The Official Blog of Laemmle Theatres.

blog.laemmle.com

The official blog of Laemmle Theatres

Home » Theater Buzz » Glendale » Page 23

“Mind-bending, hammed-up, highly paced, farcical, funny, and suspenseful dark fairy tale” ’18 1/2′ coming soon.

by

Dan Mirvish Guest Blog for Laemmle Theaters:

I’m thrilled and honored to be bringing my newest film, 18½ back to my filmmaking home in LA, Laemmle Theaters! 18½ is about a White House transcriber who tries to leak Nixon’s 18½-minute gap to the press, but runs afoul of hippies, swingers and nefarious forces. It stars Willa Fitzgerald (Reacher), John Magaro (Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow and Cannes competition Showing Up), Vondie Curtis Hall (Harriet), Richard Kind, Catherine Curtin and the voices of Ted Raimi as Gen. Al Haig, Jon Cryer as HR Haldeman and Bruce Campbell as Richard Nixon.

The film is having its L.A. Premiere at the Laemmle Monica, on May 27th and screening for a week there, with bonus screenings at the Glendale on May 31 and NoHo7 on June 1, with guest Q&As for most of the screenings.  After winning audience and jury awards and screening at some 21 film festivals on four continents over the last few months, it’s very exciting to finally bring the film to the greater Los Angeles community.

My history with Laemmle theaters goes back to 1995 when my first film, Omaha (the movie) screened for 11 straight weeks. Whether I was showing up at the old Sunset 5 wearing a sandwich board, or throwing raw steaks at the audience, I was buoyed in my efforts by Bob and Greg Laemmle, who not only tolerated but encouraged my indie film shenanigans. The Laemmle family support of independent film in the heart of Los Angeles has proved time and time again that Hollywood is more than just big budget studio superhero films and streaming “content.” Laemmle Theaters are truly one of the last bastions of support for independent filmmaking in the belly of the beast. We are all indebted to their decades-long support of all our films, and our ability to share them with audiences and engage in a uniquely live cinematic conversation.

As a filmmaker who lives a block south of the biggest studios in the world (so, technically they’re in my shadow), 18½ was largely produced during the pandemic with the incredible support and help of my Culver City neighbors, family and friends – for whom I baked sourdough bread as barter for music cues, VFX shots, cameras, posters and sound mixing. I’m looking forward to seeing many of them at our screenings, and I know you’ll love meeting such amazing collaborators as composer Luis Guerra, featured vocalist Caro Pierotto, and so many other talented artists who will be joining me for our Q&As.  If it takes a village to make a film, it takes a village idiot like me to make one in the middle of a pandemic!

But don’t take my word on why you should see the film. I’m thrilled and humbled by all the fantastic reviews we’ve been getting…

“18½ is a rare find in the current landscape of filmmaking, an original story that draws you in from the opening frame…18½ is weird, engrossing, and thoroughly enjoyable.” – Susan Leighton, ScreenAnarchy

“18½ is a mind-bending, hammed-up, highly paced, farcical, funny, and suspenseful dark fairy tale. This makes it a timeless curveball aimed to hit the strike zone of our minds.” – Lloyd Sederer, M.D., Psychology Today 

“Mirvish’s film is a fun and eccentric outing, relishing in the “what ifs” of alternate political history; a much-needed breath of fresh air when taking on politics in today’s charged climate.” – Sammy Levine, Hammer to Nail

“18½ is so riveting and immersive that I forgot I was making a cup of tea and found a cup of cold, over-steeped leaf water after the final credits rolled.” – Jamie Toth, The Somewhat Cyclops

Looking forward to seeing you at Laemmles and talking about 18½!

Time’s running out to see the “perfect” ‘Petite Maman’ on the big screen.

by

French filmmaker Céline Sciamma’s follow up to the powerful Portrait of a Lady on Fire is the much different but equally beautiful and uniquely emotional Petite Maman. The protagonist is eight-year-old Nelly, who accompanies her parents to her mother’s childhood home after the death of the grandmother. As Nelly explores the house and nearby woods, she meets a neighbor her own age building a treehouse. What follows is a tender tale of childhood grief, memory and connection.

