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Which are the ten best movies of 2022?

December 22, 2022 by Jordan Deglise Moore 1 Comment

We all like a good Top Ten list. They’re fun to make, entertaining to read, and amusing to argue over. In 2003 I included Love, Actually on my Top Ten list and an erudite film critic friend practically did a spit take he was so shocked I would put such an admittedly middlebrow entertainment among my other choices, which were more esoteric and in line with his tastes. But, hey! Enjoy the art you enjoy and don’t be ashamed of it.

This is a roundabout way of saying we’ll be collecting your Top Ten lists the first week of 2023. We’ll include the entry form in that week’s newsletter and, assuming he catches up on the buzzy films he hasn’t seen yet, Greg Laemmle’s Top Ten list. By submitting your list you’ll be entered into a raffle for free Laemmle gift cards!

For inspiration, here are some Top Ten lists the nation’s leading film critics have submitted and — good news! — many of the titles — No Bears, One Fine Morning, EO, and Return to Seoul — are either now playing or coming soon so you can see them as they were meant to be seen, theatrically. They are hyperlinked below.

Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times
1. No Bears
2. Aftersun
3. The Eternal Daughter
4. Tár
5. Benediction
6. Decision to Leave
7. Kimi
8. Crimes of the Future
9. One Fine Morning
10. EO
11. Nope

Manohla Dargis, New York Times

1. EO
2. Petite Maman
3. Nope
4. No Bears
5. Kimi
6. The Eternal Daughter
7. Happening
8. Decision to Leave
9. Expedition Content
10. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed

From NO BEARS. Courtesy of Sideshow and Janus Films.

Owen Gleiberman, Variety

Tár
The Fabelmans
The Batman
Bros
Navalny
Holy Spider
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody
Vengeance
Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb
13: The Musical

Peter Debruge, Variety

Tár
Saint Omer
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande
Playground
The Batman
Corsage
Happening
After Yang
The Whale
You Won’t Be Alone

Alissa Wilkinson, Vox

1. Tár
2. Aftersun
3. No Bears
4. Return to Seoul
5. Riotsville, USA
6. We Met in Virtual Reality
7. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
8. Emily the Criminal
9. The Cathedral
10. Top Gun: Maverick

The critics of RogerEbert.com

1. The Banshees of Inisherin
2. The Fabelmans
3. Decision to Leave
4. Tár
5. Aftersun
6. Nope
7. No Bears
8. Everything Everywhere All at Once
9. RRR
10. Babylon

Join our tradition: SING-ALONG FIDDLER ON THE ROOF tickets are going fast!

December 21, 2022 by Jordan Deglise Moore Leave a Comment

So few movies stand the test of time and can delight wildly different audiences even decades after their release. Fifty-one years later, Fiddler on the Roof is one of those few. All of which is to say that tickets for our Christmas Eve Sing-Along Fiddler on the Roof screenings at six of our seven theaters are going fast. There is still room for those who want to come out and celebrate, but act soon. Bring your Hanukkah menorah (and candles) to the theatre and help celebrate the miracles in our lives, not least of which is the “Wonder of Wonders” that Laemmle Theatres is still open after a year of closure and two years of halting recovery. Are brighter days ahead? Who knows. But I’m betting on yes. So buy a ticket, and I’ll feel as “If I Were a Rich Man” because there are still people who value the “Tradition” of seeing a movie in a movie theatre! ~ Greg Laemmle

The 80th Golden Globes Award nominees at Laemmle.

December 14, 2022 by Jordan Deglise Moore Leave a Comment

If you’re not yet caught up with some of the standout art films of 2022, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced its nominations for the 80th Golden Globe awards, they’re a handy to do list. The Banshees of Inisherin (now playing at the NoHo with a return engagement starting Friday at the Monica Film Center and Town Center) received the most nods, with eight, including Best Film (Musical or Comedy), Best Director and Screenplay for Martin McDonagh, and acting nominations for Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan.

Triangle of Sadness (now playing at the Monicas with a return engagement in Glendale slated for December 23) earned Best Film (Musical or Comedy) and Best Supporting Actress for Dolly De Leon. Todd Field and Cate Blanchett were honored for TÁR with Best Film (Drama), Screenplay and Actress (Drama) nominations. We’re currently playing TÁR in Santa Monica. Now in its eighth week at the Laemmle Glendale, Decision to Leave (South Korea) got a Best non-English language film nomination. Now in its fourth week, we have The Menu (Best Actor and Actress – Musical or Comedy nods for Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy) Claremont, Glendale and Santa Monica. We open Sam Mendes’ Empire of Light this Friday at the NoHo, Newhall, Claremont, Town Center, Glendale and Monica Film Center. Olivia Colman got a Best Actress (Drama) nomination for her role.

