The Official Blog of Laemmle Theatres.

blog.laemmle.com

The official blog of Laemmle Theatres

Home » News » Page 47

The Grand Opening of the Laemmle Glendale is Set for Friday, August 3rd!

by

Laemmle Theatres is pleased to announce the Friday, August 3rd opening of the Laemmle Glendale, a five-screen movie theater located in a mixed-use project one block off Brand Boulevard behind the historic Alex Theatre. Located at the corner of Wilson & Maryland, the Laemmle Glendale will add to Downtown Glendale’s dynamic arts and entertainment district, home to such local institutions as the Antaeus Theatre Company and the Museum of Neon Art. The neighborhood also includes classic restaurants like Carousel and Porto’s Bakery & Cafe.

The Laemmle Glendale will feature a blend of programming, combining our signature art house cinema with the best of Hollywood. In addition, event cinema including opera, recorded concerts, stage productions, and repertory cinema will be part of the mix.

As Laemmle has been doing since 2014, the Laemmle Glendale will feature an Art in the Arthouse gallery in the theater lobby. The opening artist is local painter Raymond Logan.

The Laemmle Glendale will have stadium seating with ample leg room and all-digital projection. Along with popcorn and soda, the concession stand will serve a robust food menu, along with locally-sourced craft beer and hand-curated wines.

As with all Laemmle venues, the theatre will have reasonable ticket prices and easy access to discounted ticket options.

“We are excited to bring a Laemmle theater to booming Glendale for the first time and offer filmic opportunities to moviegoers of the Jewel City and their neighbors in Atwater Village, Eagle Rock, Los Feliz and Silver Lake,” said Laemmle Theatres President, Greg Laemmle. “As L.A.’s population continues to grow and it becomes more daunting to get from one place to another, we are committed to making it more convenient for people who want to see fine films in a theatrical setting.”


The Laemmle Glendale is part of the “L Lofts” Glendale, which includes 42 units of fully leased housing and the Panda Restaurant Group’s Panda Inn Test Kitchen, a premium Panda experience to augment the neighborhood’s other superlative restaurants.

The Laemmle Glendale will be managed by long-time Laemmle employee Cassie Gratton. After serving as one of the pillars of the Playhouse 7 in Pasadena, she opened the Claremont 5 Theater in 2007 and has served as its GM ever since. She said: “I am excited to meet and share with the community the new direction Laemmle Theatres is headed. I hope this will be a place people will be drawn to for more than a movie experience. Jewel City, here we come!”

After Glendale, the Laemmle circuit will continue to expand with the Laemmle Newhall in 2019 and just beyond that the Laemmle Azusa. Laemmle is also moving ahead with the renovation of the historic Reseda theater at Sherman Way in Reseda. With each of these projects Laemmle continues its commitment to working with local communities, supporting arts and entertainment districts, and catering to L.A.’s discerning moviegoers, something Laemmle has been doing since the founding of the company by brothers Max and Kurt Laemmle in 1938.

Laemmle Glendale
207 N. Maryland Ave.
Glendale, CA 91206

Follow @laemmleglendale on Facebook and Twitter for updates!

CALLING ALL EARTHLING Q&A’s and Sound Baths!

by

All Friday-Sunday, June 29-July 1 CALLING ALL EARTHLING screenings at the Fine Arts and the Sunday, July 1 screenings at the Playhouse will be feature live sound baths. There will be filmmaker Q&A’s after the Friday and Saturday screenings at the Fine Arts and each screening at the Playhouse, NoHo, and Monica Film Center.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7ya_2R-eEI
Date Location Soundbath? Q and A?
Friday June 29th @ 5PM
Ahrya Fine Arts
 Helaine Anderson and Sacral Sounds no
Saturday June 30th @ 7:30PM
Ahrya Fine Arts
 Kassia Meador and Farmer Dave Q and A
Sunday July 1 @ 9:55PM
Ahrya Fine Arts
 Helane Anderson from Sacral Sounds
Sunday July 1, 11am Pasadena Playhouse yes sound bath, TBD Q and A
Sunday July 1, 7:30PM Pasadena Playhouse yes sound bath, TBD Q and A
Monday July 2, 7:30PM
Noho 7
 no sound bath Q and A
Tuesday July 3, 7:30PM Monica Film Center  Santa Monica no sound bath Q and A

50th Anniversary Screening of OLIVER! with Actress Shani Wallis In Person on July 15 in Beverly Hills

by

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 50th anniversary screening of the Oscar-winning Best Picture of 1968, OLIVER!, the much-loved film version of Lionel Bart’s hit stage musical.

