arts school in Hawaii who ends up fighting not only racial prejudice (“Popolo” is a kind of berry in Hawaii that turns black, as well as a racial slur used by some Hawaiian people) but another former soldier turned ruthless mercenary.

inadmissable-titleAlthough Soto’s “Discarded” is a documentary that was shot entirely with a $300 GoPro camera, it is a moving film chronicling the 30 days Soto spent among the homeless people living on Skid Row in Los Angeles.

I also enjoyed Schneider’s “Hate Crime,” about a gay man who kills his lover, and although the story was a little gory for my taste, Schneider’s “Anderson Bench” is a dark, grisly comedy reminiscent of the ‘80s cult classic “Eating Raoul.”

Considering that I had to work, I couldn’t see all of the films during the festival, but the good news is that virtually all of them will be available in Digital on Demand format beginning sometime around Thanksgiving. I wish the films would have been shown in one of the Cinebistro theaters at The Grove 16, but the event was still very entertaining, so I hope Schneider and Allain will be encouraged enough to want to bring the festival back next year.

As for Schneider still being pigeonholed as Bo Duke, I have to agree with what he said during our WCNT interview: “That’s like a guy curing cancer but people knowing him for a great term paper he wrote in 1978.”

For more information about the films at the festival, visit CineFlixFest.com. And, check out all nine of my short interview segments with Schneider, Soto, Natasha and Love at WCNT-tv on YouTube.

Editorial: I’m No ‘Pundit,’ But I Was Wrong About This Election, Too!

gary-new-headshot-150x150In our last issue, I asked the question, “Does anyone still believe ‘La Donald’ was the best choice for the GOP to try to take back the White House?”

Well, Mr. Editor, the answer given by the American public was a resounding, “Heck, yeah!,” as New York billionaire Donald J. Trump is our President-Elect. Deal with it.

Although I took some very-much-expected heat — from both sides, by the way — for it on Facebook, I did as I promised and voted for no one in the Presidential race, even though I cast votes in almost every other race on my ballot on Nov. 8.

And apparently, I wasn’t alone. As chronicled in assistant editor John Cotey’s election recap in our current Wesley Chapel issue, Pasco County (which slaughtered the national voter turnout, 72 percent to 57 percent) more than doubled the total number of “undervotes” (or voters who cast ballots but did not cast a vote in the presidential race) from the 2012 Election.

Although I still hadn’t seen any news media run a story about how many people nationwide cast ballots (but not for president) this year, I did find one ABC News story from the controversial 2000 Presidential Election (remember “hanging chads?”) stating that there were more than two million undervotes for president nationwide that year — and I’m betting this year’s election will surpass that total when all of the final stats are released.

The reason I believe that — and the reason so many fewer registered voters, percentage-wise, cast ballots at all this year — and the reason Trump defeated former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for that matter, is that the campaign was so negative, so draining upon our republic and our people, something had to give.

And give, it did. If anyone still believes in any of the national polls, I have some beachfront property for sale in the Everglades for you. People were so disenchanted with both candidates that it’s hard for me to believe any candidate got any votes at all.

But, considering that most exit polls showed that the biggest single issue that affected how people voted this year was the need for a change, no one should be surprised that Trump won. Whether you love or hate Hillary, there’s no doubt that Americans made it loud and very clear that President Obama’s administration didn’t help enough people enough for them to want to accept four more years of what the outgoing president himself called a “continuation of the progress we’ve made,” which sounds great on the surface, but didn’t instill a whole lot of faith in the millions of Americans who are still struggling.

Sure, you can blame some of the president’s inability to govern on a Republican-led Congress that fought every policy he tried to implement, but voters nationwide said by delivering what really was a landslide (more on this below) victory for Trump that they’re tired of the bickering in our nation’s capital.

That’s why, even though his first-ever elected office of any kind is our Commander in Chief, so many undecided voters seemingly decided to try the new “kid” in town.

I still couldn’t vote for a reality TV star who doesn’t seem to respect women, but the fact is that many more women than expected did vote for him. In fact, the most hard-to-believe statistic I heard was that something above 60 percent of non-college-educated white women voted for Trump. College-educated women voted for Clinton, but by a much slimmer margin.

