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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.

 

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.

“[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

 

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.’

LOS FRIKIS Q&A’s with the filmmakers and lead actor this weekend in Santa Monica and North Hollywood.

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  1. Monica Film Center

Fri (1/03) 4pm –  Los Frikis – Special Screening with Q&A with director Michael Schwartz and star Eros de la Puente

Fri (1/03) 7pm  – Los Frikis – Special Screening with Q&A with director  Michael Schwartz and star Eros de la Puente

Sat (1/04) 4pm – Los Frikis – Special Screening with Q&A with director Michael Schwartz

Sat (1/04) 7pm – Los Frikis – Special Screening with Q&A with director Michael Schwartz

  1. Laemmle NoHo 7

Fri (1/03) 4:10 pm –  Los Frikis – Special Screening followed by Q&A with director Tyler Nilson

Fri (1/03) 7:10 pm  – Los Frikis – Special Screening followed by Q&A with director Tyler Nilson

Sat (1/04) 4:10 pm – Los Frikis – Special Screening Q&A  with director Tyler Nilson star Eros de la Puente

Sat (1/04) 7:10 pm – Los Frikis – Special Screening Q&A with director Tyler Nilson star Eros de la Puente

Oscar short-listed FROM GROUND ZERO opens January 3 at the Laemmle Glendale and Monica Film Center.

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Palestine’s Official Submission for the 2025 Academy Awards, From Ground Zero is a powerful collection of short films by 22 Palestinian filmmakers living through war in Gaza. Through a unique blend of animation, documentary, and fiction, these stories capture the unyielding steadfastness of the human spirit and enduring creativity that thrives even in the face of relentless devastation. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has short-listed the film in its Best International Feature Film category for the 97th Academy Awards.

From Ground Zero was created by filmmaker Rashid Masharawi and designed to give a voice to the people of Gaza and to document their day-to-day experiences, many of which often go unheard by the outside world. In a war-torn society, where artistic creation is extremely complex, the project sought to capture the diversity of perspectives of Gazans through slice-of-life short films, ranging anywhere from three to six minutes in length. Filmmakers were allowed to tell their story through any genre and cinematic storytelling platform, from fiction to documentary to animation.
In order to ensure quality and coherence, a dedicated selection committee was set up to ensure the viability of the short films pitched to be included in the From Ground Zero Project. The committee evaluated every project submitted, giving priority to personal, original stories that focused on the project’s overall message. Once the 22 projects had been selected, the committee worked closely with the filmmakers to ensure their proper development, from concept to production – tackling real-world obstacles that filmmakers outside of Palestine would never have to consider. The creation of From Ground Zero required meticulous organization. Tutors based in the Middle East and Europe supervised the projects, while experienced coordinators on the ground in Gaza ensured the technical and human resources needed for filming.

Paul Schrader’s moving OH, CANADA, starring Richard Gere, Uma Thurman, and Jacob Elordi, opens Friday.

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In Paul Schrader’s new film Oh, Canada, which we open Friday at the Monica Film Center, NoHo, and Town Center, Richard Gere and Jacob Elordi play a man at opposite ends of his life, deciding how to live it. Uma Thurman, Michael Imperioli, and Victoria Hill co-star.

Schrader said this about his film:

“When friend and author Russell Banks (Affliction) took ill I was weighing other story possibilities. I realized that mortality should be the subject. Russell had researched and written a book about dying when he was healthy titled, Foregone. He’d wanted to call it Oh, Canada (there was a conflict with Richard Ford’s Canada), and asked if I would use his original title. So Foregone became Oh, Canada.

“Leonard Fife became a successful documentary filmmaker after fleeing to Canada to avoid the Vietnam War. Sick and dying in Montreal, he is interviewed by his former students. ‘I made a career out of getting people to tell me the truth,’ he says, ‘Now it’s my turn.'”

 

“Paul Schrader and Richard Gere, reunited for the first time since 1980’s American Gigolo, are at the peak of their powers.” – Chuck Bowen, Slant

“Energized by the reunion of its director, Paul Schrader, and its star, Richard Gere, in their first collaboration since American Gigolo.” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker

“Richard Gere gives his best performance in years.” – Hannah Strong, Little White Lies

“Takes on grand themes of memory, mortality, and artistic self-reckoning… to sincerely moving effect.” – Justin Chang, The New Yorker 

“A glorious romantic confection unlike any other in movie history,” THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG 60th anniversary screenings start Friday at the Royal!

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An angelically beautiful Catherine Deneuve was launched to stardom by this dazzling musical heart-tugger from Jacques Demy. She plays an umbrella-shop owner’s delicate daughter, glowing with first love for a handsome garage mechanic, played by Nino Castelnuovo. When the boy is shipped off to fight in Algeria, the two lovers must grow up quickly. Exquisitely designed in a kaleidoscope of colors, and told entirely through the lilting songs of the great composer Michel Legrand, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is one of the most revered and unorthodox movie musicals of all time.

