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DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN 40th Anniversary Screening July 30 at the Royal.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 40th Anniversary screening of the delightful comedy ‘Desperately Seeking Susan,’ which teamed Rosanna Arquette and pop star Madonna in her first acting role. This was a feminist movie ahead of its time in many ways, with women holding most of the important positions behind the camera as well as on screen. The original screenplay was written by Leora Barish, and the film was directed by Susan Seidelman as her first mainstream movie after her low-budget hit ‘Smithereens’ had established her as a filmmaker to watch. The movie was produced by Midge Sanford and Sarah Pillsbury, two pioneering female producers who made their mark in an industry that was still male dominated. The screening is Wednesday, July 30, at 7:00 P.M. at Laemmle Royal Theatre. Producers Midge Sanford and Sarah Pillsbury, and executive producer Michael Peyser will be there for an in-person Q&A.

The story centers on Roberta (played by Arquette), a dissatisfied housewife in New Jersey who is fascinated by the personal ads in a New York tabloid and the character of Susan, who seems to be leading the adventurous life that Roberta only dreams about. Eventually she meets Susan and her bohemian entourage, and they swap roles, changing both of them through their unlikely friendship. Arquette was an up-and-coming young actress who starred the same year in Martin Scorsese’s ‘After Hours.’ Madonna had already made her mark as a pop icon with such giant hits as “Material Girl” from her second album, “Like a Virgin.” In her review of the film, Pauline Kael aptly called Madonna “an indolent, trampy goddess.”

DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN 40th Anniversary Screening July 30 at the Royal.

The supporting cast included many rising actors, including Aidan Quinn, Robert Joy, Laurie Metcalf, John Turturro, and Giancarlo Esposito. The movie scored at the box office, and reviews were strong. The New York Times’ Vincent Canby ranked it among the 10 best movies of the year. The New York Post called it “the most entertaining movie of the year.” Writing in The Hollywood Reporter, Kirk Ellis declared “an attractive, energetic young cast and some witty, off-center visual humor make the resultant laughs more than worth the wait.” The Los Angeles Times’ Kevin Thomas called the movie “a lark, an exhilarating celebration of people who have the good sense to be in touch with themselves and with each other.”

Later, Rolling Stone ranked it as one of the 100 greatest movies of the 1980s. In 2023 it was selected to be included in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, reserved for films of “historical, cultural, or aesthetic significance.” The costumes designed by Santo Loquasto also had an enduring impact. The jacket worn by Madonna in the movie fetched $252,000 at auction in 2014.

Sarah Pillsbury and Midge Sanford also produced such memorable films as ‘River’s Edge,’ ‘How to Make an American Quilt,’ ‘Love Field,’ ‘Eight Men Out,’ ‘Immediate Family,’ and the landmark TV movie about the AIDS crisis, ‘And the Band Played On.’ They will be joined by the executive producer of ‘Desperately Seeking Susan,’ Michael Peyser, whose credits include ‘F/X,’ ‘Ruthless People,’ ‘Big Business,’ and ‘Matilda.’

Filmmaker Embeth Davidtz & Executive Producer Trevor Noah in Person for DON’T LET’S GO TO THE DOGS TONIGHT July 10.

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Based on Alexandra Fuller’s memoir of the same name, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight captures the childhood of eight-year-old Bobo on her family farm in Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) at the end of the Zimbabwean War for Independence in 1980. Growing up in the midst of this long running war, Bobo internalizes both sides of the struggle. Conflicted by her love for people on opposing sides, she tries to make sense of her life in a magical way. Through her eight-year-old gaze we witness Rhodesia’s final days, the family’s unbreakable bond with Africa, and the deep scars that war leaves on survivors.

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight writer-director Embeth Davidtz & executive producer Trevor Noah will participate in an in-person Q&A after the July 10 early access screening at the Royal.

The regular engagement will begin the following day at the Royal, followed by an expansion to all but one of our other theaters on July 18.

“A gorgeous drama with an open, aching heart,” FAMILIAR TOUCH opens Friday at the Royal, Town Center, and Glendale.

