Repertory Cinema Archives – Page 24 Of 27

VALLEY OF THE DOLLS 50th Anniversary Screening on Thursday, December 28 at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills

December 13, 2017 by Lamb Laemmle Leave a Comment

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the 50th anniversary of the cult classic VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1967). The misbegotten adaptation of Jacqueline Susann’s sensational 1966 best-selling novel hit the silver screen for the Christmas movie season in 1967.

We close out the year with a special screening of this vintage “so-bad-its-good” milestone virtually 50 years to the day of the original opening, on December 28 at 7:30 PM at the Ahrya Fine Arts theatre.

Click here for tickets.

Susann’s novel explored the cutthroat side of show business from the viewpoint of three young women aspiring for success. Barbara Parkins, Sharon Tate and Oscar winner Patty Duke (The Miracle Worker) play the female protagonists, with Oscar winner Susan Hayward (I Want to Live) as a grand dame Broadway actress battling to stay on top.

Hollywood veterans, director Mark Robson (Champion, Peyton Place), and writers Helen Deutsch (Lili, I’ll Cry Tomorrow) and Dorothy Kingsley (Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Kiss Me Kate), actually toned down the seamier aspects of Susann’s book. However, they left enough lurid scenes about the early days of sexual liberation to titillate audiences in this slick and glossy film version.

The film is often cited as one of the worst movies ever made; unlike amateur “camp masterpieces” like Plan 9 from Outer Space or the more recent The Room, Valley of the Dolls has the distinction of being the product of a major Hollywood studio.

Among the contributing filmmakers were Oscar winners cinematographer William Daniels (The Naked City, How the West Was Won), costume designer Travilla (How to Marry a Millionaire) and legendary composer John Williams, who garnered his first Academy nomination for adapting Andre Previn’s music score. The theme song became a major pop hit for Dionne Warwick in 1968.

Critics of the day roasted the movie, but 20th Century Fox had the last laugh as audiences made the maligned movie a box office behemoth, the highest grossing film in that studio’s history up to that time. The film developed a cult following through the years. Susan Hayward, who replaced Judy Garland after a few days into the shoot, partially escaped the critical brickbats, but the rest of the cast and the film could not hide.

Over this holiday season, see what Roger Ebert described in 1967 as a “dirty soap opera,” and posed, “I don’t understand how Patty Duke and Barbara Parkins got themselves into this movie.” Similarly, Newsweek called it “one of the most stupefyingly clumsy films ever made by alleged professionals.”

VALLEY OF THE DOLLS also features Lee Grant, Martin Milner, Tony Scotti, Paul Burke, Charles Drake, and Alexander Davion. Our 50th anniversary presentation will have a Special Introduction and a few surprises. Returns to the big screen for one show only Thursday, December 28 at 7:30 PM at the Ahrya Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills.

Presented on DCP.

SILENT RUNNING 45th Anniversary Screening plus Q&A with Director Douglas Trumbull and Producer Michael Gruskoff

December 4, 2017 by Lamb Laemmle Leave a Comment

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 45th anniversary screening of the groundbreaking sci-fi movie, SILENT RUNNING, which marked the directorial debut of special effects wizard Douglas Trumbull. Trumbull and Producer Michael Gruskoff will participate in Q&A after the screening.

SILENT RUNNING screens Wednesday, December 13, at 7:30pm at the Ahrya Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills. Click here for tickets.

Set 100 years in the future, the prophetic script written by Deric Washburn, Michael Cimino, and Steven Bochco stars two-time Oscar nominee Bruce Dern as an astronaut sent into space to preserve the last samples of plant life that are endangered on a dying Earth. His only companions are three drones named Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

The film’s ecological message was a daring one for the time, and its relevance has only grown over the subsequent decades.

