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Fritz Lang: “One must suffer.” Paul Javal: “That’s for sure.” Godard’s CONTEMPT 60th anniversary screenings at the Royal starting July 7.

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Rialto Pictures’ new 60th anniversary restoration of Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt (1963), the director’s look at a crumbling marriage stars Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli, Jack Palance, and, as a veteran European director, Fritz Lang. “One of the masterworks of modern cinema, a singular viewing experience… a seductive bouquite of enchantments… a many-layered odyssey of intelligence and sensuality.” (Phillip Lopate, New York Times) “Bardot + Godard = Movie Greatness.” (Time Out New York)

Contempt: That’s what ex-typist Brigitte Bardot has for husband playwright/screenwriter Michel Piccoli—but why? Does she think he used her to get that lucrative assignment (to rewrite an adaptation of The Odyssey) from overbearing American producer Jack Palance (“I like gods. I know exactly how they feel.”)? Was it that (innocent) fanny pat to multilingual interpreter Giorgia Moll? Or does she just “not love him anymore?” New Wave wild man Godard, given international stars, a best-selling novel by Alberto Moravia, two high-maintenance producers (Joseph E. Levine and Carlo Ponti), and the biggest budget of his career, still succeeded, as usual, in overturning the conventions of mainstream filmmaking, while producing a meditation on post-Hollywood filmmaking; the pitfalls of international productions; CinemaScope (“only for snakes and funerals,” chortles Lang); imposing modern psychological interpretations on classical themes; and Bardot’s derrière. From the beginning, as Godard’s voiceover recites the credits and his cameraman Raoul Coutard films at Rome’s Cinecittà; Piccoli meets Palance amid endless side-tracking shots; Lang (playing “Fritz Lang”), in the screening room, casually switches from English to French to German—with a Prego thrown in—as Giorgia Moll simultaneously translates (sometimes with a twist) for monoglots Palance and Piccoli; and a studiedly fake death scene; we’re obviously in Godardland. But a tour de force 30-minute sequence that never strays from the Bardot/Piccoli apartment, with the couple hashing over their problems in seeming “real time” amid carefully complex mise en scène, could fit easily into a Bergman heart-searcher. (Although Piccoli also sports a cigar and hat in his bath in homage to Dean Martin in Some Came Running.) Godard’s most sun-splashed production, unfolding amid the airiest and most fabulous of apartments and villas, and against dazzling seascapes, with a complex color scheme featuring a retina-searing red – always the same shade – on robes, railings, convertibles, etc. And with Godard himself as Lang’s Assistant Director in the final scene.

“One of the masterworks of modern cinema that has influenced a generation of filmmakers… What makes Contempt so unique a viewing experience, even more than in 1963, is the way it stimulates an audience’s attention as well as its senses… Godardians regard Contempt as an anomaly, the master’s most ‘orthodox’ movie. The paradox is that it may also be his finest…with Contempt Godard was able to strike his deepest human chords.” – Phillip Lopate, The New York Times

“It seems like an elegy for European art cinema, at once tragic and serene. This myth of baleful movie gods is also the story of Godard’s victory over temptation. Lashed to the mast of irascible genius, he heard the song of the sirens and lived to tell the tale.” – J. Hoberman

“Possibly Godard’s most melancholy film and probably his most beautiful.” ~ Stephanie Zacharek, Village Voice

“What’s the price of selling out? Contempt asks the question of its characters, its audience, and its own director.” ~ Ty Burr, Boston Globe

“It takes its artistic agenda seriously, but also luxuriates in the sensuality and plasticity of film images.” ~ Edward Guthmann, San Francisco Chronicle

https://vimeo.com/829877975

ONLY IN THEATERS screening with Q&A this Saturday, July 8 at Vidiots in Eagle Rock.

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July 5 Update: Tickets are now on sale for this Saturday’s Vidiots screening of Only in Theaters. In addition to the film, this is one more, possibly last chance to catch an in-person Q&A with subjects Greg and Tish Laemmle and filmmaker Raphael Sbarge.

