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Upcoming Reel Talk with Stephen Farber screenings: ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET; IT AIN’T OVER; BOOK CLUB: THE NEXT CHAPTER; YOU HURT MY FEELINGS..

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Veteran film critic Stephen Farber’s popular Reel Talk screening series is now based at our Royal Theatre, where you can see a variety of outstanding films from the U.S. and around the world, including many top awards contenders, and then meet the filmmakers for provocative and revealing discussions led by Stephen. Recent guests and titles have included Paul Weitz and Andrew Miano, writer-director and producer of Moving On; John Scheinfeld and Bobby Colomby, director and lead band member from What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears?; Sarah Haskins and Emily Halpern, screenwriters of 80 for Brady; and Jerzy Skolimowski and Ewa Piaskowska, director/co-writer and co-writer/producer of the Oscar-nominated film EO. Next up:

April 24: Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret; May 1: It Ain’t Over; May 3: Book Club: The Next Chapter; May 15: You Hurt My Feelings.

“Quirky, touching, and well-played fun,” THE INNOCENT opens April 7 at the Royal.

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Part crime thriller, part family farce, Louis Garrel’s The Innocent shows with panache and pathos the dangerous lengths two men go for the women they love. Garrel stars as Abel, a museum educator and widower whose mother, Sylvie (Anouk Grinberg), marries Michel (Roschdy Zem), one of her drama pupils in the local penitentiary. Once on parole Michel tries to start a legitimate life for Sylvie’s sake but soon reverts to his old ways, with the suspicious Abel continually — and ineptly — spying on his stepfather until roped into one of the ex-con’s schemes. Noémie Merlant, wonderful as always, co-stars. We open the film April 7 at the Royal.

“Few caper comedies have this much heart, and few romantic dramas offer such an appealingly nutty plot.” ~ Kyle Smith, Wall Street Journal

 

“A humanistic story wrapped in a fun, punchy exterior, much like the French synth-pop music throughout its soundtrack.” ~ Claire Shaffer, New York Times

“The Innocent is quirky, touching, and well-played fun.” ~ Glenn Kenny, RogerEbert.com
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“The Innocent is the first movie of Cannes 2022 to give me that belly aching, knee slapping laughter that I desperately needed.” ~ Valerie Complex, Deadline Hollywood Daily

“Garrel here delivers a witty and elegantly constructed film that joyfully draws parallels between acting and lying, being and pretending, while remaining breezy, fun, eminently accessible and even welcoming.” ~ Elena Lazic, The Playlist
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The 2023 Laemmle Oscar Contest results are in.

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It’s the day after Pi Day, but check out these cool pie charts to see who won our Umpteenth Annual Oscar Contest (the winner got 21 correct; the final question about the running time proved to be a tiebreaker between the second and third place winners, who both got 19 correct) and confirm that Laemmle moviegoers are crazy savvy about predicting how the Academy will vote. Of the 23 categories, the Laemmle hive mind accurately guessed all but four categories:

Best Supporting Actress (Jamie Lee Curtis/Everyone Everywhere All at Once bested Angela Bassett/Black Panther: Wakanda Forever);

Best Makeup & Hairstyling (The Whale swallowed Elvis);

Best Score (All Quiet on the Western Front defeated Babylon);

Best Production Design (All Quiet topped Babylon again)
Thanks for playing and get excited for the the next Oscar race by reading this round-up of early favorites to be nominated, which includes new films by Scorsese, Michael Mann, Wes Anderson, Ari Aster, Christopher Nolan, Ridley Scott and more!

Farewell, Chaim Topol.

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The brilliant actor Topol, who so completely embodied the character of Tevye the milkman in Fiddler on the Roof that he went on to play him literally thousands of times – passed away last week in Tel Aviv. Thank you, Sir, for bringing so much joy to the world, for your humanitarian work, and for making our many Christmas Eve Fiddler Sing-Along screenings such memorable and meaningful experiences.
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Margalit Fox ended her New York Times obituary by sharing this 2009 Topol quote about the meaning he got in return from playing the role: “I did Fiddler a long time thinking that this was a story about the Jewish people. But now I’ve been performing all over the world. And the fantastic thing is wherever I’ve been — India, Japan, England, Greece, Egypt — people come up to me after the show and say, ‘This is our story as well.’”
Last year’s fine documentary ‘Fiddler’s’ Journey to the Big Screen is an excellent place to learn more about Topol’s masterpiece. (Did you know Frank Sinatra was considered for the lead role?!)

ONLY IN THEATERS wraps up Bay Area tour, returns to L.A. later this month.

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Greg and Tish Laemmle just finished a tour of the Bay Area with the documentary about the family business, Only in Theatres, participating in nine Q&As over nine days at eight venues; great reviews and word-of-mouth brought out the crowds. Encore Los Angeles screenings are planned on March 30 and April 2 and will include Q&As with filmmaker Raphael Sparge with Greg & Tish.
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“A pity party that has no business being so much fun,” UNA VITA DIFFICLE opens in the U.S. after a 62 year wait.

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The long-awaited U.S. premiere of Dino Risi’s Una Vita Difficile, starring one of the most beloved of all Italian actors, Alberto Sordi (Mafioso, Il Boom, Fellini’s The White Sheik and I Vitelloni, etc.), was greeted with big crowds and admiring reviews when Rialto Pictures opened its restoration in New York last month. Laemmle Theatres opens the film about a resistance fighter-turned-journalist and his wife (Lea Massari) navigating life in post-war Italy on Friday, March 17 at the Royal and Town Center and March 24 at the Monica Film Center and Laemmle Glendale.

