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SIDEWAYS 20th Anniversary Screening, Discussion and Book-Signing March 20, 2025 Laemmle Monica Film Center

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 20th anniversary screening of one of the most acclaimed movies of the 21st century: Alexander Payne’s Oscar-winning ‘Sideways.’ The March 20 screening at the Monica Film Center is held in conjunction with the publication of the new book, ‘Sideways Uncorked: The Perfect Pairing of Film and Wine,’ written by critic and journalist Kirk Honeycutt and his wife, Mira Advani Honeycutt. Mira comes to the project with 25 years of experience as a wine journalist. They will be joined by the Oscar-nominated producer of ‘Sideways,’ Michael London.

‘Sideways,’ based on a novel by Rex Pickett, was adapted for the screen by Payne and his frequent collaborator, Jim Taylor. It follows a weeklong journey through Santa Barbara wine country by two mismatched pals, a teacher and unsuccessful writer, played by Paul Giamatti, and a part-time actor played by Thomas Haden Church. Along the way they have encounters with two tantalizing women (Sandra Oh and Virginia Madsen). The sharp, often hilarious insights into character energize the film.

When the film opened in the fall of 2004, it earned universally rave reviews. Kirk Honeycutt wrote the very first review out of the Toronto Film Festival. He declared, “The slapstick is perfectly timed and executed. As with the best comedies of Billy Wilder and Blake Edwards, laughs derive from excruciating pain, both emotional and physical.” Roger Ebert praised the film as “the best human comedy of the year—comedy because it is funny, and human, because it is surprisingly moving.” Newsweek’s David Ansen wrote, “Payne has created four of the most lived-in, indelible characters in recent American movies.”

Both the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association named ‘Sideways‘ as the best film of 2004. The screenplay was named the year’s best by those two groups, along with the National Board of Review, the National Society of Film Critics, and the Writers Guild of America. Payne and Taylor also won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, and the film earned Academy nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Acting nods for Church and Madsen.

The film had an influence beyond the world of cinema. In one key scene in the film, Giamatti declaims against merlot and declares pinot noir to be the far superior wine. Sales of pinot noir soared all over the country after the film’s release.

‘Sideways‘ ended up grossing more than $100 million, a huge score for a film that started its life as a small arthouse release.

Kirk and Mira Honeycutt will be selling and signing copies of their book before and after the screening on March 20. Alexander Payne had high praise for it: “The Honeycutts’ account of ‘Sideways‘ and its reverberations is so thorough that even I learned things I hadn’t known. A delightful, accurate chronicle with great wine tips.” Leonard Maltin called ‘Sideways Uncorked’ “an astute and entertaining book about the making of a great American film and its aftermath in the world of wine.”

Producer Michael London has many other distinguished credits, including ‘House of Sand and Fog,’ ‘The Family Stone,’ ‘The Visitor,’ ‘Milk,’ and ‘Trumbo.’

SWEPT AWAY 50th anniversary screening February 13 at the Royal. Regular engagement starts February 21 in Glendale.

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For those who don’t like Valentine’s Day, join us for an “anti-romantic” evening with Lina Wertmuller’s Swept Away. Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 50th anniversary screening of the odd-couple arthouse sensation Swept Away. Lina Wertmüller’s provocative, fable-like two-hander brings together Mariangela Melato and Giancarlo Giannini for an oft-ugly battle of the sexes (and classes) cage match with the sparkling Mediterranean for a beautiful backdrop.

 SWEPT AWAY 50th anniversary screening February 13 at the Royal. Regular engagement starts February 21 in Glendale.

Not long after setting off on a yachting expedition, Milanese millionairess Raffaella (Melato) finds herself stranded on an obscure island with the boat’s deckhand (Giannini), a working-class Sicilian communist who promptly establishes dominion over the isle — and his once-prideful ex-employer. A contentious cinematic war of words, which has lost none of its power to inspire heated debate among its viewers.

We will also have a daily regular engagement February 21-27 at the Laemmle Glendale.

