Film Reviews & Previews
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz-nl5uXO7Y
Michael York and Richard Chamberlain will participate in a Q&A moderated by LA Film Critics Association President Stephen Farber following the 40th anniversary screening of THE FOUR MUSKETEERS on Tuesday, 9/29 at the Laemmle Royal in West LA.
Purchase your tickets in advance here. For more information about our Anniversary Classics series, visit http://www.laemmle.com/ac.
An inside look at the offbeat sport of ping pong, the new documentary TOP SPIN turns one of America’s favorite pastimes on its head and reveals a coming-of-age story where success and failure come down to mere millimeters.
Laemmle Theatres and First Run Features are planning special events for our TOP SPIN screenings, including:
– Raffle to Win an Olympic Quality Ping Pong Table!
– Live Ping Pong Exhibitions by Elite Players
– Lots of Q&A’s
Click here to buy tickets to see TOP SPIN!
Everyone who attends ANY screening of TOP SPIN at Laemmle will be given a FREE RAFFLE TICKET to win a top-of-the-line JOOLA Ping Pong Table! This is a tournament-tested refurbished Olympic-quality table that has been used by the pros. JOOLA lists this item at approx. $1400. We will have a sample table at the Playhouse from August 19 to 23.
Grand prize:
JOOLA 3000SC Table Tennis Table, the Official Table of USATT. The JOOLA 3000SC is an ITTF approved high quality centerfold table. It has four heavy-duty durable wheels serving the undercarriage, which is made of powder-coated metal and contains a 50 mm metal frame under its Olympic-quality 22 mm fast playing surface. The 3000SC also boasts adjustable, solid rubber levelers underneath each corner leg and includes a professional quality WM net.
JOOLA will ship the table directly to the winner anywhere in the continental United States.
Runner up prizes:
Joola Hit Set Table Tennis Set: Four JOOLA Hit rackets with eight balls.
Joola Falcon Set: High end recreational racket with a protective racket case.
For official Raffle Rules, click here.
Elite ping-pong players will be at the Playhouse 7 for Q&A’s and LIVE PING PONG EXHIBITIONS at select Top Spin screenings:
Fri. 8/21: 6:30pm – 7:00pm and 9:15pm to 9:30PM* (at the Paseo next to the box office)
Sat. 8/22: 6:30pm – 7:00pm and 9:15pm to 9:30PM* (at the Paseo next to the box office)
Sun. 8/23 – 6:30pm – 7:00pm and 9:15pm to 9:30PM* (location TBD)
* Before and after the 7:30pm screening of Top Spin
Players include 2012 Teenage Olympian ERICA WU and U.S. National Team member, GRANT LI, as well as professionals KIM GILBERT and ADAM BOBROW.
Playhouse 7 Q&A’s:
Wed 8/19: Filmmakers Mina T. Son & Sara Newens + Teenage Olympian Erica Wu in Person
Fri 8/21: Filmmakers Mina T. Son & Sara Newens + Teenage Olympian Erica Wu in Person
Sat 8/22: Filmmaker Mina T. Son & Teenage Olympian Erica Wu in Person
Sun 8/23: Filmmaker Mina T. Son & Teenage Olympian Erica Wu in Person
Weekday Q&A’s:
Mon 8/24 (NOHO 7) : Filmmaker Mina T. Son in Person
Tues 8/25 (ROYAL): Filmmaker Mina T. Son in Person
Wed 8/26 (CLAREMONT 5): Filmmaker Mina T. Son in Person
BRIDGING THE DIVIDE: TOM BRADLEY AND THE POLITICS OF RACE tells the story of Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, the first African American mayor elected in a major American city with an overwhelmingly white majority. His extraordinary multi-racial coalition redefined Los Angeles, transformed the national dialogue on race and set the foundation for elections of minority candidates nationwide, including President Barack Obama.
We will be hosting two screenings of this documentary about this key figure in our city’s history, two of which featuring Q&A’s:
Q&A participants in Pasadena, August 11 at 7:30pm:
Q&A participants at the Town Center 5 in Encino, August 13 at 7:30pm:
Harley-Davidson, leather, tattooed biceps: Ron “Stray Dog” Hall looks like an authentic tough guy. A Vietnam veteran, he runs a trailer park in rural Missouri with his wife, Alicia, who recently immigrated from Mexico. Gradually, a layered image comes into focus of a man struggling to come to terms with his combat experience. When Alicia’s teenage sons arrive, the film reveals a tender portrait of an America outside the mainstream. STRAY DOG is a powerful look at the veteran experience, a surprising love story, and a fresh exploration of what it takes to survive in the hardscrabble heartland.
STRAY DOG director Debra Granik, an Oscar nominee for her Winter’s Bone screenplay, will participate in Q&A’s after the 7:20 PM screenings at the Music Hall on Friday and Saturday, July 24 and 25. Kirsten Schaffer of Women in Film will moderate.
In the new drama Runoff, which we’ll open at the Town Center and Claremont on July 24, the beauty of the land cannot mask the brutality of a farm town. As harvest draws near, Betty confronts a terrifying new reality and will go to desperate lengths to save her family when they are threatened with being forced from their land.
An old friend, struggling to keep his own farm profitable by any means necessary, offers Betty a way out. She refuses to get involved, but as the pressures on her family mount and they are on the brink of eviction, her husband, Frank, reveals that he is seriously ill.
How far will one to go to take care of one’s own? Recalling all that is heartland Americana, this film combines an ecological urgency with a compelling yet sensitive story.
Three-and-a-half [out of four] stars. As an experience, it’s amazing. If you want to be able to say you were there when a great American filmmaker’s career kicked off, you need to see Runoff.
– Matthew Zoller Seitz, Roger Ebert.com
Riveting… inexorably powerful… impressive… Joanne Kelly sparkles.
The filmmakers will participate in Q&A’s on the following schedule:
Claremont 5:
Town Center 5:
FELT co-writer/star Amy Everson and director Jason Banker will participate in a Q&A following the 9:55pm screening on Friday, July 17th at our Royal Theatre in West LA. Tickets: http://www.laemmle.com/films/39600
Amy is hanging on by a thread. Struggling to cope with past sexual trauma and the daily aggressions of a male-dominated society, she creates grotesquely-costumed alter egos that reappropriate the male form. While giving her the sense of power she craves, acting as these characters pushes her further into a world of her own making. When she begins a new relationship with a seemingly good guy, she opens herself up to him – but that vulnerability comes at a dangerous cost, and her alter egos threaten to lash out in explosive violence.
GABRIEL (Rory Culkin), a troubled young man, is convinced that reuniting with his first love will bring him the stability and happiness he craves. Against his family’s wishes, he sets out to find her, but as the obstacles mount, his grip on reality begins to slip and his behavior becomes more erratic. In the end, he risks everything in an increasingly obsessive and desperate pursuit.
GABRIEL filmmaker Lou Howe will participate in Q&A’s after the 7:40 PM screenings at the Music Hall on Friday and Saturday, June 26 and 27.
The Strongest Man is a Miami-set comedy about an anxiety-ridden Cuban-American who fancies himself the strongest man in the world. In a quest to recover his most beloved possession, his golden BMX bicycle, he finds and loses so much more.
The Strongest Man filmmaker and co-stars will introduce and participate in a Q&A after the Saturday, June 27 7:30 PM screening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK20g6CNg-k