Trumbull had made special effects films for NASA while he was still in his early twenties, and he was hired by Stanley Kubrick to execute many of the most challenging and innovative visual effects in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Reviewing Silent Running, Time’s Jay Cocks compared it to Kubrick’s masterpiece: “Silent Running displays the same kind of technical virtuosity, the same sense of the still, vast symmetry of the galaxies.” He added that the movie was “a quite captivating essay on futuristic ecology.” Life’s Richard Schickel declared that the film “provides a great, near-solo role for Bruce Dern.”

In addition to his work on 2001, Trumbull played a major role in creating the special effects for The Andromeda Strain, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: the Motion Picture, Blade Runner, and Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life.

Trumbull directed Natalie Wood’s last film, Brainstorm. He is also known as an inventor and technical innovator in many other fields. He has received numerous awards over the years, including three Oscar nominations for his visual effects and The Gordon E. Sawyer Award for scientific and technical achievement from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2012.

After working as a highly successful agent during the 1960s, Michael Gruskoff produced his first film, Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie, in 1971. His other films include Mel Brooks’ comedy smash, Young Frankenstein, Quest for Fire, and My Favorite Year, which we featured in a highly successful Anniversary screening earlier this year.

Presented digitally.

It’s Dennis Hopper December Every Throwback Thursday at the NoHo 7

November 30, 2017 by Lamb Laemmle Leave a Comment

Method actor, filmmaker, photographer, and artist—the many sides of Dennis Hopper are explored in Nick Ebeling’s remarkable new documentary ALONG FOR THE RIDE opening December 8th in North Hollywood. In conjunction, our Throwback Thursday series will feature three Dennis Hopper films!

Our Dennis Hopper December Throwback Thursday series begins at the NoHo 7 on Thursday, December 7th with David Lynch’s BLUE VELVET. Doors open at 7pm, trivia starts at 7:30, and movies begin at 7:40pm. Our weekly #TBT series is presented in partnership with Eat|See|Hear. Check out the full schedule below!

December 7: Blue Velvet

Dennis Hopper is amyl-nitrite-snorting Frank Booth, one of the most dangerous, repellent, and magnetic psychopaths ever to haunt the screen. David Lynch’s controversial masterpiece also stars Laura Dern, Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, and Dean Stockwell. TICKETS.

December 14: Colors

Directed by Dennis Hopper, COLORS stars Robert Duvall and Sean Penn as partners on the LAPD’s gang crime division. Efforts to establish a truce between the Crips and the Bloods are stymied by the gang members themselves and police brutality. María Conchita Alonso and Don Cheadle also star. TICKETS.

December 21: Waterworld

In a future where the polar ice caps have melted and Earth is almost entirely submerged, a mutated mariner (Kevin Costner) fights starvation and reluctantly helps a woman and a young girl. Dennis Hopper plays Deacon, the leader of the “Smokers,” who believes a map to dry land is tattooed on the young girl’s back. TICKETS.

There’s no screening on December 28th. In January, we invite you to Support Your Local P.T.A. with four of our favorite Paul Thomas Anderson movies! Remember to check www.laemmle.com/tbt for updates!

Angie Dickinson In-person for 50th Anniversary Screening of POINT BLANK, December 5th in Beverly Hills

November 21, 2017 by Lamb Laemmle Leave a Comment

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a screening of the influential and imaginative 1967 thriller, John Boorman’s POINT BLANK. Co-star Angie Dickinson will participate in a Q&A after the screen film.

POINT BLANK screens at 7:30pm on Tuesday, December 5th at the Ahrya Fine Arts theater in Beverly Hills. Presented digitally. Click here to purchase tickets.

Later critics described POINT BLANK as a blend of the style of classic film noir and the technical innovations of the French New Wave. Oscar winner Lee Marvin stars as a man seeking revenge against a former business partner, who double crossed him, stole his wife and left him for dead during a robbery at the deserted prison of Alcatraz.

Marvin’s Walker (no first name) tracks them both to Los Angeles, which has been brilliantly photographed by Boorman and cinematographer Philip H. Lathrop. The screenplay was written by Alexander Jacobs, David and Rafe Newhouse, from a novel by Richard Stark (Donald E. Westlake).

