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All Laemmle Venues Temporarily Closed.

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Dear Laemmle Family,

In accord with L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti’s executive order and in efforts to “flatten the curve,” we have temporarily closed all of our venues including those in municipalities not covered by the Mayor’s order.

We will contact ticket holders via email with refund instructions for tickets purchased in advance.

We appreciate your patience as we navigate this unprecedented situation.

Visit laemmle.com for updates.

Please take care of yourselves and those most at risk. Hope to see you soon.

– Team Laemmle

Ravishing Chinese Noir THE WILD GOOSE LAKE, Palme d’Or Nominee, Opens Friday.

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This Friday Laemmle’s Glendale, Santa Monica, North Hollywood and Pasadena venues will open THE WILD GOOSE LAKE, acclaimed director Diao Yinan’s eagerly anticipated follow-up to his 2014 Berlinale winning neo-noir BLACK COAL, THIN ICE. Toppling box office records in Diao’s native China, the film “cements his status as a master filmmaker with another ingenious crime epic” (Little White Lies).

When smalltime mob leader Zhou Zenong (Chinese superstar Hu Ge) accidentally kills a cop, a dead-or-alive bounty is placed on his head, forcing him on the lam from both the police as well as dangerous gangsters out for the reward. Hiding out in China’s densely populated (and deeply divided) Wuhan province, Zhou becomes entangled with a beautiful, enigmatic woman, who has mysterious intentions of her own. Featuring gorgeous, neon-drenched cinematography and bursts of shocking, expertly choreographed action, THE WILD GOOSE LAKE is “spellbinding” (Rolling Stone), “brilliant” (Indiewire) and “downright Hitchcockian” (AV Club).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E5De82Yo9c&feature=emb_logo

 

Some of the copious praise for the THE WILD GOOSE LAKE:

“Diao Yinan cements his status as a master filmmaker with another ingenious crime epic. THE WILD GOOSE LAKE is another assured, exhilarating tale of criminality and the havoc it wreaks on interpersonal connection, with everything impressive about its predecessor – attentive procedural detail, curious experiments with colour and shadow, action set pieces that’d make Michael Mann envious – raised to the Nth degree. There’s not a single false step in its two hours; every edit, every shot setup, every movement of the camera maximises the raw cinematic effect. There’s power in Diao’s more subdued passages, but when he really lets loose and the fists (or bullets, or strategically concealed booby-traps) start flying, this film’s greatness transforms from the kind that sneaks up on you to the kind that blows you away.” ~ Charles Bramesco, Little White Lies

“Like a beautifully constructed puzzle box, THE WILD GOOSE LAKE‘s various layers unfold in satisfying ways. With elegant violence, emotional richness and a complex yet coherent storyline, this is a rare bit of crime thriller treat that truly pays off. Above all, it’s a highly entertaining film that doesn’t for a moment eschew aesthetics, crafting a world of shadow and subterfuge that’s terrific. THE WILD GOOSE LAKE is a hoot, a Chinese crime thriller that proves Diao Yinan is a new master of dark, thrilling noir.” ~ Jason Gorber, Slash Film

“Diao Yinan’s twisting and turning nocturnal noir is full of moody attitude and glorious cinematography.” ~ Dave Calhoun, Time Out

“Diao Yinan’s THE WILD GOOSE LAKE starts with a rainy night, a guy on the lam, a dame who sidles up to him and murmurs, “Got a light?” In other words, this Chinese gangland thriller kicks off in classic noir style, and gets progressively noirer and more nocturnal as it goes on. The fourth feature from writer-director Diao, who made a major impression with 2014’s investigative drama BLACK COAL, THIN ICE, this hyper-stylish manhunt drama laces slow-burn atmospherics with abrupt outbursts of staccato action, and boils down characterisation to the leanest of bare bones, making for minimalist existentialism in the style of Jean-Pierre Melville.” ~ Jonathan Romney, Screen Daily

“Diao Yinan delivers a definitive Chinese crime noir, in which the ravishing style and inventive staging form the substance.” ~ Jessica Kiang, Variety

