Sundance Film Festival

UCI's 14th Annual Latin American Film Festival Starts Today!

Orange County has been really good to us cinephiles lately. Apart from the Vietnamese International Film Festival, the ongoing Newport Beach Film Festival, and the Cinema Orange series at OCMA, we now rejoice as UC Irvine hold its 14th annual Latin American Film Festival this week. It's a modest fe ... More >>

'OCC Shorts' Stands Tall

College program celebrates 10 years at Newport Beach Film Festival

Local Films Get Their Due at NBFF

Works by Cherie Kerr, Joseph Armario, Doug Penikas, among others, make appearances alongside Jon Carnoy and Michael Horelick's skateboard doc

Drake Doremus' Breathe In Wins National Distribution; Fourth-Quarter Release Set

We told you last month about Santa Ana native Drake Doremus' film Breathe In getting picked up for international distribution. Now, the other distribution shoe has dropped.

Berlin Discoveries

Greatness emerges at the year's first major film festival

Berlin Discoveries: Greatness Emerges at the Year's First Major Film Festival

Chasing Ice

Art Theatre

International Rights Picked Up for Breathe In from OC's Drake Doremus and Ben York Jones

Breathe In, the latest film from former Orange County theater wunderkinds Drake Doremus and Ben York Jones, has been picked up for non-North American distribution following its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival last month.

What You Need to Know From Sundance

The fest's best are the films to watch in the year ahead.

Park City's Breakouts

The movies to know from Sundance—and the year ahead

Sundance 2013: Sex with James Franco, Sultry Scarlett Johansson and Daniel Radcliffe's Jew-Fro

Sundance 2013: America's Black Indie Film Renaissance

Cherie Kerr, OC Crazies Founder, Bowls for Big Screen Strike and Fest Bid with We've Got Balls

Spooner, the first feature film from Santa Ana and Newport Beach born and raised filmmaker Drake Doremus (Douchebag, Like Crazy), played at the Lido Theatre during the April 2009 Newport Beach Film Festival.The director cut his incisors as a youth making original children's plays that he staged at h ... More >>

Drake Doremus and Ben York Jones Prepare to Breathe In Sundance Film Fest Again

Home is swell, but ff Orange County-raised filmmakers Drake Doremus and Ben York Jones really want to feel the love, they go to Utah--Park City to be more precise and the Sundance Film Festival to be preciser.It was announced Monday that Breathe In, the latest independent film directed by Doremus wi ... More >>

Ava DuVernay's Moment Becomes a Movement

The 'Middle of Nowhere' writer/director looks to the future of black film

Julie Delpy Rocks 'New York'

Always more than an ingenue, she's taking on everything that's wrong with movies—and she's bringing Chris Rock

Is 'Compliance' an Exploitation Film

Craig Zobel on documenting sexual degradation—with humanity

Cool Films to Watch When It's Hot Outside

[Summer Guide 2012] Your guide to the good stuff

Will Drake Doremus' Like Crazy Sell and Rent Like You-Know-What on DVD and Blu Ray?

​Orange-born, Santa Ana-raised filmmaker Drake Doremus' 2011 movie Like Crazy is available starting today on DVD and Blu Ray. Co-written by Doremus and Corona del Mar's Ben York Jones, Like Crazy is the most adult of the filmmaker's three features (the other two being Spooner and Douchebag).

Sundance, In Crisis

The 2012 fest was thick with the anxieties of our times

Kevin Smith Screens Red State Twice Tonight; Co-Writer Ben York Jones Rolls Like Crazy

​Director Kevin Smith continues his Red State barnstorming in Long Beach tonight, presenting the Westboro Baptistesque shoot 'em up twice--and sticking around each time to take audience questions. Meanwhile, over in Newport Beach, there's a members-only screening of Santa Ana-bred filmmaker Drake ... More >>

'Martha Marcy May Marlene' Is About People Who Need People

The Sundance winner focuses on the perils of communal living

Fred Durst Douchebag vs. Drake Doremus Douchebag

Douchebag the movie.​Before Drake Doremus' Like Crazy won the dramatic Grand Jury Prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival, the Orange-born writer-director's previous dramedy Douchebag was nominated in the same category at the same prestigious event the year before. Now, as reported earlier on ... More >>

Sundance Surprise Terri Opens in Irvine Today

​Time trip back to January, when Corona del Mar actor Ben York Jones was blogging for the Weekly from the 2011 Sundance Film Festival (when he wasn't taking bows for the U.S. Dramatic Competition winner he co-wrote with Santa Ana-bred Drake Doremus, Like Crazy).A film that Jones caught by the fest ... More >>

[UPDATED with Quickie Review:] 12 Local Documentaries Worth a Look at the Newport Beach Film Festival

​UPDATE, APRIL 29, 5:15 P.M.: Just finished watching the short documentary on Orange County naturalist Joel Robinson at Triangle Square and, I gotta tell you, it left me wanting to know more.Directors Jonathan Formica, Celesta Giaimo, Mj Lat and Alexandra Santoro present an eye-opening look at ar ... More >>

Newport Beach Film Festival: Programmers' Picks!

