Orange County News Blog

The Quiksilver-produced, Jamie Teirney-directed documentary Clay Marzo: Just Add Water screens for free tonight as the cinematic collaboration between the Newport Beach Film Festival and Sage Hill School continues on like sun-kissed waves.

See the flier after the jump . . . 

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Before Blue Gold: World Water Wars screened at April's Newport Beach Film Festival, Irvine-based indie filmmaker Sam Bozzo vowed it would be his first and last documentary because it proved so arduous to make.

At least Blue Gold, which is about the world's water shortage and based on the ground-breaking book of the same name by Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke, would go on to win the festival's jury prize for best documentary. Now the doc kicks off tonight's Cinema Sage Hill, a free monthly film series that is open to the public and presented through a unique partnership between Newport Beach Film Festival and Sage Hill School.

Created to foster an appreciation and an awareness of independent films and expose audiences to the creative aspects of filmmaking, the series screens films in the new state of the art cultural facility on the campus of Sage Hill School, 20402 Newport Coast Drive, Newport Coast. Bozzo will be on hand to interact with the audience. Showtime is 7:30 p.m.

The event's flier follows . . .

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The Weekly's October 2008 cover story "Rock Angel" detailed the challenges Garden Grove filmmaker David Di Sabatino faced making a documentary on the late "Father of Christian Rock Music," Larry Norman.

It didn't get any easier after the film Fallen Angel was in the can. Di Sabatino has been berated by Norman's fans and threatened with legal action by Norman's family.

But today, all is quite well on the Fallen Angel front.

Di Sabatino might even be tempted to say, "Somebody up there likes me."

Dana Point documentary filmmaker Dana Brown will not be the only person associated with the production attending the Orange County premiere of his latest film Highwater at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Regency Lido in Newport Beach.

Rich Wilson and Wes Brown, who were members of the production team for Highwater as well as previous Brown efforts Step Into Liquid and Dust to Glory, join the writer-director on stage for an audience Q&A.

Among the surfers captured by Highwater cameras scheduled to make special appearances at the screening are: Kelly Slater, Rob Machado, Jesse Billauer, Mark Healy, Tom Curren, Robert "Wingnut" Weaver, Robert August and Pat O'Connel.

Curren, who has been a folksy blues singer-songwriter since he was about 15, is scheduled to perform before the movie starts.

Proceeds from the screening benefit the Newport Beach Film Festival. Go here for information on tickets, which are $15.

Photo by Gerard Smulevich courtesy of "Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman"

Julius Shulman was passionate about his work.

Many of those close to Julius Shulman gathered in a theater at Edwards Island Cinemas in Newport Beach in April to pay tribute to the Los Angeles photographer and subject of the documentary love letter Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman. One of those closest to the 98-year-old in his later years, Rose Nielsen of the Woodbury Institute, told those who'd just watched the Newport Beach Film Festival entry (and later NBFF Outstanding Achievement in Documentary Filmmaking honoree), "He has an amazing mind. He's like a walking history book of LA."

And now he's gone, as reported in today's Los Angeles Times obituary.

Born in Brooklyn on 10/10/10, Shulman got into the ground floor of architectural modernism that sprang up in California in the 1930s by photographing the creations of Richard Neutra, Rudolh Schindler, Frank Lloyd Wright, Harwell Hamilton Harris and even some architects you haven't heard of. As demonstrated in Eric Bricker's film debut, Shulman was also a cut-up, a passionate artist and a staunch protector of the Southern California landscape.

Besides Bricker and Nielsen, the screening brought actress Kelly Lynch, who hosted Shulman's 95th birthday in her Neutra home, appeared in the doc and shared with the festival audience warm stories about the photographer, who besides well-designed buildings apparently had a thing for the female form. Shulman, who'd been in poor health for years, could not make the trip to OC. That's okay; everyone knew him well by the end of the event.

Orange County Museum of Art and NBFF present another screening of Visual Acoustics at the museum on Sept. 24. 

Dana Point filmmaker Dana Brown returns to the surf for his next documentary, Highwater, which is scheduled to make its Orange County premiere at 7:30 p.m. Friday, July 24, in the Regency Lido in Newport Beach.

As he did with Step Into Liquid and Dust to Glory, which both marked their local debuts with sellouts in the same historic theater, Brown will be at the Lido to talk about his film with the audience and take questions after the screening, which is presented by the Newport Beach Film Festival in partnership with Regency Theatres and Apostrophe Films.

