ACCESS SACRAMENTO presents New Scriptwriting Class - PCS 2010 By popular demand, we now offer special a scriptwriting class (three Saturdays, 10am - 2pm) on writing "short form" film scripts. Polish your PCS entry or take the short course to further your film writing skills. Limited enrollment - $50 fee per session. Register in advance at Access Sacramento by calling (916) 456-8600 "0" with a credit card. Need not be an Access Sacramento member or Sacramento County resident to sign-up for this class. Sign-up early - class will fill fast. Matt is in great demand as a script writing teacher.  The “Place Called Sacramento” script entry deadline is Monday, April 19th, at noon.   Saturdays -

The second Amber's Sweets Repo! The Genetic Opera shadowcast performance took place Saturday at Sacramento’s historic Colonial Theater. The film was projected onto the stage while actors re-enacted the film using special effects, audience interaction and aerial acrobatics.   However, it was not for the faint of heart or stomach. The movie features scenes of disembowelment, sexual innuendo and nudity, so likewise the shadowcast performance had skimpy clothing, swearing, and blood and guts.   There was also a special performance by the film’s co-creator Darren Smith at the beginning of the set. Smith took the stage with his wife, Nancy, who plays Dead Marni in the film, and sang a medley.

  Disclaimer: the contributor of this and his wife run Movies on a Big Screen, Sacramento’s weekly screening series of documentaries, general independent film, classics and cult titles. The following is blatant self-promotion of a MOBS event. On Sunday, February 21, 2010 at 7:30 PM, Movies on a Big Screen will be presenting the documentary, Independents: A Guide to the Creative Spirit and director Chris Brandt will be in attendance for a Q&A. Additionally, local comic book artists, along with local artist, Skinner (who’s short film will also be shown) are scheduled to be there. See the end of this "article" for the full line-up of who's currently scheduled. This will all take place at Th

The sun was finally making a comeback in Sacto.  My girl and I decided we wanted to see a movie, so we went to the Tower Theater.  First, we walked around the Old Land Park neighborhood to soak up a little sun and outdoors, then went to the movie. Crazy Heart is a story about a country singer who has come to a point in his life where change is coming, but he doesn't want it, at first.  Jeff Bridges is Bad Blake, and he was once a popular country star, but now he drives his old GMC across the Southwest, playing in bowling alleys and honky tonk bars.  I was at once reminded of a country singer I knew as a kid in Sacramento when I played the drums in my garage that looked out at a gravel roa

Wagner Media Group presents a reading of its latest film project, For the Love of Ivy, Sunday, January 17th at the Big Idea Theatre, 1616 Del Paso Blvd., Sacramento at 2 pm. For the Love of Ivy is a bi-racial love story, told in flashbacks, that begins a few days prior to the arrest of Rosa Parks, on December 1st, 1955. The central character, Ivy, is a young black maid who has impressed Tyler Madison and his wife June, who have just moved to a small Southern town from the more liberal North. Author John Wagner has made his story very topical by framing it with scenes of President Obama being sworn into office in the beginning and the end. We see Ivy as an elderly woman who can’t believe

Sacramento turned into the new Hollywood this week. At several locations scattered throughout the downtown area, Deon Taylor Enterprises has been busy filming their next big-budget comedy/thriller movie. The crew spent two nights filming on K Street around the 2300 block and scattered along J Street. The last day of filming, December 17, wrapped in the industrial warehouse district off Richards Boulevard. “As a filmmaker, when I write the scripts, I know where I can get a certain look at,” said director, writer and producer Deon Taylor, a Sacramento resident. “If I want water, I know the Delta is close by. For a colder, darker feel, I come to Richards Boulevard.” This is the fourth movi

Rodolfo Huerta, lucha libre wrestler and one of Mexico's most beloved film icons, is known as El Santo, or "The Saint." What's surprising though, is that the masked wrestler-cum-actor lived up to his exalted moniker on and off the screen. El Santo "saved" the Mexican film industry as it was on its deathbed, creating films that drew patrons back to the big screens, said Fred Dobb, film curator at La Raza Galeria Posada. When El Santo died in 1984 at the age of 66, thousands watched as the famous actor/wrestler was buried in his signature silver mask. For one week, starting Monday, La Raza Galeria Posada will show an El Santo film every night. The free series is sponsored by the Consulate