As of Friday we’ll be playing Petite Maman at seven of our eight locations, but unfortunately the engagements may have to be brief. Please read some of the effusive praise of this lovely film and consider enjoying and supporting it as intended, theatrically:

“There isn’t a false note or superfluous image in Petite Maman, which runs a just-right 72 minutes. It’s perfect.” ~ Manohla Dargis, New York Times

“It’s a perfect creation in miniature, one that doesn’t have a wasted frame but that also never feels like it’s in a rush.” ~ Alison Willmore, New York Magazine/Vulture

“We forget a lot of things when we grow up. This film is a wonderful reminder.” ~ Odie Henderson, RogerEbert.com

“Poetry on screen can’t be constructed, or willed into existence. Under the right circumstances, though, it can be allowed. Ms. Sciamma, whose previous feature was the passionate and extravagant Portrait of a Lady on Fire, has created those circumstances.” ~ Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal

“No less than the condition of childhood itself, the movie opens up a world of possibilities, all of them beautiful and beguiling — and over all too soon.” ~ Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times

Searing, prescient French abortion drama ‘Happening’ arrives just in time.

by

Opening just as the expected but still shocking news broke that the Republican appointees to the Supreme Court are ready to begin clawing back women’s rights within a few weeks, Happening could not be more timely or galvanizing. As Mark Olsen wrote recently in the L.A. Times, “Happening is set in 1963 and yet it suddenly feels like a possible window into the future. Directed by Audrey Diwan, who co-wrote the adaptation of Annie Ernaux’s autobiographical novel of the same name, the film follows a young French college student Anne (Anamaria Vartolomei) as she attempts to get an abortion after discovering she is pregnant. Though abortion became legal in France in 1975, in 1963 it very much was not, with potential prison time for the woman, whoever performed the procedure and anyone who helped. Isolated from her friends and family, Anne becomes increasingly driven as the weeks pass by to find a solution to her problem — anything that will allow her to continue on with her life as she planned and fulfill her goal to become a writer…In an emailed statement, Diwan responded to the recent news [from SCOTUS], writing, “The purpose of art is also to bring to light some hidden truths. We all know, time has proven it, that when abortion becomes illegal, women who feel the need for it find other solutions. And not safe ones. I think that those who want to intervene in the abortion debate, whether for or against, should at least know clearly what a clandestine abortion is. We cannot talk about what we don’t know. And I include myself here: before reading Happening, I participated in this conversation for a long time without knowing … I was wrong. We should all know, this must not stay silent.'”

 

Happening was a critical, commercial and cultural phenomenon in its native France, where it opened in the autumn. The New York Times recently published a piece headlined “In France, a Film Has Women Sharing Their Stories of Abortion: Following the release of Happening, about an illegal abortion in 1963, the country’s contemporary stigma around the procedure is facing scrutiny.” The lede: “Happening, Audrey Diwan’s film about a 1960s back-street abortion in France, isn’t for the fainthearted. In fact, audience members have fainted at several screenings, including at the Venice Film Festival last September, where it won the Golden Lion. ‘It’s often men who say the experience took them to the limit of what they could bear,” Diwan said in a recent interview, “because they had never imagined what it might be like.’…Happening, which aims for a sense of immediacy onscreen, has led artists and activists to speak up about the taboo they feel still surrounds the procedure. ‘There is this constructed social shame that women are meant to feel, Diwan said, ‘and the sense that if we talk about it, we take the risk of calling into question this right, which in the end is never assured.’ In response to Happening, last December, the French feminist magazine Causette devoted a cover story to testimonies from 13 celebrities, under the title: “Yes, I Had An Abortion.” The author Pauline Harmange, who rose to international prominence last year with her debut book “I Hate Men,” also published an essay in March about her own experience, “Avortée” (“Aborted”).”

Some of the abundant praise for Happening:

“Magnificently written, directed, shot and performed, it reminds you that cinema can be such a powerful medium of empathy.” – Zhuo-Ning Su, Awards Daily

“It’s hard to think of a film more necessary in the current moment.” – David Jenkins, Little White Lies

“Deftly adapted by director Audrey Diwan from a novella, Happening is a period piece, but it’s acted and shot with a shivery immediacy.” – Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph UK

Audrey Diwan

We open Happening at the Claremont, Newhall, Playhouse and Town Center this Friday, May 13 and at the Monica Film Center, Glendale and NoHo on May 20.

‘Memoria,’ Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s “latest wonderment,” never to be seen on DVD, Blu-ray or streaming, is coming soon.

by

Laemmle fans of Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul have just three (3) chances to see his “latest wonderment” Memoria: May 13 at the Laemmle Playhouse; June 3 at the Laemmle NoHo; and June 24 the Laemmle Glendale; the filmmaker and the U.S. distributor Neon have decided the film will never be released on DVD, Blu-ray or a streaming service — read Justin Chang’s rave L.A. Times review to understand why — so do not miss it! Starring Academy Award winner Tilda Swinton, the film is a transfixing drama about a Scottish woman, who, after hearing a loud ‘bang’ at daybreak, begins experiencing a mysterious sensory syndrome while traversing the jungles of Colombia. She begins an investigation to find answers.