After Dust to Glory plopped Brown in the mud of Baja racing, he'd said he really was not interested in making another surf movie. But the lure of the Highwater story was too much to resist for the son of legendary surf filmmaker Bruce Brown (The Endless Summer).

Julius Shulman's most-famous shot.

One of the better documentaries to screen at April's Newport Beach Film Festival was Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman, a love letter to the 98-year-old, Brooklyn-born Angeleno who photographed the architectural modernism that sprang up in California in the 1930s thanks to Richard Neutra, Rudolh Schindler, Frank Lloyd Wright, Harwell Hamilton Harris and others.

Eric Bricker's impressive, important and eye-opening motion picture debut wound up winning festival honors for Outstanding Achievement in Documentary Filmmaking. Now the festival and Orange County Museum of Art are teaming up to screen Visual Acoustics and other recent festival films locally again.

Beginning at 8 tonight with Herb & Dorothy--the story of postal clerk Herb Vogel and his wife Dorothy Vogel, who started building one of the most impressive art collections in the early 1960s--films about art, architecture and design will screen the last Thursday of each month over the summer and into fall. Admission into the museum at 650 San Clemente Drive, Newport Beach, is free to see the films, which will be followed by audience Q&As.

The Back Nine, a documentary about a 40-year-old man's dream to make the pro golf tour that made its world premiere at April's Newport Beach Film Festival, returns to an Orange County screen for one night only, Thursday, at the Cinema City Stadium 12 in Anaheim Hills.

The 1 hour 40 minute film trails Jon Fitzgerald, who is credited with co-directing The Back Nine with another Los Angeles-based independent filmmaker, Ron Vignone. Now 42, Fitzgerald started working on the project a year before turning the big 4-0, when the above-average golfer was overcome with a burning desire to make himself good enough to play with the pros within one-year's time. 

Fitzgerald assembled a team to work on his swing, fitness, nutrition and mental approach. He conducted research, interviewed experts and developed a strategy to attain his goal. After shaving 11 strokes off his 15 handicap, he won the first tournament he entered on the Golf Channel's Amateur Tour.

But as the film shows, Fitzgerald's success on the course is complicated by the needs of his wife and two young children, one of whom was born halfway through shooting The Back Nine. Balancing life and golf while still trying to pay the bills is part of the story. Also playing a role is the conflicting advice he received about pursuing golf full-time from his biological father and stepfather.  

Crap, that's giving away too much. Go see it already. Show starts at 7 p.m.

Herman (Matthew Lillard) and Rose (Nora Zehetner) jump into their relationship.

Spooner, the romantic comedy that was directed by former Santa Ana resident Drake Doremus and stars former Tustin resident Matthew Lillard in the title role (and which won a rave here as well as an Outstanding Achievement in Filmmaking Award at April's Newport Beach Film Festival), keeps getting accolades ladled on top of it.

The latest comes from the 2009 Rainier Independent Film Festival in Washington state, where Spooner was honored as the Best Feature film. That marks the third award the quirky gem has picked up in four festival appearances, having also won Best Feature at the 2009 Sonoma International Film Festival.

Doremus emails or texts or Tweets or whatever it is you kids do from the road that he is grateful for the support and that the positive buzz is leading to distribution offers. "Hopefully if all goes well it will be in the world for mass consumption sometime next year!" he writes.

Whoa, it's like the Newport Beach Film Festival is all "I'll be bawck" and stuff. Huh? What we're trying to say is, the recently concluded NBFF will be presenting a special preview screening of the upcoming Terminator: Salvation -- tomorrow night!

Tickets are $20, and proceeds go to the film festival and the student governments of Mater Dei, Corona Del Mar and Newport Harbor high schools. And Terminator: Salvation director and OC native McG -- yes, that's what he calls himself -- will be at the screening to take your questions. Esquire recently claimed that "McG is not a douchebag," and we're usually inclined to believe what Esquire writes. But... check the press release on the guy:

McG is a rarity in today's entertainment world - a proven quadruple threat - director, producer, writer and songwriter. He first gained success directing almost 50 videos for a number of artists including Barenaked Ladies, Korn, Everclear, The Offspring, Wyclef Jean, Cypress Hill, Smashmouth and Sugar Ray, to name a few. His talent soon caught the eye of aspiring producer, actress Drew Barrymore.

So, by attending tomorrow you get the added bonus being able to decide, in person, whether McG defies all the biographical evidence against him by actually not being a douchebag. That is, if you haven't already done so at all the previous NBFF events that featured him this year.