And, the fact Clinton won the popular vote isn’t really that important. She isn’t the first candidate to earn more individual votes and lose. It’s why the electoral college system was implemented in the first place. In this election, for example, Trump won 30 states, Clinton took 20 and the District of Columbia. But, Trump’s largest margin of victory in any of those states was only the 800,000 votes he won by in Texas. Clinton, on the other hand, won California (2.6 million) and New York (1.5 million) by a combined 4.1 million votes and she won her top-ten states by nearly 8 million votes, while Trump won by only 5.3-million in his top-ten states. Considering that there were only about 120-million ballots cast nationwide, that’s an awful lot of making up to do in his other 20 victorious states, so it’s no surprise he fell a couple of hundred thousand votes short of catching her in the popular vote.

So, even though he was never “my candidate,” I do understand why Trump won, from both the ideological and numbers standpoints, and with his Republican stronghold in both houses of Congress, it would appear he’ll have an easier time of getting his plans implemented. I guess time will tell whether or not all of the people protesting his victory will still be protesting when his (first?) four years is over.

He may not have gotten my vote, but he does have my attention. 

Congrats, WC Jazz Fest!

Congratulations go out to Tim Hancock of Jazz Tyme Productions, as his third Wesley Chapel Jazz Festival, held Oct. 15 at Avalon Park West, attracted an estimated 5,000 people.

Look for a recap and more pics at WCNeighborhoodNews.com.

The Beach House Assisted Living Complex Breaks Ground In Wiregrass Ranch

(L.-r.) Jonathan Till, the legislative assistant for State Representative Danny Burgess; Hope Allen, President/CEO, the Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce; Pasco County commissioner Mike Moore; Allan Brown, Principal, Prevarian Senior Living; JD Porter, Developer, Wiregrass Ranch; and Kim Nadwodny, the regional operations manager for Life Care Services, take part in a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Beach House Assisted Living and Memory Care at Wiregrass Ranch senior living community in Wesley Chapel. The community is scheduled to open in late 2017.
(L.-r.) Jonathan Till, the legislative assistant for State Representative Danny Burgess; Hope Allen, President/CEO, the Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce; Pasco County commissioner Mike Moore; Allan Brown, Principal, Prevarian Senior Living; JD Porter, Developer, Wiregrass Ranch; and Kim Nadwodny, the regional operations manager for Life Care Services, take part in a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Beach House Assisted Living and Memory Care at Wiregrass Ranch senior living community in Wesley Chapel. The community is scheduled to open in late 2017.

“God gave us memories so that we might have roses in December.” — James M. Barrie

As Wiregrass Ranch and Wesley Chapel continue to grow, so do the needs of the people living there. With that in mind, ground was officially broken on Nov. 2 for the new Beach House at Wiregrass Ranch assisted living facility, which is located on S.R. 56, a half-mile east of Mansfield Blvd.

After some short speeches, a group of local dignitaries planted their shovels into a ceremonial pile of dirt to officially kick off construction of the 93,000-sq.-ft. Beach House at Wiregrass Ranch facility, the first of its kind in Wesley Chapel.

“We’re very happy to be done (with permitting) and ready to begin construction,’’ said Allan Brown, the head of the Dallas, TX-based Prevarian Companies, which already owns Beach House facilities in Naples and Jacksonville.

Brown gave credit to JD Porter, who was at the groundbreaking, along with his sister Quinn Miller, for their family’s measured development of the Wiregrass Ranch Development of Regional Impact (DRI), and the foresight to look down the road.

“Two-plus years ago, when we first looked at this market in Wesley Chapel, and specifically in Wiregrass Ranch, this area looked extraordinarily different,’’ Brown said. “Look at it now. Thanks to the Porter family and the great job they do.”

The Beach House at Wiregrass Ranch will be dedicated to seniors who need assistance with the activities of daily living, and will also provide specialized memory care services for residents with Alzheimer’s and dementia. The community is expected to accommodate 100 area seniors with private residences, including 67 alcove one-bedroom or two-bedroom plans for assisted living and 33 suites for memory care.

Amenities at the Beach House, which Brown said was named to evoke pleasant memories of summers gone by for older Florida residents, will include a restaurant-style dining room, a private dining room, activities room, salon and spa, theater and outdoor living areas.

