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Cynthia Erivo and Alia Shawkat in the mesmerizing DRIFT, opening Friday at the Monica Film Center.

February 11, 2024 by Jordan Deglise Moore

From the producers of Call Me By Your Name and Nomadland, Drift follows Jacqueline (Cynthia Erivo), a refugee on a Greek island. As she tries to survive, cope with her past and gather strength, she begins a healing friendship with a rootless tour guide (Alia Shawkat). We open the film this Friday at the Monica Film Center.

“Erivo’s screen debut as a producer and one of her most impressive screen performances to date.” ~ David Canfield, Vanity Fair

“Drift, a patient character study set on a craggy Greek island, proves a mesmerizing showcase for the actress Cynthia Erivo’s talents.” ~ Natalia Winkelman, New York Times

“Drift is measured, sensitive and devastating, and works just the way it is.” ~ Alexandra Heller-NicholasAWFJ.org

“Erivo is such an intuitive and understated performer, and Chen so nuanced in his own approach, that Drift never feels didactic.” ~ Peter Debruge, Variety

“Erivo’s full-bodied commitment to the role, capturing how even the worst experiences can become a part of you, results in a performance so powerful that it’s occasionally too difficult to watch.” ~ Siddhant Adlakha, indieWire

“Solemn and stirring.” ~ David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

“Not only has Singapore director Anthony Chen set himself a tough task in this ambitious adaptation, he has also notably succeeded in making viewers see the world through very different eyes.” ~ Todd McCarthy, Deadline Hollywood Daily

Featuring “a shattering performance and made all the more devastating because it’s so subtle,” HOW TO HAVE SEX opens Friday in Glendale and Santa Monica.

February 7, 2024 by Jordan Deglise Moore

Winner of the Un Certain Regard prize at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, How to Have Sex is a vibrant and authentic depiction of the agonies, ecstasies and ride-or-die glory of young female friendship, from rising British filmmaker Molly Manning Walker. Three British teenage girls go on a rites-of-passage holiday, drinking, clubbing and hooking up in what should be the best summer of their lives. As they dance their way across the sun-drenched streets of Malia, they find themselves navigating the complexities of sex, consent and self-discovery. We open the film this Friday at the Laemmle Glendale and Monica Film Center.

In a recent interview with Film Inquiry, Walker spoke about the film’s potent impact on audiences: “We didn’t really know the scale of it when we were making it. We kind of felt like it was quite personal. And then as we put it out into the world, we saw that.”

“Walker often lets the camera linger on McKenna-Bruce’s face and eyes that convey all the things she can’t find the words for. It is a shattering performance and made all the more devastating because it’s so subtle.” ~ Lindsey Bahr, Associated Press

“Described by its director as loosely autobiographical, How to Have Sex is built around a subtle but devastating rug-pull that exposes the culture of sex and consent in the same way F Scott Fitzgerald put the Jazz Age on blast in The Great Gatsby.” ~ Clarisse Loughrey, Independent (UK)

“McKenna-Bruce’s fearless lead is both emotionally exposing and very finely calibrated, slipping from exuberance to anxiety to desperation sometimes in a single shot.” ~ Jonathan Romney, Financial Times

“As enthralling as it is important, How To Have Sex neatly depicts the joy and pain of teenage girlhood.” ~ Sophie Butcher, Empire Magazine

“Manning Walker’s film lays out the minefield of sexual education and consent for a post-#MeToo generation, with a precision to its ambiguities that will draw gasps from its characters’ contemporaries and elders alike.” ~ Guy Lodge, Variety

“In its frankness and often frightening candor, How to Have Sex is of a piece with coming-of-age dramas like Thirteen and The Diary of a Teenage Girl, with a dash of the lascivious, neon-colored bacchanalia of Spring Breakers thrown in for good measure.” ~ Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

“How to Have Sex is a stressful and infuriating watch because its arc isn’t reserved for fictional characters. Instead, it serves as the jumping point for bigger conversations that are all too common, timely as they are heartbreaking.” ~ Anne T. Donahue, Globe and Mail

“[It] could easily have become a simplistic cautionary tale, a racier version of an after-school special. Instead, Walker’s delicate eye and feel for rhythm lend the movie an ominous cadence.” ~ Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture

“A different kind of Greek tragedy — no grand myth, just a heart-sore, everyday observation of what the world does to girls and what the world makes girls do to themselves.” ~ Jessica Kiang, Los Angeles Times

“Glimpses into a very specific corner of girlhood’s ups and downs and the unshakeable beams of sisterhood make Walker’s How To Have Sex unforgettably relatable.” ~ Peyton Robinson, RogerEbert.com

“It’s a coming-of-age story centered on a sexual awakening—an almost hackneyed premise, but one that, in Walker’s hands (as both writer and director), produces results of unusual emotional intensity.” ~ Richard Brody, New Yorker

Oscar Docs – all five nominated features playing this weekend at the Monicas.

January 31, 2024 by Jordan Deglise Moore

Have you seen all five of the fantastic films nominated for Best Feature Documentary Oscars? If you missed one or two, this weekend is your chance because we’ll be screening the full quintet this weekend at the Monica Film Center and, in the case of The Eternal Memory, also the Laemmle Glendale.

20 Days in Mariupol: An Associated Press team of Ukrainian journalists trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol struggles to continue their work documenting atrocities of the Russian invasion. As the only international reporters who remain in the city, they capture what later become defining images of the war: dying children, mass graves, the bombing of a maternity hospital, and more.

