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SUNSET EDGE Filmmaker Daniel Peddle in Person at the Playhouse 7

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SUNSET EDGE is an exquisitely crafted, meditative portrayal of disaffected youth set in a graveyard of abandoned mobile homes. Part gothic thriller, part coming-of-age tale, filmmaker Daniel Peddle’s narrative feature film debut is a Hitchcockian mash-up that upends teenage horror films. On a lazy afternoon, we follow four aimless suburban teenagers as they explore the ruins of an uninhabited trailer park. As the unsuspecting teens find escape and companionship in this ghost town-turned-amusement park, a lonesome boy lurks amongst them, unearthing clues to his horrific past.

We open SUNSET EDGE on Friday, May 29 at the Playhouse 7. The filmmaker will be there to participate in Q&A’s after the 7:50 PM screenings on Sunday, May 21 and Monday, June 1.

https://vimeo.com/84540744

THE NIGHTMARE Filmmaker Rodney Ascher in Person for a Q&A at the NoHo 7

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From the director of Room 237, THE NIGHTMARE is a documentary-horror film exploring the phenomenon of sleep paralysis. People who suffer this condition find themselves trapped between the sleeping and waking worlds, unable to move but aware of their surroundings, while subject to disturbing sights and sounds, including ghostly ‘shadow men.’ This is one of many reasons many people insist this is more than just a sleep disorder.

We open THE NIGHTMARE on Friday, June 5 at the NoHo 7, Music Hall and Playhouse 7. Director Rodney Ascher will participate in a Q&A after the 7:40 PM screening at the NoHo on Saturday, June 6.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoPsjWqvwT4

Actress Diane Lane in Person at the Music Hall for EVERY SECRET THING

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In the new the new drama EVERY SECRET THING, opening tomorrow at the NoHo and Music Hall, a detective (Elizabeth Banks) tries to unravel a mystery surrounding missing children and the prime suspects: two young women (Dakota Fanning and newcomer Danielle Macdonald) who, seven years ago, were imprisoned for an infant’s death. The screenplay is by Nicole Holofcener, based on Laura Lippman’s novel and actor Frances McDormand is the executive producer.

EVERY SECRET THING director Amy Berg, along with actors Diane Lane and Danielle Macdonald, will participate in a Q&A after the 2:10 screening at the Music Hall on Saturday, May 16.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QT0zKjvRfE

GROUNDSWELL RISING Q&A’s at the Music Hall

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GROUNDSWELL RISING, the new documentary from Emmy Award-winning Resolution Pictures which we open at the Music Hall on Friday, captures the passion of people engaged in a David and Goliath confrontation. They stand together, challenging a system that promotes profit over health. We meet mothers, fathers, scientists, doctors, farmers and people from all sides of the political spectrum taking a hard look at energy extraction techniques that have not been proven safe. With the oil and gas industry’s expansion of fracking seen as a moral issue, this provocative documentary tracks a people’s movement, a groundswell rising towards reason and sensitivity, to protect life, today and tomorrow.

The GROUNDSWELL RISING filmmakers will be participating in Q&A’s after the 7:40 PM screenings on Friday and Saturday, May 15 and 16, as well as Wednesday and Thursday, May 20 and 21. Special guests participating will include representatives from Food and Water Watch, the Sierra Club, Californians Against Fracking and the League of Women Voters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cpCz0QPMso

Anniversary Classics Goes Subtitled, Comes to the Valley: 50th Anniversary Screening of THE SHOP ON MAIN STREET June 9 at the Town Center 5

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Jozef Kroner and Ida Kaminska

We’ve been having a lot of fun hosting our Anniversary Classics screening along with Los Angeles Film Critics Association President Stephen Farber. Following EXODUS (Eva Marie Saint in person!), WHERE’S POPPA? (George Segal in person!) and LOVERS AND OTHER STRANGERS (Renee Taylor and Joseph Bologna in person and tickets still available!), our fourth screening is our first subtitled film in the series and our first in the Valley: THE SHOP ON MAIN STREET (1965) was the first film from Eastern Europe ever to win an Academy Award.  Fifty years ago this powerful Czech drama won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film. Directed by Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos, it was one of the key films in the Czech New Wave that flourished in the 1960s, before the Soviet invasion of 1968 stamped out this vital movement. Josef Kroner and Yiddish theater legend Ida Kaminska (nominated for an Oscar for her performance) star in this poignant tale of an Aryan functionary who takes over the button shop of an elderly Jewish woman in a Slovakian town in 1942. They develop a tentative friendship that is threatened when the Nazis begin rounding up all the Jews in the area.