But wait, there's more! There'll be an after-party at A Restaurant, bartended by........ Dan Aykroyd. Why? We we're not sure. That's okay. The event starts at 7 p.m., at the Regency Lido Theater in Newport. Buy your tickets at the Newport Beach Film Festival website, and let us know what it all means.

The "French Spotlight" film Seraphine, which is from France and Belgium, was the big jury-award winner at the just-concluded 10th anniversary Newport Beach Film Festival. The film nearly swept the jury's feature-film categories, winning best film, actor (Ulrich Tukur), actress (Yolande Moreau), director (Martin Provost) and screenplay (Laurent Brunet).

The only other jury award for a feature went to the Korean film Modern Boy for best cinematography.

In Seraphine (pictured), Moreau plays the titular lonely housekeeper who immerses herself in nature to communicate with trees, birds and insects--the only sounding boards available to her. She channels her feelings into art, using paints she makes from soil, animal blood and stolen church votive candles to create meticulous flowers on canvases. But her routine is disturbed when the house she works at is taken over by new tenants.

Other jury awards: best narrative short, Through the Ear; best short documentary, 12 Stones; best animated short, The Incident at Tower 37; and special prize cinematography short, Mkrtich Malkhasyan of Nora.

Ironically, the jury award for best full-length documentary went to Blue Gold: World Water Wars, whose director, Irvine's Sam Bozzo, said shortly before the festival this would be his first and last documentary.
 
Other NBFF awards of local note include "Festival Honors" in outstanding achievement in directing going to former San Clemente resident Rian Johnson's The Brothers Bloom; outstanding achievement in filmmaking to Spooner, which was directed by former Santa Ana resident Drake Doremus and starred former Tustin resident Matthew Lillard; and OC Filmmaker Award to Newport Beach's Jeff Parker for Echo Beach, which is about a stretch of sand in his hometown from where the action-sports industry exploded in the 1980s. The "Audience Award" for best feature went to Street Dreams, a skateboarding drama that included San Clemente's Ryan Sheckler in the cast; and short documentary to Center Street Rising, which is about the TKO Boxing Club in Santa Ana.

The full list of award winners follows:

UPDATED WITH THE EMOTIONAL LA MILAGROSA Q&A!

The final Newport Beach Film Festival entries viewed by yours truly on closing day Thursday were solid efforts. Denied access to former San Clemente resident Rian Johnson's The Brothers Bloom Tuesday night, Clockwork joined a decent-sized crowd the following noon for a rollicking good time. Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo played the title characters, con artists since they were boys who by their mid-30s were at the top of their game. Stephen (Ruffalo) was the brains of the operation devising elaborate stings that included twists, characters and references pulled from dime-store novels. Bloom (Brody) was the heart of the scheming, but he wanted out because his heart was no longer in it. Stephen convinced Bloom to hit one last mark, eccentric New Jersey heiress Penelope (Rachel Weisz).

The brothers' plot involved bouncing around the globe by ship and train and employing the logistics, acquisition and explosive expertise of their longtime partner in crime Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi, who spoke Japanese in her Academy Award-nominated performance in Babel and barely spoke anything here). The trick was for the trio to make Penelope, who was lonely and seeking adventure, believe she was part of the scamming rather than the one being scammed. Unfortunately, Bloom's heart got in the way, and audiences were left to figure out if the double-crosses and triple-crosses that propelled the story through the close were part of his quest to end his scamming career, Stephen's attempt to keep him in the fold or their estranged mentor's deadly revenge. Needless to say, Johnson, who also wrote the smart script, kept this viewer engrossed.

The big question on the mind of anyone amid the crowds at Edwards Island Cinema at Fashion Island in Newport Beach Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday nights was: My God, don't these people work? And a second: Don't they know we're teetering on Depression? Finally: Buddy, can you spare a ticket?

 

The masses were expected at the Newport Beach Film Festival over the weekend, but Monday night's healthy crowd became Tuesday night's packed house which became Wednesday night's mob scene. Bet your house (if it hasn't gone into foreclosure) that the 2009 festival will be the biggest in the event's 10-year history.

Bounced out of other movies Monday night because paying moviegoers take precedence over those with press credentials dangling around their necks, I wound up finding an open seat for the Korea Spotlight film. Thanks to the generosity of the newish, Garden Grove-based Korean Cultural Center Orange County, my seat came with swag: an '09 day planner courtesy of the center's CEO Dr. Francis S. Lee, who noted Korean cinema is getting better and better.

Ji-Woo Jung's Modern Boy proved his point.