Original post from June 14: Vidiots, welcome to the L.A. exhibition scene! ONLY IN THEATERS screening w/Q&A July 8.

Los Angeles’ world class movie theater culture just got classier. By reopening the 271-seat Eagle Theatre in Eagle Rock, Vidiots has joined major venues of film exhibition like the Academy Museum, the American Cinematheque, the Alamo Drafthouse, the New Beverly, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art (in 2025), and REDCAT, to grassroots sites like Braindead Studios, Secret Movie Club, and Cinespia, plus, ahem, yours truly, Laemmle Theatres to further get Angelenos off their lonesome sofas and out into our one-of-a-kind megalopolis. We are in Hollywood, after all, the movie capital of the world, and it’s only fitting we have a plethora of ways to see movies the way they are meant to be seen: in public, with an audience, on big screens. Yes, home viewing is convenient. And for episodic stuff that is meant to be seen on TV, we are all for it. But comparing the experience of watching a “movie” via VOD with the act of actually seeing the same film in a movie theatre is like the debate between masturbation and sex …or a frozen meal versus a meal at your favorite restaurant. In the immortal words of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, “ain’t nothin’ like the real thing, Baby.”

We’re pleased the documentary about Laemmle, Only in Theaters, is among Vidiot’s first screenings. Join filmmaker Raphael Sbarge and subjects Greg and Tish Laemmle for a post-screening Q&A on July 8.

Mark Olsen of the L.A. Times has been covering Vidiot’s long road from funky, adored Santa Monica video store to Eagle Rock movie theater/cafe/video store/event space. Here’s the beginning of his latest dispatch:

When the Santa Monica video store Vidiots, which had become a local cultural institution, closed in February 2017, founders Patty Polinger and Cathy Tauber had their doubts as to whether the store would ever rebound. Opened in 1985, the beloved rental shop had a collection of more than 50,000 titles on various media formats that was put into storage, potentially never to be publicly available again.

“I didn’t really think it would,” said Tauber, reflecting on whether the store could bounce back after years of financial struggle with the rise of emerging streaming services. “I know that was the plan from the beginning, but I think by the time we shut down, I was so worn out and exhausted from trying to keep the business going and all the negativity and struggle. It was really hard to imagine this was really going to happen. Of course I hoped it would, but we were just way burnt out by the time we were closing down.”

Tauber sat recently with Polinger in the comfy and inviting theater space of the revived Vidiots, which just reopened. Besides a video store, the newly renovated complex at the Eagle Theatre in Eagle Rock includes a 271-seat movie theater, a beer and wine bar, and a smaller micro-cinema space that can also be used for community and educational programs.

“It has been such a transformation and such a huge endeavor, with so many obstacles along the way,” said Polinger. “It’s really a miracle that we’re here.”

Click here to read Olsen’s full article.

 

THE NIGHT OF THE 12TH “never stops sending chills up your spine.” Opening Friday at the Royal, Town Center & Glendale.

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Based on a true crime book by Pauline Guéna, The Night of the 12th [La nuit du 12] is a spellbinding French mystery that’s “both highly effective and brilliantly acted, where procedures and mindsets reveal a frayed society” (Cineuropa), posing uneasy questions about the male-dominated world of law enforcement, and their ability to handle the violent crimes routinely perpetrated against women. The film was rightly nominated for 10 César Awards, winning six, including Best Film, Adapted Screenplay, Director, Supporting Actor and Most Promising Newcomer. We’re thrilled to open the film this Friday at the Royal in West L.A., Town Center in Encino, and Glendale.
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“Its real-world mysteries eventually become existential ones, but the film never stops sending chills up your spine.” ~ Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture
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“This taut and piercing thriller is one of Moll’s stronger works to date, using a genre template to delve into issues of violence, gender and policing in contemporary France.” ~ Jordan Mintzer, Hollywood Reporter
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“The grandeur of the film comes from the depth of emotion. These may be the hard-boiled characters, but they are still human.” ~ Paul Byrnes, Sydney Morning Herald

