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Stephen Frears’ and Meryl Streep’s FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS screenings with behind-the-scenes footage and pre-recorded cast Q&A Thursday night and Sunday afternoon.

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Set in 1940s New York, Stephen Frears’ Florence Foster Jenkins is the true story of the legendary New York heiress and socialite (Meryl Streep) who obsessively pursued her dream of becoming a great singer. The voice she heard in her head was beautiful, but to everyone else it was hilariously awful. Her “husband” and manager, St. Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant), an aristocratic English actor, was determined to protect his beloved Florence from the truth. But when Florence decided to give a public concert at Carnegie Hall, St. Clair knew he faced his greatest challenge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qth6y8SrXNY

All of our 7:10 PM screenings on Thursday, August 11 and 1:30 PM screenings on Sunday, August 14 at the NoHo 7, Playhouse 7, Town Center 5 and Claremont 5 will feature a special taped introduction from co-star Simon Helberg and after the screening a pre-taped Q&A with Mr. Helberg and stars Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant plus behind-the-scenes footage. Paramount Pictures will provide programs to audience members (while supplies last).

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Directed by the great Mr. Frears (My Beautiful Laundrette, Dangerous Liaisons, The Queen), it’s no surprise the film has been getting great reviews. Writing in Slate, Dana Stevens said “Streep … makes the character’s delusional faith in her own talent so infectious that we ache at the thought of Florence’s impending humiliation even as we prepare ourselves to laugh at it.” In the New York Daily News, Stephen Whitty wrote “It’s a pleasure seeing Grant in a great part again, playing the sort of almost-cad he’s best at. And Streep – who, in real life, can belt anything from Broadway to Bruce – is clearly having a ball singing badly.” Jason Solomons of The Wrap said “There’s a deceptively masterful simplicity to Frears’ direction. In this age of blockbusters and superhero face-off mayhem, it reminds us that unfussiness is a virtue.”

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AMAZING AUGUST Every Throwback Thursday in August at the Laemmle NoHo!

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Join Laemmle and  Eat|See|Hear for AMAZING AUGUST at the NoHo 7 in North Hollywood! Every Thursday in August our Throwback Thursday (#TBT) series presents films hand-picked by two renowned, local comic book shops, Emerald Knights Comics and Blastoff Comics! Doors open at 7PM, trivia starts at 7:30PM, and films begin at 7:40PM! It all starts Thursday, August 4th with SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE (1978). Check out the full schedule below. For tickets and our full #TBT schedule, visit laemmle.com/tbt!

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August 4: SUPERMAN

Sponsored by EMERALD KNIGHTS COMICS.
Just before the destruction of the planet Krypton, scientist Jor-El sends his infant son Kal-El on a spaceship to Earth. Raised by kindly farmers Jonathan and Martha Kent, young Clark discovers the source of his superhuman powers and moves to Metropolis to fight evil. As Superman, he battles the villainous Lex Luthor, while, as novice reporter Clark Kent, he attempts to woo co-worker Lois Lane. Buy Tickets.

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August 11: THE IRON GIANT

Sponsored by BLASTOFF COMICS.
This is the story of a nine-year-old boy named Hogarth Hughes who makes friends with an innocent alien giant robot that came from outer space. Meanwhile, a paranoid U.S. Government agent named Kent Mansley arrives in town, determined to destroy the giant at all costs. It’s up to Hogarth to protect him by keeping him at Dean McCoppin’s place in the junkyard. Buy Tickets.

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August 18: BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM

Sponsored by EMERALD KNIGHTS COMICS.
Batman, the costumed crime-fighter who prowls the night skies in Gotham City, soon finds there’s another vigilante in town knocking off prominent mob figures. Despite the scythe-like blade for a hand, a mechanical voice and the cloud of smoke that follows the figure wherever it goes, the police and outraged officials mistake the homicidal crusader for Batman himself and demand that the city’s longtime hero be brought to justice. Meanwhile, Andrea Beaumont returns to town. She is the lost love of Bruce Wayne, the billionaire playboy who is Batman’s alter ego, and was an integral part of Wayne’s decision ten years earlier to don the cape and cowl. Now, she is back in his life and is no less a disruption than the return of his old archenemy, The Joker, who has a stake in seeing the annihilation of this new vigilante, whoever it proves to be. Buy Tickets.