Read the last paragraph of Chang’s Times review: “And cinema, as Weerasethakul reminds us, is still a young art, one whose properties and possibilities are still in the process of revealing themselves. An explanation for those strange sounds does materialize, and even coming from a filmmaker who has primed us to expect the otherworldly, it’s something to see — and to hear. A paean to the distant past that unfolds in a rigorous present tense, Memoria finally reveals itself as a vision from the future — a declaration of faith in a medium that hasn’t lost its power to astonish.”

Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann in THE EMIGRANTS ~ 50th Anniversary Screenings May 11.

by

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present our latest installment in our Anniversary Classics Abroad program: Jan Troell’s Oscar-nominated Swedish epic, THE EMIGRANTS. Troell made his feature film debut in 1966 with the acclaimed coming-of-age film, ‘Here Is Your Life.’ After seeing that, producer Bengt Forslund tagged Troell to direct the adaptation of the series of popular Swedish novels by Vilhelm Moberg about a family’s decision to emigrate from 19th century Sweden to America. Troell turned the novels into two films: THE EMIGRANTS and its follow-up, ‘The New Land.’ Revered Scandinavian actors Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann starred in both movies, along with Eddie Axberg, the star of ‘Here Is Your Life.’

THE EMIGRANTS begins by documenting the travails of a family struggling to survive in rural Sweden in the 1840s. With their prospects narrowing, they and a few of their neighbors make the decision to migrate to America in search of a better life. The film chronicles their grueling ocean voyage and then their further travels by train and river boat to unsettled land in Minnesota, where they battle to set down roots in a world that is completely alien to them.

The film was nominated for the Best Foreign Language film Oscar of 1971. Warner Bros. decided to distribute the film, and in 1972, it earned four additional Oscar nominations: for Best Picture, Best Actress Liv Ullmann, Best Director for Troell and Best Screenplay by Troell and Forslund. It was only the third foreign language film to ever be nominated for Best Picture, following Jean Renoir’s ‘Grand Illusion’ from 1938 and Costa-Gavras’ ‘Z’ in 1969.

Troell not only directed and co-wrote the film but also acted as his own cinematographer and editor. As critic Pauline Kael wrote, “In the whole history of the screen there have been only a handful of directors who actually shot their own movies, and no other cinematographer-director has ever undertaken a work of this sweep.” She added that Troell “brings a new visual and thematic unity to fiction films.” Roger Ebert wrote that THE EMIGRANTS was “infinitely absorbing and moving.” Writing in Life magazine, Richard Schickel declared, “Jan Troell has made the masterpiece about the dream that shaped America.”

We will screen the original 190-minute version of the film at the Laemmle Glendale, Newhall, Playhouse and Royal on Wednesday, May 11. The version that played in America in 1972 was shortened by 40 minutes and lost some of the rich detail of Troell’s groundbreaking immigrant saga.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h-rHuPF5Ww

Q&As this Friday with HATCHING filmmaker Hanna Bergholm.

by

HATCHING filmmaker Hanna Bergholm will participate in Q&As after the 7:30 PM screening at the Monica Film Center and after the 10:15 PM screening at the Laemmle Glendale on Friday, April 29.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS1oDoElwqc

 

“Smashing…touching and piercing. A stirring and true-spirited romantic film.” The overlooked 1970 British classic ‘Bronco Bullfrog’ gets a proper U.S. release starting April 29 at the Laemmle Glendale.

by

The debut film by “one of the forgotten heroes of British cinema” (Matthew Sweet, BBC Radio 4), Barney Platts-Mills’ Bronco Bullfrog is “remarkable” (Mollie Panter-Downes, The New Yorker), a “breathtaking time capsule” (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian), and a “revelation” (Kieron Corless, Sight & Sound).

Seventeen-year-old Del, with no money and nowhere to go, breaks into train cars with his cool, fresh-out-of-borstal (reform school) pal Bronco Bullfrog. But one day he meets the lovely Irene, and despite an earful from his dad (and her mum), the two young lovers run away together… but to where?

Shot in London’s East End in 1969, cast with Doc Marten-wearing “suedehead” locals, and set to a dynamic soundtrack by early ’70s art rock band Audience, Bronco Bullfrog has been compared to the work of Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, but with a punk rock spirit. After a minuscule American release following its Edinburgh and Cannes premieres, this “lost gem” (Dave Calhoun, Time Out) returns over 50 years later as a cult landmark of two teens in love, in black and white and cockney—with subtitles.

Del Walker and Anne Gooding in Barney Platts-Mills’ Bronco Bullfrog. (Credit: Seventy-Seven.)

Sadly, filmmaker Barney Platts-Mills passed away last year so is not here to be part of the re-release of his film. In his stead, Oscar-winning director James Scott will participate in a Q&A after 7:30 PM screening of Bronco at the Laemmle Glendale on Friday, April 29.