In 1976, Wertmüller became the first woman ever to earn an Oscar nomination as Best Director for her film Seven Beauties.
SWEPT AWAY 50th anniversary screening February 13 at the Royal. Regular engagement starts February 21 in Glendale.

“[With Swept Away,] Wertmüller delivered the first girl power picture, and it’s a stunning masterstroke of a movie.”  – Bill Gibron, DVD Talk

“Wertmüller didn’t just tap the tangled sexual politics of the ’70s— she lit a fuse under them.” – Owen Gleiberman, Variety

“As ferocious as it is funny.” – Judith Crist

“A powder keg of class and sexual politics.” – Scott Tobias, AV Club

 

35th Anniversary WILD AT HEART in memoriam screening for David Lynch February 19 at the NoHo.

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The news of David Lynch‘s death hit like David Bowie’s. Here were two sui generis, irreplaceable artists so original their names became adjectives, and they were gone. There will never be another David Lynch movie, but we can watch Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire, Lost Highway and the extravagantly violent and sexy romantic comedy Wild at Heart — February 19 at the NoHo — on the big screen as the auteur intended. The 1990 Palme d’Or winner stars Laura Dern and Nicolas Cage as Lula and Sailor, roadtripping lovers plagued by Lula’s crazed mother (Diane Ladd, Oscar nominated for this performance). Willem Dafoe’s frightening turn as the creepy Bobby Peru earned him a Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

BREAKING AWAY with actors Dennis Christopher and Paul Dooley in person Tuesday, January 14 at the Laemmle NoHo.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 45th anniversary screening of the Oscar-winning 1979 hit ‘Breaking Away‘ with costar Paul Dooley joining for an in-person Q&A after the screening. The movie earned five Oscar nominations in all, including Best Picture and Best Director for Peter Yates, and it won the Oscar for the Original Screenplay by Steve Tesich. It also won the Golden Globe for Best Comedy or Musical of the year, and it won the Writers Guild award for Best Original Screenplay. Many years later, when the American Film Institute compiled a list of the most inspiring movies in history, ‘Breaking Away‘ ranked in the top 10.

Tesich based the script in part on his own experiences at the University of Indiana in Bloomington. The story tells of the bond between four young working-class men raised in the town but unable to afford college. They are scorned by the college students in town and called “cutters” because of their families’ work as stonecutters in the local quarry. The four young men are played by newcomers Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern, and Jackie Earle Haley. Christopher’s parents are played by Paul Dooley and Barbara Barrie, and the snooty college kids include actors Hart Bochner and Robyn Douglass.

Christopher’s Dave, the leading character, becomes obsessed with Italian bicycle racers and Italian culture in general, to the dismay of his working-class father, played by Dooley. Eventually he decides to enter the local bicycle race dominated by the college students, and he becomes a symbol to his pals of the possibilities of transcending their humble backgrounds.

Critics were swept up in the story’s inspirational message. Roger Ebert called ‘Breaking Away‘ “a wonderfully sunny, funny, goofy, intelligent movie that makes you feel about as good as any movie in a long time.” The New York Times’ Janet Maslin agreed and declared, “Here is a movie so fresh and funny it didn’t even need a big budget or a pedigree.” Variety summarized the overwhelmingly positive reviews, calling the film “a thoroughly delightful light comedy, lifted by fine performances from Dennis Christopher and Paul Dooley.”

Dooley got his start working several times with director Robert Altman on such films as ‘A Wedding,’ ‘Health,’ and he had a leading role in Altman’s offbeat romantic comedy ‘A Perfect Couple.’ In Altman’s musical adaptation of ‘Popeye,’ Dooley played the role of Wimpy. He also costarred in such films as ‘Paternity,’ ‘Sixteen Candles,’ Steven Soderbergh’s ‘The Underneath,’ ‘Runaway Bride,’ ‘A Mighty Wind,’ and ‘Happy, Texas.’ He provided one of the voices in the ‘Cars’ animated movies, and he also had prominent roles on such popular TV series as ‘thirtysomething’, ‘My So-Called Life,’ ‘Dream On,’ ‘The Practice,’ and ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm.’

