By Jim Knippenberg
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Film Commission

Victoria Brinkman (left) Don Brinkman and Jackie Weibel take a break before dinner at their "Rocky Horror Picture Show" table.

The centerpiece of the weekend's benefit scene had to be Hollywood Does Fabulous Films, the annual Halloween party the Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky Film Commission throws at Old St. George.

"Centerpiece" because guests - about 240 who paid $100 a head for cocktails, dinner and dancing - go all out.

The rules: Pick a film and dress the table and guests accordingly. So we had a Pirates of the Caribbean table with a 10-foot ship's mast complete with pirates; a Gentlemen Prefer Blondes table with hundreds of rhinestones and four Marilyn Monroes; a Chicago table full of feathers and floozies; an incredibly elegant Great Gatsby table with a silver candelabra and miles of beads.

What made it all better was that most costumes were homemade - very few rentals in the house.

Organizers expected the party to make about $40,000.

Greater Cincinnati Community Shares

John Fleming, vice president of museums, Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal, (left) gets a helping of meatballs from Terrell Lackey.

Who would have thought it? Fifty-four cooks in the kitchen and it still turns out to be the best meal in town.

The occasion was Guys, Griddles & Grub, a Greater Cincinnati Community Shares fund-raiser at the Museum Center at Union Terminal with regular guy cooks dishing up specialties - Cincinnati Herald co-owner Eric Kearney, attorney Al Gerhardstein, one-time council candidate Scott Seidewitz, artist Matt Kotlarczyk - for 250 guests who paid $35 to $100 to be there.

Good food, too, including Richard Gass' sinful Potato & Salami Torta; Terry Schoenling and Joe Englehart's Tenderloin with Crab, Shrimp and Asparagus; Wes Duncan's Roasted Pork Loin and Bucky Ignatius' Apple Walnut Bundt Cake.

Money raised - $8,000 - goes to Community Shares, an umbrella agency that funds organizations that United Way doesn't.

Crohn's & Colitis Foundation

Cherae Wright bares her fangs for butterfly woman Laurie Gardner.

The third annual Halloween of Hope had a little bit of everything: Prisoners, witches, angels, pirates, fashion victims from the disco era and a few trashy women. The party at Covington's Madison was a fund-raiser for the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation, with 180 guests - most in costume - there for a cocktail reception, silent auction, dinner (turkey, lasagna, Mexican dishes), lots of dancing, plus palm readings, tarot readings and caricatures at tables situated around the room.

Even though it was a fund-raiser that drummed up more than $40,000, C&CF president Mark Weiss was thinking of it more as a "friend-raiser" - "I'm making a plea for volunteers tonight. We can really use the help."