The Frida Cinema and its upstairs LGBT neighbor the Center OC's Center on 4th are not only the most delicious pancake being served on Fourth Street in Santa Ana. They are also co-producers! Both kick off their new “CinemaCO4” monthly series of LGBT-themed films tonight with the documentary Do I Sound Gay?, which is booked for a one-week engagement.
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Journalist David Thorpe confronts his anxiety over “sounding gay” by talking to such gay icons as Dan Savage, George Takei and David Sedaris as well as exploring the cultural history of “the gay voice” in film and television. (Bonus points to any kid out there who can tell me who Alan Sues was.)
Entertainment Weekly has already deemed Do I Sound Gay? one of the must-see documentaries of summer 2015, so there you have it: marching orders. I mean, who doesn't do everything EW tells them to do?
The film screens at 6, 8 and 9:45 tonight. Want to make a really fun, full night of it? Take your ticket stub from the 6 p.m. screening upstairs to Center on 4th's “I'm Not an Angel” transgender fashion show, which begins right after the film ends, and get $5 off the regular $10 general admission. Or, take your “I'm Not an Angel” ticket to Frida's 9:45 p.m. screening of Do I Sound Gay?, which begins right after the fashion show ends, and you and your date get two-for-one entrance.
But what about food, you're asking? Flash your ticket stub from any Frida Cinema screening gets you 20 percent off food at Wursthaus, which also serves eclectic beers.
After Friday, you can catch Do I Sound Gay? at …
Saturday, July 25 – 1:30pm*, 4pm, 6pm, 8pm, 9:45pm
Sunday, July 26 – 1:30pm*, 4pm, 6pm, 8pm, 9:45pm
Monday, July 27 – 6pm, 8pm, 9:45pm
Tuesday, July 28 – 6pm, 8pm, 9:45pm
Wednesday, July 29 – 6pm, 8pm, 9:45pm
Thursday, July 30 – 6pm, 8pm, 9:45pm*7 weekend matinee
The CinemaCO4 series screenings continue the last weekend of every month, picking up on Friday, Aug. 28, with the beloved 1972 musical classic Cabaret. Really? A war picture? During a LGBT series? I don't get it …
Anyway, these shindigs include drinks being sold to 21+ guests, with proceeds benefiting the Center on 4th, which is a satellite location for the fabulous Center OC, the leading LGBT resource center in all of Orange County. Also a shout out to attorney Bill Ihrke of Costa Mesa firm Rutan N Tucker LLP, whose “generous support” is making CinemaCO4 possible.
For tickets and more information, visit https://www.facebook.com/events/1458372007799971/.
In other documentary-at-the-Frida news, the run of Cartel Land has been extended through July 30, and for good reason: It smashed the theater's Saturday and Sunday records for most tickets sold to a non-special-event.
From Oscar-winning producer Kathryn Bigelow and director Matthew Heineman, the brutal doc about the Mexican drug war focuses on Tim “Nailer” Foley, the leader of Arizona Border Recon, and Dr. José Mireles, a Michoacán-based physician who leads the Autodefensas. The film won Best Director and Special Jury Award for Cinematography in the 2015 Sundance Film Festival U.S. Documentary Competition Awards.
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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.