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Zydeco, Godard, Inuit Throat Singer Tanya Tagaq, Klimt & Koons: The Final Culture Vulture Films of 2023.

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We have finished programming Culture Vulture, our long-running weekly film series of fine art, theater, opera, music and more, for the rest of the year. Have a look! The screenings are every Monday evening and Tuesday matinee at the Laemmle Claremont, Glendale and Monica Film Center. After a hiatus over the holidays, we’ll bring the series back in 2024, likely with additional screening days and venues. Nice! More opportunities to apply the balm of beauty against the burn of our harsh world. Keep an eye on our social media and weekly newsletter for updates.

November 6-7: Klimt & the Kiss: The Kiss by Gustav Klimt is one of the most recognized and reproduced paintings in the world. It is perhaps the most popular poster on student dorm walls from Beijing to Boston. Painted in Vienna around 1908, the evocative image of an unknown couple embracing has captivated viewers with its mystery, sensuality and dazzling materials ever since it was created. But just what lies behind the appeal of the painting – and just who was the artist that created it?

November 13-14: I Went to the Dance: The seminal film on the history of the foot-stomping, toe-tapping music of French Southwest Louisiana. Features many Cajun and Zydeco greats, Michael Doucet, BeauSoleil, Clifton Chenier, Canray Fontenont, Marc and Ann Savoy, D.L. Menard.

November 20-21: Jeff Koons: A Private Portrait: This is not just a documentary but an amazing journey inside the mind of the most controversial artist of our time. Jeff Koons is widely regarded as one of the most influential, popular and disputed artists of the last 30 years. This film shows the hidden mechanisms lying behind the person, the artist and the Koons brand. It’s an intimate exploration of Jeff Koons’ consciousness, aiming to discover what motivates him and shapes his incomparable vision.

November 27-28: Recordially Yours, Lou Curtiss: Yale Strom explores the life and work of Lou Curtiss – creator of the San Diego Folk Festival, audiophile, folklorist, author, raconteur, radio host and proprietor of Folk Arts Rare Records, a mecca for some of the most celebrated American roots musicians in America (Jack Tempchin, Jason Mraz, Tom Brousseau, A.J. Croce, George Winston, Sue Palmer, Alison Brown, Tomcat Courtney, Tom Waits, Gregory Page, Mike Seeger and many others). Archival footage, live interviews and music tell the story of this American icon.

December 4-5: Titanic: The Musical: Five-time Tony Award winner Titanic: The Musical is ‘breathtaking’ (The Guardian) and ‘magnificent’ (The Telegraph). A stunning and stirring production recounting the hopes, dreams and aspirations of her passengers, from the wealthy first class to the third class dreaming of a new life in America.

December 11-12: Ever Deadly weaves together intimate concert footage of Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq alongside moving personal reflections, stunning sequences filmed in Nunavut, and hand-drawn animation by Inuk artist Shuvinai Ashoona to seamlessly bridge history, landscapes, stories, and songs with pain, anger, and triumph – all through the expressions of one of the most innovative musical performers of our time.

December 15-21 at the Royal, December 18-19 at the Claremont, Glendale and Monica Film Center: Godard Cinema with Trailers of the Film that Will Never Exist: ‘Phony Wars’: Jean-Luc Godard is synonymous with cinema. With the release of Breathless in 1960, he established himself overnight as a cinematic rebel and symbol for the era’s progressive and anti-war youth. Sixty-two years and 140 films later, Godard is among the most renowned artists of all time, taught in every film school yet still shrouded in mystery. One of the founders of the French New Wave, political agitator, revolutionary misanthrope, film theorist and critic, the list of his descriptors goes on and on. Godard Cinema offers an opportunity for film lovers to look back at his career and the subjects and themes that obsessed him, while paying tribute to the ineffable essence of the most revered French director of all time.

We’ll screen Godard Cinema with Godard’s final work, Trailer of a Film That Will Never Exist: ‘Phony Wars.’ At the time of his death in September 2022, Jean-Luc Godard had been in the midst of planning another feature, an adaptation of Belgian author Charles Plisnier’s 1937 novel Faux Passports. Though the film was never produced, the intricate and beautiful “trailer” that Godard put together in preparation now stands as his final work, a complex collage of history, politics, and cinema constructed of paper and glue, paintings and photographs, sound and silence.

