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THE NIGHT OF THE 12TH “never stops sending chills up your spine.” Opening Friday at the Royal, Town Center & Glendale.

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Based on a true crime book by Pauline Guéna, The Night of the 12th [La nuit du 12] is a spellbinding French mystery that’s “both highly effective and brilliantly acted, where procedures and mindsets reveal a frayed society” (Cineuropa), posing uneasy questions about the male-dominated world of law enforcement, and their ability to handle the violent crimes routinely perpetrated against women. The film was rightly nominated for 10 César Awards, winning six, including Best Film, Adapted Screenplay, Director, Supporting Actor and Most Promising Newcomer. We’re thrilled to open the film this Friday at the Royal in West L.A., Town Center in Encino, and Glendale.
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“Its real-world mysteries eventually become existential ones, but the film never stops sending chills up your spine.” ~ Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture
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“This taut and piercing thriller is one of Moll’s stronger works to date, using a genre template to delve into issues of violence, gender and policing in contemporary France.” ~ Jordan Mintzer, Hollywood Reporter
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“The grandeur of the film comes from the depth of emotion. These may be the hard-boiled characters, but they are still human.” ~ Paul Byrnes, Sydney Morning Herald

“A brutally engrossing drama.” ~ Peter Bradshaw, Guardian
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“The Night of the 12th keeps tricking us into thinking it’s a more conventional thriller than it is. ~ Owen Gleiberman, Variety

“The long and devastating fallout from a senseless act of violence affects almost everyone in this compelling reality-inspired account, which lingers in the mind in a way that few crime stories do.” ~ Helen O’Hara, Empire Magazine
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A “sensitive and devilishly detailed coming-of-age drama,” THE STARLING GIRL opens Friday at the Laemmle Town Center, Monica Film Center and Glendale.

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A Grand Jury Prize nominee at Sundance and an Audience Award nominee at South by Southwest as well as a winner of the Directors to Watch Prize at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, The Starling Girl is both a brilliant depiction of the American evangelical community and, with the fantastic lead performance of Eliza Scanlen, a chance to catch a rising star. You may have seen her supporting performances in, among other things, Sharp Objects (2018) and Little Women (2019). The Starling Girl gives Scanlen the chance to carry a feature and she utterly succeeds.
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“The Starling Girl lives and breathes through Scanlen’s stellar performance.” ~ Monica Castillo, RogerEbert.com
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“Parmet’s strong script and surety behind the camera navigates the audience through this complicated story of religion and sexuality, patriarchy and power, brought to eerily accurate life by the ensemble of excellent actors.” ~ Katie Walsh, TheWrap

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“Laurel Parmet makes a striking, assured feature directorial debut with The Starling Girl, which serves double duty in solidifying Eliza Scanlen’s already pretty solid reputation as a young actor worth watching.” ~ Glenn Kenny, Boston Globe

“Parmet is confident enough to know that atmosphere, emotional tone and unspoken feeling can convey far more meaning than the talkiest of dialogue.” ~  Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

“Parmet’s less interested in cultish dread than a more naturalistic dullness of isolation and groupthink you’d find in any closed conservative society where women of faith have been sold a purity narrative.” ~ Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times

“It’s a refreshing change to see this milieu treated with the level of nuance that Laurel Parmet brings to The Starling Girl.” ~ Peter Debruge, Variety

“The language and strictures of their religious community are perfectly rendered by writer and director Laurel Parmet, who captures the complicated interplay of power and immaturity that can blossom in isolated communities.” ~ Alissa Wilkinson, Vox

“Scanlen’s work here is steeped in the feeling of a real-life being lived right in front of you.” ~ Jason Bailey, The Playlist

“The power of this sensitive and devilishly detailed coming-of-age drama is rooted in the friction that it finds between biblical paternalism and modern personhood.” ~ David Ehrlich, indieWire

“When you have Julia in your head, it’s bliss, because it just makes me funnier, knowing that she’ll do it.” Nicole Holofcener and Julia Louis-Dreyfus on YOU HURT MY FEELINGS, opening Friday.

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Gifted writer-director Nicole Holofcener (Lovely and Amazing, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, The Last Duel) has a new comedic drama we’re thrilled to open Friday at our Claremont, Glendale, Santa Monica, Newhall, North Hollywood and Encino theaters. You Hurt My Feelings is her second collaboration with Seinfeld and Veep legend, 11-time Emmy Award winner and Mark Twain Prize for American Humor recipient Julia Louis-Dreyfus. The first was Enough Said, with James Gandolfini. Hopefully the two collaborate again because this one’s a gem too. Alissa Wilkinson of Vox described the movie as “warm-hearted and rueful and hilarious in all the best ways” while Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com wrote that it’s “one of [Holofcener’s] smartest and funniest films.”