Finally, we have films by three of the five nominees for Best Actor (Drama) coming soon: Brendan Fraser in The Whale (starts December 21 at the NoHo and January 20 at the Claremont, Newhall and Town Center; Hugh Jackman in The Son (starts January 20 at the Claremont, Newhall, NoHo, Glendale, Town Center and Royal; and Bill Nighy in Living (December 23 at the Royal and January 13 at the Newhall, Claremont, Glendale, and Town Center.

“The kind of film where the viewer loses sense of time itself, mesmerized by the beauty and melancholy of each shot,” NANNY opens Friday.

November 30, 2022 by Jordan Deglise Moore

Nanny, the acclaimed psychological horror fable of displacement, is about Aisha (Anna Diop), a woman who recently emigrated from Senegal. She is hired to care for the daughter of an affluent couple (Michelle Monaghan and Morgan Spector) living in New York City. Haunted by the absence of the young son she left behind, Aisha hopes her new job will afford her the chance to bring him to the U.S., but becomes increasingly unsettled by the family’s volatile home life. As his arrival approaches, a violent presence begins to invade both her dreams and her reality, threatening the American dream she is painstakingly piecing together.

Nanny won the Grand Jury Prize for drama at Sundance at the Directors to Watch award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival and is a nominee for the Someone to Watch prize at the Spirit Awards. We open the film Friday at the Monica Film Center, Claremont 5 and NoHo 7.

“Diop’s delicate, fine-tuned performance works harmoniously with movie’s shape-shifting and with the other actors, especially Monaghan’s more full-bodied, quietly violent turn.” ~ Manohla Dargis, New York Times

“Nanny starts as a movie about a reality that we’d rather not face and ends as a movie about reality that we cannot bear. That is the horror of it — and, in Jusu’s hands, the galvanizing thrill.” ~ K. Austin Collins, Rolling Stone

“The film is an experience for the senses; you’ll hold your breath as you’re consumed.” ~ Pilar Galvan, NPR

“A work of compassion and unease heralding a thoughtful, genre-probing talent.” ~ Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times

“Its feeling and its images stayed with me long after it ended.” ~ Sahir Avid D’souza, TimeOut

“Jusu digs into her heroine’s psyche in a way that is unsettling and unforgettable.” ~ Esther Zuckerman, Thrillist

“It’s the kind of film where the viewer loses sense of time itself, mesmerized by the beauty and melancholy of each shot.” ~ Jourdain Searles, Hollywood Reporter

The “deeply felt and tenderly funny family drama” MEMORIES OF MY FATHER opens Friday at the Royal and Town Center.

November 23, 2022 by Jordan Deglise Moore

Colombia’s official selection for the 93rd Academy Awards and an official selection at Cannes 2022, Memories of My Father follows the life of Héctor Abad Gómez, one of Colombia’s most beloved national figures. Beautifully dramatized by Fernando Trueba, the director of Academy Award winning Belle Epoque, we open the film this Friday at the Royal in West L.A. and the Town Center in Encino.

Almodóvar regular Javier Cámara plays Gómez, in this adaptation of his son’s Héctor Abad Faciolince richly evocative memoir. It recounts life in the turbulent South American country in the 1970s and 1980s, charting how the city of Medellín’s descent into corruption transformed the halcyon days of Héctor’s youth as his father became an increasingly outspoken critic of the government. Shifting between the stark black and white images of the 1980s and warmer color tones that define life the 1970s, Fernando Trueba’s film balances a nuanced portrait of family life with the harsher realities of a rapidly changing world. Cámara, who drew worldwide acclaim as the nurse in Talk to Her, movingly captures Gómez as both caring father and activist whose politics were based less on ideology and more on the human rights of everyday people in being able to access the necessities of life: Food, water and adequate shelter.

“This is a wonderfully sympathetic, deeply felt and tenderly funny family drama with a novelistic attention to details and episodes.” ~ Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

“A bracingly affectionate biopic that compels despite (and because) of its unapologetic sentimentality, Fernando Trueba’s Memories of My Father pays loving tribute to someone who took comfort in the knowledge that he would be forgotten.” ~ David Ehrlich, indieWire

“Those seeking a pleasantly expansive, somewhat old-school dose of laughter and tears — one not so distant from the director’s Oscar-winning “Belle Epoque” three decades ago — will enjoy this handsomely produced tale.” ~ Dennis Harvey

Variety

“Wild, boldly expressionistic” EO advance screening with the filmmaker in person Nov. 28; regular engagement begins December 2.

