She Likes to Watch

Hankering for a dose of digital media?
The Short Attention Span Digital Video Festival is back for a sixth year of funny, fascinating and moving short films.
Sponsored by Cuesta College, the festival showcases digital films — one to 20 minutes long — by students from around the world. Organizers work with the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival.
Catch the first screening this Thursday at the Palm Theatre, 817 Palm Ave., in San Luis Obispo. Tickets are $10.

Here’s a sampling of the 17 short films you’ll see at Short Attention Span:

“Snip Crunch”: A pack of scissor wolves hunt for their paper sheep lunch.

“Eternal High”: A teenager captures his true-life struggle with depression and thoughts of suicide on film.

“Sailing the Star of India”: Modern men and women explain why they sail on the world’s oldest working tall ship in this film about the Star of India, the Maritime Museum of San Diego’s star attraction.

“SI SE PUEDE!?”: A mini-documentary covers the May 1, 2006, immigrant march in Los Angeles, combining sights and sounds with music and the spoken word.

“Plight of the Windie: Birds of Mystery”: This three-minute mockumentary tells the amazing tale of an endangered species of birds. The birds are plastic and powered by rubber bands but their owners don’t seem to notice.

“ORIZURU”: A forbidden love lost in the atomic ashes of Hiroshima.

“My Name Is Wallace”: A lonely, mentally challenged man finds love and redemption with a sex hotline operator.

Short Attention Span will screen more films on Nov. 8 at the Palm Theatre. The festival is also sponsoring November screenings in Los Angeles and Boston.

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Monty Python fans will want to catch John Cleese at UC Santa Barbara next week.
Cleese will introduce a screening of “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” on Tuesday, May 1. The comedian, co-creator of Britain’s famous “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” and star of “Fawlty Towers” and “A Fish Called Wanda,” will also answer questions about the classic, controversial “Life of Brian” after the film.
Tickets are $20, $10 for UC Santa Barbara students. Visit the event Web site for more details.

Now those crazy Rubes are going to need a limo driver, an agent and a SAG card.

The characters from Leigh Rubin’s syndicated comic debuted on the big screen over the weekend, appearing in a movie screened at the Newport Beach Film Festival.

Rubin’s characters, which he draws daily from his home in Nipomo, kick off the movie “Moola.”

“The animated ‘Rubes’ run for the first 3 minutes of the movie,” Rubin wrote in an e-mail last week. “The entire title-credit sequence.”

“Moola” is directed by Don Most, known to many as Ralph Malph from “Happy Days.” The film stars Daniel Baldwin (“Homicide: Life on the Street”), William Mapother (“Lost”), Efren Ramirez (“Napolean Dynamite”) and Treat Williams (“Once Upon a Time in America.”) According to the Moola web site, the film is based on actual events. It tells the story of Steve and Harry, whose failing company lands the “deal of a lifetime” to bring their business and lives out of the dumps — with the help of dairy cows in heat and greedy moguls.

The partnership between “Rubes” and “Moola” resulted, Rubin said, when a friend overheard a conversation at a café in San Clemente.

Worldwide distribution is being sought for the film. Meanwhile, Rubin continues to draw his comic strip, which appears in more than 400 newspapers daily. His cartoons, often featuring animals (and sometimes cavemen), also grace T-shirts, mugs, calendars and books.

Rubin said audience members responded well to the film’s debut. Better yet, his youngest son scored autographs from Most and the cast.

- Pat P.

Love bikes? Love movies?
HopeDance Magazine is looking for original short films to screen at its Bike Film Festival in May.
The movies should be 10 minutes long or less and promote a strong pro-bike or anti-car message.
According to the magazine, “We’re not looking for art here, just a good old propaganda that will move the audience to go home and set fire to their SUVs and Hummers.”
HopeDance offers prizes for the top three films: $150 in cash, a $100 gift certificate to The ARTery in Atascadero and a $50 gift certificate to Wally’s Bicycle Works in San Luis Obispo.
Mail DVDs to HopeDance Magazine, P.O. Box 15069, San Luis Obispo, CA 93406.
Submissions are due this Friday, April 20.