From Sasha Frere-Jones recent piece in the Observer:

“The British 1970 film Bronco Bullfrog…is about kids in the streets, full stop. Del (Del Walker) starts up a romance with Irene (Anne Gooding) and bounces around with his friend Joe, aka Bronco Bullfrog (Sam Shepherd), running from cops and parents through Stratford, East London. A year before starring in this neo-realist dream, Walker was talking to director Barney Platts-Mills while they made a short documentary of Walker and his friends doing improvisatory theater with director Joan Littlewood.

Left to Right: Anne Gooding, Tina Syer, Chris Shepherd, and Del Walker in Barney Platts-Mills’ Bronco Bullfrog. (Credit: Seventy-Seven.)

“‘Is this better than hanging about in the streets? Is that all you do?’ Platts-Mills asks him.

“‘It’s all I’ve ever done,’ Walker says. “Streets—Stratford, Plaistow, Green Gate, East Ham, Leyton, Sleaford. Everywhere. Get a bit sick of it.’

“That film is called Everybody’s An Actor, Shakespeare Said, but that statement is the plot of Bronco Bullfrog, almost in total. Now rereleased by Gabriele Caroti and Seventy-Seven, a “boutique movie and music label focusing on vintage, underseen, and underappreciated work,” Bronco Bullfrog is a funnel right back into 1969 East London, a bright black-and-white look at several working class kids with no future and all the time in the world. Before Quadrophenia, before the Jam, before the Sex Pistols, there was this.

Del Walker, Anne Gooding, and Roy Haywood in Barney Platts-Mills’ Bronco Bullfrog. (Credit: Seventy-Seven.)

“‘We both loved the Italian neo-realists, Barney and me,’ cinematographer Adam Barker-Mill told me. ‘Joan and the boys had something.’ In the late ‘60s, Littlewood had been working in a theater in East London, putting on shows with local teens. The gang of boys hanging about in front of the theater was slowing things down, so she put them to work.”

Read the rest of Frere-Jones’ piece here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8SRdee-j0&t=1s

Nicolas Cage Comedy ‘The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent’ – Special Advance Screenings

by

Nicolas Cage stars as… Nick Cage in the action-comedy THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT. Creatively unfulfilled and facing financial ruin, the fictionalized version of Cage must accept a $1 million offer to attend the birthday of a dangerous super-fan (Pedro Pascal). Things take a wildly unexpected turn when Cage is recruited by a CIA operative (Tiffany Haddish) and forced to live up to his own legend, channeling his most iconic and beloved on-screen characters in order to save himself and his loved ones. With a career built for this very moment, the seminal award-winning actor must take on the role of a lifetime: Nick Cage.

We open MASSIVE TALENT on April 22 at the Claremont, Glendale, Newhall, NoHo and Playhouse but are first hosting special advance screenings this Saturday night at those theaters.

Here’s a clip from the film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWkdYnAvg0g

Praise for THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT:

“The filmmakers pull from every corner of Cage’s filmography to craft something transcendent. – Marya E. Gates, RogerEbert.com

“There’s something for everyone in THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT. It’s one of the funniest movies of the year.” – Simon Houpt, The Globe and Mail

“Tom Gormican’s nostalgic adventure trip THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT is a true love letter to every facet of Cage’s past and a tantalizing roadmap to his future.” – Robert Daniels, The Playlist

Regular engagements start April 22 but you can see Cage’s acclaimed comedy first this Saturday night. This is just a sampling of the strong critical response that greeted the film at the South by Southwest Film Festival last month in Austin. As of this writing, MASSIVE TALENT has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

It is yet another highlight in the career of sui generis Oscar-winning actor Nick Cage. Even as he was making millions (and, apparently, spending even more) while starring in a series of action movies, he has always made sure to deliver terrific performances in some highly original films. His performance in MASSIVE TALENT reconnects us with the exciting actor from such diverse modern classics as WILD AT HEART, RAISING ARIZONA, MOONSTRUCK, ADAPTATION, BRINGING OUT THE DEAD and PIG.

Click here to read this amazing Reddit AMA Cage did last weekend.

One of the first terrific Hollywood films of the year, MASSIVE TALENT is a non-superhero, non-blockbuster film and so something of an experiment to see if there is still an audience for this kind of movie. If we want these types of idiosyncratic films to be released theatrically in the years ahead, we need to demonstrate that there is an audience for these films, and we need to do it now! Real movies are meant to be seen in a theatre. But comedies truly benefit from the shared experience. And right now, it feels like we could all use a good laugh to distract us for at least a couple of hours from the news.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNuRgxtoSIo