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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

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

“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

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

“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

 

Oscar Doc Features – A HOUSE MADE OF SPLINTERS, NAVALNY & ALL THAT BREATHES

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The already formidable 15 films shortlisted for the Best Feature Documentary Oscar have been whittled down to five, and it’s no exaggeration to say they’re all masterpieces that hit about 100 times harder when seen in a theater. People just had a chance to see Fire of Love on Valentine’s Day, and we’ve been playing All the Beauty and the Bloodshed for weeks (but Thursday is the last day!). We are bringing the remaining three to a big screen near you, so now is your chance.
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We’ll have Navalny at the Monica Film Center for 02/24 – 03/02.
Oscar Doc Features - A HOUSE MADE OF SPLINTERS, NAVALNY & ALL THAT BREATHES
A House Made of Splinters plays weekend shows in Glendale (02/25 – 02/26) and at the Royal (03/04 – 03/05).
Oscar Doc Features - A HOUSE MADE OF SPLINTERS, NAVALNY & ALL THAT BREATHES
And we’ll have All that Breathes on March 1 in Glendale and March 2 at the Royal.
Oscar Doc Features - A HOUSE MADE OF SPLINTERS, NAVALNY & ALL THAT BREATHES

“A startling and uneasy wonder,” RETURN TO SEOUL opens at the Royal this Friday, March 3 in Glendale.

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Acclaimed and honored around the world, Return to Seoul follows a young French-Korean woman whose search for her birth parents takes surprising turns. It’s widely acknowledged as “one of the best films of the year.” (Jason Bailey, The Playlist)
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“Brilliantly muses on the impermanence of everything we know — about ourselves, about others and the world — and points to transformation as the only inevitable constant.” ~ Carlos Aguilar, Los Angeles Times
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“Return to Seoul is a startling and uneasy wonder, a film that feels like a beautiful sketch of a tornado headed directly toward your house.” ~ Amy Nicholson, New York Times
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“Davy Chou’s Return to Seoul quickly blooms as a study in contrasts, sublimely juxtaposing character and culture.” ~ Chris Barsanti, Slant Magazine

"A startling and uneasy wonder," RETURN TO SEOUL opens at the Royal this Friday, March 3 in Glendale.

“Few movies have ever been more perfectly in tune with their protagonists than Davy Chou’s jagged, restless, and rivetingly unpredictable Return to Seoul.” ~ David Ehrlich, indieWire

“A stone-cold stunner.” ~ Alissa Wilkinson, Vox

“Strange, deep, changeable and wise.” ~ Jessica Kiang, Variety

“Davy Chou’s bittersweet comedy of a Korean adoptee searching for her biological parents is powered by a dazzling lead performance.” ~ David Jenkins, Little White Lies

Brevity is the soul of wit: The 2023 Oscar-nominated short films open February 17.

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One good thing about the Oscars is the attention they bring a genre otherwise confined to film festivals: the short. As well as being enjoyable in their own right, they’re cheaper for budding filmmakers to make and so often democratic springboards to feature filmmaking. François Truffaut, Stanley Kubrick, and Christopher Nolan all got their starts making shorts. Some excellent recent features that started out as shorts include Whiplash, The Babadook, Martha Marcy May Marlene, and Half Nelson. All of which is to say that for the 18th consecutive year, we’ll start screening the animated and live action Oscar nominees next Friday at the Claremont, Glendale and NoHo and the documentary shorts at the Royal!

The documentary nominees are:

The Elephant Whisperers – India, 41 min. Director: Kartiki Gonsalves
Producers: Guneet Monga, Achin Jain
Synopsis: The Elephant Whisperers follows an indigenous couple as they fall in love with Raghu, an orphaned elephant given into their care, and tirelessly work to ensure his recovery and survival.

Brevity is the soul of wit: The 2023 Oscar-nominated short films open February 17.
The Elephant Whisperers.