The New York Times’ critic A.O. Scott hailed it as “a stellar specimen of commedia all’italiana.” In his review for Air Mail, Michael Sragow proclaimed, “Alberto Sordi triumphs at jet-black comedy…(he’s) Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in their prime, rolled into one.”

In Italy, Una Vita Difficile has long been cherished as a highlight of the 1950s and 60s golden age of Italian comedy, which also gave the world Big Deal on Madonna Street, Divorce Italian Style, Mafioso, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, and Risi’s own Il Sorpasso (made the year after Una Vita Difficile). While these and others were major arthouse hits in the U.S., Una Vita Difficile was inexplicably never released here…until now.

 

“A stellar specimen of commedia all’Italiana by a true maestro of the form. Pulsate[s] with the breathlessness and disorientation of a country simultaneously grappling with the past and speeding toward a confusing future…Belongs in the company of Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and Risi’s Il Sorpasso. It also stands by itself as an exuberant bad time, a pity party that has no business being so much fun.” — A.O. Scott, The New York Times

“It sounds absurd to even contemplate: an unreleased 1961 epic romance starring the legendary Alberto Sordi that tackles the decades after WWII — a mixture of sentiment and grand historic sweep that the Italians always did so well — that’s somehow just getting a U.S. release.” — Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine

“Risi’s deft seriocomic panorama, from Mussolini’s fall to the rise of the postwar Roman oligarchy…Alberto Sordi triumphs at jet-black comedy when the antihero fails as an idealist, a husband, even as a sell-out. The closest America has come to Sordi is Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in their prime, rolled into one.” — Michael Sragow, Air Mail

“John le Carré by way of David Lynch,” PACIFICTION opens Friday at the Royal, March 10 in Glendale.

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The gorgeous political thriller Pacifiction, from Catalan filmmaker Albert Serra (The Death of Louis XIV), was nominated for nine César Awards (winning two, Best Cinematography and Best Actor for Benoît Magimel). It’s set in Tahiti and follows the French government official De Roller (Magimel). A.O. Scott of the New York Times described the character this way:

“Played by Benoît Magimel with shambling delicacy, De Roller is like the French cousin of a character you might find in a Graham Greene novel or a tale by Joseph Conrad. He is a world-weary, somewhat dissolute avatar of colonial power — “a representative of the state” in his own assessment, which sounds both humble and boastful — going to seed in a tropical paradise. He is a diplomat, a fixer, a bon vivant and, thanks to Magimel’s louche charisma, a lost soul whose wandering and dithering carry a hint of pathos.”

Scott goes on to say of the film:

“It suggests John le Carré by way of David Lynch — a feverish and haunting but also wry and meditative rumination on power, secrecy and the color of clouds over water at sunset.”
  

“I can only say I was captivated by the film and its stealthy evocation of pure evil.” ~ Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

“A hallucinatory, disquieting, languid epic, Pacifiction willfully disorients. Prosaic plot specifics are ancillary to creating unfading images; it’s concerned more with sensation than sense. What tethers us to the film is Magimel’s superb performance.” Melissa Anderson, 4Columns

“Ultimately, the film’s greatest feat is in providing moments for delightful reverie through its sumptuous visuals while constantly making clear the colonialist reality of the island.” ~ Joshua Minsoo Kim, Chicago Reader

“Pacifiction is not a vicarious experience of luxury; it is an experience of life. Set to its own tidal rhythm, it is one of the most beautiful and rigorously introspective movies of this or any year.” ~ Christian Blauvelt, indieWire

“A magisterial, philosophical three-hour mood piece.” ~ Adam Nayman, The Ringer

Best International Features – Oscar nominees CLOSE & THE QUIET GIRL are finally opening in more theaters.

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Happy to report we are opening Close, the Dutch/Flemish film about the intense friendship of two 13-year-old boys, this Friday in Santa Monica and March 3 in Santa Clarita, Claremont, and Encino. Acclaimed at the most prestigious festivals around the world and now up for an Academy Award, Close is a “sharply observed, heartbreaking masterpiece” (G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle). Other critics have gushed:

“To the pantheon of films about the pains of leaving childhood behind — The 400 Blows, The Spirit of the Beehive, Rocks, The Go-Between, Boyhood et al — we should find a spot for this beautiful elegy of lost innocence from Belgian director Lukas Dhont.” ~ Philip De Semlyen, Time Out

“It features world-wise performances from its cast, a haunting score from composer Valentin Hadjadj and breathtaking cinematography from Malte Rosenfeld. It’s a treasure you’ll never forget.” ~ Randy Myers, San Jose Mercury News

“A picture which is intimate in scope but which packs a considerable emotional wallop.” ~ Wendy Ide, Screen International

We are also thrilled to open The Quiet Girl, the Irish film about a young girl in foster care, March 3 in Santa Monica and March 10 in Claremont, Encino, Santa Clarita and Glendale.

“Few films explore both the shelter and the solitude of silence with the eloquence of Colm Bairéad’s gently captivating Irish-language drama The Quiet Girl.” ~ David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

“There may not be a movie more expressive of the season’s benevolent ethos than this hushed work about kith and kindness.” ~ Lisa Kennedy, New York Times

“One of the most exquisitely realised films of the year.” ~ Wendy Ide, Guardian