By Dave Montalbano

AdventuresOfCinemaDave.com

The 27th Annual Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival will present the “Star on The Horizon Award” to 12-year-old actress and Ft. Lauderdale native Bailee Madison, who has had featured roles in Bridge to Terabithia, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and will be seen in Parental Guidance to open this Christmas.

Madison will receive her award at the Oct. 21, 3 p.m. screening of Cowgirls N’ Angels at Sunrise Civic Center Theater (info: www.fliff.com). Madison stars as a rebellious girl who dreams of finding her father. Along the way, she makes friends with trick horse riders on the rodeo circuit.

This Sunday, Sept. 23, Madison will be selling lemonade to raise money for Breast Cancer Awareness at the In Synch Cut-A-Thon in Imperial Point Shopping Plaza, 5975 N. Federal Hwy., in Ft. Lauderdale from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Between making movies and school work, Bailee has been devoting her free time to Alex’s Lemonade Stand, an organization that encourages children nationwide to raise money to find a cure for childhood cancer through running their own lemonade stands. For more details about this street party called Kiss Breast Cancer Goodbye, call In Synch Hair & Body Works at 954-491-4961.

Despite intense box office competition, Arbitrage held its own in limited release at the FAU Living Room Theater. It is a timely story that explains the business concept of “arbitrage” or practice of taking advantage of a price difference between two or more markets.

For many decades, Robert Miller (Richard Gere) has been a master of arbitrage on Wall Street, until his cash flow constricts. While presenting an impeccable façade to the public, Miller’s home life has become a den of iniquity.

Much praise has been given to Richard Gere’s performance, though it is a role he was born to play, given his previous three decades of work on the big screen.

As Miller’s personal fury, British actor Tim Roth steals the show as a New York cop who would love to bust a Manhattan Master of the Universe.

By Dave Montalbano

AdventuresOfCinemaDave.com

We are approaching the four-year anniversary of the September stock market crash. While the market has rebounded with a better rate of return than the 2009 Federal Job Stimulus Bill, Hollywood Producers have created several movies about this subject, most notably Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

While the Manhattan media has generated some buzz, Arbitrage opens this weekend locally. The film reteams Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon as successful robber barons from Wall Street who are nearing retirement. As we have learned from the Greek family tragedies, a simple character flaw can undermine the family dynasty.

Limping along at the box office is ParaNorman, a stop-motion animated film. This poorly-marketed movie is a gem of a monster movie that has generated much positive word of mouth. If you get a chance, see ParaNorman on the big screen before it is too late; it is the best animated film of the year.

The film opens in a New England neighborhood that looks eerily similar to that of Haddonfield, Elm Street and Chrystal Lake. Young Norman is a freaky kid who sees dead people. Since Norman is basically a nice kid, he gets along with the ghosts that haunt his neighborhood.

Enter the scary and bloated Mr. Prenderghast, who warns Norman about the 300-yearold curse of the Old Witch. Like Norman, Mr. Prenderghast sees ghosts and has failed to warn the town of the Old Witch’s revenge.

With such a Gothic setup, ParaNorman succeeds by being contemporary fable. Frightening at first, zombies rising from their graves are less scary than mob rule inspired by reality television shows like Jersey Shore and Honey Boo Boo.

Besides telling an entertaining story for both children and adults, ParaNorman succeeds by presenting a fable worthy of Aesop. We learn that the cause of the Old Witch’s curse is a contemporary problem that has been the plague of all public schools. ParaNorman can provide a great resource for a lesson about bullying.