Godard often transformed his synopses into aesthetic programs. His swan song follows in this tradition and will remain as the ultimate gesture of cinema, which he accompanies with the following text: “Rejecting the billions of alphabetic diktats to liberate the incessant metamorphoses and metaphors of a necessary and true language by returning to the locations of past film shoots, while keeping track of modern times.”

“A genius tragicomedy on the elusive nature of freedom,” THE DELINQUENTS opens October 27.

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The free-flowing, delightful heist film/existential comedy from Argentina The Delinquents, which we open October 27 at the Royal, November 3 at the Claremont and Town Center and November 10 in Glendale, has been compared to a Pedro Almodóvar and Eric Rohmer collaboration. It’s “a consistently playful, gradually beguiling existential dramedy on the multitudinous subject of work and freedom.” (Isaac Feldberg, RogerEbert.com)
  
“Rodrigo Moreno methodically unfurls a genius tragicomedy on the elusive nature of freedom.” ~ Carlos Aguilar, The Playlist
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“A meandering and hilarious delight from end to end.” ~ David Jenkins, Little White Lies

“Rodrigo Moreno’s dreamy and discursive The Delinquents might kick off with one of the most low-key bank robberies anyone has ever attempted, but it’s hard to overstate how thrilling it feels once the thief finally tells us about what he stole.” ~ David Ehrlich, indieWire

Moreno wrote the following about The Delinquents: One issue comes forth naturally when considering this film is the matter of freedom in the face of the mechanical routine imposed by work.

Morán imagines a risky plan to conquer that liberation even when it implies committing a crime and paying his dues. Román is his accessory.

These two men embody a collective fantasy: to break free from the rigors and obligations of the working life in order to attain a higher life filled with freedom.

To choose a better life means leaving the city, your job, even a family, and moving to the countryside, the ocean, the mountains, to give in to leisure, and to stop depending on something or someone. There are both existential and practical matters that make this dream a difficult one: How to make a living? How can I live without all the things I already have? When should I pursue it?

The protagonist solves these questions by virtue of a crime: to rob from a bank (the same bank he´s employed by) the equivalent of his salary times 25 years. It’s not about being millionaires; it’s about living without working all the way to the end.

As is the case in heist movies, the morality of the robbery is not the object, even more so when the target is a bank. I’m invoking the old maxim, always ascribed to Brecht, that it is a worse crime to establish a bank than it is to rob one.

This film, in that sense, takes a more anarchistic viewpoint and does not dwell on these bourgeois matters, but rather contemplates the notion that modern life, as it is intended, obliterates the possibility of a truly free man. It is this tension that Morán’s dream is built upon, that he finally acquires by means of the sacrifice of imprisonment. It is said in a passage of the film that the incarceration of jail for three years and a half is preferable to the incarceration of working for the rest of your life.

RUNNING ON EMPTY 35th Anniversary Screening with Actors Christine Lahti and Judd Hirsch in Person October 24.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 35th anniversary screening of the potent Oscar-nominated drama Running on Empty, written by Naomi Foner and directed by Sidney Lumet in one of his late-career highlights. Christine Lahti, who was named best actress of the year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association for her performance, Judd Hirsch, River Phoenix, and Martha Plimpton star in one of the few movies to examine the consequences of the revolutionary movements that swept America in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The film earned two Oscar nominations in 1988, for Foner’s original screenplay and for Phoenix as Best Supporting actor. We’ll screen Running on Empty at the Royal on October 24 at 7 pm with Ms. Lahti as our special guest.

Lahti and Hirsch play a married couple who were part of a 1960s revolutionary group, probably modeled on the Weather Underground, who participated in the bombing of a napalm laboratory that resulted in the serious injury of a janitor who was not supposed to be on the premises. Since then, they and their two sons have been on the run from the FBI, constantly changing their identities and moving when the authorities seemed close to locating them.  An added complication arises when their teenage son, played by Phoenix, begins to demonstrate extraordinary gifts as a pianist, and the parents realize that their unsettled lives could hinder the development of his talent. At the same time, Phoenix falls in love with the daughter (Plimpton) of his music teacher and feels compelled to reveal his true identity to her.

