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LAEMMLE LIVE presents Cellist Armen Ksajikian with Host Rich Capparela in Santa Monica

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This is a Free Event!
RSVP via Eventbrite

LAEMMLE LIVE presents cellist Armen Ksajikian in a solo recital with music by composer/friends. Rich Capparela returns to host this robust program which includes pieces by Sulkhan Tsintsadzè, J.S. Bach, Alan Hovhaness, James Horner, Haim Shtrum, Gabrielle Rosse Owens, Leslie La Barre, Peter Schickele and more.

Admired as much for his artistry and his sense of humor, Armen Ksajikian joined Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra as Associate Principal cello in the 2001-02 season. He is also Associate Principal cello of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. He started out his professional career at age 12 with the Abkhazian State Philharmonic in the former Soviet Union. Since 1976, Armen has been very active in LA’s musical life, working with such notables as Heifetz, Rostropovich, Van Cliburn, Pavarotti, Rosza, Giulini, Baryshnikov, Cage, Mancini, Corea, Dudamel, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Randy Newman, Zubin Mehta and James Cameron, and with groups such as the Eagles, Incubus, System Of Down, and with the Duke Ellington, Dancing with the Stars and Academy Awards orchestras.

Armen has appeared as a soloist with the Nacional Orchestre du Brazil, Pacific Symphony, and Hollywood Bowl and Los Angeles Chamber orchestras, and regularly subs with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He is a member of several ensembles including The Catgut Trio, The Rio Trio, California String Quartet and the award-winning Armadillo String Quartet, with whom he performed Haydn’s complete string quartets in a 34 ½ hour marathon. He made his Carnegie Hall debut premiering a quartet by PDQ Bach in 1999 and has appeared in the Cabrillo, Colorado, Banff, Sitka Summer, Oregon Bach, High Desert, Park City and Venice Film festivals; the Rio International Cello Encounter and Jasper Festival of Music and Wine.

In 1993, Armen made his ‘limousine-driving” debut in James Cameron’s True Lies with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis and played his own death scene in the movie. Also a busy recording musician – he has over 1,100 movies to his credit. Armen’s performances in less conventional venues include 16-day whitewater tours down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, “concerts for grizzlies” inside a clarifier tank of an old pulp mill in Sitka, Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro and at Neverland Ranch. He is particularly proud to have soloed with the Hiland Mountain Women’s String Orchestra at the Hiland Mountain Correctional Center.

This is a Free Event!
RSVP via Eventbrite

Sunday, April 14, 2019
Monica Film Center
1332 2nd Street
Santa Monica
11am – 12 pm

 

 

THE BIKES OF WRATH Q&A’s with Director at Multiple Locations.

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THE BIKES OF WRATH director Cameron Ford will participate in Q&A’s after the 7:30 pm screenings at the following locations and dates:

Monica Film Center on Apr 14th
Ahrya Fine Arts on Apr 15th
Playhouse 7 on Apr 16th
Glendale on Apr 17th
Claremont 5 on Apr 18th

 

https://youtu.be/KaQNhOOoPuE

Russ Tamblyn In Person for SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS on April 6th

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series pay tribute to director Stanley Donen, who died in February, with a screening of one of his best loved musical films, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. The film was nominated for Best Picture of 1954 and earned four other Academy Award nominations; it won the Oscar for Best Scoring of a Musical.

Donen often strived to expand the musical form in such landmark films as Singin’ in the Rain, On the Town, It’s Always Fair Weather, and Funny Face. With Seven Brides he chose to do an outdoor musical with a Western setting, though much of it was actually shot on the MGM lot.

The most important innovation was that Donen, working closely with choreographer Michael Kidd, decided to focus the musical numbers on a group of male dancers. The film’s producer and MGM executives were nervous about this emphasis, but Donen persisted, and the film’s box office success and critical acclaim vindicated his iconoclastic approach. To execute the musical numbers, Donen recruited experienced dancers Jacques d’Amboise, Tommy Rall, Marc Platt, and our evening’s special guest speaker, Russ Tamblyn, who had one of his most memorable roles as the youngest member of a backwoods family.