HopeDance’s National Bike Month event will run May 18 and 19, featuring the films “Contested Streets” and “Pedal,” Peter Sullivan’s documentary about New York City bike messengers.
Organizers are also planning a “World Naked Bike Ride” on May 17, starting at the parking lot of Utopia European Bakery Cafe, 2900 Broad St. in San Luis Obispo.
Contact HopeDance Magazine at 544-9663 for more information.

– Sarah L.

Looking for movies that move you, change you and make you think?
Check out HopeDance Films, the local movie series sponsored by San Luis Obispo’s HopeDance Magazine, dedicated to environmental and social issues.
Each movie addresses a separate social issue and costs $7 or less.
The series continues tonight with at 7 p.m. with “Born Into Brothels,” the Oscar-winning documentary about the children of prostitutes in Calcutta’s notorious red light district. In the movie, filmmakers Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman teach the children to take photographs of their poverty-stricken surroundings, giving them hope of a better life.
“Born Into Brothels” is being screened in connection to Cal Poly’s Diversity Awareness Film Festival.
Like all films in the HopeDance series, the movie will be shown at the San Luis Obispo City-County Library, 995 Palm St. in San Luis Obispo. Tickets are $5.

HopeDance Films continues this month with the following films:

FRIDAY
“Black Gold,” 7 p.m.
Filmmakers Nick and Marc Francis follow an Ethiopian coffee grower as he struggles to find fair trade in an industry dominated by multinational corporations. $7.

SATURDAY
“America: From Freedom to Fascism,” 7 p.m.
Aaron Russo connects the creation of the Federal Reserve system to the loss of civil liberties in America. $5.

APRIL 20
“Planet Earth,” 7 p.m.
Celebrate Earth Day with parts one and two of the Discovery Channel series about our planet’s natural splendor and diversity, narrated by David Attenborough. Free.

APRIL 21
“Planet Earth,” 7 p.m.
The Earth Day celebration continues with parts three and four of “Planet Earth.” Free.

APRIL 27
“Dark Water Rising,” 7 p.m.
Filmmaker Mike Shiley, who wrote and directed the acclaimed documentary “Inside Iraq,” looks at volunteers’ efforts to rescue thousands of pets in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. $6

Learn more at HopeDance Magazine’s Web site

- Sarah L.

As we watched news footage this morning of Johnny Cash’s Tennessee home going up in flames, my boyfriend turned to me and said, “Yet another reason to hate the Bee Gees.”
“Hate” might be a strong word for my feelings toward Barry Gibb, falsetto siren of the ’70s with such classics as “Stayin’ Alive” and “Night Fever.” (I do harbor some resentment for his part in kickstarting John Travolta’s career.)
But I wasn’t happy to hear that the fire started while the home that J.R. and June shared for more than three decades was undergoing renovations for Gibb, its new owner.
According to authorities in Hendersonville, Tenn., the flames spread quickly because construction crews had applied a wood preservative to the house’s walls.
Adding insult to injury is the fact that the Bee Gee purchased the property just last year with plans of using it — not as a museum — but as a vacation home during hurricane season. Miami, it seems, gets too breezy for him.
With the destruction of the Cash family’s home, we lose relics, physical remnants of a country legend. This three-story house by the lake was where Johnny Cash made music, kicked back and mended a life torn by drug abuse, hurtful habits and the pressures of fame.
He walked these halls with his children and, later, alone while making the Grammy-winning video for his cover of the Nine Inch Nails song “Hurt.” He probably penned part of his signature autobiography in these wood-and-marble rooms.
All those memories. Up in smoke.
It’s a shame it had to come during Barry Gibb’s watch.