“In a movie where just about every scene contains some inventive technique or choice, I was most taken with the way Diao boldly abstracts some of his action: a close-quarters fight that unfolds entirely through associative close-ups; a stabbing conveyed through the scattering of bills; a cop discovering one of his colleagues is dead when a dollop of blood lands on his face. Some of these moments are downright Hitchcockian, giving us the implication of violence without always actually showing it.” ~ A.A. Dowd, AV Club

“While Chinese director Diao Yinan’s THE WILD GOOSE LAKE hardly reconfigures the crime thriller afresh, it does pare it down to the essentials to exhilarating effect, progressively jettisoning the whys and wherefores of plot to focus on little more than two bodies moving through any number of ravishing, noirish spaces.” ~ James Lattimer, Sight & Sound

“This enjoyable and elegantly styled noir thriller is … awash with wonderful set-pieces and exquisite visual moments which skillfully echo China’s gilded past and leave us in no doubt of its contemporary criminality and territory wars.” ~ Meredith Taylor, Filmuforia

“Like the waters lapping up against the shores of its murky titular setting, Diao Yinan’s fugitive thriller THE WILD GOOSE LAKE (Nan Fang Che Zhan De Ju Hui) is a film that doesn’t hit you like a tidal wave as much as it gradually washes over you, leaving in its wake a series of memorable set-pieces and a dense, dark web of violence and fatality.” ~ Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter

“It’s a spellbinding pulp noir with a stylish edge and a sui generis fatalism. (12 Best Movies at the Toronto Film Festival)” ~ David Fear, Rolling Stone

“A dizzying, frenetic plunge into the winding and over-populated working-class districts of the city, THE WILD GOOSE LAKE is an exceptional auteur film and noir. Each and every shot is well worth the detour in this sea of coup de force visuals (a very special mention goes to Director of Photography Jingsong Dong), on which the plot never lingers; instead, it takes them in as it twists and turns torrentially (as written by the filmmaker himself), blasting its way through a three-day period, broken up by some nice atmospheric moments where all the actions slows. It makes for a dazzling, labyrinthine journey through a criminal underworld. Here, violence plays an eternally cathartic role and sometimes bursts with black humour, making great use of the laconic and darkly romantic charisma of the two main actors and confirming the immense, fascinating and highly entertaining talent of Diao Yinan.” ~ Fabien Lemercier, Cineuropa

“More even than on its strengths as an expertly directed piece of entertainment, Diao’s latest impresses for its scathing, and unexpected, indictment of societal ills—for how the filmmaker recognizes the extent to which the contours of a sordid genre film appropriately express realities of Chinese life.” ~ Sam Mac, Slant Magazine

“…this film is fascinating because of how those genre thrills are complicated by these off-kilter, idiosyncratic formal choices that trigger not just a lurid dreamscape and uncomfortable humor… but also a vulnerability in the face of alienation and suffering. Watching THE WILD GOOSE LAKE feels like watching a society crumble in real-time, the architecture itself decaying and being painted over while people’s baggage and experiences become more and more exposed….” ~ The Film Stage

“…I thought Diao Yinan’s THE WILD GOOSE LAKE had something of Eisenstein about it, the percussive directionality and suggestiveness of each edit, the way violence happened by implication because a cut is made from a violent instrument to a blood stain. It’s a film of sensual tension wrung from its cinematic touchstones….” ~ Scout Tafoya, RogerEbert.com

“[THE WILD GOOSE LAKE] offers some of the most thrillingly original fight scenes you’ll see onscreen this year.” ~ Nate Jones, Vulture.com

EAST/WEST 20th Anniversary Screenings March 18 in Glendale, Pasadena, and West L.A.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present this month’s film in our popular Anniversary Classics Abroad program: Regis Wargnier’s compelling and increasingly timely thriller, East/West. Wargnier had won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for his earlier historical epic, Indochine. The Oscar-nominated star of that movie, Catherine Deneuve, collaborated with him again in another fascinating historical drama with an exotic backdrop.