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As we approach 2025’s midway point, we are about to open one of the year’s finest films, the locally produced Familiar Touch. A sampling of critics’ encomiums is below. Writer-director Sarah Friedland and star Kathleen Chalfant will participate in Royal Q&A’s after the 7:30 P.M. shows on June 27 & 28; at the Town Center following the 12:50 P.M. show on June 29; and at the Glendale after the 4:30 P.M. show on June 29. Lydia Storie, Director of Culture Change at Caring Across Generations, will moderate the June 27 screening. You can also catch Friedland and Chalfant’s interview on the latest episode of Inside the Arthouse.
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“Familiar Touch is a film about forgetting, but it’s also a reminder — as moving, sincere and gracefully unadorned as any I’ve seen in some time — of the actor’s art.” ~ Zachary Barnes, Wall Street Journal

“A gorgeous drama with an open, aching heart.” ~ Jourdain Searles, RogerEbert.com

“Because writer-director Sarah Friedland’s debut finds so much depth in its subjective approach to memory loss, it loses much of its stigma and discovers wonder in its place.” ~ Jacob Oller, AV Club

“Friedland’s film, as sharp as it is soft, conveys both the terror of losing the life you recognize, and the intermittent, fragmented joy of finding it again.” ~ Guy Lodge, Variety

“In the end,  Familiar Touch reveals itself to be less about the agonies of change than in the concessions we make to feel closer to our loved ones and ourselves.” ~ Beatrice Loayza, New York Times

“There is great emotional heft to a relatively simple film, and a dignity and empathy afforded to dementia patients that feels astonishingly rare on-screen, where sensationalism tends to bring the house down.” ~ Hannah Strong, Little White Lies

“Familiar Touch can be sad, without question, but it’s also salty and boundlessly tender.” ~ Alison Willmore, New York Magazine/Vulture

“What Friedland keenly understands is the power of what’s unsaid, how memories can tie themselves to sound, smell, and touch too, and how sometimes those are the last to go.” ~ Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com

“Like any good coming-of-age movie, Familiar Touch never condescends. It takes its protagonist’s experience with dislocation, unrequited love and the desire to be understood quite seriously.” ~ Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter

“Friedland, who also wrote the film‘s script, is not given over to histrionics or blaring displays of emotion, instead asking us to follow Ruth and experience the world through her eyes. The impact is profound.” ~ Kate Erbland, IndieWire

“There’s a profound tenderness in Sarah Friedland’s affecting first feature and a rare empathy.” ~ Wendy Ide, Screen International

A new comedy that draws inspiration from the great ones of the past, BAD SHABBOS opens Friday.

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A huge hit last weekend in New York, we’re excited to open the comedy Bad Shabbos this Friday at the Royal and Town Center with expansion runs planned around L.A. County in the subsequent weeks. The film follows David and his fiancée, Meg, who are about to have their parents meet for the first time over a Shabbat dinner. Things get far more complicated because of an accidental death (or murder?). With Meg’s Catholic parents due any moment, the family dinner soon spirals into a hilarious disaster.

Bad Shabbos director Daniel Robbins is interviewed on the latest episode of Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge’s video podcast Inside the Arthouse and also wrote the following about his film:

“My grandfather liked to joke that Christians will tell you they’re Christian, Muslims will tell you they’re Muslim, but Jews will tell you they’re Jew…ish.

“There’s a wide range to Judaism and the characters in this film fall in the middle of the spectrum. They’re people who take their faith seriously, but also interact with the secular world. People who, instead of planting their flag on one end of the spectrum, try to exist in between. People who try to manage the polarities of a secular life and a religious one.

“I chose to portray this segment of Judaism not just because it’s how I grew up, but because of the metaphor it presents for a family. Each family is constantly managing its own polarities. Between familial expectations and personal freedoms. Between unconditional love and constructive criticism.

“Between tradition of the old and tolerance for the new. This film is about a family trying to find its place, on a night when they’re meeting the in-laws for the first time, while there’s a dead body in their bathroom.

“It’s a fun, kinetic ride that pulls from the great comedies of the past. There are pieces stolen from Ernst Lubitsch’s blocking, Billy Wilder’s efficiency, Woody Allen’s aesthetic, Mike Nichols’s performances, and Nora Ephron and Neil Simon’s dialogue. But the greatest heist is probably from the early 2000’s comedies I grew up watching. The films Meet the Parents and My Big Fat Greek Wedding were constantly playing on my parents’ TV, broken up with whatever commercials TNT decided to include. These two films were comedies with tight scripts, big laughs, some heart, and authentic portrayals of their subcultures — Chicago Greeks and Long Island Christians. Additional influences were The Birdcage and Death at a Funeral.