Two films make their world premieres at the Regency Lido Theatre tonight as part of the Newport Beach Film Festival's 2009 Action Sports Film Series.

First, at 6:15 p.m., it's Out of the Pond, Irvine-based, action-sports clothier Billabong USA's new film from director Chris Heffner that follows the company's wakeboarding team around the globe, from crazy big spillways in the Philippines to the Hard Rock Hotel pool
in Las Vegas to rails in Orlando, Fla.--at midnight. Among those who appear in the documentary are Brian Grubb, Shawn Watson, Danny Harf, Chad Sharpe,
Erik Ruck and Kevin Henshaw. Heffner, Grubb and Henshaw also participate in a post-screening Q&A with the audience moderated by Jim Kempton, Billabong's director of media.

Sadly, the 7:30 p.m. screening of Echo Beach is sold out. Well, probably not sadly if you are the filmmakers or the festival organizers, but . . . you know.

UPDATED WITH EYEWITNESS REPORT ON DJ MOM PANTS!

Johnny Cash, the revenge-minded father of a dead teen porn star, Bijou Phillips, Julius Shulman, Kelly Lynch, "Kevin" from The Office, Vilmos Zsigmond and a sour-faced Kristen Scott Thomas. No, these are not my ideal players in the perfect poker game but just some figures who have rocked my world so far at the Newport Beach Film Festival, which has reached the halfway point and continues through Thursday.

Friday began with a bout of deja vu all over again. About midway through the excellent documentary Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, I realized I had seen much of this footage before on public television. Sure enough, a quick check of Google revealed that KCET/Channel 28 in December showed Bestor Cram's documentary on the country music legend's 1968 concert at Folsom State Prison. But there were animated sequences and the recurring story of one Folsom inmate I don't recall in the PBS version. I hung around to the end hoping to ask someone associated with the film about this but, alas, there was no post-screening Q&A. You can catch Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in Edwards Island 6. It'll be the best $8 you've spent on a movie ticket in a long time.

Herman (Matthew Lillard) and Rose (Nora Zehetner) get a jump on their relationship in "Spooner."

This post is based on one of life's happy accidents. Folks at the Newport Beach Film Festival, which runs through Thursday, asked weeks ago if I wanted to write about a film called Spooner, which was directed by former Santa Ana resident Drake Doremus and stars former Tustin resident Matthew Lillard in the title role. Sure, I answered, just send me a screener copy of the film so I'll know what to ask in an interview. For reasons not quite fully explained, that could not be done, so I explored other festival stories.

Then, Doremus' mother, Cherie Kerr, contacted me asking the same thing. We've corresponded for years because the former Groundling founded and promoted the Santa Ana-based Orange County Crazies comedy improv troupe. About that time, someone else from the festival mentioned Spooner again, I indicated I was still interested, but for reasons that were never fully explained, again, no screener. So I went on to other stories.

Then, I bumped into Kerr and Doremus at Wednesday's pre-festival party for directors. I explained I had wanted to see the film for a possible "hometown-boy-done-good" story, but there would be nothing to base it on without seeing the actual film. "That sounds great," said Doremus, who hand delivered a screener to the Weekly the next morning. (He also explained why there had been no screeners before: a producer's fear that the film was getting overexposed.)

I was then struck with a horrible thought: What if I hate Spooner, I mean, really loathe it to the degree where I would not want my name associated with anything that might be interpreted as promoting it. Turns out I had nothing to worry about. Spooner is one of the best, freshest and quirkiest romantic comedies in a long, long time--better than Garden State, in my humble opinion.

Photos by Bleu Cotton

The scene at Fashion Island.

The 10th Newport Beach Film Festival opened Thursday night at Edwards "Big Newport" with "celebrity" arrivals, flashing cameras and my exclusive red-carpet interview with Oscar-nominated film composer Marc Shaiman of Hairspray! and South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut fame.

Marc Shaiman on the red carpet

ME [seconds after a festival official pushed me in front of Shaiman and ordered an interview]: So, uh, what are you doing here?

SHAIMAN: What are you doing here?

ME: Oh. I don't know. Thursday night. Not much else to do.

SHAIMAN: ...

ME: Um, yeah. So, do you have a film screening at the festival?

SHAIMAN: No.

OCW: Oh. So why are you here, again?

SHAIMAN: They are honoring me tomorrow. Some lifetime achievement award or something like that.

OCW: Cool.

SHAIMAN: Yeah.

OCW: Hmm.

SHAIMAN: ...