Inspired by true events, East/West tells a story of Russian émigrés living in Paris who were lured back to the Soviet Union after the end of World War II. Russian dictator Josef Stalin promised these refugees a complete pardon if they returned to their homeland. But when they actually returned, many of these refugees were executed or sent to labor camps or forced to live in squalor. The main characters in the story are a doctor (Oleg Menchikov) with a French wife (Sandrine Bonnaire). Deneuve has a vivid supporting role as a visiting French actress who ultimately plays a key role in helping the married couple.

At a time of increasing oppressiveness under the Putin regime in Russia, this reminder of harsh living conditions under the rule of an earlier dictator takes on renewed relevance. Wargnier wrote the screenplay for East/West with Louis Gardel and two Russian writers, Rustam Ibragimbekov and Sergei Bodrov. Bonnaire, the star of earlier French films Vagabond, La Ceremonie, and Monsieur Hire, confirmed her enormous appeal in this picture. Oscar-nominated composer Patrick Doyle (A Little Princess, Sense and Sensibility, Gosford Park), who had worked with Wargnier on Indochine, again contributed a vibrant score.

The Los Angeles Times’ Kevin Thomas declared, “East/West has the scale and rich period atmosphere of Indochine while gradually evolving into an acutely suspenseful thriller.” Writing in Movieline magazine, Stephen Farber paid tribute to the director: “Regis Wargnier has a gift for making sweeping popular entertainment,” and he added, “Sandrine Bonnaire gives a marvelously expressive performance.” The New York Times’ A.O. Scott called East/West a “sumptuous, moving new film,” and Rene Rodriguez of the Miami Herald hailed it as “a suspenseful and hugely engrossing drama.”

Our 20th anniversary presentation of EAST/WEST screens Wednesday, March 18, at 7pm in Glendale, Pasadena, and West L.A. Click here for tickets.

Format: DVD

Jean-Luc Godard’s ALPHAVILLE Screens February 19th in Glendale, Pasadena, and West L.A.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present Jean-Luc Godard’s cult favorite from 1965, the sci-fi neo-noir satire, Alphaville.  This screening is part of our popular Anniversary Classics Abroad program; this is our first tribute to the controversial but always provocative French auteur, one of the founders of the French New Wave and still something of an enfant terrible at the age of 89.

Our screening is dedicated to the memory of the incandescent star of the film, Anna Karina, who was married to Godard during the 60s and starred in many of his most popular and influential movies, including A Woman Is A Woman, Band of Outsiders, and Pierrot le Fou.

American-born Eddie Constantine plays the character of Lemmy Caution, a hard-boiled detective who had been featured in a series of European B-movies.  Godard borrowed the actor and the character for his vaguely futuristic portrayal of a mechanized society in thrall to a giant computer.

Working with the great cinematographer Raoul Coutard (who photographed many films of Godard and Francois Truffaut), Godard evoked a future world utilizing modernist glass and concrete buildings that already existed in Paris in the 1960s.

The film was compared by many critics to George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel, 1984, with allusions to Orwell’s Big Brother and misinformation campaign, Newspeak.  The dictatorial computer, Alpha 60, prefigured the sinister HAL in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.  Other dark-tinged sci-fi movies like Blade Runner and The Terminator also demonstrated a debt to Alphaville.

In addition to Constantine and Karina, the cast included Howard Vernon and Akim Tamiroff, with cameo appearances by Christa Lang and Jean-Pierre Leaud, a key figure in the French New Wave.

The film won the top prize, the Golden Bear, at the Berlin Film Festival.  Reviews were mixed at the time, with some critics bewildered and others praising the film’s style and originality.  Over the years it has been recognized as a prophetic work in its protest of the growing dehumanization of modern life.  As the Boston Globe’s Ty Burr wrote, “Alphaville moves closer to relevance with every passing year.”  The New Yorker’s Richard Brody called it “one of the great cinematic works of romanticism.”  Time Out’s Keith Uhlich added, “Karina proves to be the beating heart of the movie.”

