Funny on a budget

Actor Andy Garcia visited Newport Beach on Thursday night to promote his latest film, “City Island,” at the Lido Theatre.

The movie, which will open Friday in Orange County, was shown at a private screening as a warm-up to the April 22 to 29 Newport Beach Film Festival.

The theater was packed as the audience, judging by its laughter, enjoyed the dysfunctional family comedy that bore similarities to “Little Miss Sunshine” and “Moonstruck.”

After the movie, Garcia, 53, took questions from the audience, many of whom belong to the Orange County Film Society, which invited the Cuban-born celebrity to town.

When an audience member asked Garcia what it was like having his daughter, Dominik García-Lorido, in the movie with him — and playing a stripper at that — Garcia cracked a joke, saying he hoped all the men were “tying their shoes” during the scene where she was hanging upside down from a pole.

But Garcia added that he was proud of his daughter and that he gave her space to play her part.

“She can handle herself,” he said.

If there was one message in particular that Garcia kept pounding home during his personal appearance, it was that “City Island” was shot in 27 days and cost $6 million.

It’s a tactic he encouraged more independent studios to embrace and start “picking up,” saying the number of movies made could quadruple and that the good ones will eventually find their way to the top.

“Big budgets don’t necessarily make good movies,” Garcia said. “We used the same sort of cameras we used to shoot ‘Ocean’s Eleven.’

“The catering was just different. For ‘Ocean’s’, we had tuna. For ‘City Island,’ we had Oreos.”

Without question, Garcia said the movie industry is in the midst of change, if not at its apex.

Not only are more films being shot outside of Hollywood — something that’s actually hurting those who rely on the film industry for their livelihoods — but the reviews and advertising are surfacing in social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, he said.

“In the old days,” Garcia said, “you used to have to make physical contact” to promote a movie.

“But cream rises and good movies find their way to the top,” he said. “Look at ‘The Hurt Locker’ and ‘Juno.’”

What’s interesting, Garcia said, is that the classic movies like “Taxi Driver,” “Midnight Cowboy” and “The Graduate” — some of his personal favorites — would be considered independent films by today’s standards, not the blockbuster movies they were at the time.

Instead, the standards for becoming a successful movie have largely been determined by big budgets and special effects, and whether the movies have the ability to simultaneously appear on 2,500 screens across the country on a Friday night.

As examples, he pointed to “Avatar” and “Clash of the Titans,” while neither criticizing or praising them.

That Garcia chose a comic role is a departure from his past performances, whether it’s an arrogant casino owner in “Ocean’s Eleven,” or as the illegitimate son of Sonny Corleone in “The Godfather: Part III.”

Garcia said he chose his latest role as a prison guard because he simply loved it for its originality and uniqueness.

“I would certainly rate this character as one of my favorites I’ve ever played,” he said.