Howard Keel plays the oldest of the seven brothers, who comes down from their mountain home to find a bride who can help to keep house for him and his family. Jane Powell, who had starred in Donen’s first solo directing effort, Royal Wedding with Fred Astaire, plays the feisty frontier woman who proves more than a match for the domineering Keel. Other cast members include Julie Newmar, Ruta Lee, Jeff Richards, and Ian Wolfe.

The music was by Saul Chaplin and Gene de Paul, with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. The screenplay was written by veterans Albert Hackett, Frances Goodrich, and Dorothy Kingsley, adapted from a short story by Stephen Vincent Benet, which was in turn inspired by Roman histories by Plutarch.

That original story about the rape of the Sabine women provoked controversy in later years. Following the ancient history books, Keel’s character encourages his brothers to kidnap the women they love and bring them by force to their mountain home, which is then blocked by an avalanche that prevents their family members from rescuing them until spring. Contemporary audiences have rightly questioned this sexist plot element. But it should be noted that the women more than hold their own against their abductors. Powell in particular plays a very strong-willed character who protects the kidnapped women and forces the men to live in the barn while she watches over the women in the family homestead.

One of Donen’s achievements in all his films was to create imposing, three-dimensional female characters, and Powell’s Milly is just one striking example of the way in which the director—and his female screenwriters—defied the prevailing norms of the 1950s toxic masculinity. Beyond any political controversies, however, the film endures as one of the most scintillating musicals of the era, praised at the time and lovingly remembered today.

In 1954 Variety wrote, “This is a happy, hand-clapping, foot-stomping, country type of musical with the slickness of a Broadway show.” (It was adapted for Broadway two decades later and also inspired a TV series in the 1980s.) The Washington Post’s Richard L. Coe wrote, “Dandy dancing, singable songs and the ozone of originality make Seven Brides for Seven Brothers the niftiest musical I’ve seen in months.”

Many years later, Leonard Maltin wrote, “Rollicking musical perfectly integrates song, dance, and story.” Time magazine’s Stephanie Zacharek called the barn-raising sequence “one of the most rousing dance numbers ever put on screen.” The film was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2004.

Russ Tamblyn appeared at our anniversary screenings of the classic West Side Story and the chilling suspense film, The Haunting. He first came to attention when he played Elizabeth Taylor’s kid brother in Father of the Bride and its sequel. He also co-starred in Hit the Deck, The Fastest Gun Alive, Don’t Go Near the Water, Tom Thumb, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, and he earned an Oscar nomination for 1957’s Peyton Place. Later he drew renewed attention for his role in David Lynch’s cult series, Twin Peaks.

Format: Blu-ray

SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS with Russ Tamblyn in person screens Saturday, April 6, at 7:30pm at the Ahrya Fine Arts Theater in Beverly Hills. Click here for tickets.

THE BURIAL OF KOJO Q&A’s Opening Weekend with Filmmaker at the Fine Arts.

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THE BURIAL OF KOJO Q&A’s with filmmaker Blitz Bazawule following the 7:30 pm show on Friday, 3/29, after the 5 pm and 7:30 pm shows on Saturday, 3/30. Ava DuVernay will moderate on Friday and Constance Ejuma of The African Artist Association will moderate after the Saturday 5 pm show.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2l7gC3fa3m0

STRAY Q&A with Filmmaker Opening Night at the Ahrya Fine Arts.

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STRAY director Joe Sill will participate in a Q&A following the 7:40 pm show and intro the 10 pm show on Friday, 3/1.

 

https://youtu.be/kaksV7F8bks

THE COMPETITION Q&A’s with Filmmaker at Ahrya Fine Arts and the Playhouse 7.