The New York Times just published a joint interview with Holofcener and Louis-Dreyfus. Here’s an excerpt:

Was there an inciting incident that prompted this film?

NICOLE HOLOFCENER It started brewing as soon as I started screening my movies or having people read my scripts, wondering if they’re telling me the truth or not. And believing that I can tell. What a nightmare this situation would be, if somebody that close to me revealed to someone else that they didn’t like my work, or even just one of my movies. They have to love everything, in other words, for me to feel safe.

JULIA LOUIS-DREYFUS She’s very sensitive.

HOLOFCENER I just came up with a what-if. What would be the worst scenario of somebody telling me they love something and me not believing them? I do have friends that I don’t believe. And there’s one person in particular that I don’t believe. I’m actually OK with it. Because I know they love me and get me and clearly they’re wrong. I mean, it hurts a little. They didn’t admit it.

Since Nicole wrote this script with you in mind, did you connect to it immediately?

LOUIS-DREYFUS Yes. I think it’s interesting to consider the notion of worth and self-worth. Am I my work? And who am I without my work? That’s certainly something I like to think about. And that this is ostensibly a great relationship between a married couple, and then the wheels just totally fall off the bus. That was kind of terrifying to consider.

I told Frank Rich [the former New York Times columnist who was an executive producer of her series “Veep”] the premise of this before we shot it. He audibly gasped.

HOLOFCENER Oh good. That’s my audience. Not the p

eople who would hear the premise and go, ‘Yeah, so what? Like, what planet are you from?’

Since you wrote this with Julia in mind, did that change your approach?

HOLOFCENER [To Louis-Dreyfus] Just don’t listen, because it’s going to sound stupid.

[Louis-Dreyfus throws her cappuccino-stained napkin over her head to avoid eye contact.]

HOLOFCENER When you have Julia in your head, it’s bliss, because it just makes me funnier, knowing that she’ll do it. She just sparks my imagination.

Is there a scene that you wouldn’t have written if Julia wasn’t your lead actress?

LOUIS-DREYFUS Oh God.

HOLOFCENER Certainly, I can see other actors doing the scenes differently, and I’m so glad they’re not in it and she is.

What scene specifically?

HOLOFCENER The scene where she’s sitting on the couch with her sister, she’s smoking pot. This is after she’s heard the bad news; she’s crying. It’s tragic. And you really feel for her, but you’re laughing because of that face.

LOUIS-DREYFUS Oh gee, thanks.

HOLOFCENER Julia walks a very fine line between comedy and drama. And that’s what I like to do with my writing. I didn’t have to do much, or anything, for her to get what I mean. We know this movie is about something fairly minor in the world of things.

LOUIS-DREYFUS But also very major.

HOLOFCENER But in the big picture, we’re not going to be crying for her. We hope she’ll get over it. But I think that scene works because she seems like she’s about 16. I think all of us are sometimes still 16. Especially when it comes to getting approval or not getting approval. I still think of myself that way. So that’s funny to see a grown-up person behave like they’re 16, in an honest way. Not in a movie way. Or a histrionic or a silly way.

Click here to read the full New York Times piece.

“Lucid and searching, scorching and incantatory,” Ralph & Sophie Fiennes’ FOUR QUARTETS opens May 16 at the Monica Film Center.

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Ralph Fiennes’s exquisite performance of T. S. Eliot’s masterpiece is dynamically translated from stage to screen by director Sophie Fiennes (Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami, The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology). During the early days of COVID, the Academy Award® nominee set himself the challenge of committing Four Quartets to memory, and in 2021 he brought it to the London stage followed by a tour of theaters across the UK. Written by Nobel Prize winner Eliot in the shadow of the Second World War, the poem is a searching examination of who – and what – we are. This celebrated meditation on human experience, time, and the divine offers up questions, imagery, and emotions that bear a powerful relevance to our present day while remaining some of the most gorgeous poetry in the English language.
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“Fiennes, in his beautifully grave way, slows the poem down for us, speaking the words with rapt deliberation, so that we live in their moment. He delivers the Four Quartets as if the entire 16-poem suite were a single fractured Shakespearean monologue, lucid and searching, scorching and incantatory, all revolving around the desire to know. Fiennes sings like Gielgud, roils like Olivier, lends lines a mocking undercurrent like Ben Kingsley, and imbues it all with a world-weary grandeur that is very Ralph Fiennes. He recites Eliot’s poem as the music it is, and you feel that Eliot, through the drama of Fiennes’ presentation, comes across as nothing less than the 20th-century Shakespeare, reaching for the cosmos but driven by a deconstructive impulse, a need to take apart the forces that shape the very questions he’s asking.” ~ Owen Gleiberman, Variety