Haulout – UK, 25 min. Directors: Evgenia Arbugaeva, Maxim Arbugaev
Producers: Evgenia Arbugaeva, Maxim Arbugaev
Synopsis: On a remote coast of the Siberian Arctic in a wind-battered hut, a lonely man waits to witness an ancient gathering. But warming seas and rising temperatures bring an unexpected change, and he soon finds himself overwhelmed.

How Do You Measure a Year? – USA, 29 min. Director: Jay Rosenblatt
Producer: Jay Rosenblatt
Synopsis: For 17 years, filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt filmed his daughter Ella on her birthday in the same spot, asking the same questions. What results is a unique chance to watch time, to see a young woman come into focus physically, mentally and emotionally.

The Martha Mitchell Effect – USA, 39 min. Directors: Anne Alvergue, Debra McClutchy
Producers: Beth Levison, Judith Mizrachy
Synopsis: She was once as famous as Jackie O. And then she tried to take down a President. The Martha Mitchell Effect is an archival documentary portrait of the unlikeliest of whistle-blowers: Martha Mitchell, a Republican cabinet wife who was gas-lighted and at one point literally drugged by the Nixon Administration to keep her quiet. It offers a female gaze on Watergate through the voice of the woman herself.

Stranger at the Gate – USA, 30 min. Directors: Joshua Seftel
Producers: Joshua Seftel, Suzanne Hillinger, Conall Jones
Executive Producer: Malala Yousafzai
Cast: Bibi Bahrami, Saber Bahrami, Richard “Mac” McKinney, Emily McKinney, Dana McKinney & Jomo Williams
Synopsis: After 25 years of service, a U.S. Marine filled with hatred for Muslims plots to bomb an Indiana mosque. When he comes face to face with the immigrants he seeks to kill, the story takes a shocking twist toward compassion, grace, and forgiveness.

The animated nominees:

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse – UK, 35 min. Directors: Peter Baynton, Charlie Mackesy
Producers: Cara Speller, Matthew Freud, Hannah Minghella and J.J. Abrams
Executive Producers: Jony Ive and Woody Harrelson
Synopsis: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse is a story of kindness, courage, and hope in traditional hand-drawn animation, following the unlikely friendship of the title characters as they journey together, in the boy’s search for home. Based on the book of the same name.

Brevity is the soul of wit: The 2023 Oscar-nominated short films open February 17.
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse.

 The Flying Sailor – Canada, 7 min. Directors: Amanda Forbis, Wendy Tilby
Producer: David Christensen
Synopsis: In 1917, two ships collided in the Halifax Harbour, causing the largest accidental explosion in history. Among the tragic stories of the disaster is the remarkable account of a sailor who, blown skyward from the docks, flew a distance of two kilometers before landing uphill, naked and unharmed. The Flying Sailor is a contemplation of his journey.

Ice Merchants – Portugal/France/UK, 14 min. Director: João Gonzalez
Producer: Bruno Caetano
Synopsis: Every day, a father and his son jump with a parachute from their vertiginous cold house, attached to a cliff, to go to the village on the ground, far away where they sell the ice they produce daily.

An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It – Australia, 11 min. Director: Lachlan Pendragon
Producer: Griffith Film School
Synopsis: When a young telemarketer is confronted by a mysterious talking ostrich, he learns that the universe is in stop motion animation. He must put aside his dwindling toaster sales and focus on convincing his colleagues of his terrifying discovery.

My Year of Dicks – USA, 25 min. Director: Sara Gunnarsdóttir
Writer: Pamela Ribon
Producer: Jeanette Jeanenne, FX PRODUCTIONS
Synopsis: An imaginative fifteen year-old is stubbornly determined to lose her virginity despite the pathetic pickings on the outskirts of Houston in the early ’90s. Created by Pamela Ribon from her critically acclaimed memoir.

