Subject: Documentary Films

• Electric Cars Zapped to Life?

  We began our review of Who Killed the Electric Car? by describing the funeral that opens the new documentary. In his Newsweek column, Brad Stone does the same thing--before going on to say the funeral may have been premature.

  June 22, 2006

• Hardcore on Top

  American Hardcore, the documentary about the rapid-fire aggro punk that exploded in Orange County circa 1980 (we just wrote about the film here and here), was last week's No. 1 movie at Edwards University in Irvine. That, of course, means it'll be sticking around awhile longer for you tatted, jack-booted, leather-jacketed, chain-dangling, orange-spiked, tackle-box pierced captains of industry who have not seen it. Go already!

  October 3, 2006

• Get Sicko This Saturday - Updated

  Michael Moore's new film Sicko, a comedic documentary about the U.S. health care system, opens nationwide June 29—but this Saturday (June 23), the University Town Center theater will be hosting a special sneak preview, presumably to get ahead of all the bootlegs that have been leaking out. UPDATED:Show time is 7 p.m. Tickets are for sale at the box office, and online at Fandango. The theater is located at 4245 Campus Dr., Irvine.

  June 18, 2007

• LAFF 2007: Dancin' to the Jailhouse Doc

  June 23, 2007

• Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwrtten

  March 19, 2009

• NBFF: That's a wrap for 2008

  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 f

  May 5, 2008

• Darfur Now College Tour's SoCal Stop

  A documentary film and a concert will take place on UCLA's campus May 28 and 29, respectively, in order to raise funds and awareness for Darfur Now, which is committed to helping alleviate humanitarian problems stemming from the ongoing conflict in Darfur, Sudan. Press release after the cut. Trailer for Darfur Now, featuring George Clooney and Don Cheadle.

  May 8, 2008

• OC Filmmaker's Larry Norman Doc to Screen in Town Where Father of Christian Rock's Music Career Took Off

  Our cover story "Rock Angel: Garden Grove filmmaker David Di Sabatino is drawn to charismatic but damaged Christians. But nothing prepared him for Larry Norman" tells the story of the torture the director of Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher experienced making his follow-up documentary, Fallen Angel: The Outlaw Larry Norman.This following is posted on DiSabatino's Facebook page:My new documentary on the life of Larry Norman has just garnered early acceptance to the Cinequest film

  December 5, 2008

• Special Screenings

  Movie of the Week: New Year Baby

  January 17, 2008

• Bigger Than Life: Our Exclusive Preview of the Best (and Worst) at the Newport Beach Film Festival

  April 24, 2008

• KOCE Diocese of Orange Docu Blind To Reality

  One of my favorite channels is KOCE-TV Channel 50's OC Channel, available only on digital antennas (and have you changed your analog TV yet to satisfy the NWO?). It airs nothing but Orange County-related material--not just reruns of KOCE's Real Orange and Inside OC with Rick Reiff, but also weird infomercials and Chapman University-produced programs. But my favorite shows are OC-related documentaries--some years old, others not as much. I'll write about them as I see fit, but one deserves immedi

  January 19, 2009

• [Special Screenings] Local Showings of 'Iraq for Sale,' 'The Matrix,' More

  October 2, 2008

• [Special Screenings] Local Showings of 'The Mummy,' 'Fifth Element,' 'Network,' More

  November 6, 2008

• [Special Screenings] Local Showings of 'A Hard Day's Night,' 'The Big Lebowski,' 'A Christmas Story'

  December 4, 2008

• Compose Yourself

  January 8, 2009

• [Special Screenings] Local Screenings of 'Sir! No Sir' and More

  August 21, 2008

• [Special Screenings] Local Showings of 'Back to the Future,' 'Scarface,' More

  July 24, 2008

• Slow Boat

  June 19, 2008

• Go Pluck Yourself

  May 15, 2008

• [Special Screenings] Local Showings of 'El Brindis,' More

  April 10, 2008

• Agit-Docs

  May 20, 2004

• Twelve Films I'm Excited to See

  (And eight I plan to avoid like the plague)