“A brutally engrossing drama.” ~ Peter Bradshaw, Guardian
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“The Night of the 12th keeps tricking us into thinking it’s a more conventional thriller than it is. ~ Owen Gleiberman, Variety

“The long and devastating fallout from a senseless act of violence affects almost everyone in this compelling reality-inspired account, which lingers in the mind in a way that few crime stories do.” ~ Helen O’Hara, Empire Magazine
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“Today, at 79, Hammons is among our greatest living artists. His work is nothing less than a cultural touchstone for critical developments at the center of American art and life.” Christopher Knight on THE MELT GOES ON FOREVER, opening Friday at the Monica Film Center.

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The new documentary The Melt Goes on Forever: The Art & Times of David Hammons chronicles the singular career of the elusive African-American art star David Hammons from Watts rebellion era ’60s L.A. to global art world prominence today. Hammons’ category-defying practice – rooted in a deep critique of American society and the elite art world – is in the words of one art critic “an invitation to confront the fissures between races.” We open the film this Friday at the Monica Film Center.

The L.A. Times’ art critic Christopher Knight recently wrote about the film and Hammons, whom he describes as “among our greatest living artists.” Here’s an excerpt:

“In David Hammons’ most disarming art, seeming simplicity assumes sharp sophistication. It’s like a supercharged matryoshka doll, with each layer peeling back to reveal and fertilize another layer — and another, and another, and another, until a viewer is dizzy with exhaustion, both delightful and chastening.

David Hammons. Photo credit: Dawoud Bey. 

“Black life in a white-dominated society has been Hammons’ focus for more than half a century, at least since the fateful year of 1968. That’s when he enrolled in what is now called Otis College of Art and Design to work with artist Charles White, back when the school was at the edge of L.A.’s MacArthur Park (the one that was then melting in the dark, all the sweet green icing flowing down). Today, at 79, Hammons is among our greatest living artists. His work is nothing less than a cultural touchstone for critical developments at the center of American art and life.

“A documentary film about a living artist is especially difficult to do when the subject won’t participate, including not sitting for an interview. That’s one reason why The Melt Goes on Forever: The Art & Times of David Hammons is noteworthy. The film is absorbing anyhow, minus the artist’s retrospective musings, thanks to contributions from many smart and observant artists and others.

Blizzard Ball animation still, 2022 Credit: Tynesha Foreman

“Hammons shows up now and then in rare documentary footage, which only adds to a distanced sense of disregard for norms that has been central to his aesthetic. That includes general indifference to the current clamor for celebrity driving so much contemporary culture.

“Surely the film’s well-established co-directors — Judd Tully, a longtime New York art writer, and Harold Crooks, an award-winning Canadian filmmaker — assumed before they started that they’d have to do without the artist’s direct contribution to their 2022 documentary. (It finally arrives Friday in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Monica Film Center, jumping to Amazon and Apple TV on July 5.) Hammons is famously elusive. I met him only once, in 1991, as he was finishing up a few minor details on the installation of a terrific midcareer survey at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. He was congenial, we exchanged pleasantries, and he was gone. The show, on the other hand, spoke with dazzling, sometimes strangely confounding eloquence…[the film] frames the larger narrative of a supremely gifted Black artist, moving through a white-dominated art world awash in ever-larger piles of cash, as a tale of humanity brutalized by stony economic transactions. In that, The Melt Goes on Forever: The Art & Times of David Hammons reverberates against the founding sins of U.S. history, which remain painfully operative today.”

A “sensitive and devilishly detailed coming-of-age drama,” THE STARLING GIRL opens Friday at the Laemmle Town Center, Monica Film Center and Glendale.