Lumet (12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, The Verdict), who received an honorary Oscar late in his life, brought his characteristic dramatic vigor and emotional intensity to the film. A highlight is the meeting between Lahti and her long estranged father, played by Steven Hill, that is one of the most wrenching scenes in any film of the period. Most critics recognized the film’s achievements. Roger Ebert called it “one of the best films of the year,” and Newsweek’s David Ansen called it “emotionally overpowering.” Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times wrote, “Sophisticated, uncompromising and refreshingly original, it is one of those rare films which is likely to mean as much to teens as it does to their parents.”

Christine Lahti made her film debut opposite Al Pacino in 1979 in …And Justice for All. She went on to co-star in Whose Life Is It Anyway? opposite Richard Dreyfuss, The Doctor with William Hurt, Just Between Friends with Mary Tyler Moore, Bill Forsyth’s Housekeeping, and, more recently, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood with Tom Hanks. She earned an Oscar nomination when she co-starred with Goldie Hawn in Swing Shift. Later she won an Oscar for a live action short film that she directed, Lieberman in Love, in 1995. Lahti won an Emmy for her starring role in the hit TV series, Chicago Hope, and also had a recurring role in Law and Order SVU. In 2001 she directed her first feature, My First Mister, starring Albert Brooks and Leelee Sobieski.

Judd Hirsch has received two Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor—for the Oscar-winning best picture of 1980, Ordinary People, and for his performance just last year in Steven Spielberg’s acclaimed memory piece, The Fabelmans. He also won two Emmy Awards for his performance in the critically acclaimed and immensely popular TV show of the late 1970s, Taxi. Among his other notable feature film credits are Independence Day, A Beautiful Mind, The Meyerowitz Stories, and Uncut Gems. Hirsch co-starred in several other TV series—Dear John, Damages, Superior Donuts, and The Goldbergs.

“Once upon a midnight dreary,” Price, Corman, Karloff & Lorre! THE RAVEN 60th Anniversary Screening October 19.

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Update October 12: This screening has been cancelled.

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the 60th anniversary of THE RAVEN (1963), the fifth film of Roger Corman’s cinematic adaptations of the works of American literary titan Edgar Allan Poe. The movie, written by acclaimed horror, fantasy, and mystery author Richard Matheson, stars horror icons Vincent Price and Boris Karloff in a rare big screen collaboration, and co-stars Peter Lorre, Hazel Court, and future superstar Jack Nicholson early in his career. The horror comedy plays one night only, Thursday, October 19 at 7 PM at the Royal in West Los Angeles. For added fun there will be a Poe/Corman trivia contest before the movie.

 

Producer-director Roger Corman, who began his career in the 1950s, is one of the most prolific independent filmmakers in movie history. Corman specialized in low budget cinema and is regarded as the “king of the B movie” with a steady diet of exploitation titles that spanned six decades and multiple movie genres. In 1960 he turned to the works of an author he had read and admired growing up, Edgar Allan Poe, the nineteenth century inventor of detective fiction and master of mystery and the macabre, and made a stylish if frugal version of The Fall of the House of Usher, hiring Vincent Price for the lead and acclaimed author Richard Matheson (The Incredible Shrinking Man, I am Legend, Somewhere in Time) to write the screenplay adaptation. The movie’s unexpected critical and commercial success spawned seven more Poe films in five years. The Raven, the fifth film, was released in January 1963 and was the first outright feature-length comic take on Poe’s most celebrated poem. The worldwide reception afforded the poem in 1845 made Poe the most famous American author of the 19th century, and he remains beloved in the 21st century for his pioneering detective fiction, horror tales, and haunting verse.