The movie was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won six, also including Best Director Carol Reed and a special award for choreographer Onna White. Reed, the acclaimed British director of such classic films as The Third Man and The Fallen Idol, had been working since the 1930s and finally received the Academy’s top honor for this late work.

Charles Dickens’ iconic 19th century novel, Oliver Twist, the heart-rending tale of an orphan who falls in with a band of thieves in London, has been filmed many times over the years; the first version was done in the silent era, and David Lean directed a brilliant rendition in 1948, with Alec Guinness as Fagin.

In 1960 Lionel Bart wrote the book, music, and lyrics for a musical theater version of the novel which scored an enormous success in London and later in New York. Ron Moody, who had played the part of Fagin in London, reprised his role for the film version, and the cast also included Shani Wallis as Nancy, Jack Wild as the Artful Dodger, Oliver Reed (the director’s nephew) as the villainous Bill Sikes, Oscar-winner Hugh Griffith as the Magistrate, and charming newcomer Mark Lester as Oliver.

The 1960s was a great decade for movie musicals, with three earlier films—West Side Story, My Fair Lady, and The Sound of Music—scoring Best Picture wins. OLIVER!, however, turned out to be the last musical film to win the Academy’s top award until Chicago took the prize 34 years later. Reed’s film earned outstanding reviews from most critics. Roger Ebert declared, “Sir Carol Reed’s Oliver! is a treasure of a movie.”

Pauline Kael also admired Reed’s achievement: “Oliver! has been made by people who know how; it’s a civilized motion picture, not only emotionally satisfying but so satisfyingly crafted that we can sit back and enjoy what is going on…there’s something restorative about a movie that is made for a mass audience and that respects that audience.”

Kael also had high praise for the performers. “As Nancy,” Kael wrote, “Shani Wallis is an unexpected pleasure—hearty (as Dickens described her), with a tough vitality that brings poignancy to the role.” Wallis got to perform some of Bart’s best songs, including the rousing “It’s A Fine Life” and the romantic ballad, “As Long As He Needs Me.” Wallis has had an extensive career performing in musical theater and in nightclubs, and she also has many credits in British and American television.

Our 50th anniversary screening OLIVER! (1968) plus Q&A with actress Shani Wallis is Sunday, July 15, at 3pm at the Ahrya Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills. Click here for tickets.

LAEMMLE LIVE presents Musicians of Orchestra Santa Monica July 15

by

This is a Free Event
RSVP on Eventbrite

We are SOLD OUT
Email [email protected]
For wait list information

Join us as LAEMMLE LIVE proudly presents musicians from Orchestra Santa Monica at the Monica Film Center July 15. Lisa Kohorn-clarinet, Larry Kohorn and Cindy Bandel-violins, Brooke Wharton-viola, Eran Marcus-cello perform Alexander Krein Jewish Sketches #1, op. 12 and Johannes Brahms Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115  for clarinet in A with String Quartet.

Founded in 2012, Orchestra Santa Monica (OSM) has already established itself as an important civic institution, providing Santa Monica and its surrounding communities with a first-class orchestra which presents accessibly-priced concerts. In addition to innovative programming and compelling interpretations of the classical and contemporary repertoires, outstanding local composers and soloists are featured in OSM’s programs and reflect the musical diversity of the cultures present in Los Angeles County. Beyond its regular full orchestra concert programming, OSM brings musical outreach to the community through performances by smaller music ensembles at venues like the Miles Playhouse and the Laemmle. Furthermore, educational outreach to young people is an especially important OSM priority. Each year the OSM Woodwind Quintet plays in local Title I schools where the children have little access to classical music. Tom O’Connor is Executive Director and Julia Tranner is Communications Coordinator.  www.OrchestraSantaMonica.org

Event Details
Sunday, July 15, 2018
11:00 am
Monica Film Center

This is a Free Event
RSVP on Eventbrite

Milos Forman’s THE FIREMEN’S BALL Screens Tuesday, June 26 in Encino, Pasadena, and West L.A.! Q&A with Co-Screenwriter Ivan Passer at the Royal.

by

In conjunction with an American Cinematheque tribute to the late Oscar-winning director Milos Forman, Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 50th anniversary screening of Forman’s final Czech film, THE FIREMEN’S BALL. The picture, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film of 1968, is part of our popular Anniversary Classics Abroad series. THE FIREMEN’S BALL co-screenwriter Ivan Passer will participate in a Q&A after the screening at the Royal. Laemmle Theatres president Greg Laemmle will moderate. Passer also worked with Forman on LOVES OF A BLONDE and is perhaps best known for directing the 1965 film INTIMATE LIGHTING and the 1981 film CUTTER’S WAY.