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A Grand Jury Prize nominee at Sundance and an Audience Award nominee at South by Southwest as well as a winner of the Directors to Watch Prize at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, The Starling Girl is both a brilliant depiction of the American evangelical community and, with the fantastic lead performance of Eliza Scanlen, a chance to catch a rising star. You may have seen her supporting performances in, among other things, Sharp Objects (2018) and Little Women (2019). The Starling Girl gives Scanlen the chance to carry a feature and she utterly succeeds.
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“The Starling Girl lives and breathes through Scanlen’s stellar performance.” ~ Monica Castillo, RogerEbert.com
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“Parmet’s strong script and surety behind the camera navigates the audience through this complicated story of religion and sexuality, patriarchy and power, brought to eerily accurate life by the ensemble of excellent actors.” ~ Katie Walsh, TheWrap

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“Laurel Parmet makes a striking, assured feature directorial debut with The Starling Girl, which serves double duty in solidifying Eliza Scanlen’s already pretty solid reputation as a young actor worth watching.” ~ Glenn Kenny, Boston Globe

“Parmet is confident enough to know that atmosphere, emotional tone and unspoken feeling can convey far more meaning than the talkiest of dialogue.” ~  Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

“Parmet’s less interested in cultish dread than a more naturalistic dullness of isolation and groupthink you’d find in any closed conservative society where women of faith have been sold a purity narrative.” ~ Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times

“It’s a refreshing change to see this milieu treated with the level of nuance that Laurel Parmet brings to The Starling Girl.” ~ Peter Debruge, Variety

“The language and strictures of their religious community are perfectly rendered by writer and director Laurel Parmet, who captures the complicated interplay of power and immaturity that can blossom in isolated communities.” ~ Alissa Wilkinson, Vox

“Scanlen’s work here is steeped in the feeling of a real-life being lived right in front of you.” ~ Jason Bailey, The Playlist

“The power of this sensitive and devilishly detailed coming-of-age drama is rooted in the friction that it finds between biblical paternalism and modern personhood.” ~ David Ehrlich, indieWire

A film that “raises the bar for trans stories onscreen,” MONICA opens Friday at the Laemmle Claremont, Glendale, Monica Film Center and NoHo.

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Monica is an intimate portrait of a woman who returns home after a long absence to confront the wounds of her past. Reconnecting with her mother and the rest of her family for the first time since leaving as a teenager, Monica embarks on a path of healing and acceptance. The film delves into her internal world and state of mind, her pain and fears, her needs and desires, to explore the universal themes of abandonment and forgiveness.

Monica marks a major first foray into U.S. theaters for filmmaker Andrea Pallaoro, a fresh new voice in Italian cinema who has been making a stir with audiences overseas. A collaboration between breakout star Trace Lysette (Transparent), Oscar nominee Patricia Clarkson, and Emily Browning, the film stood out at last year’s Venice Film Festival, where it competed for the Golden Lion, Queer Lion, and won the Arca CinemaGiovani Award for best Italian Feature before eventually screening in competition at major film festivals in Chicago, Annecy, and Warsaw.

Critical praise for Monica has been almost universal:

“Monica raises the bar for trans stories onscreen, and Lysette takes her rightful place as its muse.” ~ Jude Dry, indieWire

“With uncommon sensitivity toward the interior lives of its characters, as well as to the shifting codes of trans representation, Monica is a film about making amends, where the person who deserves the apology is also the one doing all the work.” ~ Peter Debruge, Variety
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“Monica is an intimate look at the complexity of grief, reconciliation and family.” ~ Tracy Brown, Los Angeles Times
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“A quiet, heartfelt, and beautifully nuanced drama that feels unique and universal.” ~ Peter Sobczynski, RogerEbert.com

“Director Andrea Pallaoro doesn’t burden this delicate tale of reconciliation with long monologues or extensive back stories, and the performances are compelling in their restraint.” Teo Bugbee, New York Times

“Placing a uniquely trans story in the center of a well-worn road creates a path to a new sentiment to be granted to a tale that many people have and will face in their life.” ~ Niko Stratis, Autostraddle
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“Monica is a wondrous work in terms of painting with light, in which the select shadows tell their own story.” ~ Nick Allen, RogerEbert.com

“Director and co-writer Andrea Pallaoro banishes easy sentiment and proselytising in this touching film, allowing the audience to take a journey with the titular Monica and discover her story on the way.” ~ Fionnuala Halligan, Screen International

“A subtle, bold and thoroughly feminine political thriller,” CHILE ’76 opens May 19 at the Royal.

