No, not Warren Beatty/Dustin Hoffman's debacle. But it makes sense that the Egyptian god revived by cannibalized body parts in Blood Feast was named Ishtar long before the movie Ishtar became cinematic road kill.

This is the day I've been waiting for, as have the smartest of you. Tonight we unleash the groundbreaking gore film Blood Feast at the second annual Gasparilla Film Festival. They even named the
event GASParilla for the evening in honor of our esteemed guests, director Herschell Gordon Lewis
and producer David F. Friedman. These two ballyhoo legends will accompanying the 45th anniversary screening at 9 p.m., and take questions from yours truly after the show.

This is going to be one for the scrapbooks, folks.

Before that extravaganza, though, the festival has plenty of films slated including an assortment of short films at 5:30 p.m. in honor of National Womens Month. I had a chance to preview one titled Loose Ends, directed by Rachel Gordon, and it's a delightful story of a woman who is the victim of identity theft -- both financially and personally -- who gets one of those problems straightened out in briskly humorous fashion.

Check out today's events at Channelside, or one of three showings of the shark documentary Requiem at Florida Aquarium just down the street. The Gasparilla Film Festival wraps up Sunday with a full day of films and the closing night gala at the Big Fish Tank.

Before the fun, though, Princess Di and I will join hundreds of others at the celebration of life for our dear, departed friend, WTSP-TV weatherman Dick Fletcher. Godspeed, bud.