Dima Vitanova – Folio 2.0 / EU Jacksonville

Amelia Island Downtown Tasting Tour: Four cocktails, 13 strangers, and One Blast of a Bar Crawl

Dima Vitanova June 24, 2017 Amelia Island, Attraction, Drink, Feature, Food + Drink, Learning, Perennial, Tours, Travel & Tourism 1,571

Amelia Island Downtown Tasting Tours holds mixology tours every Friday and Saturday from 5:30pm–7:30pm. Priced at $45, each tour includes four local bars (different every outing), where attendees (no more than 14 per group) sample one cocktail per venue. For more information and to book, visit ameliaislanddowntowntastingtours.com. You know that mixing vodka, gin, and rum may not be a smart idea. But you do not let that thought linger; you are about to have a good time. You stroll into the homey (www.holacubancafe.com) in downtown . The owner, Marisol—last names are a needless formality in this tight community—beams from behind …

Calendar Girls: Six Women, A Nude Calendar and Many Shifts

Dima Vitanova February 6, 2017 Amelia Island, Feature, On Stage, Theatre, Theatre Reviews 5,209

Calendar Girls is a fun, warm, outrageous show, addressed the audience. The director of the play at Amelia Community Theatre (ACT), she indeed captured its essence. Written by and first staged in 2008 as an adaptation of the eponymous movie, this 14-scene half comedy, half drama unfurls a real-life story that is both serious and droll. A pastiche of the big and small, the fleeing and lasting events that bead life, revolves around six middle-aged women of the Yorkshire county’s Women’s Institute (WI) who together tread marriage, femininity and sisterhood. These same women, once entangled in the predictability of their …

It’s about the family: On Golden Pond at Amelia Community Theatre

Dima Vitanova October 2, 2016 Amelia Island, Feature, On Stage, Theatre, Theatre Reviews 508

Three generations come together to overcome their differences and fete life at its dawn, zenith and twilight. I was perhaps the youngest among some 50 attendees. “Will this even interest me,” I thought while observing the rows of silvery hair and fine-lined faces that made an audience reflective – and possibly empathetic – of the aging protagonists of the play . And yet, as the droll, touching scenes unfolded, I found myself absorbed in the throes and joy of revered maturity, the charm and dullness of a routine, the startle and promise of a fresh – albeit late – start. …

Jason Bourne: A Classic Action with a Real-World Message

Dima Vitanova July 29, 2016 Feature, Movie Reviews, Movies, On Screen 816

Grade: A- Release date: July 29, 2016 Running time: 2 hours and 3 minutes Rating PG-13 Director: Paul Greengrass En route to a dusty stretch of the Greek-Albanian border for a bare-knuckle fight, Jason Bourne () casts back to a past he recalls only hazily. Meanwhile, his one-time CIA colleague and current pal-on- the-go, Nicky Parsons () breaks into the file system of the US intelligence agency from a remote bunker in Iceland. Her hacking attempt alerts CIA cyber operative Heather Lee () and so begins Jason Bourne, which sets its protagonists – all of them linked to CIA – …

Check In For Laughs “Arsenic & Old Lace”

Dima Vitanova June 18, 2016 Amelia Island, Comedy, Feature, Neighborhoods, On Stage, Theatre, Theatre Reviews 820

Mental Brothers, Murderous Aunts and 13 Dead Bodies in the Cellar: Normal Family Affairs in “Arsenic and Old Lace” A single teaspoon of arsenic mixed in wine. Not in tea, as it leaves a suspicious odor, calmly advises sweet old Aunt Martha her astounded nephew Mortimer of her deadly concoction. The quiet inanity of the whole scene provokes laughter. In fact, that belly-hurting amusement is all I can recall from the first time I saw Arsenic and Old Lace, a 1941 play by Joseph Kesselring. I was with a bunch of university friends – all of us cheering for …

The expected unexpected: “The Conjuring 2”

Dima Vitanova June 10, 2016 Feature, Movie Reviews, Movies, On Screen 307

From a lush garden, through an arched window, across a cluttered room, down an unassuming staircase and straight into the mind of ghost chaser Lorraine Warren. And inside of it – quietness. No, the opening sequence of the is not silent. But when you go to horror movies that unravel preternatural plots, you half expect malfunctions of this sort. “At least, it is color,” a man from the around 100-strong audience joked. “Envision yourself in a halo of bright light,” Lorraine () instructs several people, hunkered over a round table, when the sound finally came through in the hall. That …