More exclusive video! Chris Montez and Sid Jacobs perform 'All of Me' at the Pacific Palisades Film Festival

Thanks to the wonders of the Flip video camera, there's another clip of Chris Montez and Sid Jacobs performing at the Pacific Palisades Film Festival on Saturday night, following the hit outdoor preview screening of Frozen Pictures' El Viaje Musical de Ezekiel Montanez: The Chris Montez Story. Here, the Sixties pop icon and the master jazz guitarist, composer, instructor and recording artist work their magic on All of Me.


In the words of Chris Montez: "Life is fun, and fun is life."

Exclusive video! Chris Montez's triumph at the Pacific Palisades Film Festival

A crowd-pleasing screening of The Chris Montez Story, followed by an intimate live concert by the Sixties pop icon himself, made for a rousing close to the seventh annual Pacific Palisades Film Festival Saturday night.

The spectacular success of the event where Sunset Boulevard meets the Pacific, coming on the heels of an historic, emotional opening night in which actress Frances Fisher was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award, was even more impressive coming after a year of financial and scheduling uncertainties that had founder Bob Sharka considering canceling this year's celebration of young filmmakers and veteran stars.


Saturday's cocktail party and outdoor screening took place at a magnificent private home in the exclusive Huntington Palisades. The program began with the short film A .45 at 50th, a surprisingly funny recounting of actor James Cromwell's experience with the Black Panther Party, followed by a never-seen 45-minute working cut of El Viaje Musical de Ezekiel Montanez: The Chris Montez Story from our pals at Frozen Pictures. To most of the audience, the film served as an introduction to an artist whose influence on and connection to the greatest names in pop music has not been fully recognized, and most on the crowd were singing along with Chris Montez by the time the credits rolled.

Then the crowd moved inside to a spacious living room for an intimate fireside concert by the film;s star and his guitar teacher, acclaimed jazz guitarist Sid Jacobs. The duo loosened up with a sophisticated, swinging solo-filled version of Montez's signature hit Call Me, then swung into hip readings of standards like All of Me and solo instrumentals by the virtuoso Jacobs that included a showstopping version of Over the Rainbow that turned into a tour de force medley from The Wizard of Oz.

Saturday night: Pacific Palisades Film Festival presents Chris Montez movie preview and performance

The seventh annual Pacific Palisades Film Festival got its seventh annual off to a star-studded start last night with a lifetime achievement award for acclaimed actress and former resident Frances Fisher, and moves forard tomorrow with a screening of the never-seen expanded preview of El Viaje Musical de Ezekiel Montanez: The Chris Montez Story along with a rare, intimate performance by Montez himself.

Bob Sharka kicks off the 7th annual Pacific Palisades Film Festival

Frances Fisher accepts her Lifetime Achievement Award


The opening night event took place outdoors at a bluffside mansion overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and featured tributes from Fisher's acting coaches and Actors Studio colleagues, including Renee Taylor. Festival founder Bob Sharka hosted and emceed the event, as he will the Montez evening which begins at 6:30 pm at another residence nearby.

Tickets for the outdoor screening, cocktail party and Chris Montez performance can be found at the Friends of Film website.


The film about the legendary, influential and many-faceted Mexican-American musician, rock legend and pop star from Hawthorne, California, has been in production over the past year by our pals at Frozen Pictures.

The film preview will be screened outdoors at a home on Toyopa Drive in The Palisades. The evening kicks off at 6:30 p.m.

Ticket information for the Saturday, May 15th event can be found at the Friends of Film website.


The Frozen team opened last year's Palisades film fest with their Neil Innes musical comedy, The Seventh Python, which is set to be released by The Little Film Company.

Preview of The Chris Montez Story gets outdoor screening at the Pacific Palisades Film Festival this Saturday, May 15th

A new, expanded, special preview of El Viaje Musical de Ezekiel Montanez: The Chris Montez Story, the nonfiction musical feature film from our pals at Frozen Pictures, will be featured Saturday night at the Pacific Palisades Film Festival off Sunset Boulevard.

Making the outdoor screening and cocktail party even more special and historic will be a special, intimate performance by Chris Montez.