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August 25: FLASH GORDON

Sponsored by BLASTOFF COMICS.
Flash Gordon is an American football hero who is skyjacked aboard Dr. Hans Zarkov’s rocketship along with his beautiful girlfriend Dale Arden. The threesome are drawn into the influence of the planet Mongo, ruled by Emperor Ming the Merciless. The evil Ming has been testing Earth with unnatural disasters, and deeming our world a threat to his rule. He also intends to take Dale as his concubine, attempts to execute Flash and intends to destroy Earth. Flash must avoid the amorous attentions of Ming’s daughter, and unite the warring kingdoms of Mongo to rescue Dale and save our world. Buy Tickets.

The future of nuclear power from a New York facility built more than 50 years in the past: INDIAN POINT Opens at the Monica Film Center July 22.

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Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant looms just 35 miles from Times Square. With over 50 million people living in close proximity to the aging facility, its continued operation has the support of the NRC —Nuclear Regulatory Commission — but, as depicted in the documentary Indian Point, it has stoked a great deal of controversy in the surrounding community, including a vocal anti-nuclear contingent concerned that the kind of disaster that happened at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant could happen there. In the brewing fight for clean energy and the catastrophic possibilities of government complacency on oversight, director Ivy Meeropol presents a balanced argument about the issues surrounding nuclear energy and offers a startling reality check for our uncertain nuclear future.

Ms. Meeropol says, “My goal with this film is to present a story of great complexity through the people who are most invested in this industry – the owners of the plant, the workers at the plant and the activists who want to shut it all down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdJhyFqkKTA

“By focusing on one nuclear power plant during it’s dramatic struggle to remain viable, I believe we can gain a deeper understanding of the greater issues and questions that plague the world re: how to safely provide energy.

“Going inside Indian Point was essential to me, it drove my curiosity and as a filmmaker I try to bring that curiosity to the screen believing that audiences too want to see inside, and know who works there and what they do there, all day, every day.

“This is not a film about whether nuclear power is good or bad. As the repercussions of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster continue to unfold, the relevant questions to me are: do we continue operating aging plants, especially one like Indian Point which is situated in the middle of the largest population of any nuclear power plant in the nation, and if so, who or what organization will make sure these plants are run safely? This is a film that welcomes all perspectives, voices from all sides of the issue, especially those who work at the plant and who are often overlooked in this debate.

“What is this grand bargain we’ve made with ourselves to power the world and how can we make sure it doesn’t destroy us? It’s a huge question and one best told through the lens of one plant and the handful of characters that care what happens to it.”

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Hirokazu Kore-eda’s OUR LITTLE SISTER opens Friday, July 8th at our Royal Theater in West L.A.

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We are proud to present the exclusive Los Angeles engagement of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s OUR LITTLE SISTER beginning Friday, July 8th at the Royal Theater, expanding July 15th to the Playhouse 7 and Town Center 5.

Internationally acclaimed for films like Still Walking, Like Father, Like Son, and After Life (one of my all-time favorites), Kore-eda’s latest is based on the best-selling manga series Umimachi Diary.

Three twenty-something sisters – Sachi, Yoshino and Chika – live together in a large old house in the seaside town of Kamakura. When they learn of their estranged father’s death, they decide to travel to the countryside for his funeral. There they meet their shy teenage half-sister Suzu for the first time and, bonding quickly, invite her to live with them. Suzu eagerly agrees, and begins a new life with her older sisters.

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Set against the summer ocean sparkling with sunlight, radiant autumn foliage, a tunnel of gorgeous yet impermanent cherry blossom trees, hydrangeas damp from the rainy season, and brilliant fireworks heralding the arrival of another summer, their moving and deeply relatable story depicts the irreplaceable moments that form a true family.

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Kore-eda wrote of his film: “I realized that to focus on and work up the troubled relationships between these human characters was not the right approach for this film.

“What interests me is not only the beauty of the scenery of Kamakura – or of the four sisters – but also the accepting attitude of this seaside town itself, absorbing and embracing everything. It is the beauty that arises from the realization – not sorrowful but open-hearted – that we are just grains of sand forming a part of the whole, and that the town, and the time there, continue even when we are gone.”