 

“Ralph Fiennes casts a spell.” – Nick Curtis, Evening Standard

“The hypnotizing, affecting performance that Fiennes extracts from this thicket of uncertain meanings and recondite references is a beautiful testament to what Eliot himself once said: ‘Genuine poetry communicates before it’s understood.’” – Dan Einav, Financial Times

“Fiennes imbues Eliot’s last great poem with all the drama of a Shakespearean soliloquy in a magnificent, intimate theatrical experience.” – Arifa Akbar, The Guardian

“A staggering experience that is going to be best seen in a darkened room where you can get lost in the words which are amplified and expanded by Fiennes’ physical performance…this is a masterclass of acting and a magnificent film. See it.” – Steve Kopian, Unseen Film

A film that “raises the bar for trans stories onscreen,” MONICA opens Friday at the Laemmle Claremont, Glendale, Monica Film Center and NoHo.

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Monica is an intimate portrait of a woman who returns home after a long absence to confront the wounds of her past. Reconnecting with her mother and the rest of her family for the first time since leaving as a teenager, Monica embarks on a path of healing and acceptance. The film delves into her internal world and state of mind, her pain and fears, her needs and desires, to explore the universal themes of abandonment and forgiveness.

Monica marks a major first foray into U.S. theaters for filmmaker Andrea Pallaoro, a fresh new voice in Italian cinema who has been making a stir with audiences overseas. A collaboration between breakout star Trace Lysette (Transparent), Oscar nominee Patricia Clarkson, and Emily Browning, the film stood out at last year’s Venice Film Festival, where it competed for the Golden Lion, Queer Lion, and won the Arca CinemaGiovani Award for best Italian Feature before eventually screening in competition at major film festivals in Chicago, Annecy, and Warsaw.

Critical praise for Monica has been almost universal:

“Monica raises the bar for trans stories onscreen, and Lysette takes her rightful place as its muse.” ~ Jude Dry, indieWire

“With uncommon sensitivity toward the interior lives of its characters, as well as to the shifting codes of trans representation, Monica is a film about making amends, where the person who deserves the apology is also the one doing all the work.” ~ Peter Debruge, Variety
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“Monica is an intimate look at the complexity of grief, reconciliation and family.” ~ Tracy Brown, Los Angeles Times
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“A quiet, heartfelt, and beautifully nuanced drama that feels unique and universal.” ~ Peter Sobczynski, RogerEbert.com

“Director Andrea Pallaoro doesn’t burden this delicate tale of reconciliation with long monologues or extensive back stories, and the performances are compelling in their restraint.” Teo Bugbee, New York Times

“Placing a uniquely trans story in the center of a well-worn road creates a path to a new sentiment to be granted to a tale that many people have and will face in their life.” ~ Niko Stratis, Autostraddle
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“Monica is a wondrous work in terms of painting with light, in which the select shadows tell their own story.” ~ Nick Allen, RogerEbert.com

“Director and co-writer Andrea Pallaoro banishes easy sentiment and proselytising in this touching film, allowing the audience to take a journey with the titular Monica and discover her story on the way.” ~ Fionnuala Halligan, Screen International

“A subtle, bold and thoroughly feminine political thriller,” CHILE ’76 opens May 19 at the Royal.