The film about the legendary, influential and many-faceted Mexican-American musician from Hawthorne, California, has been in production over the past year, and in an unlikely turn of events, a preview section, devoted to Montez's time headlining the Beatles' first national tour of England amid the first rumblings Beatlemania, has proven to be a hit with screenings at The Fest for Beatles Fans in Chicago and New Jersey, and at the prestigious Paso Robles Digital Film Festival in California.


This latest preview contains fresh Montez performances as well as appearances by music legends including Tommy Roe, Andrew Loog Oldham (manager and producer of The Rolling Stones) and Herb Alpert (above).

The film preview will be screened outdoors at a home on Toyopa Drive in The Palisades. The evening kicks off at 6:30 p.m.

Ticket information for the Saturday, May 15th event can be found at the Friends of Film website.

The Frozen team opened last year's Palisades film fest with their Neil Innes musical comedy, The Seventh Python, which is set to be released by The Little Film Company.

Screening of The Seventh Python to feature live performance by its star Neil Innes!

On the heels of its acclaimed, star-studded screening as it opened the Pacific Palisade Film Festival, The Seventh Python-- the Neil Innespic produced by our pals at Frozen Pictures-- heads east to The Wilmette Theatre outside Chicago for a command showing including a live, in person performance by Neil Innes himself, in an evening hosted by comedy legend Tim Kazurinsky and featuring appearances by Second city stars and Monty Python scholar Kim Howard Johnson, among others.

June 9th.

Seven p.m.

www.WilmetteTheatre.com

Stay tuned for more...

The Seventh Python strikes again! Film about Neil Innes delivers a crowd-pleasing, laugh-filled opening to the Pacific Palisades Film Festival

The Seventh Python, the nonfiction musical comedy picture about Monty Python cohort, Rutles mastermind and Bonzo Dog Neil Innes opened the Pacific Palisades Film Festival in Pacific Palisades, California last night, once again leaving audiences wiping their eyes, cheering and thanking producers for introducing them to the everyman musical genius philosopher and joker.

Director Burt Kearns and producer Brett Hudson with comedy acting star Stuart Pankin

This being Pacific Palisades, home to stars and movie industry heavyweights including Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Ben Affleck, Kate Hudson and Steve Guttenberg, the screening at the Pierson Playhouse just off Sunset Boulevard was not only filled to capacity ,but filled with celebrities; among them actors Stuart Pankin and Vernon Wells, Bloodline producer René Barnett, filmmaker Roger Nygard (whose latest documentary, The Nature of Existence, screens at the festival tonight), roller derby announcer Danny Wolf, Sam Peters, Hollywood private eye Danno Hanks and Seventh star John Altman, the film composer, conductor and "George Martin of The Rutles."

Bob Sharka introduces the Pacific Palisades Film Festival & The Seventh Python

Festival director Bob Sharka showed off his comedic skills as he introduced the film and later called out director Burt Kearns and producer Brett Hudson. Sharka, founder of the Palisades Friends of Film group which sponsors the festival, spoke later of plans to raise awareness and support to expand the Friends of Film program through the year.

Kearns & Hudson at the Friends of Film party

After the screening, the group headed off to a Friends of Film party at a private home, where Kearns and Hudson received huzzahs from likes of Robert Loggia, Seymour Cassel and Stacy Keach, who was honored with a lifetime achievement award.

The view from the projection booth-- Chris Carter of Breakfast with The Beatles interviews Neil Innes in a scene from The Seventh Python

Next stop for The Seventh Python: The Wilmette Theatre outside Chicago on June 9th, for a special comedy event that includes a screening and live performance by Neil Innes himself.

The Seventh Python! Pacific Palisades! Tonight!

The Seventh Python, the Neil Innes biopic from our pals at Frozen Pictures, opens the Pacific Palisades Film Festival tonight.

The Seventh Python
Tonight!

7 p.m

Theatre Palisades
941 Temescal Canyon Road
Pacific Palisades CA
between Sunset Blvd and the Pacific Coast Highway
$10
everyone gets a free poster!

Countdown is on to The Seventh Python at The Pacific Palisades Film Festival

Thursday is when the star-studded town of Pacific Palisades, California at the end of Sunset Boulevard kicks off its seventh annual Pacific Palisade Film festival with a screening of the acclaimed, award-winning film, The Seventh Python.