November 23, 2022 by Jordan Deglise Moore

With his first film in seven years, legendary director Jerzy Skolimowski (Deep End, Moonlighting) directs one of his most free and visually inventive films yet, following the travels of a nomadic gray donkey named EO. After being removed from the traveling circus, which is the only life he’s ever known, EO begins a trek across the Polish and Italian countryside, experiencing cruelty and kindness in equal measure, all the while observing the follies and triumphs of humankind. During his travels, EO is both helped and hindered by a cast of characters that includes a young Italian priest (Lorenzo Zurzolo), a Countess (Isabelle Huppert), and a rowdy Polish soccer team. Loosely inspired by Robert Bresson’s Au hazard Balthazar, and featuring immersive, stunning cinematography by Michal Dymek coupled by Pawel Mykietyn’s resonant score, Skolimowski’s film puts the viewer in the perspective of its four-legged protagonist. EO’s journey speaks to the world around us, an equine hero boldly pointing out societal ills, and serving as warning to the dangers of neglect and inaction, all while on a quest for freedom.

We are screening EO on Monday, November 28 at the Monica Film Center as part of the Reel Talk with Stephen Farber series. Mr. Skolimowski will attend for a Q&A. The regular engagements begin December 2 at the Royal and December 9 at our Glendale theater.

“EO is an astonishment and so too is this wild, boldly expressionistic movie that conveys the life of its largely silent protagonist with a bare minimum of dialogue.” ~ Manohla Dargis, New York Times

“EO may be one of the greatest movies ever made about the spirit of animals, as much as we can know it.” ~ Stephanie Zacharek, Time Magazine

“EO’s personality shines thanks to Skolimowski’s daringly imaginative depictions, both visual and emotional, of the donkey’s point of view.” ~ Richard Brody, New Yorker

“A potent emotional charge, very contemporary eco-consciousness, and film-making that at its best fairly sizzles in its strangeness mark out EO as an animal film that stands defiantly on its own hooves.” ~ Jonathan Romney, Screen International

“EO is a damning polemic on our relationship to other intelligent species — as free labor, food and companions — as seen through the dewy, wide eyes of a donkey whom we come to adore.” ~ Peter Debruge, Variety

“Think of Skolimowki at this stage of his career and life as a filmmaker happily grazing, indulging in an animal need for cinema.” ~ Mark Asch, Little White Lies

“In Bresson’s version, it’s the humans around the donkey who are the true center of the story. Not so in EO. This is Donkeyvision, and we’re better off for it.” ~ Adam Solomons, indieWire

EXPERIMENT IN TERROR 60th Anniversary Screening with co-star Stefanie Powers in person December 7

November 16, 2022 by Jordan Deglise Moore

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the 60th anniversary of director Blake Edwards’ neo-noir suspense thriller Experiment in Terror, one of the noteworthy films from the milestone movie year 1962. Stefanie Powers, who has a key supporting role, will appear for a Q&A after the film. The one-night-only screening will play at the Laemmle NoHo theater on Wednesday, December 7 at 7 PM.

The story deals with vicious criminal Red Garland (Ross Martin), who terrorizes San Francisco bank teller Kelly Sherwood (Lee Remick), forcing her to steal $100,000 for him. Although he threatens to kill her and her teenage sister Toby (Stefanie Powers) if she goes to the police, Remick contacts the local FBI office, where agent John Ripley (Glenn Ford) undertakes a manhunt for Garland. To ensure Kelly’s full cooperation, Garland kidnaps Toby and a race against the clock ensues. Filmed on location in San Francisco, the film notably climaxes in the Bay City’s mid-century landmark, Candlestick Park.

Blake Edwards, known primarily as a comedy specialist, followed the biggest hit of his early career, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, with a complete change of pace in this taut suspenser adapted by the Gordons from their novel “Operation Terror.” He took advantage of the genre change by utilizing a full range of stylistic flourishes, superbly assisted in exploring the neo-noir format by cinematographer Philip Lathrop, filming appropriately in sharp-edged black and white, and composer Henry Mancini, contributing a striking, eclectic score. Edwards, Remick, Lathrop, and Mancini would all reunite later in the year for the memorable drama Days of Wine and Roses.

Critics of the day appreciated the investigative protocol, mystery elements, and the convincing, unsentimental acting and storytelling. Later reviewers embraced Edwards’ directing approach, with Time Out stating, “Edwards’ classical feel for pure cinema remains unalloyed.” Emmanuel Levy noted, “this stylish noir thriller is one of Edwards’ best films and one of the genre’s highlights.” The movie also greatly influenced filmmaker David Lynch, particularly his acclaimed Twin Peaks. Richard Brody, film critic of The New Yorker, wrote in 2015 that Experiment in Terror is “a movie about movies, a very early American reflection of the methods and moods of the French New Wave, realized as a mainstream Hollywood film…the exaltation of the ordinary into something extraordinary by means of the power of cinema itself.”