Forman was part the Czech New Wave, a group of talented filmmakers (also including Jan Kadar, Jiri Menzel, and Ivan Passer) who emerged during the 1960s. Forman’s 1966 film, Love of a Blonde, was also an Oscar nominee and put him on the map as a director to watch. His wry sensibility received even fuller expression in The Firemen’s Ball, a dark but raucous satire of the chaos that ensues when a group of local firemen try to mount a celebration for their retiring chief. Forman got the idea for the film when he was in a small Bohemian village working on another script, and he happened to attend a real firemen’s ball. The script was co-written by Forman, Ivan Passer, and Jaroslav Papousek. The cast consisted mainly of nonprofessional actors, including Jan Vostrcil, Josef Sebanek, Josef Valnoha, and Vaclav Stockel.

The film, which was widely interpreted as a sly critique of the Eastern European Communist system, was made during a brief period of artistic freedom that came to be known as the Prague Spring. But when the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1968, The Firemen’s Ball was banned, and Forman and other leading Czech directors fled the country. As TV Guide later wrote of the film, “This ingratiating farce is perhaps the last noteworthy film of the Czech renaissance before the political crackdown forced most filmmakers into exile.” After arriving in America, Forman went on to achieve many Hollywood successes, including One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ragtime, and Amadeus.

Among the stellar reviews for THE FIREMEN’S BALL, Time magazine acclaimed “a delicious parody-fable of Slavic bureaucracy,” and Variety paid tribute to “a lively, brimming comedy on human conduct and small-town life.” In his four-star review, Roger Ebert added, “This is a very warm, funny movie.”

This Just In: Co-screenwriter Ivan Passer will participate in a Q&A after the June 26 screening at the Royal. Laemmle Theatres president Greg Laemmle will moderate. Passer also worked with Forman on LOVES OF A BLONDE and is perhaps best known for directing the 1965 film INTIMATE LIGHTING and the 1981 film CUTTER’S WAY.

Milos Forman’s THE FIREMEN’S BALL (1968) screens Tuesday, June 26, at 7:00pm in Encino, Pasadena, and West L.A. Click here for tickets.

55th Anniversary Screening of IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD (1963) on Father’s Day in Beverly Hills

by

Celebrate Father’s Day at the movies as Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 55th anniversary screening of an all-star comic romp, Stanley Kramer’s IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD.

After making several Oscar-winning and nominated dramas like Judgment at Nuremberg, Inherit the Wind, On the Beach, and The Defiant Ones, Kramer (the winner of the Motion Picture Academy’s prestigious Irving G. Thalberg Award) decided to shift gears and make his first slapstick comedy.

The plot revolves around the frantic and desperate search for a cache of money hidden by an ex-convict. Although the film is basically lighthearted and riotous, Kramer does throw a few pointed barbs at all-American avarice. The director recruited a gigantic cast of comedians from television and theater as well as film; these performers span several decades of Hollywood history. The leading roles are played by Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Jonathan Winters, Dick Shawn, Mickey Rooney, Buddy Hackett, Phil Silvers, Edie Adams, and Ethel Merman, with supporting and cameo roles essayed by everyone from Jimmy Durante, Buster Keaton, Jerry Lewis, and Terry-Thomas to Peter Falk, William Demarest, Barrie Chase, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, and the Three Stooges. Spencer Tracy, who had starred in Inherit the Wind and Judgment at Nuremberg for Kramer, relished the opportunity to bring off a change of pace as the detective with his own devious plans for the hidden cash.

William Rose, who later won an Oscar for writing Kramer’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, created the ingenious screenplay. The picture was nominated for six Academy Awards, including nods for cinematographer Ernest Laszlo (Ship of Fools) and composer Ernest Gold (Exodus). It won the Oscar for Sound Effects. Mad World was one of the top grossing films of 1963 and earned mainly positive reviews. Variety observed, “The comic competition is so keen that it is impossible to single out any one participant.” The New York Times’ Bosley Crowther concurred: “So many excellent actors and stunt men do so much in this film.”

Against Kramer’s wishes, the film was edited after its release. The Criterion Collection released a complete, restored version on Blu-ray in 2014, and this is the version that we will be screening.

Before the film, Kramer’s widow Karen and daughter Kat will participate in a Q&A along with actress Barrie Chase. Unfortunately, Chase will not be in attendance.

IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD screens at 4pm on Sunday, June 17th at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills. Click here for tickets.

THE DEER HUNTER with Actor John Savage In Person on Tuesday, May 29 at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills

by

On the day after Memorial Day, Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present one of the greatest of all war films, Oscar’s Best Picture of 1978, THE DEER HUNTER.

