Key West Film Festival 2014 (Brockway)

Key West Film Fest highlights 2014
by Ian Brockway

The Key West Film Festival brings a spectrum of choices each year that parallels our island's eccentricity and this year is no exception. Color, mood and pathos is found in abundance.

Marisa Tomei

To start with director Adam Rapp (Winter Passing) directs Marisa Tomei in "Loitering With Intent," a comedy drama focusing on the ins and outs of Hollywood in all of its tinsel foibles. Tomei will also be a featured guest at the festival.

The festival will also showcase  the work of  Leon Ichaso, a master of gritty realism who infuses his work with an intensity informed by exile from his native Cuba. The film "Pinero" with its amphetamine collaged style, is a must see.

Also showing are some provocative existential dramas.

"5 to 7" from director Victor Levin and staring Anton Yelchin (Only Lovers Left Alive) centers on the stress of an extramarital affair in the realm of French politics. "Little Accidents"  by Sara Colangelo details a moral dilemma, involving a missing teen, and the film "Human Capital" is a riveting character study of one ruthless family by Paolo Virzì. "Ecotherms" is a seething examination of Miami's hedonistic youth by filmmaker Monica Pena.

There are many quirky documentaries to be sought out.

Dock Ellis

"No No: A Dockumentary" tops the list highlighting the Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis who achieved bizarre fame for having pitched a no hitter on acid. For true crime fans, "The Life and Mind of Mark DeFriest" is about the notorious Houdini of Florida, who brought fame to himself with his outrageous prison misadventures, too numerous to count. Chinese food lovers can taste "The Search for General Tso" about the origin and impact of the famed chicken recipe.

If magic is your bag, you can train your eyes upon "Honest Liar," about the life of magician James Randi, who is now a skeptic of all things that go boo and bump about on All Hallows' Eve.

Benedict Cumberbatch

And, last but certainly not least, there are two eagerly awaited films: one details history, while the other has a content and digital bestiary all its own. "The Imitation Game" stars Benedict Cumberbatch of Sherlock fame, playing the mathematician Alan Turing who was crucial in cracking the Enigma code during World War II. Terry Gilliam's uncompromising "Zero Theorem" conjures some anarchist alchemy. Gilliam once again stands alone with his concocted paradise of whimsy and tech-fear.

The Key West Film Festival is a true plural-eyed feast of visions sure to please every hungry eye on the island during this highly anticipated and festive week. Click here for the full lineup.

Write Ian at redtv_2005@yahoo.com