The film was shot entirely on location on the Upper West Side. It was important to make it as authentic as possible and stay true to that setting – including shooting at the iconic Upper West Side staple Barney Greengrass and giving the owner Gary Greengrass a small role. The apartment was an actual apartment on 81st Street on the 16th floor, however the lobby was shot in a different building on Riverside drive, the same building they used for Tom Hanks’s lobby in You’ve Got Mail (also a favorite of ours).

Our team’s first goal with Bad Shabbos was to make a film that authentically portrays my subculture — New York Jews. My family gathered for Shabbos dinner every Friday night and, even on the more chaotic nights, there was an underlying warmth. Then our second and, perhaps, main goal was to take everything we love about the comedies of old and — like the characters in this film — try to adapt to modern times.”

From Bob Strauss’s review in the San Francisco Chronicle:

“Jews and gentiles in love have been comically upsetting their respective families for at least 103 years, since the popular stage play “Abie’s Irish Rose” debuted. Dinner parties gone awry are also a theatrical — and by extension, movie and television — staple.

“Mix them together with an inconvenient corpse, and you’ve got the recipe for Bad Shabbos. More crucial ingredients in Daniel Robbins’ New York farce include verbal dexterity and spry visuals, which give the sense of a well-done theatrical production that’s a real movie as well.

“Primarily set in an Upper West Side apartment, the film also boasts a game ensemble, each member of which knows just how to take their moments in the spotlight. Characters aren’t deep but not stick figures either; their flaws and needs become more pronounced as the pressure mounts from a sudden death  — or was it murder?

“Sure, certain roles bear unmistakable traces of stereotype, but no one is solely defined by the fact that they’re a Jewish mother or Midwestern Catholic. Everyone’s core impulses take them to surprising and darkly funny but believable places. And growth is a nice, nourishing dish on this Sabbath comedy’s table.

“Jon Bass (“Miracle Workers”) and Meghan Leathers (“For All Mankind”) are David and Meg, facing their final hurdle to getting married: her Catholic parents coming in from Wisconsin to meet his Jewish family, the Gelfands, for Friday night dinner.

“Observant but not super orthodox, David’s mom Ellen (Kyra Sedgwick) has issues with her future daughter-in-law’s not quite kosher kitchen skills (for starters), while his dad Richard (David Paymer) seems more devoted to his self-help psychology books than to the Talmud.

“Also at the Shabbat is David’s scrawny kid brother, a wannabe Israel Defense Forces commando named Adam (Theo Taplitz, who has the looks and intensity of a very young Adrien Brody), their sister Abby (Milana Vayntrub) and her crummy boyfriend Benjamin (Ashley Zukerman). They all work up believable irritations and concerns before the deadly incident hijacks everyone’s attention.

“With varying success, they attempt to carry on like nothing’s wrong when Meg’s parents, Beth (Catherine Curtin) and John (John Bedford Lloyd), arrive. Prayers and rituals get made up to keep the visitors distracted and away from the body in the kitchen. There are high degrees of cleverness and silliness to all of this.

“But top comic delivery honors go to Vayntrub (of AT&T commercials and, more recently, the Menendez brothers “Monsters” fame) as an unhappy woman who becomes both increasingly drunk and the situation’s moral center. When Ellen disapprovingly learns she drove over on the Sabbath, Abby replies, “How is this worse than murder?”

“Likewise, Lloyd is a slow-burn marvel who builds John from a subtle to a loudly aggrieved fount of micro-anti-semitisms.

“Honorable mention goes to Clifford “Method Man” Smith, who as the building’s doorman Jordan makes it his business to help the only resident family he likes. Additionally, Jordan brings a suspensefully useful ticking clock element as his shift change approaches.

“As noted, Bad Shabbos is about growth as well as laughs, and no one exemplifies that better than Leathers. Lightly touching on Meg’s resentment at having to convert while her fiancé needn’t do anything, she nonetheless gleans practical insights from her rabbinical studies and has a gift for sharing what she knows. As does writer-director Robbins, who modeled the Gelfands on his own family.

“Without making a big deal out of any of their traits, he gives us specific, authentic characters who live their traditional beliefs with modern attitudes. Neither too “oy vey” nor “Weekend at Bernie’s” but steeped in the best aspects of both Jewish and black comedy, Bad Shabbos is a treat any night of the week.”

