‘Aliens’ meets ‘Office Space’

Fashion Island was abuzz with excitement as fans lined up early to see “Drones,” an independent film staring Samm Levine (of “Freaks and Geeks”), which opened at the Newport Beach Film Festival.

Set in the corporate land of cubicles, the low-budget, worker bee flick shows the “dark side” of office work and many Orange County patrons were there early to line up for the showing.

Matthew Reid, a Mission Viejo resident, was looking forward to the show.

“I think the premise for the film is great,” he said. “It sounds like it could bring a lot of laughs. I’m hoping it goes well.”

There were many seasoned Newport Beach Film Festival viewers at the premiere. Theresa Wolf had seen a couple already, but she knew “Drones” was not one to pass up.

“I just thought it sounded cool,” she said. “I prefer quirky movies.”

Quirky was definitely a good word to sum up the film, whose plot included alien invasion. The synopsis reads, “close encounters of the office kind, like sales or intergalactic war, can be an uncertain business.”

When everything is monotonous and mundane, finding out your best friend is an alien is just another fly in your Folgers coffee. The movie jokes that an employee’s most important task is a letter addressed to corporate executives. “A strong worded memo is in the works,” a co-worker says.

During the Q&A; that followed the premiere, Samm Levine revealed the film’s unlikely story. According to the star, the story all came together when they were offered a location. Not just any location, but an abandoned office building in Baton Rouge.

The directors gave Ben Black and Ben Acker a call and the screenwriters agreed to have a script ready in six days. After 14 days of shooting, “Drones” was born. In regards to the fast-paced flick, Levine said “Everyday was a fight to the finish.”

“It reminded me of ‘Office Space,’ except they threw in aliens,” said Grace Yin, who drove from Garden Grove for the indie movie.

Pilot Picks

“L’Affaire Farewell”

This Cold War espionage thriller from France is about a KGB officer, Col. Grigoriev, who sells state secrets to the West during the early 1980s. The mole, code-named “Farewell,” passes secret documents through his contacts with a French engineer working in Moscow.

Cast: Emir Kusturica, Guillaume Canet, Alexandra Maria Lara and others.

7:30 tonight, Edwards Island 6, 999 Newport Center Drive, Newport Beach.

“The Desert of Forbidden Art”

This film from the Russian federation, the U.S. and Uzbekistan appears under the “Art, Architecture and Design” rubric. “The Desert of Forbidden Art” tells the true story of Igor Savitsky, who saved tens of thousands of pieces of art that had been censored by the Soviet Union by housing the works in a museum in the desert.

Cast: Voice-overs by Ben Kingsley, Sally Field and Ed Asner.

7:30 tonight Edwards Island 7.

“Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam”

This documentary from Canada promises to smash Western stereotypes about Islamic extremism. It’s about Muslim punk rock band roaming the U.S. in a bus painted green — the color of Islam.

The band eventually take its loud music and assortment of spiky hair cuts to Lahore, Pakistan.

According to the Newport Beach Film Festival catalog’s synopsis of the film, the band sparks “riots” along the way.

Cast: Riz Ahmed, Arieb Azhur, Sena Hussein and others.

5:45 tonight at Regency South Coast Village Theater, 1561 W. Sunflower Ave., Santa Ana.

JOANNA CLAY writes for OCLNN.