Matheson’s story lightens considerably the tone of the mesmeric poem, with the invention of sorcerer characters (Price and Karloff) who duel over Price’s wife (Hazel Court). Peter Lorre, transformed by Karloff into a raven, induces Price to help him break the spell and rescue Court. They are aided by Lorre’s son, played by Nicholson. Corman retained venerable cinematographer Floyd Crosby, production designer Daniel Haller, and composer Les Baxter from the prior Poe films to continue the atmospheric style which marks all the films. Matheson’s choice to inject humor throughout the movie led critics to pick up on the tongue-in-cheek tone, with one reviewer calling it “less of a Raven, and more of a lark.” Leonard Maltin found it a “funny horror satire [with the] climactic sorcerers’ duel a highlight.

This would be Matheson’s final Poe adaptation after writing House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), and Tales of Terror (1962). Price would continue as the principal Poe player to the end of the eight-film series with Tomb of Ligeia in 1964. All the Poe/Corman films entrenched Price as a legendary horrormeister, but in The Raven he would demonstrate his comic chops along with unexpected humorous turns from Boris Karloff and an improvising Peter Lorre. A young Jack Nicholson is the bonus in this affectionate, amusing homage to the genius of Edgar Allan Poe.

“One of the most perfect movies in the history of Japanese cinema,” UGETSU 70th Anniversary Screenings.

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By the time he made Ugetsu, Kenji Mizoguchi was already an elder statesman of Japanese cinema, fiercely revered by Akira Kurosawa and other directors of a younger generation. And with this exquisite ghost story, a fatalistic wartime tragedy derived from stories by Akinari Ueda and Guy de Maupassant, he created a touchstone of his art, his long takes and sweeping camera guiding the viewer through a delirious narrative about two villagers whose pursuit of fame and fortune leads them far astray from their loyal wives. Moving between the terrestrial and the otherworldly, Ugetsu reveals essential truths about the ravages of war, the plight of women, and the pride of men.

We will screen Ugetsu on October 11 at our Glendale, Claremont, Royal and Newhall theaters.

Pauline Kael wrote, “This subtle, violent yet magical film is one of the most amazing of the Japanese movies that played American art houses after the international success of Rashomon in 1951.” Japanese film scholar Donald Richie called Ugetsu “one of the most perfect movies in the history of Japanese cinema.” Many later directors, including Martin Scorsese and Andrei Tarkovsky, cited it as a personal favorite.

“With rare humanity, Mizoguchi reveals the toll these misadventures take on the souls of both men and their wives, many moments an uncanny synthesis of the realistic and the otherworldly.” ~ Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice

“Ugetsu, Kenji Mizoguchi’s most widely heralded film, is a mysterious, incantatory, and gorgeous parable.” ~ Eric Henderson, Slant Magazine

“A ravishingly composed, evocatively beautiful film.” ~ Rod McShane, Time Out

National Silent Movie Day: See Restored Classic THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD September 27.

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In honor of Silent Movie Day, we are presenting screenings of Irving Cummings’ THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD (1926), a pioneering disaster and special effects movie, starring Janet Gaynor and George O’Brien. A highlight of this year’s San Francisco Silent Film Festival, the film has been restored with a lush musical soundtrack by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra. We are screening the film September 27 only at our Royal, Glendale, Claremont and Newhall theaters.

THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD re-creates one of the greatest disasters in American history, when, in 1889, over 2,000 people in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, lost their lives. In her first major role, Gaynor plays a teenage girl smitten with dashing engineer O’Brien, whose pleadings about the imminent collapse of the local dam are ignored. It’s up to Gaynor to ride through the streets à la Paul Revere to warn the townspeople of the imminent disaster. After 97 years, the movie’s flood sequence is still a pre-CGI marvel of optical effects, matte paintings, and miniatures.

THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD has been newly restored in 4K by The Film Preserve, Ltd. and The Maltese Film Works, from 35mm elements preserved at George Eastman Museum. Noted preservationists Robert Harris and James Mockoski (archivist for Francis Ford Coppola) worked on the restoration.

Academy Award winners and film scholars Ben Burtt (sound designer of Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and more) and Craig Barron (visual effects supervisor for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Batman Returns, and more), have recorded a 30-minute illustrated conversation deconstructing the movie’s visual effects, that will be screened following the feature.

