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.
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.