Our 55th anniversary presentation of ALPHAVILLE screens Wednesday, February 19 at 7pm in Glendale, Pasadena, and West L.A. Click here for tickets.

99 minutes * NR * DCP * 1965

Our Filmic Cup Runneth Over: Drink Deep of the Oscar-Nominated Foreign Features and Documentaries.

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Now is the time to enjoy fantastic films from around the world. All five of the Oscar-nominated documentary features — THE EDGE OF DEMOCRACY, THE CAVE, FOR SAMA, AMERICAN FACTORY and HONEYLAND are in theaters now, before the awards show on February 9. Four of the five Oscar nominees for Best International Feature — LES MISÉRABLES, PAIN AND GLORY, PARASITE and HONEYLAND (deservedly, it’s nominated twice!) are now in theaters.

We hope to open the Polish drama CORPUS CHRISTI, the fifth foreign film nominee and the dark horse in the race, on March 6 at the Monica Film Center, Playhouse and Town Center.

The film is about 20-year-old Daniel, who is released and sent to a remote village to work as a manual laborer after spending years in a Warsaw prison for a violent crime. The job is designed to keep him busy, but Daniel has a higher calling. While imprisoned he became deeply religious and now aspires to join the priesthood, but his criminal record makes it impossible. When Daniel arrives in town, one quick lie allows him to be mistaken for the town’s new priest, and he sets about tending to his newfound flock. An international sensation with an electrifying lead performance by a previously unknown actor, CORPUS CHRISTI is the twelfth Polish film to earn an Oscar nomination. Only one of them has taken home the prize, IDA in 2015.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B27ORUHlp6E&t=4s

FELLINI SATYRICON 50th Anniversary Screenings January 22 in Glendale, Pasadena, and West L.A.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series launch 2020 and the new decade with the 50th anniversary of the American release of FELLINI SATYRICON, the first installment of our monthly Abroad program.

The provocative adaptation of Petronius’s Satyricon, written in the first century AD during the reign of Nero in imperial Rome, is our fourth presentation of the films of Federico Fellini, one of the most acclaimed filmmakers in the history of cinema. Fellini garnered the third of four directing Oscar nominations for this effort; the Anniversary Classics Series has now showcased all of these nominated films, including La Dolce Vita, 8 ½, and Amarcord.

FELLINI SATYRICON, written by the Italian director with frequent collaborators Brunello Rondi and Bernardino Zapponi, is a freeform adaptation, emulating the fragmentary nature of Petronius’s work that survived. Petronius retold “degenerate” versions of Roman and Greek myth, and Fellini was fascinated by the gaps in the narrative, choosing a style that simulated hallucinatory dreams.

In the fevered tale, two students, Encolpius (Martin Potter) and Ascyltus (Hiram Keller), pursue the love of their young slave Giton (Max Born) through nine episodes of lurid hedonism. Petronius was a sensualist who celebrated and mocked decadence simultaneously, and Fellini matched that vision in the students’ travels and adventures in “grotesque drama and lurid fantasy,” as noted by Roger Ebert. Fellini achieved that effect through the vivid use of color, which was an ironic embrace of a medium the director disdained earlier in his career, preferring black-and-white hues in the 1950s and early 1960s in masterpieces like La Strada, Nights of Cabiria, and La Dolce Vita.

Another frequent collaborator, cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno, fully realized Fellini’s vision; as described by TV Guide, “The masterful cinematography and stunning use of color, achieved through the use of deliberately artificial light sources, lend the film an almost hypnotic sheen.”

Fellini was questioned why he employed non-Italian actors to play the leads, and he elaborated on his casting choices, “They looked innocent…with Italians there is always a feeling of morality, but the Anglo-Saxon face has something detached, something crazy, something elegant.”

Critical reception varied from measured appraisals such as Rex Reed, who saw it as an “explosion of madness and perversion, designed like grand opera of the absurd,” to full endorsement from the New York Times’ Vincent Canby, calling it “the quintessential Fellini film, a travelogue through an unknown galaxy, a magnificently realized movie of his and our wildest dreams.”

