While the Disney animation studios were churning out hit films like Who Shot Roger Rabbit and Beauty and the Beast, there were backstage battles between artist and management, backbiting executives, and other industry intrigues playing out. Those stories are told in the new documentary, Waking Sleeping Beauty.

Although their relevant experience had been in animation, Schneider (sen at left in his Disney days) says it was not a big stretch to create a documentary.

Disney has gone on to further animated success since 1994, but Schneider says that segment of the film industry looks a lot different—and a lot more populous—now.

Producer Peter Schneider will answer questions about Waking Sleeping Beauty  following the 7 pm screening on May 20 at the Rialto Cinema’s Lakeside.  See the trailer for the film below.

The last days of the Rialto Cinemas Lakeside in Santa Rosa are ticking away, but owner Ky Boyd is looking ahead to creating a new venue to take its place.

It’s now looking likely that there will be no active Rialto venue in Santa Rosa for a year or more, but owner Ky Boyd says he’s confident that the film distributors who are critical to his business, will be ready to work with him again as soon as he is able to resume bookings.

One unexpected aspect in the current Rialto situation has been the outpouring of public support the theaters and their owner have received, including, Boyd notes, a heavily trafficked Facebook page.

For an extensive account of the back story and the history of movie theater ownership in Santa Rosa, read this.

The oldest and perhaps only wireless telegraph station on the west coast is still beaming Morse code out to the world from its original outpost overlooking Tomales Bay.

The historic facility will be open to the public  on Saturday, April 24 from 10-5 pm.  Details about the Open House, hosted by the Maritime Radio Historical Society, are available here. By continuing to use the restored antique electronics at the Marconi station, Richard Dillman (the operator in this photo) says they are practicing a form of living history.

The Maritime Radio Historical Society applied for and received a new commercial telegraph operators license for the Marshall station, which they now use to keep the signal actively operating on the weekends.

The Marconi Conference Center will host an open house displaying historical pieces of radio once used for both military and merchant ships coming into the bay. Located in Tomales Bay, the center will display the relics and provide stories of what it was like on the coast during the radio era.

A single significant act of civil disobedience, one that may have changed the course of American history in the 20^th century, is chronicled in the new documentary film, The Most Dangerous Man in America.

Daniel Ellsberg (seen here a in 1971 news photograph)  was arrested and faced serious criminal charges for making public the highly classified “Pentagon Papers.” But the case collapsed in a mistrial, when it was revealed that the Nixon administration had interfered in it, initially by engineering a surreptitious burglary of the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. Looking back on those events now, film-maker Judith Erlich (below)  says, it’s entirely plausible to see Ellsberg as the catalyst for Richard Nixon’s downfall.

Having spent considerable time with Ellsberg over the five years it took to make the film, Erlich says she is convinced and appreciative of the sincerity of his motives, both in 1971 and over the years since.

Daniel Ellsberg was interviewed on the North Bay Report in November, 2006, prior to an appearance in Sebastopol. Here is that archival report.

This is the trailer for The Most Dangerous Man in America, currently showing at the Rialto cinemas Lakeside in Santa Rosa.

California has hundreds of small, family-owned wineries surrounded by vineyards. But the huge international companies that dominate the industry also trade on that image to promote their products, and their business interests.

Marin Institute Research and Policy Director Sarah Mart says their study of the biggest multinational figures in the US and California wine industry also dominate the California Wine Industry.

In the wake of prohibition, the alcoholic beverage industry in the United State was organized into three separate branches:  supply and production, distribution and wholesaling, and retail sales. Having substantially consolidated the ownership and production of wine in California, these multi-billion companies are now turning their attention to another branch of the industry, Mart says, and moving to assert their dominance over distribution.

Sarah Mart is the  Research and Policy Manager at Marin Institute. You can read a summery or download here entire report here.  Find out more about the California Wine Institute at their website.