Exclusive clip: THE STORMS OF JEREMY THOMAS opens September 29 at the Royal and Town Center.

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On Friday, September 29 at the Royal and Town Center, we’ll be thrilled to open The Storms of Jeremy Thomas, a documentary which is a dream pairing of sorts: the Irish director Mark Cousins, whose brilliance lies in making movies about films and filmmakers (The Story of Film: An Odyssey (2011) and The Story of Film: New Generation (2021), joined legendary English producer Jeremy Thomas on his annual five-day road trip from England, through rural France to Cannes. Thomas’ filmography is breathtaking in its variety, scope and roster of superstar collaborators. (Hard to top Brando, Bowie and Bertolucci.) Highlights include The Last Emperor (1987), Naked Lunch (1991), David Cronenberg’s Crash (1996), and The Dreamers (2003).

In his Guardian review of Storms, critic Peter Bradshaw wrote “I find myself considering that in a world where everyone’s a cynic and an ironist, Cousins’ unaffected rapture is unique and refreshing…[this is] “hardcore, movie-mad immersion.”

At TheWrap, Jason Solomons wrote “The Storms of Jeremy Thomas provides a colorful and entertaining canvas for some beautiful and beautifully set-up movie clips — you want to rush out and watch all of them again.”

Mr. Thomas will participate in a Q&A at the Royal after the Thursday, September 28 sneak screening of The Storms of Jeremy Thomas. Writer-director Richard Shepard moderate.

You can get a taste for Storms in this exclusive clip, wherein Thomas discusses the importance of resisting monoculture and then gets into Walt Disney’s contradictions.

“I was motivated to place a lens on male vulnerability that includes a more empathic and compassionate gaze.” Filmmaker Aitch Alberto on ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE.

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The many fans of Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s 2012 YA novel “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe” are abuzz about the new movie adaptation, which we are pleased to open Friday at our Glendale, Santa Monica and North Hollywood theaters. It was written and directed by a fellow fan, Aitch Alberto, who wrote the following about her filmmaking journey:

When I read Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s YA novel “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe,” I was a different person, I read it cover to cover and it affected me to my core. At the time I didn’t understand the journey I would take but, sometimes you just jump in because life is inviting you to.

I’ve been on my journey and exploration around gender and masculinity for years and this book, these characters, and the need to tell this story have been a part of that journey, which is something I didn’t realize until recently. Ari, has been a mirror and a guide to helping me unpack my own misconceptions and internalized stereotypes around masculinity.  Dante, with his naivety and fearlessness – has inspired me to embrace and fully become who I am, without concern for the ramifications. In fact, being honest about who I am and giving young people permission to do the same has become my mission.

Ari and Dante at its core tells a story of self-discovery and acceptance. And when I think about the world today and my own journey of self-discovery, I believe there is nothing more important than standing up and fully embracing who we are and being seen for it. One great lesson from the story is that when young people and anyone really are given the room to be who they are, the process of self-discovery becomes a natural part of growing up and, ultimately, a superpower.

With the film, I was motivated to place a lens on male vulnerability that includes a more empathic and compassionate gaze. My goal for the film is to help redefine masculinity specifically for the Latinx community and present us as fully realized human beings.

I wanted to make an accessible, grounded, yet elevated teen love story, playing with perspective, where we watch Ari’s unease and emotional isolation shift and expand when Dante enters his life. And by the end of the film, they are engulfed by a bold star filled sky, a hint of exaggerated realism, holding them, finally safe in the world. Through self-acceptance, they have found their place in the universe and the universe embraces them.

Visually I was inspired by the boyish wonder of “Stand by Me”, the surreal pallet of “Virgin Suicides” and the photographic choices in “Badlands,” as well as the composition and color in the photography of William Eggleston – both musing and grounded yet with an ethereal sensibility, an almost gauzy, golden, faded photo album look. There is a naturalistic quality to the book and the script that I wanted to maintain. We wanted to bring the audience into Ari’s world, making the film an immersive experience, where there is not a big formal separation between subject and audience. ~ Aitch Alberto