STRAIT-JACKET 60th Anniversary Holiday Screening December 30.

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Keeping a holiday tradition, this year Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the 60th anniversary of the Joan Crawford camp classic Strait-Jacket (1964) for one night only, Monday, December 30, at 7:30 PM at the historic Royal Theater in West Los Angeles.

Crawford, one of the great stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood, had a career revival with the huge success of the psychological horror classic ‘What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?’ in 1962. Looking for new roles, she apparently couldn’t miss an opportunity for self-parody when she chose to star as an axe murderess in the latest project from independent producer-director and huckster showman William Castle, Strait-Jacket.

Castle specialized in low budget exploitation movies with gimmick marketing and hit box office pay dirt with such titles as ‘House on Haunted Hill,’ ‘The Tingler,’ and ’13 Ghosts.’ He tried to up his game with Strait-Jacket, hiring Robert Bloch, the writer of the book Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’ was based upon; cinematographer Arthur Arling (‘Love Me or Leave Me,’ ‘Pillow Talk’); production designer Boris Leven (‘West Side Story,’ ‘The Sound of Music’)’ and snaring A-list star Crawford. Bloch concocted a sordid tale of a convicted axe murderess released from an asylum twenty years after chopping up her unfaithful husband. She returns to the scene of the crime to reconcile with her grown daughter (Diane Baker) but then new murders begin and guess who the prime suspect is?

Even with all that talent, Strait-Jacket got a mixed reception from reviewers. On the positive side, Variety reported “Miss Crawford does well by her role, delivering an animated performance.” Leonard Maltin was equally enthusiastic, saying “Crawford’s strong portrayal makes this one of the best in the ‘Baby Jane’ genre of older-star shockers.” At the other end of the critical spectrum, Bosley Crowther in The New York Times was not impressed, stating, “Joan Crawford has picked some lemons, very sour lemons, in her day, but the worst of the lot is Strait-Jacket.” Judith Crist in the New York Herald Tribune took the middle ground, asserting, “It’s time to get Joan Crawford out of these housedress horror B movies and back into haute couture.” A 2010 assessment in The Village Voice called Crawford “indefatigable” but noted that in the role of a woman trying to be convincing in a new maternal role, “Crawford is as uncomfortable as a Tingler down your shirt.”

Although the movie was a hit, Castle did not climb into the A ranks until 1968, producing Roman Polanski’s horror classic ‘Rosemary’s Baby.’ On the other hand, it was all downhill for Crawford after this final box office success. She worked for Castle again in a lesser vehicle, ‘I Saw What You Did,’ then traveled to England to finish her career with similar material in ‘Berserk’ and the worst film of her long career, the sci-fi horror turkey ‘Trog’ in 1970.

Kubrick’s LOLITA ~ Special 62nd Anniversary Screening and Discussion of a 1962 Classic.

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Stanley Kubrick’s LOLITA (1962)
Special 62nd Anniversary Screening and Discussion of a 1962 Classic
Wednesday, December 18, at 7 PM
Laemmle’s Royal Theatre
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“How did they ever make a movie of ‘Lolita‘?” Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series help to answer that question — posed in all the advertising for the 1962 release — with a special screening of Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov’s incendiary novel. The theme of a middle-aged man obsessed with a young teenage “nymphet” was controversial when the book and movie first appeared, and the theme is perhaps even more problematic today.

However, the masterful writing and direction of the film, along with four inspired performances, have continued to keep audiences riveted. James Mason portrays the obsessed professor, Humbert Humbert, and he perfectly captures the lecherousness, unctuousness, hypocrisy, and utter lovestruck vulnerability of a professor in thrall to a sexual compulsion he cannot control. Sue Lyon, in her first starring role, brings off astonishingly varied moods. At times she seems like a whiny, petulant teenager, and at other moments she exudes worldly sophistication. As her mother, the culturally pretentious and needy Charlotte Haze, Shelley Winters gives one of the most scintillating performances of her long career.

