Sarasota County aims to help businesses → Sarasota County Administrator Randall Reid, hired earlier this year, has created a new team of employees dedicated to business and economic development. Sarasota County Administrator Randall Reid, hired earlier this year, has created a new team of employees dedicated to business and economic development. Jeff Maultsby, the county’s manager of business and economic development, will lead the group. Lisa Damschroder and Teresa Mast, two other county employees, were also named to the team, according to a statement from Sarasota County Commission Chairwoman Christine [...]

We attended the red carpet event at the Sarasota Opera House for Todd Solondz’s new film, ‘Dark Horse,’ which was the Centerpiece Film for the Sarasota Film Festival, and then hit Cinema Tropicale for a few hours at the Sarasota Yacht Club.  Both had me thinking about the role of our families in shaping our lives.  ‘Dark Horse’ was indeed dark, too much so for my mood.  I was looking for light fare before the Cinema Tropicale event; but as Solondz himself said, as he was introduced before the film, “you [...]

National Experts gathered at New College this week to talk housing and what’s next for this crazy crisis that we are all hoping is coming to the end.It has become common water cooler talk, Facebook fodder and the hot topic of discussion at my daughter’s soccer practice: Why keep an asset that is severely depreciated and not increasing in value any time soon? At a certain point, as one parent put it, it really just becomes a business decision. As Americans have watched major corporations like Simon (the largest shopping [...]

IN CONVERSATION WITH TODD SOLONDZ: NOON TODAY! AT SARASOTA HIGH SCHOOL! Moderated by David Carr (The New York Times)!  Have you ever met a filmmaker whose work opened your eyes to a way of looking at the world that was at once alien and strange and yet perfectly familiar and speaking to you in a language that you thought only you understood. TODD SOLONDZ is an auteur in the true sense of the word. His films are firestarters. They are also wonderfully human and accessible, brilliantly observed, funny, and breathtakingly real. He is the director [...]

Todd Solondz, director of Dark Horse, our Centerpiece film, will be our Sunday IN CONVERSATION guest at NOON at Sarasota High School. Moderated by the legendary DAVID CARR (The New York Times; last year’s PAGE ONE documentary). Two brilliant, wild, witty and outspoken take-no-prisoner geniuses in a one-on-one you won’t want to miss!  CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS NOW! (Photo courtesy of Becky Boletti) If you are a fan of our in-depth Inside the Actors Studio-style discussions, then you must see this one. You will see it unfold live on stage before you [...]

  ‘V/H/S’  is one of those ‘movies within a movie’ kind of movie. Confused yet? You needn’t be. If you’re a horror head, living for the thrill of the hunt or the hunted, flash back to cult classics like ‘Creepshow’ or ‘Trick or Treat’ to get a hint of what to expect – a startling anthology aimed to send a shiver down your spine. What separates ‘V/H/S’ is the liberal use of a shaky camera – all the rage since indie filmmakers discovered it’s a great way to provoke anxiety, particularly when a film [...]