Five Austrian guys fly into LA, buy used cars and drive down to Costa Rica—surfing along the way with plans, once they arrive at their destination, of selling the vehicles so they can afford to stay put and surf some more. Michael Ginthor's metaphysical road picture has a '70s feel and fine surf footage, but it's the characters met along the way—including a leather-faced gent who surfs by day and says the most profound things around the campfire at night—that make it stand out. An award-winner at April's Newport Beach Film Festival, Zen N Zero is screened in Surf City with all sound effects, dialog and music performed live by the film's Austrian composer, Herwig Maurer (didn't he win the Olympic downhill?), and his LA-based group New World Revolution.
Pierside Surf City, Main St. N PCH (across the street from Huntington Beach Pier), Huntington Beach, (714) 842-4338; www.bigredprod.com. Thurs., June 8, 7 N 9 p.m. $9.25.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.