Produced by our pals at Frozen Pictures, The Seventh Python tells the story of Monty Python associate and legendary pop music satirist Neil Innes, and is the subject of a major article in this week's Palisadian-Post newspaper.



The Seventh Python screens with Jennifer Clary's short, The Christmas Conspiracy,'at 7 p.m. at the Pierson Playhouse (also known as Theatre Palisades), at 941 Temescal Canyon Road. That's right off Sunset Boulevard or the Pacific Coast Highway, across from the high school.



Tickets are $10. Everyone gets a free, collectors item poster.

The Seventh Python opens The Pacific Palisades Film Festival Thursday, May 14th!

The excitement is building for the screening of the award-winning The Seventh Python at the Pacific Palisades Film Festival next Thursday night, May 14th. The nonfiction comedic musical biopic of legendary satirist Neil Innes was hailed last week by the local Palisadian-Post as "riotously entertaining."

This week, the paper focuses on the film's producers, our pals at Frozen Pictures. Some highlights from Michael Aushenker's article:

Monty Python's Innes Doc Opens Film Fest

Call Neil Innes the missing link of the legendary six-man British comedy troupe Monty Python. Or perhaps Shemp to their Three Stooges. You'll also call him funny, outrageous, even musically inclined. The enigmatic Innes is the subject of a documentary, 'The Seventh Python,' which opens the Sixth Annual Pacific Palisades Film Festival on May 14.

'Neil's a great songwriter, a great comedian, and a great philosopher,' says 'Seventh''s director/co-producer, Burt Kearns. 'And all this while rejecting the star-making machinery, which is quite relevant today.'

With the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band in 1968, Innes recorded 'I'm The Urban Spaceman,' the group's only hit, which was produced by Paul McCartney.

'Neil appeared in The Beatles film 'Magical Mystery Tour,'' Kearns continues. 'He appeared in the last season of Monty Python's 'Flying Circus.' They did a parody of the Beatles called The Rutles. It was brought to 'Saturday Night Live' by Eric Idle in the late 1970s. The Rutles took on a life of its own.' Indeed, when 'Spamalot' arrives in L.A. in July, the Python musical will contain Innes' ditties ('Brave Sir Robin').

'Our film is a crowd-pleaser, with lots of laughs and songs,' Kearns says.

'How it came together, that's a movie unto itself,' says 'Seventh' producer Brett Hudson.

Kearns has lived in Pacific Palisades since 2000... and the documentary has other local ties. Supervising producer Alison Holloway lives here (conveniently, Kearns' wife) and associate producer Joachim 'J.B.' Blunck, an Emmy-winning producer/director and former Palisadian, now resides in Malibu, where producer/musician Hudson (one of the original Hudson Brothers and an uncle of actress Kate Hudson) also lives. And, Kearns notes, 'My son Sam is a production assistant on the film.'

...Kearns met Hudson in the late '90s while working on Miramax's 'The Best Money Can Buy'...

Kearns and Hudson formed Frozen Pictures, producing documentary-style programming, including 'All the President's Movies' for Bravo, Showtime's 'My First Time,' and 'Adults Only: The Secret History of the Other Hollywood,' which, after Court TV tried to bury it with a Sunday-night airing, pulled in the highest ratings for original programming in the channel's history.

'What Burt and I like to do,' Hudson says, 'is not give our point of view. We lay the truth out and let viewers decide.'

In 2006, Frozen released the Burt Reynolds comedy 'Cloud Nine.'

Kearns got the idea for 'Seventh Python' while working on a doc called 'Death of a Beatle.'

'I went to London and traced John Lennon's life,' he says. 'The person I wanted to interview was the guy who played John Lennon in The Rutles.'

'As a musician, I listen to his melodies, his harmonics,' Hudson says. 'He's very clever. The guy had fame in front of him on a silver platter and he rejected it. Given my background, I find that unique.'

Kearns credits associate Bonnie Rose for playing a key role: 'Bonnie had brought him to Hollywood in 2002. We thought he'd be a good documentary subject.