  April 12, 2007

• Special Screenings

  The Princess Bride

  March 22, 2007

• The Awful Truth in Austin, Texas

  The case against Michael Moore and for B-list celebs at SXSW

  March 15, 2007

• Special Screenings

  Movie of the Week: Jacob's Ladder
  

  March 8, 2007

• Special Screenings

  Movie of the Week: The Execution of Private Slovik

  February 15, 2007

• Iraq's Cinema of Longing

  A conversation with director James Longley

  December 28, 2006

• Special Screenings

  Movie of the Week: The Searchers

  November 9, 2006

• Special Screenings

  Special 'choose your own movie of the week' week!

  November 2, 2006

• Special Screenings

  Movie(s) of the Week: A Bucket of Blood and Bride of Frankenstein

  October 26, 2006

• Special Screenings

  Movie of the Week: Repo Man
  

  August 10, 2006

• All Charged Up

  June 29, 2006

• Cult-Classic Cleavage

  June 8, 2006

• Troubled Man

  March 30, 2006

• Whassup? Docs!

  April 14, 2005

• Get Your Geek On

  April 14, 2005

• Both Sides Now

  June 17, 2004

• Lush Life

  May 27, 2004

• Newport Beach Film Festival: Schedule of events

  Compiled by Greg Stacy

  April 15, 2004

• Eight Must-sees

  April 15, 2004

• Picture Perfect

  August 15, 2002

• Newport Beach Film Festival 2002

  April 18, 2002

• Earth Day Gets the Shorts at Newport Beach Film Fest

  Blue Gold: World Water WarsEarth 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

  April 17, 2009

• Seraphine is Big Winner at Newport Beach Film Fest

  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 titu

  May 1, 2009

• Jonathan Rach's Documentary Reveals the True Side of the Warped Tour

  June 25, 2009

• NBFF Art and Architecture Films Get Another Local Screening

  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-ope

  June 25, 2009

• Laguna Film Society Gets Local

  For years, the Laguna Beach Film Society (LBFS) has presented foreign films and American independent features and documentaries to its members and non-members who attend screenings at South Coast Cinema or the Festival of Arts grounds. Keiko Beatie, formerly of the Newport Beach Film Festival (NBFF) and now with Cinema Paradiso, has helped curate these cultural events in recent years, and they have really brought the world to the tiny village community.But for the next LBFS event, the attention

  July 14, 2009

• UCI Fall Film Program Hosts Pedro Costa, Tsai Ming-Liang, Stanley Kubrick, Yes Men, Kirby Dick and Closeted Gay Politicians

  Kirby Dick is coming to Irvine to screen "Outrage," his documentary on closeted gay politicians.​UC Irvine's Film and Video Center was late in releasing details of its fall program because the FVC's tiny and tireless staff was unsure whether there would even be a program. (Thank you, UC system across-the-board budget cuts!)Not only will the show go on, it will feature an impressive lineup of new, classic and experimental fare. Included are a 41st anniversary screening of the late, great Stanle

  October 8, 2009

• Film Exposes Locals to WWI American Soldiers Known as the Polar Bears

  Dr. Peter Karpawhich, a Detroit area physician, plays a Bolshevik lieutenant firing a pistol at American soldiers as another re-enactor takes aim in waist-deep snow in "Voices of a Never Ending Dawn."​Voices of a Never Ending Dawn, a documentary on the 5,500 young American soldiers who were unexpectedly chosen to fight the first Communists in Northern Russia while the rest of World War I was being waged in France in other parts of Europe, makes its West Coast premiere Wednesday at Chapman Univ

  September 29, 2009

• Wax On, Wax Off: "Echo Beach" Available on DVD

  Echo Beach, a documentary film about the contagious, raucous surf scene that rooted itself in Newport Beach in the 1980s, is finally available on DVD. We've spent a lot of time looking at the Echo Beach era of Orange County's surf culture. There was the touring schedule of last year's documentary film of the same name (see blog post from July 31st), and there was the Echo Beach Retrospective event at the Standard Hotel in LA on (see blog post from August 10th). We've even interviewed collect

  September 23, 2009