Jacobs and Boorman were both British filmmakers who were stimulated by Los Angeles in the 1960s, and they made the most of archetypal settings like a hilltop house, a sprawling car lot, a frenetic disco, and the eerie storm drains along the Los Angeles River. The film crew was also the first ever to be allowed to film at Alcatraz, which had closed in 1963.

Although the film scored at the box office, it was critically underrated at the time. As Leonard Maltin wrote years later, Point Blank is a “taut thriller, ignored in 1967, but now regarded as a top film of the decade.”

Indeed it was selected for preservation by the National Film Registry in 2016 and had a strong influence on later filmmakers, including Steven Soderbergh and Michael Mann. Philip French, writing in the London Observer, called it “a landmark in the history of the crime movie.”

Angie Dickinson, John Vernon, Carroll O’Connor, and Keenan Wynn co-star. The haunting music was composed by Johnny Mandel.

Angie Dickinson was our very first guest when we launched our Anniversary Classics series four years ago. She appeared at a screening of her 1963 hit, Captain Newman, M.D., in which she starred with Gregory Peck and Tony Curtis.

Her many other memorable films include Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo; the original Ocean’s Eleven with the Rat Pack; Don Siegel’s The Killers, in which she also co-starred with Marvin, along with John Cassavetes and future President Ronald Reagan in his last feature film; Arthur Penn’s The Chase, in which she played opposite Marlon Brando; and Brian De Palma’s Dressed to Kill.

Dickinson also starred in the immensely popular TV series, Police Woman, during the 1970s, and was one of Johnny Carson’s favorite guests on his nightly talk show.

Click here for tickets.

30th Anniversary: Lasse Hallstrom’s MY LIFE AS A DOG Screens November 15th in Pasadena, Encino, and West LA

November 8, 2017 by Lamb Laemmle Leave a Comment

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the 30th anniversary of the American release of director Lasse Hallstrom’s breakthrough film, MY LIFE AS A DOG (1987).

This screening, the latest installment of the Anniversary Classics Abroad program, takes place at three locations: Royal in West LA, Town Center in Encino, and Playhouse 7 in Pasadena on Wednesday, November 15 at 7PM. Presented digitally.

Click here for tickets.

The film, based on an autobiographical novel by Reidar Jonsson, was a huge art-house hit in 1987, and was nominated for two Academy Awards, including Lasse Hallstrom as Best Director and Screenplay from Another Medium (Jonsson adapting his novel along with Hallstrom, Brasse Brannstrom and Per Berglund).

Its success launched Swedish helmer Hallstrom’s Hollywood career. The former music video director for 1970s pop group Abba went onto a run of acclaimed films including the Oscar nominated What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (supporting actor nod -Leonardo Di Caprio), The Cider House Rules (best picture, director nods and supporting actor Oscar for Michael Caine), Chocolat (best picture nod), The Shipping News, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, and the forthcoming Disney film version of The Nutcracker and the Four Realms.

MY LIFE AS A DOG, set in Sweden in 1958-59, relates the adventures of plucky 12-year
Ingemar Johansson (played to impish perfection by Anton Glanzelius), who is sent to live with relatives in a small town during his mother’s health crisis.

Through a series of anecdotes and vignettes, he copes with a variety of characters and encounters in such an engaging manner that Vincent Canby in the New York Times noted, “Ingemar is a most winning adolescent – skeptical, introspective, curious – trying earnestly to bring order of nature’s chaos.”

Leonard Maltin offered similar praise, “Both comedic and poignant, this is ultimately an honest depiction of the often confusing nature of childhood.” The Washington Post summed up its appeal as a “well-constructed crowd pleaser.”

Audiences agreed, and accolades followed, with the film winning year-end awards as best foreign film from the Hollywood Foreign Press, National Board of Review, and New York Film Critics.