“A glorious romantic confection unlike any other in movie history.” ~ The Washington Post

“Elevates the quotidian to the spectacular…Umbrellas’ palette of sherbet-colored pastels remains undimmed.” ~ Melissa Anderson, Village Voice

“Demy’s masterpiece.” ~ Mike D’Angelo, A.V. Club

“Retains its direct appeal to the eyes, ears, and tear ducts.” ~ Slant

“One of the most brain-quiveringly beautiful films ever to flood a screen.” ~ Eileen G’Sell, Hyperallergic

“A surprisingly effective film, touching and knowing and, like Deneuve, ageless…a bold, original experiment.” ~ Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

FLOW may be the best animated film of the year.

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It has been another excellent year for animated features. Inside Out 2, The Wild Robot, Look Back, Art College 1994, Chicken for Linda and Memoir of a Snail stand out; Moana 2 just had a record-setting weekend; and we still have The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, The Colors Within and The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie to look forward to.

But, as Yoda said, “there is another.” The adventure-fantasy Flow follows a courageous cat after his home is devastated by a great flood. Teaming up with a capybara, a lemur, a bird, and a dog to navigate a boat in search of dry land, they must rely on trust, courage, and wits to survive the perils of a newly aquatic planet. From the boundless imagination of the award-winning Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis (Away), Flow is a thrilling animated spectacle as well as a profound meditation on the fragility of the environment and the spirit of friendship and community. Steeped in the soaring possibilities of visual storytelling, it is a feast for the senses and a treasure for the heart and we open it this Friday at the Laemmle Claremont, Glendale, Monica Film Center, and Newhall.

“Critic’s Pick! Grade: A! A movie brimming with sentiment but not sentimentality, this is one of the most moving animated films in recent memory, and, beyond that, groundbreaking too. The anthropomorphic animal characters of 21st century U.S. animated features have nothing on the animal stars of ‘Flow.'” – Christian Blauvelt, Indiewire

“At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, there’s something about the purity of great animated storytelling that can shatter your heart and then make it whole again. (Think Toy Story 3.) Latvian director Gints Zilbalodis’ captivating second feature, Flow, is that kind of marvel, a vividly experiential white-knuckle survival adventure that takes place in a world on the brink of ruin. Told entirely without dialogue, this tale of a cat that evolves from self-preservation to solidarity with a motley crew of other species is something quite special” – David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

“Flow is as hard to resist as a pair of plaintive, saucer-shaped eyes peering out from a bundle of fur. Gints Zilbalodis’s second feature is a rousing animated adventure in which a devastating flood obliges an independent cat to seek allies among the animal kingdom. Technical virtuosity is matched by storytelling vigour and dramatic heft in a film with a ready appeal to ailurophiles and animal lovers of all ages.”- Allan Hunter, Screen Daily

SABBATH QUEEN, the fascinating new documentary about a radical queer rabbi, opens this week with copious Q&A’s and an Inside the Arthouse interview.

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Sabbath Queen, the new documentary filmed over two decades, follows Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie’s epic journey as the dynastic heir of 38 generations of Orthodox rabbis, including the Chief Rabbis of Israel. He is torn between rejecting and embracing his destiny and becomes a drag queen rebel, a queer bio-dad and the founder of Lab/Shul—an everybody-friendly, God-optional, artist-driven, pop-up experimental congregation.

Sabbath Queen followsAmichai on his lifelong quest to creatively and radically reinvent religion and ritual, challenge patriarchy and supremacy, champion interfaith love, and stand up for peace. The film interrogates what Jewish survival means in a difficult, rapidly
changing 21st century.

“How [Amichai] went from the Radical Faeries’ joyous, transgressive vision of queerness — which led to creating his drag alter ego, Rebbetzin Hadassah Gross — to embracing Conservative Judaism is the subject of Sandi DuBowski’s fascinating look at the act of questioning yourself and your family, your surroundings and your decisions.” ~ Elisabeth Vincentelli, New York Times

“This fast-paced, well-shot doc does place its finger on the quickening pulse of an ever-wider gap between liberalizing Western social values and the Orthodox sphere that believes they are antithetical to Judaism.” ~ Dennis Harvey, Variety

“The director delicately contextualizes his subject’s desired legacy by threading Lau-Lavie’s harrowing familial history into the narrative.” ~ Robyn Bahr, Hollywood Reporter

The regular engagement starts tomorrow at the Royal, and we are also showing the film December 9 at the NoHo, December 10 and 12 in Glendale, and December 11 at the Town Center. Director Sandi Simcha Dubowski (Trembling Before G-d) was interviewed for Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge’s Inside the Arthouse podcast (the episode will be out Friday). He and protagonist Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie will participate in Q&A’s at multiple screenings along with special guests.