Actor John Savage will participate in a Q&A at the 40th anniversary screening on Tuesday, May 29th at 7:15pm at the Ahrya Fine Arts theater in Beverly Hills. Click here for tickets.

The film won four other Oscars, including Best Director for Michael Cimino and Best Supporting Actor for Christopher Walken. Robert De Niro earned a nomination for Best Actor, and Meryl Streep earned her very first nomination for her performance in the film. Deric Washburn wrote the screenplay from a story that he created with Cimino, Louis Garfinkle, and Quinn Redeker. Master cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond shot the film, and Peter Zinner was the editor.

This epic vision of working class America follows three steelworkers from Pennsylvania as they journey halfway across the world to fight in Vietnam. De Niro, Walken, and John Savage play the three best friends. The first hour of the film immerses us in the routines of their lives as they prepare for the wedding of Savage’s character.

In the second section the three friends find themselves in a North Vietnamese prison camp, where they endure horrific physical and psychological torture before making a heroic escape.

In the third section, they try to readjust to life back home but find this re-entry just as traumatic as their wartime experiences. George Dzundza and John Cazale (who played Fredo in the first two ‘Godfather’ films and who died before the release of THE DEER HUNTER) round out the cast.

Roger Ebert praised “one of the most emotionally shattering films ever made.” In Newsweek Jack Kroll wrote, “THE DEER HUNTER is a film of great courage and overwhelming emotional power, a fiercely loving embrace of life in a death-ridden time.” The Wall Street Journal’s Joy Gould Boyum declared, “It is one of the boldest and most brilliant American films in recent years.”

Frank Rich, then the critic for Time magazine, added, “De Niro, Walken, John Savage…and Meryl Streep are all top actors in an extraordinary film.” In addition to its Oscars, the film was named best picture of the year by the New York Film Critics Circle.

The film was also greeted by protests by some activists who felt that the movie falsified the complexities of the Vietnam War and demonized the North Vietnamese. But Cimino argued persuasively that the film was intended to belong to an antiwar tradition that went back to one of the very first Oscar-winning films, ‘All Quiet on the Western Front.’ The film was added to the National Film Registry in 1996, an honor reserved for films deemed “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.”

John Savage had his first important screen role in THE DEER HUNTER, and he went on to star in Milos Forman’s film of the classic counterculture musical, ‘Hair,’ in the film version of Joseph Wambaugh’s best-selling novel, ‘The Onion Field,’ Richard Donner’s ‘Inside Moves,’ Oliver Stone’s ‘Salvador,’ ‘The Godfather Part III,’ Spike Lee’s ‘Do the Right Thing’ and ‘Summer of Sam.’ He also distinguished himself in the theater, playing in the original production of David Mamet’s ‘American Buffalo,’ among other roles. In addition to many TV appearances, he has worked as a producer and composer as well as an actor.

Format: DCP

LAEMMLE LIVE presents Los Angeles Youth Orchestra Chamber Players June 3

by

Join us on June 3 as LAEMMLE LIVE proudly presents chamber players from The Los Angeles Youth Orchestra at the Monica Film Center. LAYO is comprised of pre-college age musicians from greater Los Angeles who rehearse and perform classical symphonic masterworks and contemporary music. Collective talent, intellectual curiosity, and discipline are key to student performances of programs that model professional orchestras, more than conventional youth orchestras.

Each season, the Los Angeles Youth Orchestra serves over 120 student musicians, ages 8-18, who hail from 60 different public and private schools. In addition to studying privately and attending weekly orchestra rehearsals, many of these students give back to their communities by teaching music to younger students, volunteering at hospitals, writing columns for their school and local newspapers, and excelling in their academic and athletic pursuits. LAYO rehearses at the Encino Community Center on Sunday afternoons and regularly performs at UCLA Schoenberg Hall and Ambassador Auditorium. LAYO has also appeared at Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, and Carnegie Hall. The orchestra toured internationally to Vienna and Prague in 2015 and in June 2017, completed a nine-day performance tour to Italy, presenting concerts at the Arvedi Auditorium in Cremona; Terme Tettuccio in Montecatini; and Sant’Agnese in Agone in Rome. Many of the orchestra’s alumni have gone on to prestigious universities including Juilliard, Cornell, Berklee College of Music, UCLA, USC, Harvard and New England Conservatory. For more information regarding auditions and concerts, visit our website at www.losangelesyouthorchestra.org.

Event Details
Sunday, June 3, 2018
11:00 am
Monica Film Center

This is a Free Event
RSVP on Eventbrite