OUR LITTLE SISTER was selected to compete for the Palme d’Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival and holds a 93% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. All four actresses who portrayed the sisters were awarded or nominated for a Japan Academy Prize (Japanese Academy Award).

Click here for showtimes and tickets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy2ZidLDgyk

“I love reality’s ability to surprise until life often seems like an unrealistic movie, and reality itself acts like a wonderland.” Shemi Zarhin’s THE KIND WORDS Opens July 1st

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On July 1st we’ll open the quirky, wry dramedy The Kind Words at the Royal and Town Center. Nominated for 12 Israeli Academy Awards, the film follows three Jewish Israeli siblings – Dorona and brothers Netanel and Shai – who, in the wake of their mother’s death, learn the man who raised them is not their biological father. The revelation sends them on a trip from Israel across France to discover the truth about their real dad. The sixth feature from writer-director Shemi Zarhin explores an unraveling family secret and the bittersweet journey of self-discovery that follows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JVwN5E2BPk

Zarhin wrote of his film: “I love stories where life is lived ‘on the edge.’ I love reality’s ability to surprise until life often seems like an unrealistic movie, and reality itself acts like a wonderland. I especially love the protagonists’ amazed, stunned expressions every time they are faced with a new, extreme turn of the plot. These expressions reveal the exaggerated, childish confidence they have in their day to day routines, as well as their distress in the face of any change or discovery. It makes me laugh, it makes me sad, and mainly it makes me love them very much.

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“But it also makes me worry: What will happen when they find out that the truth they are looking for is a pile of lies and prejudice? What will be their fate when they discover there is no consolation in the facts of the past, which only imprison the present and enslave the future? And love, even though it exists and is deep, is not always enough? And whether eventually they will realize that their lives and their identities depend solely on their desire?

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“A strange thing happened to me: the production of The Kind Words is long over and I find that I am still worried about the characters who have become my immediate family. Maybe it expresses concern that I have for my kids, myself, and for the place where I live. Dorona, Natanel and Shai, three little liars, three young Israelis who do not know how to love and do not realize that it was time to say goodbye to the past in order to reconcile and live in peace with the present and the future. True, they are blind and desperate, but they have courage, humor and a bit of hope. So although I am concerned I trust them. They are three very Kind Words.”

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Enjoy a Car-Free Day Exploring the Gold Line from South Pasadena to Azusa at 626 GOLDEN STREETS on June 26th

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626-logoExplore the San Gabriel Valley and celebrate the opening of the Foothill Gold Line extension at 626 Golden Streets, a car-free event on Sunday, June 26th from 8am to 2pm!

Modeled after other “open streets” programs like CicLAvia, 626 Golden Streets will temporarily open stretches of roadway from South Pasadena to Azusa for people to walk, jog, skate, bike, and more.

Communities participating include South Pasadena, San Marino, Arcadia, Monrovia, Duarte, Irwindale, and Azusa. Speaking of Azusa, head one block south of Azusa Downtown Station and you’ll find the future home of a Laemmle theater in Azusa! It’s the lot at the southeast corner of East Foothill Boulevard and North Azusa Avenue.

Seek out Activity Hubs along the 18+ mile route for free fitness classes (Zumba, yoga), activity booths, live music, food trucks, professional chalk artists, drum circles, cyclocross, Gabe the Sasquatch, and more!

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Seven Tips for Enjoying 626 Golden Streets:

  1. Golden Streets is a FREE event! But bring at least a few dollars to patronize local businesses, sample some of the SGV’s food, drink, and ride the Foothill Gold Line.
  2. YOU get to decide where you start and finish.
  3. All forms of non-motorized transportation are permitted. So if you’re thinking you’re about to look at what’s the best electric skateboards suitable for long-distance, have a think about bringing your old skateboard just for this instead!
  4. Golden Streets is NOT a race. There are no finisher medals or awards. Only smiles and miles of open streets.
  5. Share the road. Please exercise caution so everyone can have a safe, enjoyable day.
  6. Gold Line Station Activity Hubs will remain open until at least 3pm (South Pasadena hub to 4pm).
  7. Don’t forget to stop, enjoy, and take a picture! Share your best snapshots on social media with the hashtag #626GoldenStreets for a chance to win special one-time-only Golden Streets swag!

