The official blog of Laemmle Theatres
BABY BOOM director/co-writer Charles Shyer will participate in a Q&A after the screening at the NoHo 7 on May 23. Mr. Shyer was nominated for an Oscar and won a WGA award for co-writing PRIVATE BENJAMIN starring Goldie Hawn and also directed such films as IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES; the Steve Martin version of FATHER OF THE BRIDE and its sequel; ALFIE with Jude Law; and has screen credits on many other movies and TV series.
Excited about Jim Jarmusch’s new zombie-comedy THE DEAD DON’T DIE opening June 14th in Pasadena, NoHo, and Claremont? We are, too! So much so that we’re diving into the iconic filmmaker’s back catalog for June’s Throwback Thursday series!
Our Jarmusch in June Throwback Thursday series screens every Thursday evening at our NoHo 7 theater. Doors open at 7pm, trivia starts at 7:30, and movies begin at 7:40pm. More details at www.laemmle.com/tbt!
You can save $3 with our EARLY BIRD SPECIAL! Tickets are only $9 (or $6 for Laemmle Premiere Card holders) if you buy them at least one week before the date of the screening!
Jarmusch in June Schedule:
Stranger Than Paradise, June 6: A low-key avante-garde comedy about a trio of misfits — an everyday guy, his Hungarian cousin, and his geeky best friend — and their misadventures in New York, Cleveland, and Florida. John Lurie, Eszter Balint, Richard Edson, and Cecillia Stark star. The National Society of Film Critics voted Stranger Than Paradise Best Picture of 1984. Format: DCP.
Down by Law, June 13: Jarmusch followed up Stranger Than Paradise with another rambling, character-driven film with a twisted sense of humor. Set in a seedy New Orleans summer, Down By Law details the meeting of three unlikely convicts and their just-as-unlikely escape. Starring Tom Waits, John Lurie, Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi, and Ellen Barkin. Format: DCP.
Mystery Train, June 20: This deadpan triptych takes place over the course of an evening in a tacky, low-rent Memphis motel dedicated to Elvis Presley visited by Japanese tourists, criminals on the run, and the spirit of the King himself. Youki Kudoh, Masatoshi Nagase, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Cinqué Lee, Nicoletta Braschi, Elizabeth Bracco, Rick Aviles, Joe Strummer, and Steve Buscemi star. Format: DCP.
Dead Man, June 27: In Jarmusch’s psychedelic western, an accountant on the run for murdering a man encounters a strange North American man named Nobody who prepares him for his journey into the spiritual world. The cast includes Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer, Crispin Glover, Iggy Pop, Billy Bob Thornton, Gabriel Byrne, John Hurt, Alfred Molina, and Robert Mitchum. Neil Young improvised the soundtrack while watching the freshly edited film. Format: DCP.
CHARLIE SAYS screenwriter Guinevere Turner will participate in a Q&A on Friday, 5/10 at NoHo, and on Saturday, 5/11 at the Monica following the 7:30 pm shows.
Laemmle Theatres proudly presents LAEMMLE LIVE PASADENA, inspired by Laemmle’s popular concert series in Santa Monica. Laemmle Live showcases emerging musicians and professional performers from local schools and organizations, celebrating our diverse community with live performance. Laemmle Live Pasadena’s free Sunday morning concerts take place in the courtyard between Laemmle’s Playhouse 7 and Vroman’s Bookstore from 11am to 12pm. A light reception will follow the concert.
This Sunday morning concert features the Caesura Youth Orchestra. Based in Glendale, California, the program provides music education, group lessons and free instruments to under-served elementary students. After completing an initial basic music course, the students are able to choose from the following instruments: violin, viola, cello, flute, clarinet and trumpet.
The Caesura Youth Orchestra follows the El Sistema model for providing music to under-served students. The program is now in it’s fifth year as an after-school program. Elementary students begin the program with a basic music education class, learn to play the recorder and the importance of caring for an instrument. Students may then select an instrument. Each of the ensembles meets for 1 1/2 to 2 hours three times each week. Students perform regularly at events in the Glendale area. Class room teachers at the end of each year evaluate the effect the program has on students in their class rooms. They indicate that these students have become team players, student leaders and display increased academic skills.
For more information visit: www.mycyo.org
This is a Free Event!
