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Laemmle Virtual Cinema: The world a click away.

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If you haven’t tried it since the early days of the pandemic, Laemmle Virtual Cinema is still going strong, still important, and it’s improved! You can now enjoy Laemmle films at home using Chromecast, Roku, Apple AirPlay and Apple TV app, or just a plain old HDMI cable from laptop to TV. And you can use gift and Premiere Cards to pay. And the movies! We have features and documentaries from around the world that you can’t see anywhere else and what’s nice is the the engagements are not limited to a week or two, as theatrical exhibition necessitates, but many weeks, so you’ll have time to fully indulge your cinephilia. Plus we have cool collections like Greg Laemmle’s List of personal picks and the 2021 IDA Documentary Award Nominees.
This Friday we’re opening six new films on Laemmle Virtual Cinema. Four dramas: HIVE from Kosovo/Albania (winner of Grand Jury, Best Director and Audience awards at Sundance, the first time that’s ever happened); BACK OF THE MOON from South Africa; BETRAYED from Norway; and TOKYO SHAKING from France; an animated feature from France, JOSEP (winner of the César for Best Animated Feature); and
the French/Tunisian documentary SHE HAD A DREAM.

‘Y Tu Mamá También’ 20th Anniversary Screenings Wednesday, December 8, 7 PM at the Royal, Playhouse, Glendale & Newhall.

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On December 8 we’ll screen our final Anniversary Classics Abroad film of the year — the modern classic Y Tu Mamá También — and stay tuned. We hope to have dates soon for both Airport and Mommie Dearest screening before year’s end.  We are also planning more Abroad titles for 2022.

Alfonso Cuarón’s sexy and provocative road movie, Y Tu Mamá También marked a homecoming as well as a breakthrough for Cuarón in 2001. After making his directorial debut a decade earlier in his native Mexico, Cuarón was drawn to Hollywood, where he earned strong reviews for A Little Princess and a modern-day reworking of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. Then, however, Cuarón decided to return to Mexico to make a more personal film and he wowed the cinematic world with this coming-of-age drama. Y Tu Mamá También broke box office records in Mexico when it opened in the summer of 2001. It went on to win the Best Screenplay award at the Venice Film Festival and was also nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay the following year. Cuarón wrote the film with his brother Carlos Cuarón.

Cuarón cast two up-and-coming young actors, Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, as teenage friends from different social classes. The working class Julio (Bernal) and the upper class Tenoch (Luna) are friends and rivals. They both become infatuated with an older woman (Spanish actress Maribel Verdú) and invite her to join them on a road trip to a spectacular, secluded beach. She accepts and they embark on an adventure that turns out to be a funny, sexy and revelatory experience for all three of them. Much of the film was improvised by the actors, with Cuarón’s encouragement.

In addition to the luscious cinematography and the sexual candor (it was released unrated in the U.S.), the film features narration in the style of some of the European films that inspired Cuarón, particularly Truffaut’s Jules and Jim, another landmark movie about a ménage à trois. Reviews were almost universally glowing. In Newsweek David Ansen wrote, “The movie has an emotional kick that lingers like a primal memory.” Entertainment Weekly’s Lisa Schwarzbaum called the movie “sad, funny, sexy, and altogether marvelous.” The New York Times’ Elvis Mitchell concurred, describing Y Tu Mamá También as “fast, funny, unafraid of sexuality and finally devastating.”

The film’s success propelled Cuarón to the front ranks of contemporary directors. He went on to helm the best Harry Potter movie (The Prisoner of Azkaban), the dystopian Children of Men, and earned an Oscar for his direction of the sci-fi adventure Gravity. When he returned to Mexico to make the autobiographical Roma, he earned a second Oscar as Best Director.

Y Tu Mamá También will play for one night only at the Royal in West L.A., the Playhouse in Pasadena, Glendale, and Newhall December 8.

The power of the film: Jane Campion’s ‘The Power of the Dog’ is one of the year’s best movies.