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For more information, visit: http://www.626goldenstreets.com!

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Anniversary Classics in June: William Friedkin with THE FRENCH CONNECTION and Russ Tamblyn and George Chakiris (Bernardo and Riff!) with WEST SIDE STORY

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I love New York in June. How about you? Well, this month we have two superb New York movies as part of our Anniversary Classics and some of the key talent behind them in person to talk about it.

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William Friedkin

This year marks the 45th anniversary of THE FRENCH CONNECTION, the gritty and gripping police thriller that won five Academy Awards in 1971, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Gene Hackman, Best Screenplay and Best Director for our special guest, William Friedkin. One of the key figures in the American cinematic renaissance of the 1970s, Mr. Friedkin has directed such films as The Birthday Party, The Boys in the Band, the enormously successful The Exorcist, Sorcerer, To Live and Die in L.A., Rules of Engagement, and the more recent Killer Joe.

We’ll screen THE FRENCH CONNECTION on June 18 at the Fine Arts Theatre. Beyond its adrenaline-fueled chase scenes, the movie boasts acute characterizations and potent social commentary about the moral compromises that may be endemic to police work. It also stands as one of the most vivid renditions of a decaying New York City ever committed to celluloid. Roy Scheider and Bunuel favorite Fernando Rey (as the suave European criminal kingpin) co-star. Reviews were ecstatic. Judith Crist called it “a movie-movie supreme.” Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times wrote that THE FRENCH CONNECTION was “a slam-bang, suspenseful, plain-spoken, sardonically funny, furiously paced melodrama.” Even highbrow Stanley Kauffmann, writing in The New Republic, hailed “the most exciting picture I’ve seen since Z.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwBbkSTfKa8

riffJune 29 won’t be just any night, because we’ll be celebrating the 55th anniversary of WEST SIDE STORY at the Fine Arts with Bernardo and Riff themselves, George Chakiris and Russ Tamblyn. NOTE: Unfortunately, George Chakiris had to cancel for health reasons. One of the most honored and commercially successful of all movie musicals, WEST SIDE STORY earned a near-record 10 Academy Awards in 1961. The film version of the groundbreaking stage musical that re-imagined Romeo and Juliet in contemporary New York City retained and deepened the play’s emotional impact by bringing together a show business all-star team. The show’s director and choreographer, Jerome Robbins, worked with veteran filmmaker Robert Wise to transform the theatrical experience into electrifying cinema. Robbins and Wise reworked the classic Leonard Bernstein-Stephen Sondheim score and came up with fresh casting ideas for this ever timely story of racial prejudice and conflict. The stars of the movie included Natalie Wood, Oscar nominee Mr. Tamblyn, Oscar winner Mr. Chakiris, and Oscar winner Rita Moreno.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFahVIspakE

Our screening will be followed by a Q&A with the charismatic leaders of the movie’s rival gangs, the Jets and the Sharks. Mr. Chakiris (Bernardo) had been a dancer in several 1950s musicals, including Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and White Christmas. Following his Oscar-winning performance in WEST SIDE STORY, he appeared in such films as Diamond Head with Charlton Heston, Flight from Ashiya with Yul Brynner, and the Jacques Demy musical The Young Girls of Rochefort, co-starring Catherine Deneuve and Gene Kelly. He also has extensive credits in theater and television.  West-Side-Story-DI-3-1

George Chakiris and Russ Tamblyn
George Chakiris and Russ Tamblyn

Russ Tamblyn (Riff) played Elizabeth Taylor’s younger brother in Father of the Bride in 1950. He displayed his dance abilities in such musicals as Hit the Deck and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and earned an Oscar nomination for his dramatic turn in the 1957 film, Peyton Place. His later work includes The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, the horror classic, The Haunting (also directed by Robert Wise), David Lynch’s cult TV series, Twin Peaks, and a cameo in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained.

Both Q&A’s will be moderated by Los Angeles Film Critics Association president Stephen Farber.