Bobi Wine: The People’s President: This gripping documentary charts the inspiring activism of Bobi Wine, the pop star-turned-politician seeking to end Uganda’s brutal dictatorship. Rising from the ghetto slums of Kampala to be one of the country’s most beloved superstars, Bobi begins to use his music to call out corruption, then becomes an Independent Member of Parliament to defend the rights of his people.

The Eternal Memory: Augusto and Paulina have been together and in love for 25 years. Eight years ago, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and his wife has since become his caretaker. As one of Chile’s most prominent cultural commentators and television presenters, Augusto is no stranger to building an archive of memory, having been responsible for that Herculean task following the Pinochet dictatorship and its systematic erasure of collective consciousness. Now he turns that work to his own life, trying to hold on to his identity with the help of his beloved.

Four Daughters: This riveting exploration of rebellion, memory, and sisterhood reconstructs the story of Olfa Hamrouni and her four daughters, unpacking a complex family history through intimate interviews and artful reenactments to examine how the Tunisian woman’s two eldest were radicalized.

In To Kill A Tiger, Ranjit, a farmer in Jharkhand, India, takes on the fight of his life when he demands justice for his 13-year-old daughter, the survivor of sexual assault. In India, where a rape is reported every 20 minutes and conviction rates are less than 30%, Ranjit’s decision to support his daughter is virtually unheard of, and his journey unprecedented.

Laemmle Moviegoers’ Top Ten Films of 2023 Revealed!

January 25, 2024 by Jordan Deglise Moore

And the Top Ten Customer-Chosen films of 2023, ranked in order from 1 to 10 are (drum roll, please…):

Oppenheimer
Past Lives
Killers of the Flower Moon
Anatomy of a Fall
The Holdovers
Barbie
May December
Poor Things
The Zone of Interest
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

What a terrific list! Especially gratifying to see an excellent popular entertainment like Spider-Verse instead of pretentious Oscar bait whose titles shall go unmentioned. Half of these are still in theaters, in case you missed them or want to see them one more time as they were intended. The Zone of Interest, in particular, must be seen cinematically for its Oscar-nominated sound design alone. We’ll send gift cards to our randomly chosen winners Ted Bronson, Eve Fowler and Josh Messite. Thanks to everyone for playing!

Town Center lease extended!

January 17, 2024 by Jordan Deglise Moore

Good news on Ventura Boulevard: Laemmle Theatres and our landlord in Encino have agreed to a lease extension for our Town Center theater. We expect to be operating there until at least the end of January 2025 and hope to extend beyond that. Valley cinephiles: If you have been waiting to come back to the venue, now is the time to show support! We will bring the best of world cinema to your neighborhood year round. Come see one, some or all of the films we’re proud to open at the Town Center in just the next few weeks: The brilliant, chilling The Zone of Interest, Mads Mikkelsen’s The Promised Land, Ava Duvernay’s Origin, The Monk and the Gun from Bhutan, a re-release of Amelie, The Taste of Things with Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel, and so much more. Happy moviegoing!

Q1 2024 Culture Vulture Films Announced!

January 3, 2024 by Jordan Deglise Moore

Happy New Year! Laemmle Theatres President Greg Laemmle just finished putting the finishing touches on our Q1 films for Culture Vulture, our long-running weekly film series of fine art, theater, opera, music and more. Have a look! The screenings are every Monday evening and Tuesday matinee at the Laemmle Claremont, Glendale, Monica Film Center and, expanding the map to the San Fernando Valley, the Town Center in Encino.

01/22 – 01/23 MENUS-PLAISIRS: LES TROISGROS

01/29 – 01/30 DEAR ENGLAND

02/05 – 02/06 CALL ME DANCER

02/12 – 02/13 ROMEO & JULIET

02/26 – 02/27 THE IMMORTALS: THE WONDERS OF THE MUSEO EGIZIO

03/04 – 03/05 SKYLIGHT

03/11 – 03/12 PAINTING THE MODERN GARDEN: MONET TO MATISSE

03/18 – 03/19 VANYA

03/25 – 03/26 AMERICAN SOCIALIST: THE LIFE & TIMES OF EUGENE VICTOR DEBS

See the Academy Shortlisted Foreign Films and Feature Documentaries at Laemmle.

December 22, 2023 by Jordan Deglise Moore

As a gifted filmmaker told the New Yorker last year, seeing a movie at home rather than in a movie theater is “like reading a novel where you read one word out of two.” With that in mind, check out the Academy’s just-announced list of feature documentaries and international films that they have shortlisted for nominations. We’ll be playing a number of them:

SOCIETY OF SNOW (Spain) is now playing at the NoHo for two-week run.

THE TEACHERS’ LOUNGE (Germany) opened Christmas Day at the Royal and is expanding in January.

Aki Kaurismäki’s FALLEN LEAVES (Finland) is on screen at the Monica Film Center and set to return to Glendale.

THE PROMISED LAND from Denmark (with Mads Mikkelsen!), THE MONK AND THE GUN from Bhutan and TOTEM from Mexico are all set to open on February 2. And THE TASTE OF THINGS from France (with Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel!) will be back starting February 9.

And finally, we expect to be opening Jonathan Glazer’s THE ZONE OF INTEREST (United Kingdom) and Wim Wenders’ PERFECT DAYS (Japan)!

On the Doc side, we will be playing BEYOND UTOPIA, A STILL SMALL VOICE, THE ETERNAL MEMORY and TO KILL A TIGER for weekend morning shows at Glendale and the Monica starting on January 6. And we expect to have a couple of the other shortlisted docs come back as well.

Twelve of the 15 shortlisted docs played on our screens earlier this year. Not bad!

Make plans to enjoy the cinematic feast of the holiday season well into 2024!