RSVP via Eventbrite
Sunday, May 5, 2019
Playhouse 7 Courtyard
673 East Colorado
Pasadena, CA 91101
11am – 12pm
The sui generis actress (and photographer, real estate developer, author, and singer) Diane Keaton has a new movie coming out on May 10 called Poms, providing us with a nice excuse to screen five of her best films in our Throwback Thursday series.
From Annie Hall and Looking for Mr. Goodbar in 1977, to Reds in 1981, Baby Boom in 1987 and The First Wives Club in 1996, Ms. Keaton, born Diane Hall here in L.A. in 1946, is funny and charming, haunting and heartbreaking, exuding an intelligence and wit, a je ne sais quoi unlike any other performer.
We’ll screen one of these movies each Thursday in May at the NoHo 7. It’s by necessity a brief look at her 50-year career, leaving out gems like Manhattan (’79), Shoot the Moon (’82), Mrs. Soffel (’84), Marvin’s Room (’96), Something’s Gotta Give (’03) and of course The Godfather movies (’72, ’74 and ’90), but la-di-da.
Our Throwback Thursday series screens every Thursday evening at our NoHo 7 theater. Doors open at 7pm, trivia starts at 7:30, and movies begin at 7:40pm. More details at www.laemmle.com/tbt!
Looking for Mr. Goodbar, May 2: A schoolteacher begins cruising bars for romance, sex and escape from her repressive home life, seeking out progressively more risky one night stands. Diane Keaton, Richard Gere, Tuesday Weld, and William Atherton star. Format: Blu-ray.
Annie Hall, May 9: Neurotic New York comedian Alvy Singer falls in love with the one-of-a-kind aspiring actress-singer Annie Hall. The cast includes Keaton, Woody Allen, Tony Roberts, Carol Kane, Paul Simon, and Christopher Walken. Format: DCP.
Reds, May 16: This historical drama directed by Warren Beatty follows on the life and career of John Reed, the journalist and writer who chronicled the Russian Revolution in his book Ten Days That Shook the World, and his tempestuous relationship with feminist writer Louise Bryant, played by Diane Keaton. Jack Nicholson co-stars as Eugene O’Neill. Format: Blu-ray.
Baby Boom, May 23: The life of super-yuppie J.C. is thrown into turmoil when she learns that her long-lost cousin has died and given her custody of her 14-month-old baby daughter. Co-starring Harold Ramis and Sam Shepard. Written by Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyer. Format: Blu-ray.
The First Wives Club, May 30: Reunited by the death of a college friend, three divorced women seek revenge on the husbands who left them for younger women. Starring Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn, and Diane Keaton. Format: Blu-ray.
Spring. A time of rebirth. But not at the NoHo 7! Join us as we explore the great beyond with four tales of the hereafter each Throwback Thursday in April!
Our Throwback Thursday series screens every Thursday evening at our NoHo 7 theater. Doors open at 7pm, trivia starts at 7:30, and movies begin at 7:40pm. More details at www.laemmle.com/tbt!
Defending Your Life, April 4: Albert Brooks wrote, directed, and stars in this philosophical comedy about a man having a hard time making a case for himself in the afterlife. Co-starring Meryl Streep. Format: DVD.
Beetlejuice, April 11: Newlyweds killed in a freak auto accident employ the help of shady “bio-exorcist” to scare away the living occupants of their former home. Starring Michael Keaton, Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, and Winona Ryder. Format: DCP.
The Sixth Sense, April 18: An eight-year-old cursed with the ability to see ghosts is paired with a child psychologist determined to bring him peace. Directed by M. Night Shyamalan and starring Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment. Format: Blu-ray.
The Crow, April 25: Musician Eric Draven (Brandon Lee) and his fiancé are brutally murdered the day before their Halloween wedding. One year later, a crow taps on Draven’s grave stone awakening him to seek vengeance on the gangsters responsible. Format: DCP.