Summer Camp: Every Throwback Thursday in June at the NoHo 7

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mommie-dearestJoin Laemmle and  Eat|See|Hear for Summer Camp at the NoHo 7 in North Hollywood! Every Thursday in June our Throwback Thursday (#TBT) series presents some of our favorite intentionally (and unintentionally) campy films from the last sixty years! It all starts Thursday, June 2nd with VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. Check out the full schedule below. For tickets and our full #TBT schedule, visit laemmle.com/tbt!

June 2: Valley of the Dolls

A cinematic take on a 1960s best-seller, VALLEY OF THE DOLLS traces the ups and downs of three young women as fame, booze, pills, and men consume their lives. Well-bred, small-town Anne Welles (Peyton Place star Barbara Parkins) arrives in New York eager for fame but settles for a job assisting theatrical attorney Henry Bellamy (Robert H. Harris). The job leads her to cross paths with Helen Lawson (Hollywood veteran Susan Hayward), the grand dame of Broadway musicals, and Neely O’Hara (Patty Duke), an up-and-coming performer whom Lawson unceremoniously boots from her latest show. As the pressures of fame and failed romance take their toll on all three women, they take refuge in food, sex, liquor, and pills — especially Neely, who becomes downright monstrous (the titular “dolls” are the uppers and downers to which she becomes hopelessly addicted). BUY TICKETS.

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June 9: Female Trouble

A riotously funny bad-taste epic from director John Waters, Baltimore’s “Prince of Puke,” FEMALE TROUBLE tells the depraved life story of obese criminal Dawn Davenport (Divine), from her bad-girl youth as a go-go dancer on Baltimore’s infamous Block to her death in the electric chair. Mink Stole is terrific as Dawn’s bratty daughter Taffy, conceived following a romp on a junkyard mattress with a fat derelict in soiled underpants (also played by Divine). Mary Vivian Pearce and David Lochary co-star as crazed owners of a beauty-parlor who are convinced that “crime equals beauty,” and they take Dawn under their wings, forcing her to mainline liquid eyeliner to enhance her appeal. Edith Massey steals the film as Dawn’s obsessive neighbor, Ida, who wants her nephew to be gay because heterosexuals lead “sick and boring lives.” A hilariously appalling film, Female Trouble is just as disgusting and far funnier than Waters’ previous Pink Flamingos, if not as notorious. BUY TICKETS.

June 16: Mommie Dearest

MOMMIE DEAREST, best-selling memoir turned motion picture, depicts the abusive and traumatic adoptive upbringing of Christina Crawford at the hands of her mother, movie star Joan Crawford. One thing is certain: You’ll never look at a wire hanger the same way again! BUY TICKETS.

priscilla-posterJune 23: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

In THE ADVENTURES OF PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT, the usually menacing British actor Terence Stamp does a complete turnaround as Bernadette, an aging transsexual who tours the backwaters of Australia with her stage partners, Mitzi (Hugo Weaving) and Adam/Felicia (Guy Pearce). Their act, well-known in Sydney, involves wearing lots of makeup and gowns and lip-synching to records, but Bernadette is getting a bit tired of it all and is also haunted by the bizarre death of an old loved one. Nevertheless, when Mitzi and Felicia get an offer to perform in the remote town of Alice Springs at a casino, Bernadette decides to tag along. The threesome ventures into the outback with Priscilla, a lavender-colored school bus that doubles as dressing room and home on the road. Along the way, the act encounters any number of strange characters, as well as incidents of homophobia, while Bernadette becomes increasingly concerned about the path her life has taken. BUY TICKETS.

June 30: Auntie Mame

AUNTIE MAME began as a novel by Patrick Dennis (AKA Ed Fitzgerald), then was adapted into a long-running Broadway play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. In this 1958 film version, Rosalind Russell recreates her stage role as Mame Dennis, the flamboyant, devil-may-care aunt of young, impressionable Patrick Dennis. Left in Mame’s care when his millionaire father dies, young Patrick (Jan Handzlik) is quickly indoctrinated into his aunt’s philosophy that “life is a banquet–and some poor suckers are starving to death.” Social-climbing executor Dwight Babcock (Fred Clark) does his best to raise Patrick as a stuffy American aristocrat, but Mame battles Babcock to allow the boy to be as free-spirited as she is. In 1974, Auntie Mame was remade as the musical Mame starring Lucille Ball. BUY TICKETS.