Life Care Services, represented at the groundbreaking by regional operations manager Kim Nadwodny, serves more than 33,000 older adults nationwide and will be the operator of the Beach House.

Pasco County District 2 commissioner Mike Moore, who represents the Wiregrass Ranch area, hailed the groundbreaking as a significant step for the area as it matures.

“I’ve said this for years, we need an assisted living facility in Wesley Chapel, and not just any assisted living facility, but one like this,’’ Moore said. “As the population grows and Wesley Chapel continues to grow, there’s a huge need for these kinds of facilities. It’s close to home, you can go take your loved one out for the day to the mall. This is a great location for it.”

Moore said it will be nice for local residents, in many cases, not to have to drive to Tampa to see their elderly loved ones, as the Beach House will be the first living assisted facility in Wesley Chapel.

“It’s amazing what is going on in this community,’’ Brown said. “It’s become a community that is rich in the resource of people and services and neighborhoods, and it’s growth done the right way. We look forward to being one of those trusted resources.”

In New Tampa, there are three such facilities — The Legacy at Highwoods Preserve, Memory Lane Cottage in Tampa Palms and Discovery Village, which is located right across the street from Freedom High in Tampa Palms (and less than two miles from both The Legacy and Memory Lane) and is also scheduled open in 2017.

For more information, visit BeachHouseWiregrass.com.

Nibbles & Bytes

drgreg2Congrats, Dr. Greg!

On Oct. 27, Dr. Greg Stepanski, DDS, of Children’s Dentistry, located at 10317-B Cross Creek Blvd., in the Cory Lakes Professional Center, celebrated 25 years in practice in our area at a party at his current office.

At least 100 guests — including many of Stepanski’s fellow local dentists (such as Dr. Paul Duga and Dr. Mark Farina in the picture; the trio represents about 60 years worth of advertising in this publication) — enjoyed great food, entertainment and fun with Dr. Greg, his wife Sue and his amazing staff.

Dr. Greg was my kids’ pediatric dentist, so I can tell you with confidence what a great dentist — and friend — he is.

For more info, call 973-3100 or visit DrGreg-ChildrensDentistry.com.

Vote through Nov. 17 for John Long Middle School

fl-jlms-yolo-entry
John Long Middle School students entered this photo into a nationwide contest bringing awareness to the dangers of drug use. You can vote for their entry at http://redribbon.org/vote/#view/43801/4183314.

Every year, students across the U.S. participate in “Red Ribbon Week” during the week of October 23-31, to pledge to be drug-free.

The theme for this year’s campaign was “YOLO – You Only Live Once.” Students at John Long Middle School in Wiregrass Ranch kicked off the event by inviting students and their families to paint “wise owls” at Pinot’s Palette, located in The Shoppes at New Tampa plaza on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd., south of S.R. 56. The owl paintings incorporated both the double-looped red ribbon that signifies Red Ribbon Week, and the “YOLO” theme.

Images of these paintings were then turned into a banner that will hang in the school. Gianna Ginsen, a student in John Long’s after-school photography club, took a picture of the banner — along with a group of students spelling out the theme “YOLO” with their bodies — to enter into the official annual nationwide photo contest. If Long proves to be the highest vote-getter in its region at RedRibbon.org/vote by Nov. 17, the school will win $1,000 and an iPad. The winners will be announced at that website, starting Friday, December 2.

“I don’t think a lot of students understand what Red Ribbon Week is really about,” says Angie Bastedo, the vice president of programs for the school’s PTSA and the event’s organizer. “This year, I hoped to bring more awareness as to why we’re encouraging students to wear a hat or crazy socks during Red Ribbon Week.”

Angie, who says she recently lost her nephew to drug use, says while conversations about not using drugs start at home, “it doesn’t hurt to bring the message to school, too,” she says. “Especially in middle school, kids sometimes listen to other people more than their parents. They need to know that all it takes is once. Don’t even try using drugs, because your first time could be your last time.”

The National Family Partnership created the National Red Ribbon Campaign in response to the 1985 abduction and murder of U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena. Long Middle School is one of many in the area that recognize this week each year to encourage students not to use drugs.