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Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog, her eighth feature and first since 2009’s Bright Star, is “a complex and probing adaptation of the late Thomas Savage’s superb 1967 novel about two very different Montana rancher brothers caught in a twisted emotional bind.” (Todd McCarthy, Deadline Hollywood Daily) “It pains me to say it,” Greg Laemmle said this week, “but Netflix may have produced the best film of the year. Certainly one of the best I’ve seen so far. It is a film that needs to be seen on the big screen.” Critics agree.
“Jane Campion makes a thrilling return with The Power of the Dog, a work as boldly idiosyncratic, unpredictable and alive with psychological complexity as anything in the revered director’s output.” ~ David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter
“It’s an epic about the way the male id can crush everyone it touches, anchored by a brilliant masquerade of a performance by Cumberbatch, his best yet.” ~ Esther Zuckerman, Thrillist
“The Power of the Dog sticks its teeth into you so fast and furtively that you may not feel the sting on your skin until after the credits roll, but the delayed bite of the film’s ending doesn’t stop it from leaving behind a well-earned scar.” ~ David Ehrlich, Indiewire
“The film’s secrets are revealed while new ones bloom into being.” ~ Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair
“Campion understands the genre she’s working in, setting the roiling emotions of her characters against the striking landscapes; Cumberbatch’s performance is as immense as the peaks and valleys around him.” ~ David Sims, The Atlantic
“The Power of the Dog divulges its secrets in deliberate, measured fashion, growing richer with each new reveal.” ~ Katie Rife, AV Club

“A beautifully crafted movie with some individual scenes that are some of the tensest I’ve experienced in some time.” ~ Glenn Kenny, RogerEbert.com
“Through it all, Campion remains in masterful control of the film’s obscurely menacing mood, and of every aspect of its craft.” ~ Dana Stevens, Slate
“A film that initially seems too schematic gains in complexity as the characters add dimension and Campion uncorks one gripping set piece after another.” ~ Scott Tobias, The Reveal
Now playing at the Playhouse and Newhall; opening Friday at the Monica Film Center and Town Center and December 3 at the Glendale and Claremont.

See IDA Documentary Awards Nominees at Laemmle: ‘Faya Dayi,’ ‘Writing with Fire,’ ‘Not Going Quietly,’ and more.

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The International Documentary Association just announced the nominees for its 37th annual awards, and we’re screening or soon to screen almost a dozen from this cinematic treasure trove:

FAYA DAYI is a triple nominee for Best Feature, Director and Cinematography and is available on Laemmle Virtual Cinema.

NOT GOING QUIETLY also garnered three nominations: Best Feature, Director and Writing. It, too, is on LVC.

We open the animated FLEE (Best Feature and Director) in January.

We have Best Feature nominee WOJNAROWICZ: F**K YOU F*GGOT F**KER  now on Laemmle Virtual Cinema.

We open Best Feature nominee WRITING WITH FIRE on November 26 at the Royal.

Pare Lorentz Award Winner and Best Cinematography nominee THE FIRST WAVE opens this Friday at the Monica Film Center. The filmmaker will attend for Q&A’s after the 7:30 PM screening on Saturday, November 20 and after the 4:40 screening on Sunday, November 21.

Best Cinematography nominee ASCENSION is available now on LVC.

Best Music Documentary Nominee LYDIA LUNCH is now on LVC.

We open Best Editing Nominee PROCESSION this Friday at our Glendale theater.

Finally, we open ABC News VideoSource Award Nominee LIKE A ROLLING STONE: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF BEN FONG-TORRES November 26 at the Monica Film Center.

Vaxxed or Tested: #SafePass is now in effect at our City of L.A. venues, the NoHo, Royal and Town Center.

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In order to keep our patrons and employees healthy, all moviegoers age of 12 and older must provide proof of complete COVID-19 vaccination (or 72-hour negative test for self-attestation of medical or religious exemption). The proof can be actual card, photo of card, or similar digital (QR code, etc.). Those 18 and older must also show their photo ID with a matching name. Read more details at laemmle.com/health and thank you. Let’s all keep doing our part to control and end the pandemic!

Charity Opportunity for the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles’ Tour de Summer Camps Ride. Greg Laemmle will Match All Donations.

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Team Laemmle – Tour de Summer Camps update. The ride is this Sunday, October 31. We are on the verge of passing our goal of raising $18,000.  But more is better.  Please help.  I will match all donations made to his page by Laemmle patrons between now and the end of the ride on 10/31.  Make me pay by donating at https://www.tourdesummercamps.org/GregL
Thank you! ~ Greg Laemmle

One night only: SON OF MONARCHS October 28 at the Royal.

