We’re very pleased to open NICKY’S FAMILY July 19. Today the L.A. Times published a piece about Sir Nicholas Winton, a very modest hero whose life-saving accomplishments went unacknowledged for decades: “Winton said he didn’t talk about his accomplishments because ‘there were more important things going on than to dwell in the past.'”
NICKY’S FAMILY: CNN Marks Sir Nicholas Winton’s 104th Birthday
Beginning July 19 we’ll be screening NICKY’S FAMILY, the acclaimed documentary about Nicholas Winton, an Englishman who organized the rescue of 669 Czech and Slovak children just before the outbreak of World War II: He was a big part of what we now know as the Kindertransport. This hero is still alive and in May CNN marked the occasion of his 104th birthday by broadcasting this piece about him and the new film.
DIRTY WARS’ Jeremy Scahill on Government Surveillance and Civil Liberties
With government surveillance in the news, IFC Films’ release of DIRTY WARS could not be more timely. The documentary follows investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Mercenary Army, as he traces the rise of the Joint Special Operations Command, the most secret fighting force in U.S. history.
Reason.com just posted Scahill’s reactions to unfolding events.
New Book of Film Criticism: RAINER ON FILM
On June 1, Santa Monica Press will release Rainer on Film: Thirty Years of Film Writing in a Turbulent and Transformative Era. It is film critic Peter Rainer’s first collection and includes his writing about many movies seen on Laemmle screens. From Santa Monica Press:
“This collection of Peter Rainer’s film criticism spans the course of his illustrious thirty-year career, which dates back to the early 1980s. It is drawn from a wide range of publications, including the Christian Science Monitor, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Los Angeles magazine, the Los Angeles Times, New Times, and New York magazine, and is arranged thematically with chapters such as “Overrated, Underseen,” “Issues (Mostly Hot Button),” “Comedies (Intentional and Unintentional),” and “Literary and Theatrical Adaptations.” Rainer covers films both well-known and obscure and writes in depth about many film auteurs—Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, the Coen brothers, Mike Leigh—and New Generation icons, such as Sofia Coppola and Paul Thomas Anderson. No film buff’s collection is complete without this comprehensive compilation that showcases the best work from a master contemporary film critic.
“Peter Rainer is the film critic for the Christian Science Monitor, a columnist for Bloomberg News, the president of the National Society of Film Critics, and a regular reviewer for FilmWeek on NPR. Previously, he was the film critic at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles magazine, New York magazine, and New Times Los Angeles, where he was a finalist in 1998 for the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism. In 2010 he won the National Entertainment Journalism Award for Best Online Entertainment Critic.”
Manohla Dargis on Cannes 2013 Thus Far
The New York Times’ Manohla Dargis has a new dispatch from Cannes, and as usual she is utterly compelling in her analysis of the art and business of movies. Click here and you’ll find her piece along with a wealth of links to the New York Times’ coverage of the world’s most important film festival.
Yes, that was James Franco sitting behind you in LEVIATHAN
Devourer of media (and world famous Oscar co-host) James Franco wasn’t satisfied just reading a book about video games while listening to Daft Punk in the lobby of our Music Hall 3 theater in Beverly Hills. No, he needed more and jumped right into a screening of LEVIATHAN… which he LOVED.
“This is life. Man versus nature. Man’s machines. Man’s mastery of the planet. Man’s destruction of the planet. Man’s ushering in of the apocalypse. But it is also beautiful.”
You can read his full review at vice.com
While LEVIATHAN is no longer in L.A. theaters, we encourage you to add it to your Netflix queue.
Kenny Turan in Cannes on Asghar Farhadi’s new film THE PAST
One of the best films we played last year was the Iranian domestic drama A SEPARATION. It was devastating in its depiction of a marriage in crisis and fascinating as a look into Iranian society far more nuanced and up close that what we get in the news media.
That’s why it’s exciting to hear that the director’s follow-up film is being screened at the ongoing Cannes Film Festival. This weekend the L.A. Times’ Kenneth Turan published a piece about Asghar Farhadi and THE PAST. Read it here and know that you’ll very likely see the film at your local Laemmle theater later this year.
Indiewire: “Roller Girl and Oil Rigs: Mondo Releases Paul Thomas Anderson Movie Poster Series”
Mondo, which creates limited edition screen printed posters for thier favorite classic and contemporary films, always far more interesting than the poster produced by movie studios, just released a series of posters for the films of one of the best contemporary American filmmakers, Paul Thomas Anderson. And their for sale at relatively affordable prices! See them here.