But Kubrick’s most brilliant casting coup was choosing Peter Sellers to play Quilty, the villain of the piece who steals Lolita away from Humbert. Sellers had made a splash in a few British films but had yet to reach American movie stardom. His flair for impersonation made him an inspired choice to play Quilty, a master of disguises who torments Humbert in many different incarnations through the course of the story.

In adapting the text, Kubrick and producer James B. Harris chose to veer from the novel and introduce Sellers’ Quilty in the opening scene, as Humbert questions Quilty about his sexual history while the two play a bizarre game of ping-pong. The Saturday Review critic, Hollis Alpert, wrote of this opening scene, “There hasn’t been a scene of equal imaginativeness in movies since, perhaps, ‘Citizen Kane.’” Nabokov himself declared that Kubrick’s opening scene was “a masterpiece” and hailed the film as “absolutely first-rate.”

Although Nabokov received sole credit for the screenplay and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Adaptation, the script was heavily rewritten by Kubrick and Harris. While some critics at the time were perplexed by the movie, many of the most perceptive reviewers had high praise. Writing in Partisan Review, Pauline Kael asserted, “It’s the first new American comedy since those great days in the ’40s when Preston Sturges recreated comedy with verbal slapstick. ‘Lolita‘ is black slapstick, and at times it’s so far out that you gasp as you laugh.” Critic Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who also served as special assistant to President Kennedy at the time, wrote in Show magazine that ‘Lolita‘ was “wildly funny and wildly poignant… It is beautiful and it is depraved… Kubrick renders farce and satire and comedy and pathos and melodrama and psychopathology with equal skill.”

The leading critic of the era, The New York Times’ Bosley Crowther, declared, “The picture has a rare power.” More recently, Leonard Maltin added, “Winters is outstanding as Lyon’s sex-starved mother.” Jon Fortgang of England’s Film4 commented, “’Lolita,’ with its acute mix of pathos and comedy, and Mason’s delivery of Nabokov’s sparkling lines, remains the definitive depiction of tragic transgression.”

Stephen Farber and Michael McClellan, authors of Cinema ’62: The Greatest Year at the Movies, will introduce and discuss the film with the audience. They will also be selling and signing copies of their highly acclaimed book.

P.S.: The subsequent Anniversary Classics screening will be the hugely entertaining Joan Crawford thriller ‘Strait-Jacket‘ on December 30, celebrating its 60th anniversary!

In memory of Maggie Smith – THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE screening November 13.

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THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE (1969)
55th Anniversary Screening
Tribute to Oscar Winner Maggie Smith
Wednesday, November 13, at 7 PM
Laemmle Royal Theatre

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a tribute to the late, great Maggie Smith with a screening of her first Oscar-winning movie, ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.’ Smith had impressive competition in 1969, including Jane Fonda, Liza Minnelli, Genevieve Bujold, and Jean Simmons, but she prevailed. The film also earned an Oscar nomination for the theme song, “Jean,” written by Rod McKuen.

Jay Presson Allen adapted the highly acclaimed novel by Muriel Spark about an eccentric but popular teacher at a girls’ school in Edinburgh during the 1930s. Ronald Neame (‘The Horse’s Mouth,’ ‘Tunes of Glory,’ ‘The Poseidon Adventure’) directed. The cast includes Robert Stephens (Smith’s husband at the time), Pamela Franklin, Jane Carr, Gordon Jackson, and Celia Johnson, an Oscar nominee two decades earlier for her role in the romantic classic, ‘Brief Encounter.’

Allen had also written the successful play adapted from Spark’s novel; it starred Vanessa Redgrave in London and Zoe Caldwell on Broadway. But most critics agreed that Smith’s portrayal was definitive. She caught the charisma and eccentricity as well as the sometimes dangerous egotism of a revered teacher who steers some of her impressionable students in the wrong direction, even leading one of her charges to volunteer to fight for Franco during the Spanish Civil War.