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Chile ‘76, director Manuela Martelli’s second feature film, is set during the early days of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. It builds from quiet character study to gripping suspense thriller as it explores one woman’s precarious flirtation with political engagement. We open the film on Friday, May 19 at the Royal.
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“An intimate psychosocial character study that unfolds at a national scale. This isn’t a story about one affluent woman’s gradual radicalization against authoritarianism, it’s a story about the illusion of not taking sides.” ~ David Ehrlich, indieWire

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“Martelli’s film demonstrates remarkable skill in reconstructing he time period, giving consideration both to recreating the appearance of the era and its emotional tenor.” ~ Teo Bugbee, New York Times

 

“At all times, and in every way, Chile ’76 is a film defined by layers, with pleasant everyday facades masking a dark, corrupt authoritarian underbelly.” ~ Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
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“What begins as a muted marital melodrama slowly boils into a restrained political thriller, with an ease and skill all the more impressive in a first feature.” ~ Manuel Betancourt, Variety

“Küppenheim is terrific, her precision and restraint in the role drawing us into the story. Mariá Portugal’s analogue electronic score is eerily atmospheric.” ~ Wendy Ide, Guardian

“An outstanding performance from Aline Küppenheim is the driving force in this engrossing suspense drama-thriller about an elegant and prosperous woman being drawn into Chile’s anti-Pinochet resistance in 1976.” ~ Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

“A subtle, bold and thoroughly feminine political thriller.” ~ Marina Ashioti, Little White Lies

 

“Wincingly funny, stealthily emotional,” Kelly Reichardt’s SHOWING UP opens Friday.

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Oregonian filmmaker Kelly Reichardt’s fourth collaboration with actress Michelle Williams is a quietly brilliant and funny portrait of an artist and her MFA milieu. It’s also further confirmation that Williams, who can manifest characters as varied as Marilyn Monroe, Mitzi Fabelman, Gwen Verdon and now Lizzy of Showing Up, is a talent as rare as the finest actors in the language, including Daniel Day-Lewis and Meryl Streep. We open the film this Friday at the Monica Film Center and Laemmle Glendale, April 28 at the NoHo, and May 5 at the Newhall and Claremont.

“Reichardt reflects an abiding respect for artists and their freedom to explore and process while Williams inhabits the soul of a creative being in every frame and every second.” ~ Randy Myers, San Jose Mercury News

“The on-the-surface modesty of Showing Up is a kind of sorcery. It’s in the days afterward, when you’ve left its spell and gone back to the world, that its essence is more likely to take shape.” ~ Stephanie Zacharek, TIME Magazine

“It’s about who will turn out to be firmly on Lizzy’s side when all is said and done… The answer surprises her as well as us, and it brings this wincingly funny, stealthily emotional movie to a conclusion that feels both casual and momentous.”  ~ Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times

“Showing Up is a portrait of an individual but the film is universal in the sense that it’s about a woman living in the concrete here and now.” ~ Manohla Dargis, New York Times

“Brilliantly nuanced and meticulously observed.” ~ Claudia Puig, FilmWeek (KPCC – NPR Los Angeles)

“That this moody, woozy character study falls closer to the ‘masterpiece’ side of the fence isn’t a surprise, considering it comes from Kelly Reichardt and Michelle Williams, one of the best filmmaker-actor duos of the last quarter century.” ~ David Fear, Rolling Stone

“What initially seems to be a slice-of-life drama eventually reveals itself as a paean to the difficulties, and rewards, of making art.” ~ David Sims, The Atlantic

“Kelly Reichardt… turns her thoughtful attention to the act of creation itself, rendering both its transcendence and mundanity with equal curiosity.” ~ Michael O’Sullivan, Washington Post