Thursday, December 5th at 7PM
Royal Theater — Q&A with director Sandi DuBowski and Amy Ziering

Award-winning investigative filmmaker and activist Amy Ziering is the woman behind the last decade’s most important films about sexual assault that have directly impacted American culture and politics. Ziering’s work is a lightning rod for conversation with lauded works such as The Invisible War, The Hunting Ground, The Bleeding Edge, On the Record, and Allen v. Farrow. Ziering is the recipient of countless prestigious awards including an Oscar nomination, two Emmy awards, a Peabody, an Independent Spirit Award, a duPont-Columbia award, and the George Polk Award.

Friday, December 6th at 7:10PM
Royal Theater — Q&A with director Sandi DuBowski.

Saturday, December 7th at 7:10PM
Royal Theater — Q&A with director Sandi DuBowski and protagonist Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie with journalist Jessica Yellin.

Jessica Yellin, the founder of News Not Noise. For years, Yellin worked in network news at ABC, MSNBC, and CNN, where she was the Chief White House Correspondent.

Saturday, December 7th, 4pm – 5.45pm
Afternoon SoulSpa led by Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie — a meditative spa for soul and body, which is an adaptation of the Shabbat day service into an interactive musical experience which is everybody-friendly and God-optional, offering grounding, gratitude and contemplative conversations to lift up healing and hope. Location in Sawtelle. If you are interested email: hello@sabbathqueen.com.

Sunday, December 8th Sabbath Queen Editing Masterclass 10:30AM–12:30PM
Francisco Bello ACE, Jeremy Stulberg ACE, Kristin Feely, Sandi DuBowski, Brian Kates ACE
At the Laemmle Royal with Editors/Writers Francisco Bello ACE and Jeremy Stulberg ACE, Editor Kyle Crichton, and director Sandi DuBowski to discuss the process of crafting a longitudinal documentary two decades in the making. Hosted by Brian Kates ACE. Moderated by Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film and Artist Programs, Sundance Institute. In association with Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, ADE, BIPOC Doc Editors, Karen Schmeer Editing Fellowship, Documentary Producers Alliance. RSVP here.

Sunday, December 8th at 1:20PM
Royal Theater — Q&A with director Sandi DuBowski, protagonist Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, and Caroline Libresco.
Presented by Jewish Story Partners.

Caroline Libresco is Co-Founder and Head of Granting and Programs of Jewish Story Partners. She is a leading film festival curator, producer, story advisor, and program strategist who recently wrapped nineteen years as a lead programmer at the Sundance Film Festival. Caroline is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where she serves on the Documentary Branch Executive Committee.

Sunday, December 8th at 7:10PM
Royal Theater — Q&A with director Sandi DuBowski, protagonist Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie and Rabbi Sharon Brous.

Rabbi Sharon Brous is the senior and founding rabbi of IKAR, author of The Amen Effect, who offered the invocation at the DNC and Women’s March. She was named #1 on the Newsweek / The Daily Beast list of most influential Rabbis in America.

Monday, December 9th at 7PM
Laemmle Noho — Q&A with director Sandi DuBowski and Sabbath Queen composer Joel Goodman.

An Emmy-winner and four-time Emmy nominee known for a deeply nuanced sound filled with intricate subtleties, Goodman’s diverse body of work includes scores to over 150 films and television programs that have received 5 Oscar nominations, 30 Emmy awards and over 40 Emmy nominations. He has scored over 40 films for HBO and composed the Main Theme for the long-running and critically acclaimed PBS series American Experience.

Tuesday, December 10th at 7PM
Laemmle Glendale — Q&A with director Sandi DuBowski and Damona Hoffman

Celebrity dating coach Damona Hoffman has been coaching singles on how to find love online and offline for over 15 years. Her articles appear regularly in The LA Times and The Washington Post. Plus, she’s a regular on-air contributor to The Drew Barrymore Show, NPR, and NBC’s Access Daily. Damona also starred in two A+E Networks’ TV shows: #BlackLove and A Question of Love. Her weekly podcast Dates & Mates has been featured in Cosmopolitan, Huff Post, Bustle and tops the charts in the Relationships category on the major podcast platforms.

Wednesday, December 11th at 4PM and 7PM
Laemmle Town Center in Encino — Q&A with director Sandi DuBowski at 4pm and Sandi DuBowski and Gabe Dunn at 7pm

Gabe Dunn is an American writer, podcaster, actor, and filmmaker. Since 2014, Dunn has hosted the YouTube comedy show and podcast Just Between Us with fellow former BuzzFeed writer Allison Raskin. Dunn also hosts the podcast Bad with Money, which launched in 2016 and which primarily focuses on personal finances, while also discussing subjects including poverty and economic oppression. Their debut young adult novel I Hate Everyone but You, co-authored with Raskin, was published in 2017 and made The New York Times bestseller list.

Thursday, December 12th at 7PM
Laemmle Glendale — Q&A with director Sandi DuBowski