Ida Kaminska

Esteemed critic Kenneth Tynan said this was “the most moving film about anti-Semitism ever made.”  Oscar-nominated screenwriter Eleanor Perry (David and Lisa, Diary of a Mad Housewife) reviewed the film for Life magazine and called it “a masterpiece, a flawless examination of the toll of indecision and the penalty of passive decency.”  Perry went on to write, “The film’s lasting power is that it poses a couple of additional questions to every spectator:  ‘If it had been you, what would you have done?’ If it ever is you, what will you do?'”

Joining Stephen Farber for a post-screening discussion, special guests director Ivan Passer and Michal Sedlacek, Consul General of Czech Republic in Los Angeles. Mr. Passer was one of the directors of the Czech New Wave of the 1960s. His acclaimed film, Intimate Lighting, was also made in 1965. He was the co-writer of Milos Forman’s films Loves of a Blonde and The Firemen’s Ball. Like Forman, he emigrated to America after the Russian invasion. In this country he directed such films as Born to Win with George Segal, Law and Disorder with Carroll O’Connor, Cutter’s Way with Jeff Bridges, and the Emmy-winning HBO movie, Stalin, starring Robert Duvall.

Purchase tickets here.

DON’T THINK I’VE FORGOTTEN Filmmaker in Person at the NoHo Opening Weekend

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Through the eyes, words and songs of its popular music stars of the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s, DON’T THINK I’VE FORGOTTEN: CAMBODIA’S LOST ROCK & ROLL examines and unravels Cambodia’s tragic past. Combining interviews with surviving musicians and never-before-seen archival material and rare songs, the film tracks the winding course of Cambodian music as it morphs into a unique style of rock and roll. A vibrant musical culture that was nearly lost forever under the brutal Khmer Rouge regime is revived and celebrated.

DON’T THINK I’VE FORGOTTEN filmmaker John Pirozzi will participate in Q&A’s after the 7:10 screenings at the NoHo on Friday and Saturday, May 15 and 16.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ooaHJCMWpk

Laemmle’s Anniversary Classics Series: GETTING STRAIGHT with Elliott Gould and Richard Rush in Person at the Royal April 15

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Last night we were thrilled to host Eva Marie Saint at the Royal Theater for a packed 55th anniversary screening of EXODUS. Here’s a shot of her interacting with a fan, autographing the original EXODUS soundtrack on vinyl.

Two weeks from now we’ll be joined at the Royal by GETTING STRAIGHT star Elliott Gould and director Richard Rush for the film’s 45th anniversary screening. As with all of our Anniversary Classics screenings, the Q&A will be moderated by L.A. Film Critics Association President Stephen Farber. The event will be at the Royal on April 15 starting at 7:30 PM.

“Never trust anyone over 30!” This mantra of the counterculture began to penetrate movies of the late 1960s, when the studios decided to make a series of films about campus rebellion and the sexual revolution.  This most successful of this wave of movies was GETTING STRAIGHT (1970), the first big studio movie directed by Oscar-nominated director Rush (The Stunt Man) and one of the first starring roles for Oscar-nominated actor Gould (Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, MASH, The Long Goodbye, California Split, Ingmar Bergman’s The Touch, Bugsy, Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven trilogy).  Variety called GETTING STRAIGHT “an outstanding film… comprehensive, cynical, sympathetic, flip, touching and hilarious.”  The New York Times praised Gould for “a brilliant, mercurial performance” and added that the actor ignites the film “with a fervor and wonderful comic sense of reality.”  More recently, critic Leonard Maltin noted that “the central issue of graduate student Gould choosing between academic double-talk and his beliefs remains relevant.”  The film’s co-stars include Candice Bergen, Robert F. Lyons, Jeff Corey, Cecil Kellaway, Max Julien, Jeannie Berlin, John Rubinstein, and Brenda Sykes.

Elliott Gould and Candice Bergen

Bring out your 60’s outfits and join us in celebrating director Richard Rush’s 86th birthday at this 45th anniversary screening of GETTING STRAIGHT on April 15.

FAREWELL TO HOLLYWOOD Filmmaker in Person at the NoHo & Playhouse Opening Weekend

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FAREWELL TO HOLLYWOOD is a love story unlike any you’ve seen before. The life’s wish of a terminally ill 17-year-old girl, Regina Diane Nicholson, leads to a deep, loving, and controversial relationship with 55-year-old filmmaker, Henry Corra. With mortality’s clock relentlessly ticking, Reggie risks everything to fight for the life, art and love she chooses. Farewell to Hollywood is a raw, unexpected love story, both record and flower of the clear-eyed but utterly romantic commitment of two people to art, poetry, care and the potential beauty of every moment together, to the very end.

FAREWELL TO HOLLYWOOD filmmaker Henry Corra will introduce the 7:10 PM screenings at the NoHo on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, March 13-15 as well as the 11 AM screenings at the Playhouse on March 14 and 15.

http://vimeo.com/69180956