In a retrospective review in 2001, Roger Ebert wrote, “It is so much more ambitious and audacious than most of what we see today that simply as a reckless gesture, it shames these timid times.”

See it Wednesday, January 22nd at 7pm in Glendale, Pasadena, and West L.A. Click here for tickets.

Format: Blu-ray

Fellini, Godard, and Renoir Begin Our Anniversary Classics Abroad Series for 2020.

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We are delighted to announce the first four films of 2020 in our Anniversary Classics Abroad series! A companion to our American repertory film series Anniversary Classics, our Abroad program screens great foreign films one Wednesday every month at three venues simultaneously: the Royal in West L.A., the Glendale, and the Playhouse 7 in Pasadena.

Laemmle patrons with a Premiere Card save $3 on tickets and receive 20% food and drinks! Learn about the perks of our Premiere Card here.

January 22: FELLINI SATYRICON
Federico Fellini’s surreal depictions of ancient Rome is loosely based on Petronius’s Satyricon, written during the reign of the Nero and set in imperial Rome. The film is divided into nine episodes and follows the scholar Encolpius and his friend Ascyltus as they try to win the heart of the young boy Gitón, whom they both love. Roger Ebert said, “It is so much more ambitious and audacious than most of what we see today that simply as a reckless gesture, it shames these timid times.” Click here for tickets.

February 19: ALPHAVILLE
In ALPHAVILLE, Jean-Luc Godard’s hard-boiled detective/science fiction fusion, Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine), comes to Alphaville, the capital of a totalitarian state, in order to destroy its leader, an almost-human computer called Alpha 60. While on his mission, Lemmy meets and falls in love with Natacha (Anna Karina), the daughter of the scientist who designed Alpha 60. Their love becomes the most profound challenge to the computer’s control. Click here for tickets.

March 18: EAST/WEST
EAST/WEST, French director Regis Wargnier’s (Indochine) romantic period drama, is set in 1946 when Stalin launched a propaganda campaign offering amnesty to Russians who had settled in the West. Alexei Golovin (Oleg Menshikov) decides to takes his young French wife Marie (Sandrine Bonnaire) and son Serioja with him on the long journey back to his homeland but Stalin’s offer is not what it appeared. This 1999 Best Foreign Language nominee also stars Catherine Deneuve and Bohdan Stupka. Click here for tickets.

April 22: FRENCH CANCAN
Jean Renoir’s musical dramedy chronicles the revival of Paris’ most notorious dance as it tells the story of a theater producer who turns a humble washerwoman into a Moulin Rouge star. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw said, “The glorious final sequence, in which the cancan is finally unveiled to the rowdy audience, is some kind of masterpiece, perhaps the equal of anything Renoir ever achieved: wild, free, turbulent, exhilarating.” Click here for tickets.

Again, we will show all Anniversary Classics Abroad films at three venues, the Royal, Playhouse, and Glendale, at 7pm. Come experience these classics of world cinema as they were intended to be experienced, on a big screen in a dark auditorium full of fellow cinephiles. Click here for full details.

Show Me the Popcorn! Buy Tickets Online and Save on Concessions.

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Listen up Laemmle-ites!

For a limited time, receive $1 off concessions for EACH ticket you buy on Lammle.com.  We know, “unthinkable!”  But we made it happen.

Here’s the scoop:

• Good at all Laemmle locations EXCEPT the Fine Arts.

• No menu restrictions – good for ANY concession item!  “Even booze?” you ask.  “Yes, indeed!” we reply.

• Not valid for merchandise.

• You can only use savings for ONE purchase, in-person, during the show you purchased tickets for.

• You can’t redeem it for cash.  Meaning, there’s no money back if the price of your order comes in below the value of your discount. (But hey, if that does happen, you’ll get your entire order gratis!  Not too shabby.)

To access these savings, simply buy your next movie on our website.  Your ticket confirmation info will specify the amount of your discount.  Just print out or be ready to present on your phone at the concessions stand.

Of course, such things never last!  Offer expires on December 12th.

So get in while the gettin’ is good…