LAEMMLE LIVE PASADENA, inspired by Laemmle’s popular concert series in Santa Monica presents nationally acclaimed Pascale Music Institute on April 7. Laemmle Live showcases emerging musicians and professional performers from local schools and organizations, celebrating our diverse community with live performance. Laemmle Live Pasadena’s free Sunday morning concerts take place in the courtyard between Laemmle’s Playhouse 7 and Vroman’s Bookstore from 11am to 12pm. A light reception will follow the concert
Award-winning Pascale Music Institute, founded by Susan Pascale, teaches aspiring musicians as young as three and half years old to play the violin, viola, cello, bass, and piano. The Sunday concert will feature the Los Angeles Children’s Chamber Orchestra conducted by Los Angeles Philharmonic violinist, Mitchell Newman. Students of the Pascale Music Institute, or PMI, are taught using the innovative The Pascale Method®, a systematic approach that sets young children up for success from the beginning. Detailed directions, fun exercises, rapid progress, coupled with a delightful reward system motivate students to master skills quickly and correctly. From the beginning, the Pascale Method and Institute stress the importance of music reading, and within 12 weeks, the student is ready to perform for friends and family, and advance to the next level of instruction. For more information visit pascalemusic.com
This is a Free Event!
RSVP via Eventbrite
Sunday, April 7, 2019
Playhouse 7 Courtyard
673 East Colorado
Pasadena, CA 91101
11am – 12pm
Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series invite you to celebrate April Fools’ Day with a double feature starring writer-director Blake Edwards’ inspired creation of accidental mayhem, Inspector Clouseau. Peter Sellers plays the inept French detective to comic perfection in the 55th anniversary screenings of THE PINK PANTHER and A SHOT IN THE DARK on April 1 in Pasadena, North Hollywood, and West LA. Showtime information.
THE PINK PANTHER, the first of a series of films with the blundering sleuth, opened in the United States in April 1964 and was an immediate hit.
Audiences thoroughly enjoyed the jewel heist caper, especially the antics of Sellers, who effectively stole the film from an ensemble cast including David Niven as the suave thief Sir Charles Lytton, Robert Wagner as his playboy nephew, Capucine as Clouseau’s philandering wife, and Claudia Cardinale as the exiled Princess Dala, the owner of the fabulous diamond known as “the Pink Panther.”
Variety found the original screenplay by Edwards and Maurice Richlin (Pillow Talk) “intensely funny,” with kudos to the cast and especially Sellers’ “razor-sharp timing.” Location shooting in the Italian Alps by cinematographer Philip Lathrop in lush Technicolor enhanced the comedy.
Of course, the memorable theme music by Henry Mancini is the film’s greatest legacy. Mancini’s original score was Oscar-nominated and won three Grammy awards, as well as inclusion in the Grammy Hall of Fame. The score is ranked #20 in the AFI’s all-time top 100. In addition, the feline character that cavorted across the screen in the merry main title sequence by the DePatie-Freleng animation studio became an Oscar-winning cartoon star. The film was added to the National Film Registry in 2010.
Edwards, Sellers, and Mancini reunited for A SHOT IN THE DARK, the second of their several collaborations that continued into the 1970s.
Director Edwards enlisted William Peter Blatty to co-write a screen version of the French play by Marcel Archard (adapted by Harry Kurnitz for Broadway). Edwards brought along Inspector Clouseau, who was not a character in the original play, and turned Sellers loose in the murder mystery plot.
Commissioner Dreyfus (Herbert Lom), driven to comic psychosis by Clouseau’s ineptitude, and Clouseau’s servant Cato (Burt Kwuok), characters who would become mainstays in the ensuing movie series with Sellers, appear for the first time. Also starring Elke Sommer as the main murder suspect and veteran actor George Sanders as the owner of the chateau where the bodies keep piling up.
The comedy was released in the summer of 1964 and became an even bigger hit than The Pink Panther. The New Yorker praised Edwards and Blatty for “the good sense to toss the foundation stock out the window and let Mr. Sellers run amok…All in all, extremely jolly.” Mancini created a whole new jazzy theme for Clouseau and the main title’s animation sequence was once again crafted by DePatie and Freleng.
So avoid pranks and hoaxes this April Fools’ and see the real comic deal – the Inspector Clouseau Twofer at three Laemmle locations: Royal, NoHo and Pasadena Playhouse. Two delightful comedies for the price-of-one on Monday, April 1.
Buy tickets to the 5pm A SHOT IN THE DARK with admission to the 7:10pm THE PINK PANTHER included here. Or, buy tickets to the 7:10pm THE PINK PANTHER with admission to the 9:30pm A SHOT IN THE DARK included here.
Format: DVD