Quantity, quality: The Newport Beach Film Festival’s got it

Here are two ways to think of the Newport Beach Film Festival, which is not quite halfway through its 10-day run: 350 movies or one Oscar winner.

Whether it’s because of the volume ? there are 350 films playing at the festival this year ? or the quality of the films ? last year the premiere film was a little movie called “Crash,” which happened to pick up the best picture Oscar earlier this year ? the Newport Beach Film Festival seems to have arrived as a player, still a minor one admittedly, on the film festival map that is dominated by Cannes and Sundance. Of course, those two festivals are plane rides away ? Cannes a fairly long one. The Newport Beach Film Festival is right in our backyard.

And for the next week, it promises to be a full backyard. There will be short films. There will be children’s films. There will be action-sports movies. There will be films by local moviemakers. There will be events in spots such as Muldoon’s Dublin Pub, Rouge and Talulah G. The focus will be on the big screen, but the Newport Beach Film Festival presents much more than celluloid images.

So if you enjoy movies, you should take advantage of this opportunity to perhaps see something a bit out of the mainstream.

How does an amateur version, shot over seven years, of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” sound? The Newport Beach Film Festival is your chance to see it. If that doesn’t strike your film fancy, with 350 choices, something surely will.