Free Sugar Bowl lift ticket and the chance to meet Forum Snowboards Pro Team Riders included in $10 ticket price. With a dusting of snow in the mountains around Lake Tahoe already and the promise of an El Niño-fueled season on the way, Sierra Snowboard is celebrating the start of winter with an anniversary sale Oct. 24-25, and the Sacramento-area premiere of Forum Snowboarding’s latest release, “Forum Forever” on Oct. 24 at 7 p.m. Riders and skiers looking to gear up for the 2009-10 season will want to arrive early for Sierra Snowboard’s anniversary sale Oct. 24-25, as the first 100 shoppers in the door each day will receive a free Core Card from Sugar Bowl Resort — good for one free 2

Zombie films work on one basic principle: catharsis. The unbridled joy of putting oneself in the blood-caked boots of the movies' protagonists as they discover new and creative ways to bring the walking dead to a satisfyingly gruesome demise is what has kept the genre (ahem) alive since George Romero first applied makeup to severely underpaid extras in 1968's "Night of the Living Dead." With "Shaun of the Dead" a few years ago, undead flicks got an unsolicited but hilarious reanimation by mixing slapstick comedy into the genre's already darkly humorous styling. Enter "Zombieland." Though a zombie comedy (now a bonafide subgenre with its own portmanteau: zomcom) like its British counterpar

This fall the Crocker Art Museum will host a daylong festival of contemporary films by female directors exploring the roles of Japanese and Japanese American women. Held to coincide with the Crocker’s exhibit of contemporary ceramics by Japanese women, Soaring Voices, the festival will include four film screenings at the Guild Theater, located at 2828 35th Street, on Saturday, October 17. Local filmmakers, artists and scholars will introduce and offer insight on each film. “Soaring Voices tells the story of Japanese women breaking into the male-only ceramic world, and these films expand on that story by looking at the position of women in Japanese society as a whole,” commented Christian

We at the Sacramento Press have already spent several hundred words poking and prodding you readers to imbibe in the blood-soaked, cleavage-filled, heavy-metal hilarity that is the Trash Film Orgy. Now, we have escalated to drastic measures and must insist that you attend the last TFO screening of the season Saturday at the Crest Theatre -- at the stroke of midnight. If you have ever yelled at your television, scoffed at overacting, jeered at cornball love scenes, marveled at excessive violence and explosions or shrieked with laughter at super low-budget special effects, the TFO is for you. For the last nine summers, TFO has shared its impressive collection of exploitation, grindhouse and

Sacramento's first Outdoor Film Festival opened Saturday night, showing "Rebal without a Cause", starring James Dean. According to Robert Hayes, president of Creative Projection Services, " The SOFF (Sacramento Outdoor Film Festival( will feature state-of-the-art projection and sound to create the most mind-blowing outdoor cinema experience you have ever experienced. This will include an outdoor 5.1 surround sound system for our last screening August 29th. As far as we know this will be a Sacramento first." Every night, Chavez Park opens at 5pm. Hoppy Brewing Co. supplies all the beer, wine, soft drinks, hotdogs and popcorn that you can stuff in your mouth. The movie begins at 9pm.

Beginning Saturday, Cesar Chavez Park will host the first inaugural Sacramento Outdoor Film Festival, produced by Creative Projection Services and its subsidiary, Sacramento Outdoor Movies. Starting at 5 p.m. and running every Saturday in August, the festival will provide food, fun and games for all those attending, with a movie at 9 p.m. to close out the night. This week's featured film is Rebel Without a Cause, the 1950s classic drama starring James Dean and Natalie Wood. Other festivities include various sponsor booths for home theater supplies and computer games, a video game competition, and Sacramento's Hoppy Brewing Co. will host a beer garden with food and drinks for the event.