Classic Detective Films Every Throwback Thursday in November at the NoHo 7

October 26, 2017 by Lamb Laemmle Leave a Comment

Agatha Christie’s enduring detective, Hercule Poirot, returns November 10th in Kenneth Branagh’s remake of MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS. To celebrate the famed detective (and his epic moustache), Laemmle presents Watching the Detectives, a full month of our favorite fictional detectives!

Our Watching the Detectives Throwback Thursday series begins at the NoHo 7 on Thursday, November 2nd with John Huston’s THE MALTESE FALCON! Doors open at 7pm, trivia starts at 7:30, and movies begin at 7:40pm. Our weekly #TBT series is presented in partnership with Eat|See|Hear. Check out the full schedule below!

November 2: The Maltese Falcon

Humphrey Bogart is Sam Spade, a private detective who takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a gorgeous liar, and their quest for a priceless statuette. TICKETS.

November 9: Kiss Me Deadly

This film noir stars Ralph Meeker as Mickey Spillane’s anti-social private eye Mike Hammer. After he and a hitchhiker are kidnapped by thugs, the semiconscious Hammer helplessly watches as the girl is tortured to death. Seeking vengeance, Hammer searches for the secret behind the girl’s murder. Note: Laemmle Theatres will screen the U.K. version of KISS ME DEADLY, which includes the original ending. TICKETS.

November 16: The Long Goodbye

Applying his deconstructive eye to the “film noir” tradition, Robert Altman updated Raymond Chandler in his 1973 version of Chandler’s novel, The Long Goodbye.

Smart-aleck, cat-loving private eye Philip Marlowe (Elliott Gould) is certain that his friend Terry Lennox (Jim Bouton) isn’t a wife-killer, even after the cops throw Marlowe in jail for not cooperating with their investigation into Lennox’s subsequent disappearance.

Once he gets out of jail, Marlowe starts to conduct his own search when he discovers that mysterious blonde Eileen Wade (Nina Van Pallandt), who hired him to find her alcoholic novelist husband Roger (Sterling Hayden), lives on the same Malibu street as the absent Lennox and his deceased spouse. As numerous variations on the title song play in unexpected places, Marlowe encounters a shady doctor (Henry Gibson), a bottle-wielding gangster (director Mark Rydell), and a guard aping Barbara Stanwyck (among other stars), before heading to Mexico to stumble onto the truth once and for all. TICKETS.

November 30: Murder by Death

Neil Simon’s comic tribute to detective films begins when a reclusive millionaire invites a number of famed detectives, each a parody of a famous literary sleuth, to dinner. Naturally, a series of murders begins, and the humorous race to be the first to solve the mystery is on. Starring Alec Guinness, Peter Falk, Peter Sellers, Maggie Smith, David Niven, Truman Capote, and more. TICKETS.

Details about December #TBT screenings are coming soon. Remember to check www.laemmle.com/tbt for updates!

Director Richard Donner In-person for LETHAL WEAPON 30th Anniversary Screening on October 24 at the Ahrya Fine Arts

October 12, 2017 by Lamb Laemmle Leave a Comment

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 30th anniversary screening of LETHAL WEAPON, the hyperkinetic buddy cop movie that launched an enormously popular franchise.

LETHAL WEAPON (1987)
Q&A with Director Richard Donner
Tuesday, October 24, at 7:30 PM
at the Ahrya Fine Arts
Click here for tickets

Mel Gibson and Danny Glover star as cops who are polar opposites but are forced to work together to break up a deadly drug ring. Gibson plays a reckless, undisciplined, suicidal detective who is paired with a cautious family man, played by Glover.

Screenwriter Shane Black brought a fresh twist to the thriller genre with these unexpected characterizations, and Richard Donner directed with energy and finesse.

Gary Busey and Mitchell Ryan portray the villains, and Darlene Love and Traci Wolfe co-star. Joel Silver produced the film.

The Washington Post called the film—a box office smash in 1987–“a vivid, visceral reminder of how exciting an action film can be.”