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Chile ‘76, director Manuela Martelli’s second feature film, is set during the early days of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. It builds from quiet character study to gripping suspense thriller as it explores one woman’s precarious flirtation with political engagement. We open the film on Friday, May 19 at the Royal.
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“An intimate psychosocial character study that unfolds at a national scale. This isn’t a story about one affluent woman’s gradual radicalization against authoritarianism, it’s a story about the illusion of not taking sides.” ~ David Ehrlich, indieWire

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“Martelli’s film demonstrates remarkable skill in reconstructing he time period, giving consideration both to recreating the appearance of the era and its emotional tenor.” ~ Teo Bugbee, New York Times

 

“At all times, and in every way, Chile ’76 is a film defined by layers, with pleasant everyday facades masking a dark, corrupt authoritarian underbelly.” ~ Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
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“What begins as a muted marital melodrama slowly boils into a restrained political thriller, with an ease and skill all the more impressive in a first feature.” ~ Manuel Betancourt, Variety

“Küppenheim is terrific, her precision and restraint in the role drawing us into the story. Mariá Portugal’s analogue electronic score is eerily atmospheric.” ~ Wendy Ide, Guardian

“An outstanding performance from Aline Küppenheim is the driving force in this engrossing suspense drama-thriller about an elegant and prosperous woman being drawn into Chile’s anti-Pinochet resistance in 1976.” ~ Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

“A subtle, bold and thoroughly feminine political thriller.” ~ Marina Ashioti, Little White Lies

 

Bronx Bomber Yogi Berra bio-documentary IT AIN’T OVER opens May 11 with 2-for-1 discounts.

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Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra is one of baseball’s greatest. He amassed ten World Series rings, three MVP awards and 18 All Star Game appearances. He caught the only perfect game in World Series history. Yet for many his deserved stature was overshadowed by his simply being himself and being recognized more for his unique personality, TV commercial appearances and unforgettable “Yogi-isms,” initially head-scratching philosophical nuggets that make a lot more sense the more you think about them. In telling the whole story, It Ain’t Over gives Berra his due in following the life of a savvy, commanding, bad ball-hitting catcher with a squat frame but also a D-Day veteran, loving husband and father and, yes, product endorser and originator (mostly) of his own brand of proverbs now ingrained into everyday life. Granddaughter Lindsay Berra tells his story along with his sons, former Yankee teammates, players he managed, writers, broadcasters, and admirers (such as Billy Crystal), plus photos and footage on and off the diamond. Berra famously said, “I’d be pretty dumb if I started being something I’m not,” and It Ain’t Over lovingly makes clear he stayed who he was for the benefit of baseball and everyone else.

We open the film on Thursday, May 11 at the Royal and Friday, May 19 at the Town Center, Newhall, Glendale and Claremont.

On Thursday, May 11 and Sunday, May 14, we’re running a two-for-one promotion: buy one ticket for any screening of It Ain’t Over at the Royal on either day and get a second one for free. The only restriction is you have to buy your tickets at the Royal box office, not online.

“Yogi Berra lived the kind of life we wish our heroes to have: filled with love, respect, and integrity. This is a film fans can embrace and younger generations can learn from. I loved it.” ~ Leonard Maltin, leonardmaltin.com

“More emotional than you’d expect from a doc about a hard-hitting catcher.” ~ Dan Fienberg, Hollywood Reporter

“We made this movie for ‘the kids’…with style and color, wit and heart, music and dance.” Parker Posey on PARTY GIRL, opening Friday.

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We’re pleased to open the restoration of Party Girl, the 1995 classic directed by Daisy von Scherler Mayer, this Friday at our Glendale theater. The film launched the career of star Parker Posey, in the now-iconic role of Mary, the titular Soho party girl-turned-librarian, and marked an important turning point in the world of NYC indies. The director will participate in a Q&A after the 7:30 pm screening on Saturday, April 29. Filmmaker Miguel Arteta will moderate.

“We made this movie for ‘the kids’ – as we called them – young people from small towns, who had big dreams, and who weren’t, for whatever reason, conforming to the status quo,” says Parker. “Our intention was to nurture them — with style and color, wit and heart, music and dance. I’m happy the film’s out with a re-release, to inspire again – the unconventional path many of us live today. A special shout-out to the librarians, who also enjoy being silly on a dance floor — and while I’m at it, to the art of DJ’ing and other arts that keep us moving and free.”

Party Girl follows Mary (Posey), a NYC nightclub scenester and social butterfly who rules the underground party scene. By day, however, she lacks purpose and enough funds to make rent. When her aunt gets her a job at the local library, Mary initially waffles under the constraints of the system, but then unexpectedly flourishes as a librarian (and does a lot of growing up along the way). The film features a laundry list of notable actors, including Liev Schreiber, Guillermo Diaz (Scandal), and John Ventimiglia (The Sopranos), and is brilliantly shot on location in pre-gentrification Lower Manhattan.