He was then pulled away for a photo, and I stepped aside like I'd be waiting to pick up our thrilling conversation before backing away slowly, dissolving into the crowd and making a beeline for the theater entrance. Looking at the festival program, I discovered what brought my exclusive interview subject to Newport Beach is "An Evening of Film and Fun Set to Music: A Gala Reception & Concert with Oscar Nominated Film Composer Marc Shaiman." It begins at 7 tonight in the Palm Garden at Island Hotel in Newport Center. Tickets are $30.

Cleaning out my book bag this morning, I noticed the DVD screener for Push Button House, which is playing at the Newport Beach Film Festival, wedged between the seams and realized it belonged in yesterday's post on 8 solid NBFF shorts. So make that 9 solid NBFF shorts. This too-brief documentary by Robert Profusek and Ryan Silbert follow architectural pioneer (and natural screen presence) Adam Kalkin as he prepares to unveil a shipping container that--with the push of a button--automatically converts into an ultra-modern, pre-fab house. This is actually a follow-up project to the shipping container Kalkin debuted at the 2007 Venice Biennale to raves. Besides giving a possible glimpse into Earth's housing future, the film clicks as it captures all the craftsmen struggling to make Kalkin's vision a reality and the architect making snap decisions on every detail. Anyone who has been to a shi-shi museum openings filled with expensive-eyeglass-affixed snobs will appreciate similar scenes here. It would have been great to know more about the original push-button house, though, so viewers could understand why everyone tells Kalkin at the end that they like his sequel much better. Edwards Island 2. Sat., 9:30 a.m.

There are many solid feature-length films on the bill at this year's Newport Beach Film Festival, which shifts into full gear today and continues through Thursday, April 30. But some of the best stuff pre-screened for your consumption were shorts, in particular these eight animated and live-action diddies. All are shown in the Edwards Island Cinemas at Fashion Island in batches with other shorts, which explains why some showtimes given match other films listed here. Just go with it . . .


BECAUSE YOU'RE GORGEOUS
The Lion King gets lampooned, big time, in this computer-animated shorty. Employing the safari look and bouncy music evoking the Disney behemoth, South Africa's Brent Dawes focuses not on a feline but a warthog with a spectaclur mane. Too bad he's encountered the greatest threat of all to one so vane: a really bad hair day. Edwards Island 1, (949) 640-1218. Sat., 1 p.m.; Edwards Island 2, Sat., 3:45 p.m.

THE CONFESSION
This may be my favorite. Thomas Hefferon's Irish comedy short finds a young fellow confession his sins to his parish priest inside the confessional, only to be subjected to the third degree by the inquisitive pastor. Telling only what he needs to before receiving his absolution, the chap then joins his buddy in the pews to quickly end this little nugget on a very clever note. Edwards Island 2, (949) 640-1218. Today, 4:30 p.m. and Wed., 4 p.m.

Derick Martini works his no-budget magic.

Lymelife, which opens the 10th annual Newport Beach Film Festival tonight at Edwards "Big Newport," was written by Derick and Stephen Martini, based on their experiences growing up on Long Island in the early 1980s. It would stand to reason the character of Jimmy, the older of two brothers played by Kieran Culkin, represents Derick while the younger Scott, who is portrayed by Kieran's real-life little brother Rory Culkin, is a stand in for Derick's younger sibling Stephen. 

But when Derick, who directed the dark dramedy that also stars Alec Baldwin, was asked which brother was him by a member of the audience Martini had just screened the film for at Santa Ana's Yost Theater on March 27, he answered, "I identify with both characters."

Martini, who was earlier profiled here, even admitted that an awkward first-time sex scene between Rory Culkin's and Emma Roberts' characters was based on Derick's own virginity-shattering experience.

Photos by Justin Viega

Drake Doremus works the crowd.

A crowd estimated at 100-125 filmgoers, filmmakers and film presenters took over one side of Mesa restaurant in Costa Mesa Tuesday night for "An Evening With the Directors," a benefit that precedes the 10th annual Newport Beach Film Festival opening Thursday and continuing through April 30.

Guests paid $60 each, with proceeds going to NBFF and Irvine Barclay Theatre's young professionals' booster group NEXT@theBarclay, to hear indie directors Sam Bozzo (Blue Gold: World Water Wars), Drake Doremus (Spooner), Brent Huff (Cat City), Stephen Latty (The Drums Inside Your Chest) and Doug Pray (Art & Copy) describe their projects. 