The live action nominees:

An Irish Goodbye – UK, 23 min. Directors: Tom Berkeley, Ross White
Producers: Tom Berkeley, Ross White, Pearce Cullen
Synopsis: On a farm in rural Northern Ireland, estranged brothers Turlough and Lorcan are forced to reunite following the untimely death of their mother.

Ivalu– Denmark, 16 min. Director: Anders Walter
Producers: Rebecca Pruzan / Kim Magnusson
Synopsis: Ivalu is gone. Her little sister is desperate to find her. Her father does not care. The vast Greenlandic nature holds secrets. Where is Ivalu?

Le Pupille – Italy, 37 min. Director: Alice Rohrwacher
Producers: Alfonso Cuarón, Carlo Cresto-Dina, Gabriela Rodriguez
Cast: Alba Rohrwacher, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Melissa Falasconi
Synopsis: From writer and director, Alice Rohrwacher, and Academy Award® winning producer, Alfonso Cuarón, Le Pupille is a tale of innocence, greed and fantasy. This live action short is about desires, pure and selfish, about freedom and devotion, and about the anarchy that is capable of flowering in the minds of girls within the confines of a strict religious boarding school at Christmas.

Brevity is the soul of wit: The 2023 Oscar-nominated short films open February 17.
Le Pupille.

Night Ride – Norway, 15 min. Director: Eirik Tveiten
Producer: Gaute Lid Larssen, Heidi Arnesen
Synopsis: It is a cold night in December. As Ebba waits for the tram, an unexpected turn of events transforms the ride home into something she was not expecting.

The Red Suitcase – Luxembourg, 17 min. Director: Cyrus Neshvad
Producer: Cyrus Neshvad
Synopsis: An Iranian girl decides to remove her hijab in a life-changing situation.

Buoyed by her peers, “spectacular” Andrea Riseborough and TO LESLIE return to theaters.

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Chameleonic English actress Andrea Riseborough earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actress this month but got some flack because the campaign to push her over the top was unusual. Rather than rely on a Hollywood studio’s massive publicity and advertising budget, which was unavailable to her because her film To Leslie — which we are returning to our Glendale theater this Friday — was released by the tiny film distributor Momentum Pictures, some of her more famous friends rallied online urging people to see the film and her bravura performance. Surprise! It worked. She now has her first Oscar nomination, something film critics understood she deserved but probably would not get.

“Riseborough’s performance is nothing short of spectacular. She doesn’t compromise, she doesn’t hold back, but she doesn’t endow the character with any sort of fake flamboyance.” ~ Owen Gleiberman, Variety
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“A personal and heartfelt drama with yet another stellar turn from the always-great Andrea Riseborough.” ~ Brian Tallerico,
RogerEbert.com
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“In To Leslie Riseborough presents the rough and tumble of the films eponymous character with a tender and sensitive rawness and authenticity.” ~ Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, AWFJ.org
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Buoyed by her peers, "spectacular" Andrea Riseborough and TO LESLIE return to theaters.
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“Unglamorous and unflinching, lilting from dive bars to motels across an errant desert wind. So too is Riseborough’s performance as Leslie.” ~ Fran Hoepfner, TheWrap
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“This week’s shocker Oscar nomination for British actress Andrea Riseborough as an alcoholic single mother from West Texas who squanders her $190,000 lottery win on booze turns a movie no one ever heard of into an absolute must-see. Prepare to be wowed!” ~ Peter Travers, ABC News
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“A work of handcrafted beauty,” THE BLUE CAFTAN opens February 10 at the Royal.

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"A work of handcrafted beauty," THE BLUE CAFTAN opens February 10 at the Royal.
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“The blue caftan, both the clothing and the piece of cinema, are crafted like an elegant act of welcome resistance.” ~ Namrata Joshi, New Indian Express
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“Not only about abiding love, but also about a deep, unspoken understanding between two people who are committed to each other.” ~ Shubhra Gupta, Indian Express
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"A work of handcrafted beauty," THE BLUE CAFTAN opens February 10 at the Royal.
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“Touzani has introduced the caftan as a symbol, and it’s touching to see how the film uses it in the end.” ~ Peter Debruge, Variety
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“Stunning…working with an intricacy that rivals that of the craftsman at the center of her film, the auteur crafts a surprisingly warm story that subverts expectations at almost every turn.” ~ Christian Zilko, indieWire
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Top Ten Films of 2022 contest ends Sunday: Tell us your favorites for a chance to win free movie passes!