A dozen of the finest the fest has to offer

'Spooner' Is Love Crazy

Recently crowned Sundance king Drake Doremus' early promise is evident in his directorial debut

'The King's Speech' Is Oscar Mild

Indie-darling Academy Award nominees no match for the most old-fashioned film

Drake Doremus' Debut, Spooner, Opens March 4

Matthew Lillard plays Herman Spooner.​Like Crazy, Drake Doremus' third film, was picked up by a division of Paramount Pictures at January's Sundance Film Festival for theatrical release this fall. Douchebag, Doremus' second film, was bought after the previous Sundance and had a short theatrical ru ... More >>

Into the Mystic

Cults and the uncertain futures dominate Sundance

Sundancing With Ben York Jones and Like Crazy

The huge film festival success through the eyes of its co-writer, an OC boy

Like Crazy at Sundance: WE WON!!!!!!

​There's a lot of recapping to be done, but before anything else, last night--WE WON THE GRAND JURY PRIZE!!!!!!! The big one! Not only that, Felicity was awarded a Special Jury Prize for Best Actress! A prize is not given every year, unless deemed appropriate. The whole team was in disbelief. For ... More >>

Like Crazy, Indie Drama From OC's Drake Doremus and Ben York Jones, Wins Sundance Grand Jury Prize

​Like Crazy, the little indie darling at Sundance by former Santa Anan and second-time U.S. Dramatic Competition entrant Drake Doremus, won the prestigious film festival's grand jury prize last night.Co-written by Doremus and his childhood friend Ben York Jones, a Chapman University film school gr ... More >>

Sundance Is the Re-Discovery Channel

The Utah film festival's prodigal children return

Like Crazy at Sundance: Let's Get Social

​It's madness to think how fast the week has gone. Friday, and I'm still pinching myself, expecting to wake up. An informal study I've been conducting via highly advanced methods of verbal interaction (having a conversation, some call it) seems to indicate most filmmakers here, including myself, a ... More >>

Like Crazy at Sundance: 36 Hours I Will Never Forget

​I don't know where to begin. From a chatty 3 a.m. sardine car ride with indie-film gurus Greg Araki and Richard Linklater to nearly missing the premiere of Like Crazy (the film I co-wrote) to selling our film for distribution to Paramount the night of its world premiere, it has possibly been the ... More >>

[UPDATED] Like Crazy, Latest Film From OC-Bred Drake Doremus and Ben York Jones, Is First Sundance Sale

​UPDATE, JAN. 23, 2:51 P.M.: The reaction to Like Crazy getting picked up from Ben York Jones:"I'm completely overwhelmed. I don't think anyone here with the film has gotten more than an hour or two of sleep in the past 36 hours. Those negotiating were up all night doing so, and the rest of us w ... More >>

Ben York Jones and His Chapman Pals Storm Sundance

​The Weekly introduced readers to actor Ben York Jones a year ago, right after the Corona del Mar resident and his childhood pal, filmmaker Drake Doremus, stormed the 2010 Sundance Film Festival with their dramedy Douchebag.Jones returns to Park City, Utah, with Doremus' new indie-drama, Like Craz ... More >>

How Do You Know?

Is what you think is real really real?

Meet the Real Mary Barger, Drake Doremus' 5th Grade Girlfriend and Douchebag Muse

The real Mary Barger, in fifth grade.​Former Santa Ana resident Drake Doremus' Douchebag, the critical darling of January's Sundance Film Festival, opens today* at Regency's South Coast Village across from South Coast Plaza. The dramedy is about douchey Sam Nussbaum who, on the eve of his wedding, ... More >>

Long Beach Q Film Festival

Art Theatre

8: The Mormon Proposition

Art Theatre

[UPDATED:] Meet the Director of the Best Hasdic Jew Pill Pusher Movie Out There

UPDATE: See details about the "Holy Rollers" article that likely spurred the Holy Rollers movie--and the article's zero degrees of separation from OC Weekly--after the jump . . . Yosef (Justin Bartha, left) eases Sam (Jesse Eisenberg) into drug trafficking in Holy Rollers.​Director Kevin Asch, who ... More >>

Drake Doremus' Douchebag Wins U.S. Distribution, to be in Theaters This September

​The Weekly in January followed Douchebag, the indie dramedy about estranged brothers on an unlikely pre-wedding road trip, to the 2010 Sundance Film Festival in Utah, where the buzz was deafening for former Santa Ana resident Drake Doremus' touching and amusing picture.Despite no budget, no big- ... More >>

Today in Music News: "Runaways" Rocks Sundance, Ticketmaster-Live Nation Merger Blows, Wilco, Jack White

Watch Dakota Fanning (as Cherie Currie) "snort drugs" in Runaways--"the movie, about the all-girl teenage rock band of the same name co-founded by Joan Jett in the 1970s, debuted here at the Sundance Film Festival late Sunday to solid reviews, and it hits movie theaters this coming March."Like we ... More >>

Sundance Report: Sitting on a Bus With Colin Hanks

"Orange County" star​From a Friday morning plane ride to Salt Lake City with Todd Lowe to a Saturday afternoon bus ride through Park City with Colin Hanks. Since it's a confirmed fact everything happens in threes, one wonders what the next mode of transportation/young star combo will b ... More >>

Frozen 
Earplugs

Screaming Masterpiece

Where Dank Lives

ASRs little bro, Agenda, does just fine hawking board-sports gear in a chilly warehouse

True Believers

High art and low commerce at the Sundance Film Festival