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THE COMPETITION filmmaker Claire Simon will participate in a Q&A moderated by Akiva Gottlieb, writer for Variety, Los Angeles Times after the 7:30 pm show on Monday, 3/4 at the Ahrya Fine Arts. Kate Wolf, Los Angeles Review Of Books editor will moderate a Q&A with Claire following the 7:00 pm show on Tuesday, 3/5 at the Playhouse 7.

LAEMMLE LIVE presents CANTILENA TRIO March 17 in Santa Monica

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LAEMMLE LIVE presents Beverly Hills National Auditions Winner CANTILENA TRIO featuring Susan Greenberg, flute; Jon Lee Keenan, tenor; and Kenton Youngstrom, guitar. These three consummate ensemble artists and good friends are favorites among Southern California aficionados. Join us Sunday, March 17 at the Monica Film Center.

The program will include works by Wolfgang Mozart, John Dowland, Vincenzo Bellini, Isaac Albéniz, Gabriel Fauré, Astor Piazzolla, I Bordel 1900, Aaron Copland and Fred Ahlert.

Flutist Susan Greenberg enjoys a versatile career as soloist, chamber musician, symphony player, and recording artist. The Los Angeles Times has described her playing as “brilliant,” “elegant” and “supple,” and has lauded her “panache” and “musical projection.” During her 36 years with the LA Chamber Orchestra, she was a frequent soloist on both flute and piccolo, premiering a concerto for piccolo by Bruce Broughton and performing a concerto for flute, alto flute and piccolo written for her by Gernot Wolfgang. Presently she is the principal flutist with the Santa Monica Symphony and the Vicente Chamber Orchestra. She has performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, L.A. Opera, New York City Opera, American Ballet Theater, as well as at the Casals, Ojai and Martha’s Vineyard Music Festivals. he received both her B.A., cum laude, and her M.A. from UCLA.  She is the Co-Artistic Director of Chamber Music Palisades, now celebrating its twenty-first season. Ms. Greenberg has recorded for over 500 motion pictures and many TV television shows, including the Simpsons for 25 years.

Versatile tenor Jon Lee Keenan studied Classical Voice and Jazz Bass at UNLV. Jon relocated to Southern California to pursue a career in classical singing, and study vocal arts at the USC Thornton School of Music. Shortly after moving to LA, Jon was selected to join the LA Master Chorale and has been featured as a soloist at Walt Disney Concert Hall in each season since. Recent highlights with the Chorale include the role of “Evangelist” in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, tenor soloist in Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s Magnificat. Jon recently recorded the role “Gniphos” in the LA Philharmonic’s production of Lou Harrison’s Young Caesar, released internationally in 2018 on The Industry Records. This season’s highlights include appearances with the Corona Del Mar Baroque Festival in Bach’s Magnificat; Various roles in John Cage’s Europeras I and II with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and an international tour of Lagrime di San Pietro with music by Orlando di Lasso and staging by Peter Sellars.

Kenton Youngstrom, guitarist, composer, and educator is the first in a long line of prize-winning students of Jim Smith at the University of Southern California. While earning his Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees, he studied composition with Donald Crockett, arranging with Darniell Pershing, and film scoring with David Raksin.  Mr. Youngstrom has performed concerts and recitals with numerous jazz notables such as pianists Taylor Eigsti and Dave Brubeck, flutist Hubert Laws, bassist Scott Colley and guitarist Larry Koonse. Producing credits include the Falla Guitar Trio’s Concord Records LP, “Virtuoso Music for Three Guitars” which won a Record of the Year Award from Stereo Review magazine. Mr. Youngstrom teaches guitar at the Colburn Community School of Performing Arts.