'I don't like what tabloid television gave birth to, this whole culture of stalking celebrities. The film with Neil is an antidote to that, the way he could influence culture and not be a part of it.'

...'It's not archival-looking black-and-white footage,' Kearns says. 'You're seeing the Pythons today.'

Last summer, 'Seventh Python' debuted at American Cinematheque's Mods and Rockers festival, and has since screened in Chicago, New Jersey, and at the Las Vegas Film Festival, where it won a Golden Ace Award.

Up next for Frozen: documentaries on Latin rocker Chris Montez, and on John Lennon's seven-month 'lost weekend' (in Los Angeles) with mistress May Pang. Last year, Hudson conquered throat cancer, and this inspired 'The Klinik,' about his journey to Germany to get cured. This is also in development, as is the pair's scripted comedy, 'Live From The Gaza Strip.'

For now, all eyes are on 'Seventh''s Palisades premiere.

'This is literally a homecoming,' Kearns says. 'To be invited to the festival is in itself a great honor. And then to be opening it!'

'The Seventh Python' screens with Jennifer Clary's short, 'The Christmas Conspiracy,' at 7 p.m., Pierson Playhouse, 941 Temescal Canyon Rd.

Tickets: www.FriendsOfFilm.com.

The producers of The Seventh Python have dedicated the evening to the late Dom DeLuise.

Every ticketholder gets a free The Seventh Python poster!

Dom DeLuise

Dom DeLuise was not only a great comic actor and personality, he was a Tabloid Baby pal and neighbor. Dom was sought to do a cameo in Cloud 9, the Burt Reynolds comedy produced by our pals at Frozen Pictures (written and produced by Golden Ace Award winners Brett Hudson and Burt Kearns along with their pal, Academy Award winner (The Godfather, Million Dollar Baby) Albert S. Ruddy, but previous commitments kept it from happening.

Dom & Burt with Bob Sharka of The Pacific Palisades Film Festival

Said Kearns this morning: "Our movie The Seventh Python opens the Pacific Palisades Film Festival on Thursday, May 14th. We'll be dedicating the evening to our pal, Dom DeLuise."

Hudson added: "Dom was a big man in more ways than one."

The Seventh Python sightings in Los Angeles

The Seventh Python is opening the Pacific Palisades Film Festival on May 14th, and our readers noticed that publicity for the screening of the Neil Innes biopic from our pals at Frozen Pictures has been showing up around the west side of LA. Advance tickets at FriendsofFilm.com.

Exclusive! The Seventh Python is chosen to open The Pacific Palisades Film Festival on May 14th

The Seventh Python has been chosen as the Opening Selection of the prestigious sixth annual Pacific Palisades Film Festival.

The acclaimed, award-winning nonfiction musical film about genius pop satirist Neil Innes will be presented at 7 p.m. on Thursday, May 14th at Theatre Palisades at 941 Temescal Canyon Road off Sunset Boulevard.

Tickets are $10.

The announcement of the latest accolade for the film produced by our pals at Frozen Pictures comes a few short days after The Seventh Python picked up a Golden Ace Award at the Las Vegas Film Festival.

"It's enough of an honor to be accepted at the Pacific Palisades Film Festival. To be named Opening Selection is a real treat," says Seventh director Burt Kearns. "We've been around the country and are heading around the world. This hometown screening is bound to be a highlight."

"You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll sing along," promises producer Brett Hudson. "We'll definitely get the festival off to a rollicking start!"

The Pacific Palisades Film Festival in the star-studded, industry-heavyweight hometown at the end of Sunset Boulevard is sponsored by the Friends of Film organization, which will award actor Stacy Keach its Lifetime Achievement Award at a VIP party after the screening of The Seventh Python.

The Seventh Python has been hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "charming and illuminating," and "serious yet comical... a must-see" by Associated Content.

The film was produced by Brett Hudson. It includes appearances and performances by the likes of John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Aimee Mann and Matt Groening. It is brightened further by animation from Bonnie Rose, who beat George Lucas to win The Colbert Report Green Screen Challenge.

Along with director Kearns, more than a few members of The Seventh Python production team, are current or past Pacific Palisades residents. So are Steven Spielberg (current) and Jerry Lewis (past).

Find ticket information at the Friends of Film website.