The brilliant documentary A PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY opens June 12 with in-person Q&A’s.

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Thirty years after her mother’s death, photographer Rachel Elizabeth Seed discovers her mother’s work — more than 50 hours of interviews with the greatest photographers of the 20th century, including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Lisette Model, Gordon Parks, Cecil Beaton, William Albert Allard, Brian Lanker, Cornell Capa, Bruce Davidson and Eliot Porter. When Rachel threads in the audio reels and presses play, she hears her mother’s voice for the first time since she was a baby. Sheila Turner-Seed, a daring, world-traveling journalist ahead of her time, died suddenly of a brain aneurysm when Rachel was just 18 months old. Moved to uncover more of what she left behind, Rachel sets out to revisit her mom’s subjects, family and friends, revisiting the photographers she interviewed decades before. As new truths emerge, Rachel builds an unlikely relationship with her mother through the audio recordings, photographs, and films her mother made during her brief life, crafting an imagined conversation through the cinematic medium. As she discovers the shocking secrets which may have led to her mother’s untimely death, Rachel’s ability to forge her own path hinges on how these revelations affect her own life. The film draws from footage of Rachel’s visits to the photographers her mother interviewed, Sheila’s award-winning audio-visual work, Super 8 family films, still photography, audio letters and journals, weaving together personal and photo-historical media to tell a universal story — about facing mortality and loss, the construction of memory and the restoration of a legacy. Along this path, Rachel explores the question of whether it is possible to get to know someone through the things they leave behind.

We are planning several special screenings with the A Photographic Memory filmmaker and its champions:

June 12, 7:30 P.M. at the Laemmle NoHo:
This screening of A Photographic Memory is co-presented by Video Consortium with a Q&A to follow featuring filmmaker Rachel Elizabeth Seed, co-writer/editor Christopher Stoudt, and special guest, moderated by Video Consortium organizer Lauren Mahoney.
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June 14, 10:00 A.M. at the Laemmle Monica Film Center:
 
This screening of A Photographic Memory is co-presented by From the Heart Productions and Authentic Global Film Awards, with a Q&A to follow moderated by Variety film critic Carlos Aguilar, featuring director Rachel Elizabeth Seed in conversation with producer Ana Lydia Monaco and additional special guests. In this discussion, they will pull back the curtain on the visionary production of A Photographic Memory‘s recreation sequences, produced by Monaco in Los Angeles.
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June 16, 7:00 P.M. at the Laemmle Monica Film Center:
Q&A with director Rachel Elizabeth Seed + Gallerist Peter Fetterman to follow this screening. Co-presented by Peter Fetterman Gallery.

Ms. Seed wrote the following statement about her film:

“In my photography and creative work, I am driven by the desire for connection. Perhaps this is because my mother died when I was a baby; I’m always seeking to reconcile this loss in my life. It’s this drive that inspired me to make my debut feature documentary, A Photographic Memory.

“My work as an artist, photographer, photo editor, curator, writer, arts community founder, and cinematographer have greatly informed my knowledge and aesthetic sensibility in the media arts, paving the way for this film project and for my transition from photography to filmmaking. From 2004-2011 I created an audio-visual series about motherless women, interviewing and photographing 40 women and girls around the world, but it wasn’t until I turned the camera on my life in A Photographic Memory that I began to make sense of my loss. As I just turned the age my mother was when she died, it is also a personally timely project. I hope for the result to be cathartic for myself and for an audience who relates to losing someone close or being estranged from a parent. At the same time, I aim to memorialize my mother’s legacy as a woman ahead of her time who contributed to the canon of photography history. She died in her prime but left an undeniable mark through her work and great compassion for humanity. This legacy would be forgotten without this film.

“What excites me aesthetically about A Photographic Memory is the challenge of weaving the archival footage, photographs and audio along with contemporary footage together in a cohesive, artistic whole. Using my mother’s raw interviews with photographers as a thematic backbone, I draw from 100 years of our family’s Super 8 films, still photographs, contact sheets, letters, my mother’s journals, her journalistic tear sheets, and the footage I have shot of my own life and journey. My aim is for the disparate elements to transcend their individual meaning in order to tell the greater story of my search to know my mother, and through that, to make sense of life’s ephemerality. I have always been interested in the space where “real” elements are woven together to create a fabricated reality, which is both indisputable yet non-factual, representing my objective vision.