Free Event!
RSVP via Eventbrite

Sunday, March 17, 2019
Monica Film Center
1332 Second Street
Santa Monica, CA
11am – 12pm

 

 

 

 

Fiftieth Anniversary Screenings of THE WILD BUNCH with Special Guests in Pasadena and Beverly Hills

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March 1, 2019: We regret to report that Bo Hopkins will not be able to attend the Fine Arts THE WILD BUNCH screening. L.Q. Jones’ attendance is tentative.

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of the iconic and groundbreaking movies of the ’60s, Sam Peckinpah’s THE WILD BUNCH.

This graphically violent and poetic film exploded the very concept of the traditional Western by focusing on a brutal group of outlaws trying to survive at the dawn of the 20th century. Featuring four Oscar-winning actors—William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Ben Johnson, and Edmond O’Brien—along with a startling supporting cast, the film clearly established Peckinpah as one of the top directors of the era.

The director’s classic 1962 Western Ride the High Country had demonstrated his talent, but he ran into conflicts with producers on subsequent projects in the ’60s. The Wild Bunch marked his triumphant return to filmmaking. He wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay with Walon Green, from a story by Green and Roy N. Sickner.

It is set in 1913, on the eve of World War I and in the midst of the Mexican Revolution. A botched robbery in the opening sequence leads the outlaws to seek refuge in Mexico, where they continue to be pursued by a group of bounty hunters hired by the railroad company they have robbed. Robert Ryan, cast as a former friend of Holden’s character, leads the pursuers.

The supporting cast includes Warren Oates, L.Q. Jones, Jaime Sanchez, Bo Hopkins, Strother Martin, Albert Decker, Emilio Fernandez, and Alfonso Arau. Lucien Ballard provided the rich cinematography, and Jerry Fielding wrote the Oscar-nominated score.

But perhaps the most crucial creative collaborator was editor Lou Lombardo, who worked closely with the director to perfect an innovative editing style that incorporated quick, almost subliminal cuts masterfully interspersed with slow motion shots.

The film’s violence was shocking to many viewers at the time, and some critics denounced the film. Others, however, saw the violence as reflecting the disruptions in American society, along with the chaos of the Vietnam War. Life magazine’s Richard Schickel called the film “one of the most important records of the mood of our times and one of the most important American films of the era.” The New York Times’ Vincent Canby hailed the film as “very beautiful and the first truly interesting American-made Westerns in years.”

When cuts that had been made shortly after the film’s release were finally restored for a 1995 reissue, critics were even more ecstatic. Writing in The Baltimore Sun, Michael Sragow declared, “What Citizen Kane was to movie lovers in 1941, The Wild Bunch was to cineastes in 1969.” The film was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 1999.

At the screening on February 26 in Pasadena, W.K. Stratton, the author of a new book, The Wild Bunch: Sam Peckinpah, a Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Film, will participate in a discussion before the screening. He will also sign copies of his book at the theater. Presented by our friends at Vroman’s Bookstore.

On March 2 in Beverly Hills, we will be joined by three of the creative participants in the film, in addition to author W.K. Stratton. Screenwriter Walon Green won an Academy Award in 1971 for directing the documentary, The Hellstrom Chronicle. He went on to write such films as Sorcerer and The Brinks Job for director William Friedkin and The Border for Tony Richardson. Later he became writer and producer on many popular television series, including Law and Order, ER, Hill Street Blues, and NYPD Blue.

Actor L.Q. Jones worked on several other Peckinpah movies, beginning with Ride the High Country, along with Major Dundee, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. He co-starred in Hang ‘Em High, Hell Is For Heroes, and Martin Scorsese’s Casino.

Bo Hopkins co-starred in Peckinpah’s The Getaway and The Killer Elite, and he also appeared in such films as The Day of the Locust, American Graffiti, Midnight Express, and The Newton Boys. Both actors also have extensive credits in television.

Click here for tickets to the screening on Tuesday, February 26, at 7:00 PM at the Playhouse.

Click here for tickets to the screening on Saturday, March 2, at 7:30 PM at the Ahrya Fine Arts.

Format: Blu-ray