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Keep those Top Ten contest entries coming. You have until this Sunday, January 22 to give it some thought and enter here. So far, unsurprisingly, it looks like many Laemmle moviegoers are kvelling about Everything Everywhere All at Once, Top Gun: Maverick, and RRR. We’ll have final results next week. You can read Greg Laemmle’s list and leading American film critics’ lists if you need inspiration. Personally, my favorite is Jordan Peele’s spectacular Nope. No doubt my reaction was influenced by the fact that I saw it in a packed, sold-out theater on opening night, because movies are better in theaters!

“One of the most visually ravishing pictures of all time,” THE CONFORMIST opens February 3 at the Royal, February 10 at the Laemmle Glendale.

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Never has The Conformist been more timely. The new restoration of Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1970 masterpiece about a repressed Italian who becomes a fascist hitman is inspiring a lot of thoughtful journalism. “It’s not the ideology that attracts people to fascism,” writes Eric Alterman in the American Prospect. “It’s the permission it offers to ordinary people to behave like thugs.” In his recent New York Magazine/Vulture review, headlined “It’s Time to See The Conformist Again,” critic Bilge Ebiri describes the film as “one of the most visually ravishing pictures of all time.” Ebiri’s piece is well worth excerpting at some length:

“All great films, at some point, ask the question: Who am I? The greatest films go beyond asking this on a narrative level; through their very form, they embody the question of identity. And what makes Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist (1970) the very greatest of movies isn’t just its staggering, legendary beauty, but its maze-like journey into its protagonist’s — and, by extension, its creator’s — mind.

“The Conformist has just been rereleased in a lovely new 4K restoration, which is certainly cause for celebration given that it’s one of the most visually ravishing pictures of all time. (It’s currently playing New York’s Film Forum, and will soon travel around the country.) There’s no real debate over Bertolucci’s achievement; this is one of those canonical titles whose place in history is a given at this point. You can see its influence in The Godfather series, in Taxi Driver, in movies as varied as Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, Dick Tracy, Call Me by Your Name, and Clueless — and yet, it remains as startling and revolutionary as it was upon original release, in part because few filmmakers nowadays are willing to embrace the sensuous and the monstrous at the same time. You never quite know what you’re supposed to feel at any given moment of The Conformist, because it asks you to feel everything.”

  "One of the most visually ravishing pictures of all time," THE CONFORMIST opens February 3 at the Royal, February 10 at the Laemmle Glendale. "One of the most visually ravishing pictures of all time," THE CONFORMIST opens February 3 at the Royal, February 10 at the Laemmle Glendale.

Some praise from past years:

“Bertolucci’s boldest and most expressive film.” – Calum Marsh, Village Voice

"One of the most visually ravishing pictures of all time," THE CONFORMIST opens February 3 at the Royal, February 10 at the Laemmle Glendale.

“It’s easy to overlook how stark The Conformist‘s political and allegorical message is because it’s just so damn beautiful.” – Aja Romano, Vox

“One of the greatest-looking movies ever made.” – Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader

"One of the most visually ravishing pictures of all time," THE CONFORMIST opens February 3 at the Royal, February 10 at the Laemmle Glendale.

“Bernardo Bertolucci is a master of turning harsh realities into free-flowing dreams and fantasies of sex and power into bracing, often uncomfortable moments of truth…The Conformist is perhaps his richest and most beautiful work.” – Max O’Connell, IndieWire

We are proud to open The Conformist at the Royal on February 3 and the Laemmle Glendale on February 10.