Variety had high praise for “Maggie Smith’s tour-de-force performance.” Leonard Maltin called the film a “remarkable character study.” In the most detailed review, Pauline Kael wrote, “Maggie Smith, with her gift for mimicry and her talent for mannered comedy, makes Jean Brodie very funny—absurdly haughty, full of affectations, and with a jumble shop of a mind… a bit of an Auntie Mame.” Kael also had praise for the other performances, writing “The casting in general is superb,” and she singled out one supporting performance in particular: “Celia Johnson has a genuine triumph as Miss Mackay, who in the film becomes Miss Brodie’s true adversary.”

Maggie Smith earned a total of six Academy Award nominations over the course of her long career, winning a second Oscar in the supporting actress category for her performance in 1978’s ‘California Suite.’ She won a Tony award for her performance in Peter Shaffer’s ‘Lettice and Lovage’ on Broadway, and she snagged three Emmys for her role in the beloved ‘Downton Abbey.’

 

THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH 60th Anniversary October 30 at the Royal.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH, the seventh and penultimate picture of Roger Corman’s film adaptations of the works of American literary titan Edgar Allan Poe. The film stars horror icon Vincent Price, Corman’s “muse of the macabre,” who top-lined seven of the eight Poe films. The film is widely regarded as the best installment in the series and Corman’s personal favorite of all his films. We present ‘The Masque of the Red Death‘ on one night only, Halloween Eve, Wednesday, October 30 at 7:00 PM at the historic Royal Theatre (celebrating its centennial year) in West Los Angeles.

Producer-director Roger Corman, who died earlier this year, was one of the most prolific independent filmmakers in movie history. He specialized in low-budget cinema and was the self-appointed “king of the B movie,” producing a steady stream of exploitation titles that spanned six decades and multiple genres. In 1960 he turned to the works of an author he admired, Edgar Allan Poe, the nineteenth-century master of gothic poetry, detective fiction, mystery, and the macabre. He began with a stylish if frugal version of Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” which found critical and commercial success, with Price in the lead, and launched a well-received and popular Poe franchise. In 1964 Corman ventured to the U.K. for the last two films of the series, commencing with ‘The Masque of the Red Death.’ Britain was an appropriate set for Poe’s tale of plague-ravaged 14th century Europe, which was devastated by the Black Death.

Price plays Prince Prospero, a malevolent overlord who terrorizes his peasantry amidst the Red Death. After his domain is depopulated, he retreats behind his castle walls with “light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court” (Poe) to wait out the plague. Trapped with him there are his devil-worshiping mistress (Hazel Court), an abducted young couple from the local village (David Weston and Jane Asher), and a particularly debauched guest (Patrick Magee). Using leftover sets from ‘Becket,’ Corman’s principal production designer for all his Poe films, Daniel Haller, and cinematographer (and future auteur) Nicholas Roeg crafted a sumptuous, “colorful symphony of the macabre.” Citing Roeg’s contribution, Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian called the film “an expressionist horror ballet, extravagantly shot.”

Corman employed frequent screenwriter-collaborator Charles Beaumont (‘The Intruder,’ ‘The Premature Burial,’ ‘The Twilight Zone’) and R. Wayne Campbell to meld two Poe stories, “The Masque of the Red Death” and “Hop Frog” with the final product. It would later b praised by TV Guide as “the most intelligent and literate of the Poe series.” The New York Times called it “astonishingly good,” and The Times U.K. gave this assessment: “High camp meets high art in this cheeky Roger Corman flesh-feast that aspires to lofty ideals. However, monologues about the nature of God and terror, as well as psychedelic dream sequences, give the film an unexpected weight. A marvel.” Indeed, other critics have cited the film as echoing the works of Ingmar Bergman and Luis Buñuel, two directors Corman greatly admired.

Price received his best notices of the Poe series, with Variety citing him as “the best interpreter of the Poe character, and he succeeds in creating an aura of terror.” Poe, the most famous American author of the 19th century, remains renowned in the 21st century for his pioneering detective fiction, horror tales, and haunting verse. As Bradshaw pointed out in his Guardian review, “Corman’s formal artistry and conviction on a limited budget…with his iconic Poe adaptations did more than anyone in academe to establish the author’s position in the literary canon.”