“The film plays on the tensions between remembering and forgetting, recovery and loss, and the probing of relationship and portraiture through lost archives, juxtaposition and cinematic form.”

THE LAST TWINS Q&A’s June 19-21 at the Royal and Town Center.

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Join us for The Last Twins Q&A’s at Laemmle Royal on Thursday, June 19th at 7:30 P.M. with filmmakers Perri Pelt & Matthew O’Neill, and Judith Richter, who is a participant in the film; Jonathan Jacoby will moderate; and at Laemmle Town Center on June 20th at 5:20 P.M. with the filmmakers and Judith Richter; and June 21st at 7:30 P.M. with Judith Richter and Dr. Nancy Segal moderating the discussion.

 

A PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY Q&A’s June 12 at the NoHo and June 14 at the Monica Film Center.

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June 12, 7:30 P.M. at the Laemmle NoHo:
This screening of A PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY is co-presented by Video Consortium with a Q&A to follow featuring filmmaker Rachel Elizabeth Seed, co-writer/editor Christopher Stoudt, and special guest, moderated by Video Consortium organizer Lauren Mahoney.
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June 14, 10:00 A.M. at the Laemmle Monica Film Center:
 
This screening of A PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY is co-presented by From the Heart Productions and Authentic Global Film Awards, with a Q&A to follow moderated by Variety film critic Carlos Aguilar, featuring director Rachel Elizabeth Seed in conversation with producer Ana Lydia Monaco and additional special guest. In this discussion, they will pull back the curtain on the visionary production of A PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY‘s recreation sequences, produced by Monaco in Los Angeles.
June 16, 7:00 P.M. at the Laemmle Monica Film Center:
Q&A with director Rachel Elizabeth Seed + Gallerist Peter Fetterman to follow this screening. Co-presented by Peter Fetterman Gallery.

1970s New York City on the brink ~ DROP DEAD CITY opens tomorrow.

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Named after the famous New York Daily News headline “Ford to City: Drop Dead,” Drop Dead City is the first documentary to focus on the New York City fiscal crisis of 1975, an overlooked episode in urban American history that saw that city of eight million people come face to face with bankruptcy.

The film is an immersive ticking-clock drama built entirely from archival 16mm footage interspersed with present eyewitness interviews, and propelled by a great soundtrack drawn from 1970s radio as it follows a year in the life and near death of this iconic city. Laemmle Theatres opens the film May 22 at the NoHo and May 23 at the Monica Film Center and Town Center.

The film captures N.Y.C. at a moment of contrast, gritty and down on its luck, but also vibrant and alive. The basic underlying questions of governance, community and economic priorities are of immediate relevance to Los Angeles and so many other American cities.

These are unprecedented times for Americans, and for our public institutions. The systematic dismantling of the administrative state, as well as the demonizing of public servants, is something we are watching happen every day. The playbook of today’s right-wing government bashing has it’s roots in the rightward swing of the Republican Party in the 1970’s. NYC’s near-bankruptcy was a critical event in this transformation. Drop Dead City addresses these themes and ideologies, and examines the origins of NYC’s problems with an even hand. Was it the banks, the unions, the poor who were arriving, or the rich who were leaving? Was it the recession? Was it cynicism in the White House or incompetence in City Hall?

“Our goal as filmmakers was to honor the story and the people in it – the men and women who stepped up to deal with this challenge as well as the so-called ordinary New Yorkers who dealt with this uncertainty as a fact of life during this tumultuous period,” said directors Peter Yost and Michael Rohatyn. “While the film often feels like a wild time machine ride to New York in its good-old bad days, we also hope it inspires conversations on how urban centers can fairly cope with the enormous challenges we face today.”

“The film raises striking parallels with the present…a visual delight for anyone who enjoys footage of vintage New York City…Set to a funk and soul soundtrack that would make Tarantino’s music supervisor bow in respect.” – WNYC / Gothamist

100% Rotten Tomatoes rating!

Drop Dead City is produced and directed by Peter Yost and Michael Rohatyn. Executive produced by Karoline Durr. The archival producer is Frauke Levin. Cinematography by Jerry Risius. Edited by Don Kleszy and Anna Auster. The film’s running time is 108 minutes.