Film Reviews & Previews
THE PRIME MINISTERS: THE PIONEERS Q&A’s:
Blood Brother is a breathtaking film packed with humanity. It chronicles the life of ROCKY BRAAT, a young American who, on a trip to India, finds himself volunteering at a group home for kids with HIV. With Rocky and the irrepressible children, it’s love at first sight and their lives soon become intertwined.
Fortunately for Rocky and film audiences, his good friend STEVE HOOVER just happens to be a gifted filmmaker. Skeptical at first, Hoover is persuaded to travel to India and document Rocky’s exploits. The result is a powerful and eloquent depiction of the situation at the group home, illuminating Rocky, the plight of the kids, village life in India, and the nature of love, amongst other things.
There’s scarcely a need to go into further detail about Blood Brother. Yes, it’s well-made, even unexpectedly stylized at certain points. But more than that it’s a transformative experience. Brilliantly, it compels us to watch things that are very hard to watch, yet does so with such love and tenderness that we never feel the need to turn our heads. Buoyed by Rocky’s courage, we feel that we too can look into the heart of suffering and face it with newfound resolve and compassion.
In a Q&A session at the Royal, Hoover related that all ticket revenue from Blood Brother will be donated to a non-profit recently founded to support Rocky’s work. If that’s not enough you can also donate directly HERE.
For Laemmle audiences Blood Brother is yet another example of film transcending entertainment, commerce, and one might argue, even art. It’s a must see.
– Marc H.
Celebrate the 35th Anniversary of the 1978 classic, John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN, with a series of HALLOWEEN films on the big screen. The celebration begins in October 9th with John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN and continues through the month with HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MEYERS on 10/16 and HALLOWEEN 5: THE REVENGE OF MICHAEL MEYERS on 10/23.
The celebration concludes on October 30th with a $15 7:00PM triple feature of all three movies!
Tickets are now available for all screenings in Claremont, NoHo, and Pasadena.
For MORE THAN HONEY fans, go here to read the Pesticide Action Network’s one pager on the neonicotinoid issue and learn how to take action.
KPFK’s Sonali Kolhatkar interviewed MORE THAN HONEY filmmaker Markus Imhoof this morning on her program Uprising! You can listen here.
Yesterday the Gray Lady published a short, potent rave review of NICKY’S FAMILY, calling in “enthralling.”
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.'”
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.