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Next Thursday, October 28 at the Royal, we’re pleased to screen a special, autobiographical film from French-Venezuelan filmmaker and biologist Alexis Gambis, SON OF MONARCHS. It’s about a Mexican biologist living in New York. After his grandmother’s death, he returns to his hometown, nestled in the majestic monarch butterfly forests of Michoacán. The journey forces him to confront past traumas and reflect on his hybrid identity, sparking a personal and spiritual metamorphosis.

Gambis’ films combine documentary and fiction, often embracing animal perspectives and experimenting with new forms of scientific storytelling. In 2008, he founded the Imagine Science Film Festival that recently celebrated its 13th year of showcasing science in film from around the world. In 2016, he launched the sister portal Labocine. Coined the “Netflix for science,” the VOD platform provides a virtual ecosystem to experience science cinema in all its flavors by hybridizing forms, and fostering a dialogue between scientists, artists and educator. SON OF MONARCHS dissects issues of identity, (im)migration and animal/human evolution. This Mexican-American bilingual allegorical drama had its home premiere in October 2020 at the 18th Festival Internacional de Cine de Morelia and International Premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. The film was awarded the 2021 Alfred P. Sloan Prize, awarded every year to a film at the Sundance Film Festival that focuses on science or technology as a theme, or depicts a scientist, engineer, or mathematician as a major character. As a recipient of the 2019 TED Fellowship, his TED Talk makes a case for more science in fiction to humanize the scientist in the public eye and to inform a broader audience on the interplay of research advancements, scientific representations and social issues.

Here’s an interview Gambis did with Deadline at Sundance earlier this year, in which they discuss cultural identity, immigration and “The Poetry And Musicality Of Being A Scientist:”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3icnHftScE

SON OF MONARCHS has insorceled critics:

“The film’s rich imagery will be imprinted in your memory, returning to you in dreams.” – The New York Times – Critic’s Pick, Isabelia Herrera

“A daring mosaic which floats like a butterfly…a visually flamboyant film.” – Screen International, Jonathan Romney


“SON OF MONARCHS links art and science.” – Variety, Anna Maria de La Fuente


“Science meets magical realism in SON OF MONARCHS.” Scientific American, Pakinam Amer


“A poignant story of transformation.” – IndieWire, Judi Dry


“A lyrical portrait of fractured identity.” – The Film Stage, Diego Andaluz


“A piece of art that captivates as much as it informs.” – Playlist, Gregory Ellwood


“Gambis brings together science and spirituality within the beauty of cinema and the power of visual storytelling that is poetic and meaningful.” Film Threat, Sabina Dana Plasse

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYvyucTJt-s

‘The Doors: Live At The Bowl ’68 Special Edition’ Screenings November 4th Only at the Claremont, Newhall, NoHo, Playhouse and Royal.

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On July 5th, 1968, The Doors lit up the storied stage of the Hollywood Bowl with a legendary performance that is widely considered to be the band’s finest captured on film. Performing on the back of their 3rd album release “Waiting For The Sun” and the US #1 single “Hello, I Love You,” the quartet had been honing their live performances over the previous two years and were in absolute peak form.

Now, on November 4th, 2021, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of The Doors final studio album L.A. WOMAN (1971), The Doors: Live At The Bowl ’68 Special Edition will transform movie theaters into concert venues, giving Doors fans around the world the closest experience to being there live alongside Jim Morrison, John Densmore, Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger, who stated, “the magic that has been done to enhance the picture and sound quality of this show will make everyone feel as though they have a front row seat at the Hollywood Bowl.”

In celebration of L.A. WOMAN, this special event includes a brand-new musical performance and a conversation with John Densmore, Robby Krieger and Doors Manager, Jeff Jampol, filmed exclusively for the big screen. Here’s  a clip:

 

This theatrical “Special Edition” release creates an in-cinema experience for fans like no other. The film has now been remastered in stunning Dolby ATMOS® (where available) and 5.1 surround sound by Bruce Botnick, the original engineer & mixer for The Doors who recorded the live performance at the Hollywood Bowl in 1968 and co-produced L.A. WOMAN. Here’s another clip:

 

Meticulously restored from original camera negatives and remixed and mastered using original multi-track tapes, The Doors: Live At The Bowl ’68 Special Edition features the concert in its entirety, including “Hello, I Love You”, “The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)”, “Light My Fire” and “The End.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYxbYt8Tp48