The ninth annual TRASH FILM ORGY series is halfway done, with three weeks remaining in this year's blood-soaked rock & roll monster extravaganza! If you haven't had a chance to visit this year's TFO, you already missed FLASH GORDON, SATAN'S CHEERLEADERS and CHOPPING MALL...but it's not over yet! This week's offering is the original theatrical version of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER! If you haven't been to the Trash Film Orgy before, it is more than just a movie--it is a whole experience! The "Trash Action Sideshow" features fun activities in the lobby, the "Retro-Trash Lounge" features entertaining artifacts from RETROCRUSH.COM, and pre-show and intermission on-stage performances and contests

Babe the sheep-herding pig and his talking farm friends will revisit the big screen Saturday night at East Portal Park in East Sacramento. The '90s classic Babe is the first film to be featured at Sacramento's fifth Screen on the Green free movie series, held in different local neighborhood parks for four consecutive Saturdays in August. Founded by City Councilman Steve Cohn, Screen on the Green has grown immensely in attendance each year since it first began five years ago, said District Director Sue Brown. Although anyone is welcome to attend, the films are geared toward families. Last year's films included Charlotte's Web, Hairspray, Ratatouille and The Goonies. Screen on the Green i

The race is on as local filmmakers scramble to produce a 10-minute film in less than 10 days. This year marks the sixth annual 10 x 10 filmmaker's challenge, and the theme is 'milestones and markers.' Local filmmakers, actors and film crew members form teams annually to compete in the challenge, using the year's specified theme and an assigned prop to create a 10-minute-long film in 10 days. The films will be presented in a three-hour gap during the closing weekend of the 10th Sacramento Film and Music festival at the Crest Theatre on August 1. Submissions will be judged by a jury for overall production quality. Participants showed up Thursday evening at the Crest Theatre to find out th

A man wearing a red beret, spandex shorts, black motorcycle boots and a black leather vest posed for photos, and local DJs Christophe and Roger spun French music in the background at the Crest lobby during the opening reception of the Eighth Sacramento French Film Festival Friday night. Meanwhile, French film enthusiasts sampled wine, cheese, chocolate fondue, wraps and flatbreads from local restaurants and businesses. The man’s unmistakably French attire may have caught your eye while passing this year’s SFFF posters around town, on which he appears equipped with a Martian helmet and an Eiffel Tower gun wearing the same costume, with the words “It came from Bordeaux!” above him and a spa

"French trash" vacationers, a late-in-life marriage, a self-taught painter gone mad and Beauty and the Beast will take to the screen at the Crest Theatre this weekend. Usually occurring in July, the eighth Sacramento French Film festival has an early start this year with its opening reception tomorrow night. The festival is held annually at the Crest Theatre as a project of the Alliance Française de Sacramento; it will run Friday through Sunday this weekend and Saturday and Sunday next weekend. Cecile Downs, co-founder of the SFFF, said the festival's selection will include comedies, dramas and thrillers as well as "midnight movies" — one is the erotic film A l’Aventure by Jean-Claude Br

UP ALL NITE is an entertainment and nightlife show described as entertaining and edgy. The show is produced by Deon Taylor Enterprises, a film and TV studio that’s shaking up the entertainment scene locally and nationally. The 30-minute, Entertainment Tonight style show features a celebrity host, Craig Jackson host of VH1's I Love Money, guest celebrities and field reporters covering the hippest entertainment, music, nightclub, restaurant, sports, fashion and pop culture news in the Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto broadcast markets. UP ALL NITE has inked a deal with News10 to air there. The show’s exact time slot is 1:07am early thursday mornings.Episode 1 debuted May 7th.   Director Deon Tay

With Esquire IMAX Theatre's summer dinner deal, Netflix and Blockbuster rentals might sit around unwatched for a few extra days. Starting Sunday, May 10, diners who have spent $20 or more at any downtown or midtown restaurant can see one of three movies for only $5. Dinosaurs Alive 3D, African Adventure 3D and Under the Sea 3D are all available for $5 as long as guests bring along their receipt from dinner. For the other films that are being shown, including Monsters vs. Aliens 3D, Night at the Museum 2, Star Trek or Transformers 2, guests can receive a $5 discount off the full-price ticket. The offer lasts until Monday, August 20, and is valid all days of the week except Saturday at th