Blue Gold: World Water Wars

Earth Day is Wednesday, but the Newport Beach Film Festival (NBFF), in partnership with the Newport Bay Naturalists and Friends and the Orange County Parks Department, celebrates Sunday, April 26. A program of Earth Day-appropriate short films, curated by the festival's co-director of shorts programming Dennis Baker, screens as part of an all-day event featuring booths, games, exhibits, music and more from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. that day at Peter and Mary Muth Interpretive Center, 2301 University Dr., Newport Beach.

Baker reports it's a great venue for viewing as the Naturalists just invested $56,000 to completely upgrade the projection and sound system in the center's Ray and Elsa Watson Theater. Some filmmakers are scheduled to attend and take questions at the screenings.

Showing from 10:30 a.m. to 11:20 a.m. are: Life on a Limb, an animated short that explores the irreconcilable differences that emerge when a tree and a lumberjack are stuck in a waiting room together; Oil Tribe, a youth competition entry that finds a small business owner and two university professors discussing the high cost of fuel and how it affects consumers; Goldfish, a colorful comedy short about two third-graders on a mission to save their classroom's goldfish; The Bridge (Le Pont), an animated short that has a man and his son isolated life on an island changed when the child discovers the lights of a remote city; and The Incident at Tower 37, which follows a water tower's lone steward realizing the tower is slowly destroying an entire ecosystem.

Blue Gold: World Water Wars, the documentary feature directed by Irvine's Sam Bozzo and narrated by actor Malcolm McDowell, screens from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Reviewed here, the film argues that as corporations and governments compete for control over human kind's life source, citizens of the world will be forced to fight for their right to survive. Blue Gold will also be shown at Edwards Island Cinemas on Monday, April 27, as part of the NBFF, but if you can't make it either screening (or if you just want your very own copy of the flick), PBS Video, the film's U.S. distributor, has released it on DVD to celebrate Earth Day and World Water Day. Go here for details.

Food Fight, another documentary feature (reviewed here, scroll to the bottom), screens from 1:15-2:10 p.m. It looks at a group of anti-corporate protesters who in the late 1960s dared to take on the conventional food system of the 20th Century, resulting in a counter-food revolution that offered organic food to the public.

The second half of the Earth Day shorts screen from 2:15-3:15 p.m. and include: Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures, a documentary on the heroic Afghans who sacrificed and dedicated their lives to safeguard their cultural legacy in the midst of war; Plain Ride Penn, a documentary on a 15-year-old girl who proved one person can make a difference; The Green Film, a shortie that asks, "Can filmmakers really go green and make the greenest movie of all time?"; and Hugo, where a girl encounters an attack of conscience when she risks the life of an incredible creature for science.

Like Blue Gold, the other features and shorts on the Earth Day program will be shown at various times throughout the April 23-30 festival in the Edwards Islands Cinemas at Fashion Island, 999 Newport Center Dr., Newport Beach. Go here for the complete schedule.

To gear up local filmgoers for the 10th annual Newport Beach Film Festival, which opens Thursday, April 23, and continues through April 30, the Weekly compiled "10 for the Tenth," brief reviews of some of the best festival features, documentaries and shorts we pre-screened for your consumption. We also blogged 5 more recommendations. 'Cause that's how we roll. But that's not all we saw. Indeed, some efforts were . . . gulp . . . how to put it? Let's just say one man's Gigantic may be another's Citizen Kane, we're just not one of them. So, as a public service, and with no drum roll at all, we present our 7 Bottom Feeders, the films we pre=screened that clicked least for us.

Dano and Deschanel, making us not care.

GIGANTIC I don't remember ever wanting to just haul out and punch a movie before Gigantic. Interrupting every scene with a proud little fart of idiosyncrasy, Matt Aselton's auteur debut provides another flimsy indie comedy for the heap. The screenplay's per-page quota of "unexpected" tweaks leaves little room for much else. There Will Be Blood's overgrown Child of the Corn, Paul Dano, plays Brian: 28 years old, timid, single, a mattress salesman, on the waiting list to adopt a Chinese baby--an apparently unexamined boyhood dream. Feeb Brian meets another homeschool-eccentric rich kid, one "Happy," played by pellucid-eyed hipster desktop-pinup and chanteuse of naptime adult contemporary, Zooey Deschanel. Happy looks good in a shortie kimono and heels, and initiates intimacy with an abrupt "Do you have any interest in having sex with me?"--behavior probably learned from John Goodman's voluminously inappropriate patriarch. Context clues suggest that the viewer is supposed to care if these nutty kids stay together. In my mind's eye's re-edit, the movie ends with a circa-1973 Joe Don Baker unexpectedly rolling into town and stomping the entire dramatis personae into jelly, but in actual fact, it wraps up with some blogrock and the "Hey, maybe there's no such thing as 'normal,' and we're all just screwed up and searching, y'know?" revelation. (Nick Pinkerton) Edwards Island 7, 999 Newport Center Dr., Newport Beach. Wed., April 29, 8 p.m.

