CORRECTION, DEC. 12, 9:50 A.M.: No, it was not a bank of dead batteries that prevented filmmaker Chris Paine and his new documentary Revenge of the Electric Car from showing up as advertised (by . . . gulp . . . me) at the Art Theatre in Long Beach Sunday. As it turns out, that event was Dec. 4.
My apologies to Paine, the Art and the many, many pissed off folks who apparently shared their displeasure about the missing film and filmmaker with staff and management and the historic theater.
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ORIGINAL POST, DEC. 9, 4:01 P.M.: A lot has changed since 2006, when Chris Paine made Who Killed the Electric Car?
Car makers, many in or with strong Orange County ties, are actually
turning out the things. Hybrids that can be plugged into home outlets
are poised to become the next best thing. And real, serious, honest to
goodness research into future generations of automobiles cleaner than
electrics is under way.
Sounds like someone needs to make a follow-up documentary. Paine's done just that.
Making Revenge of the Electric Car took Paine and his film crew behind the closed
doors of GM, Nissan and the Silicon Valley start-up Tesla Motors to
chronicle the story of the global resurgence of electric cars.
“Without
using a single drop of foreign oil, this new generation of car is
America's future: fast, furious, and cleaner than ever,” reads the press materials for the film Vanity Fair called “riveting . . . highly entertaining.”
Narrated by Tim Robbins, Revenge of the Electric Car shows what had been a rush to kill the cleaner vehicles in the first film has in five short years become a race to be the first, the best and the most popular electric car maker. It's actually a worldwide phenomenon, as automakers in China are as invested in the race as their American, Japanese and South Korean counterparts.
Among those who appear on screen in Revenge of the Electric Car are CEO and President of Renault and Nissan Carlos Ghosn, CEO of
Tesla Motors Elon Musk, Former Vice Chairman of GM Bob Lutz and EV
do-it-yourselfer Greg “Gadget” Abbott.
Among those appearing at the historic Art Theatre in Long Beach for Sunday, DEC. 4's special noon screening WAS Paine, who participated in a Q&A with an audience treated to the sight of electric cars on display.
For more on the event:
My earlier interview with Paine:
My take on his previous film:
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.