Our special guest Stefanie Powers is still actively enjoying her seventh decade in show business, starting as a teenager under contract for Columbia Pictures at the end of the studio era. In 1962 she co-starred in three popular movies, If a Man Answers, The Interns, and Experiment in Terror. Later in the decade she starred on television as The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., followed by over 200 appearances on weekly TV series and miniseries, culminating in the hit show Hart to Hart (1979-84), in which she co-starred with longtime friend Robert Wagner. In 1982 she founded the William Holden Wildlife Foundation in Kenya after the 1981 death of her life partner Holden. She remains involved in wildlife conservation and environmental activism in addition to her acting career.

Greg Laemmle on ONLY IN THEATERS: The filmmaker “ended up with a front row seat for two of the more tumultuous years in the history of our three-generation family business.”

November 16, 2022 by Jordan Deglise Moore

From Greg Laemmle:

February, 2019. We had recently hosted a screening of L.A. Foodways at the Fine Arts. This documentary, about the history of agriculture in Los Angeles, and the current situation with food deserts in certain neighborhoods – where people were unable to easily access fresh fruits and vegetables – delved into a social issue that had interested me for many years. And I was especially happy to see a favorite local charity, Food Forward, as one of the charity beneficiaries of the screening.

I was not surprised that the filmmaker, Raphael Sbarge, had found this a worthy subject for a documentary. His previous film, A Concrete River: Reviving the Waters of Los Angeles has also turned a lens on something of local interest, and it also was able to see the natural land underneath the asphalt and buildings, and express a desire to see the city embrace this topography and hydrology so that L.A. could become a more sustainable and equitable place for its residents. It didn’t hurt that my wife and I appeared as interviewees in A Concrete River. But beyond that, I truly felt that Raphael and I shared a similar hope for the City of Angels.

So when Raphael called me in February, 2019, I was happy to make time to meet with him.

At that meeting, he basically said that he wanted to make Laemmle Theatres the subject of his next documentary. And given his previous films, I thought it was a natural fit. We may not be an environmental organization, but over 80+ years, we have become part of the fabric of the city, and I always hoped that we could grow and adapt, finding ways as a business where we could address some of the challenges confronting our home.

Now over the years, many filmmakers have said that someone “should” make a movie about Laemmle Theatres. But Raphael was the first of them to say that he was going to do it. And within weeks, on March 21 and 22 of 2019, we were sitting in the auditorium at the Fine Arts having the first on-camera interviews. Little did we know how things would change over the course of the next two years.

Without revealing too much, let’s just say that Raphael ended up with a front row seat for two of the more tumultuous years in the history of our three-generation family business. Do we sell? Do we not sell? And then beyond that, how do we survive being closed for 13 months during the coronavirus outbreak?

The film ends on April 9, 2021. The day of the reopening of our theatres. It was a day of hopefulness, but also a day of reckoning. Clearly, and for a variety of reasons, it was going to take some time to reconnect with the audience, and get our business back on track.

As I write this now, with the finished film, Only in Theaters, about to open a theatrical run, how am I feeling? About the film, I feel very honored. I won’t say proud, since beyond sitting for the interviews, I had nothing to do with the production or editing of the film. I trusted Raphael to make the film as he saw fit, and to be honest with his storytelling. But yes, honored.

The reaction to the film at festival screenings across the country has been terrific, and while I know that festival enthusiasm does not always translate to the competitive realities of theatrical exhibition, I am confident that people who do see the film will emerge with a greater appreciation for the moviegoing experience, and by extension, the people who make that experience possible.

The film is not what I thought it would be when I agreed to let Raphael make the movie. But it is honest and true, and that’s what’s important. And as hard as it is for me to watch some portions of the film, I will be forever grateful that it exists.

Only in Theaters opens this Friday, with a full engagement at the Royal, and limited engagements at Claremont, Glendale, Newhall, NoHo and the Town Center. The filmmaker and I will be appearing at all the venues at some point over the first five days of the run for Q&A. Check here for details on which shows will have a Q&A. Whether you can make one of those screenings or not, I hope you’ll take the time to see the film. According to Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi,” we are destined to only find appreciation for things after they are gone. But really, it doesn’t need to be that way. We can appreciate the things that are unique, and that bring beauty and wonder into our lives. And we can support and nurture those things so that they will always be there for us and those that come after us. And you can start doing that this weekend.

Laemmle Theatres

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