Brotherly love in "Knuckle Draggers."

KNUCKLE DRAGGERS Alex Ranarivelo's romantic comedy has needy, out-of-work director Ethan (Ross McCall) facing a choice when comes to holding onto his Ms. Right (Jennifer Alden): he can ignore his unstable calling in favor of a safe job that will make him what she wants (a co-earner), or he can listen to his take-no-shit brother (Paul J. Alessi), who advocates going all Neanderthal on her because that's what women really want--am I right guys? Huh? Huh? Grunt-grunt. Um, pardon me for asking, but couldn't he do both? Or neither? Ranarivelo's uncooked script quickly slaps character "growth" on the end as if anyone gives a shit by then. McCall, Alessi and Omar Gooding as their actor friend are believable, however. (Matt Coker) Edwards Island 6. Sun., April 26, 4 p.m.; Edwards Island 1. Thurs., April 30, 3 p.m.

Here's the thing about several films screening at the 10th annual Newport Beach Film Festival, which opens Thursday, April 23, and continues through April 30: many entries have been shown at earlier festivals in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere. Since the Weekly is part of a chain with papers in those towns and others, we can check out how critics there felt about some of the repeat pictures. So, to joining our "10 for the Tenth"--reviews of some of the best festival features, documentaries and shorts--we add 5 More NBFF Recommendations (and 4 Other Ones):



PRODIGAL SONS Like Jonathan Caouette's 2003 Tarnation, Kimberly Reed's Prodigal Sons shows that DIY cinematic autobiographies can be much more than just indulgent grad-school-thesis navel gazes. Sons has all the pitfalls of the genre--self-realization, troubled past, lack of structure--and yet it transcends them thanks to Reed's ability to get out of the way and let a great story tell itself. The film begins as a record of Reed's return to Helena, Montana, where she grew up as Paul McKerrow, a co-captain of the high-school football team, only to later undergo successful gender-reassignment surgery and start a new life back east. Reed's homecoming is upstaged by her adopted brother, Marc, who's still jealous of Kim/Paul's childhood popularity and confused by the fact that his brother is now his sister. Marc, who suffers from the effects of a massive head injury in his youth, then finds out he's the biological grandson of Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth. And this is still only the first half-hour. While Reed's doc lacks the wild iMovie exuberance of Tarnation, she has a patient eye, and this is what ultimately makes the rough but entirely captivating Prodigal Sons a true documentary rather than a freak show, personal essay or rant. Reed keeps the camera rolling as her filmed diary develops into a portrait of an entire family--one that's bizarre, unbelievable and, deep down, not that different from most others. (James C. Taylor) Edwards Island 4, Fashion Island, 999 Newport Center Dr., Newport Beach, (949) 640-1218. Mon., April 27, 5:30 p.m.

The First Ten, which chronicles the first decade of the Newport Beach Film Festival (NBFF), airs at noon Sunday on KOCE/Channel 50.
 
The video was created free of charge by the nonprofit Media Alliance of Orange County, whose member (and The First Ten producer) Jack Gallagher put out a call in February for festival footage and volunteers to help with shooting, editing and post production.

The alliance held an invitation-only screening of The First Ten in Orange Coast College's Forum Theatre on Wednesday. Among those taking part in a brief panel discussion afterward were Gallagher and Gregg Schwenk, the NBFF's executive director.

The First Ten is scheduled to repeat on KOCE at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday but not during the festival, which runs April 23-30.

In other festival-promoting hoopla, the NBFF, NEXT@theBarclay and the Costa Mesa restaurant Mesa host "An Evening With the Directors" Tuesday, April 21.

Indie film directors participating in the festival are honored at the invitation-only dinner. Among those scheduled to attend are Irvine's Sam Bozzo (Blue Gold: World Water Wars), Drake Doremus (Spooner), Brent Huff  (Cat City), Stephen Latty (The Drums Inside Your Chest) and Doug Pray (Art & Copy).
 
Proceeds benefit Next@Barclay and NBFF.