Roger Ebert declared, “This movie thrilled me from beginning to end,” and his critical confrere, Gene Siskel, added, “Gibson and Glover make a great team.” Three sequels and a TV series followed.

After starting in television, Richard Donner scored his first big-screen success with a low-budget horror movie, The Omen. He then launched the comic book film craze with Superman in 1978, which introduced Christopher Reeve as the Man of Steel. Donner’s many other films include the three Lethal Weapon sequels, Inside Moves, Ladyhawke, The Goonies, Scrooged, and Conspiracy Theory.

Be Afraid…of Subtitles: A Scary Foreign Film Every Throwback Thursday in October at the NoHo 7

September 26, 2017 by Lamb Laemmle Leave a Comment

At Laemmle we say, “Not Afraid of Subtitles.” But this October, subtitles get downright horrifying! Join us along with Eat|See|Hear at the NoHo 7 for a full month of scary foreign films just in time for Halloween. We’ll provide the subtitles, you’ll provide the screams.

Our “Scary Subtitles” Throwback Thursday series begins on Thursday, October 5th with Nacho Vigalondo’s TIMECRIMES! Doors open at 7pm, trivia starts at 7:30, and movies begin at 7:40pm. Check out the full schedule below!

October 5: Timecrimes [Los Cronocrimenes]

Lauded short film director Vigalondo makes his feature debut with this tense, unstoppable vision of science and natural law gone awry. A man who accidentally travels back into the past and meets himself. A naked girl in the middle of the forest. A mysterious stranger with his face wrapped in a pink bandage. A disquieting mansion on the top of a hill. All of them pieces of an unpredictable jigsaw puzzle where terror, drama and suspense will lead to an unthinkable crime. Who’s the murderer? Who’s the victim? TIMECRIMES takes a bold premise and brings the rarely-tread time travel framework to pulse-pounding, brilliant new heights. In Spanish with English subtitles. TICKETS.

October 12: The Host [Gwoemul]

THE HOST was the talk of the 2006 Cannes International Film Festival. The film from critically acclaimed visionary director Bong Joon-ho had already garnered a substantial amount of international buzz— in 2006 it became the highest grossing Korean film of all time (over $90 million). Utilizing state-of-the-art special effects, courtesy of a creative partnership between Weta Workshop (King Kong, The Lord of the Rings) and The Orphanage (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Sin City), THE HOST is both a creature-feature thrill ride and a poignant human drama. In Korean with English subtitles. TICKETS.

October 19: Trollhunter [Trolljegeren]

Shot in a vérité style, TROLLHUNTER is the story of a group of Norwegian film students that sets out to capture real-life trolls on camera after learning their existence has been covered up for years by a government conspiracy. A thrilling and wildly entertaining film, TROLLHUNTER delivers truly fantastic images of giant trolls wreaking havoc on the countryside, with darkly funny adherence to the original Norwegian folklore. In Norwegian with English subtitles. TICKETS.

October 26: Let the Right One In [Låt den Rätte Komma In]

A fragile, anxious boy, 12-year-old Oskar is regularly bullied by his stronger classmates but never strikes back. The lonely boy’s wish for a friend seems to come true when he meets Eli, also 12, who moves in next door to him with her father. A pale, serious young girl, she only comes out at night and doesn’t seem affected by the freezing temperatures. Coinciding with Eli’s arrival is a series of inexplicable disappearances and murders … It doesn’t take long before Oscar figures out that Eli is a vampire. But by now a subtle romance has blossomed between Oskar and Eli, and she gives him the strength to fight back against his aggressors. Frozen forever in a twelve-year-old’s body, with all the burgeoning feelings and confused emotions of a young adolescent, Eli knows that she can only continue to live if she keeps on moving. But when Oskar faces his darkest hour, Eli returns to defend him the only way she can. In Swedish with English subtitles. TICKETS.

Details about November #TBT screenings are coming soon. Remember to check www.laemmle.com/tbt for updates!