Tickets for the 10th annual Newport Beach Film Festival (NBFF), which runs April 23-30, are now on sale here. Those will cost you $12 for general admission (or $8 if you are a student or senior buying before 5 p.m.); $30 for all Spotlight films and parties; $55 for the Opening Night film and party; and $125 for the Opening Night film and gala, which is like a party only you have to dress like you belong there.

Courtesy of Plug Ugly Films

Straight from the horse's mouth with Michael Slàdek.

Though Norma Desmond only lived at the cineplex (and now Netflix), she famously said, "I am big. It's the pictures that got small." Filmmaker and one-time Newport Beach resident Michael Slàdek is not yet big, but he is turning the phrase uttered by Sunset Boulevard's gloriously spaced-out Gloria Swanson on its head. For him, it's the film festivals that got big.

Five years after Slàdek's debut feature, Devils Are Dreaming, premiered at the 2004 Newport Beach Film Festival, Con Artist, his new feature-length documentary on New York "business artist" and composer Mark Kostabi, makes its world premiere April 25 at the Tribeca Film Festival in Manhattan. It's a long way from Newport Harbor High School, where Slàdek finished high school after his family moved from Denver when he was 16.

"It was definitely a culture shock," he recalls by phone from his new home in New York City, in between busily finishing post-production on Con Artist in preparation of the festival that runs April 22-May 3. "I remember coming to town. First I started high school at Corona del Mar, then I went to Newport Harbor. I was wearing jeans, boots, a black trench coat, the sides of my head were shaved. I was looking a little like a punk rock kid. And everyone else was in shorts, tee-shirts with long, surfer hair. It was definitely quite different."

University of Southern California quarterback and Mission Viejo High product Mark Sanchez may be OC Weekly's coverboy today, but USC Public Relations is right now propping up another Trojan football player with ties to Orange County.

This former Trojan player never scored a touchdown, seeing as how he played tackle ... in the 1920s.

He is, of course, John Wayne, American icon, greatest cowboy movie star ever (pardner!) and a longtime resident of Newport Beach, so beloved around here that Newport Harbor tour boats swing by the oceanside of his former pad and Will Ferrell tells childhood tales of meeting the Duke at a local hardware store.

USC Public Relations marks the 100th anniversary of Wayne's birth (as Marion Morrison) with reflections from film historian Rick Jewell.

While USC has many prominent alumni, John Wayne (as Hollywood executives insisted Morrison be renamed) may be the most famous individual who ever studied here. Consider this: Despite the fact that he died 28 years ago, a Harris Poll released last year placed the actor third among America’s favorite film stars. He was the only deceased person on the list, and the only one who has appeared in the poll every year since it was first published in 1993. His popularity transcends cultures. Thanks to a unique, unparalleled movie career that spanned five decades and lives on in DVDs, John Wayne is an iconic figure recognized worldwide.

I've been hesitant to write the final blog post in the festival because doing so would acknowledge that it's over. But all things must pass. And if you gotta go out, go out with a blowout: the closing night party concluded with a massive electricity blackout at the Lido and surrounding area. Since the party people had their own power supply, though, everybody kept on dancing in the (near) dark.

Earlier in the day, the news came in that the big festival winners were CAPTAIN ABU RAED, the first film from Jordan in 50 years; and FUGITIVE PIECES, the dramatic, nonlinear tale of a World War II survivor who has trouble shaking the past. Best narrative short went to Paul Hough's THE ANGEL. Complete winners list at the end of this post.

Sometimes I wonder about the power of coincidence. Both times I've covered the Newport Beach Film Festival, I have been unable to attend every day because some or other duty at the office ends up taking a lot more of my time than expected. So I was called home on Tuesday, thereby missing both THE REST IS SILENCE (which fest staffer Jay has been recommending to me all week) and THE SEEKERS (made by my friend Diana Ljungaes).

I was fortunate enough to see on the big screen a short that I actually worked on and helped to conceive, entitled THE ANGEL. It would probably be a party foul to technically "review" it, but I will say I was very happy to see it on the big screen. Director Paul Hough (THE BACKYARD) and star Eddie McGee (winner of the very first U.S. "Big Brother" show), both of whom I also worked with on the Fozzy music video "Enemy" (it's on Youtube, look it up), came down for the day and it's always fun to hang with those guys (pictured).

After a full day and night of working on a feature story, though, I was less in a mood to see movies and more in a mood to drink, downing four of Red Robin's "nuclear" ice teas before hitting up the documentary A SNOW MOBILE FOR GEORGE, mainly because I ran into the director in the media lounge and he said I should come. I always do what people tell me, sort of like Ella Enchanted.