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“I was motivated to place a lens on male vulnerability that includes a more empathic and compassionate gaze.” Filmmaker Aitch Alberto on ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE.

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The many fans of Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s 2012 YA novel “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe” are abuzz about the new movie adaptation, which we are pleased to open Friday at our Glendale, Santa Monica and North Hollywood theaters. It was written and directed by a fellow fan, Aitch Alberto, who wrote the following about her filmmaking journey:

When I read Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s YA novel “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe,” I was a different person, I read it cover to cover and it affected me to my core. At the time I didn’t understand the journey I would take but, sometimes you just jump in because life is inviting you to.

I’ve been on my journey and exploration around gender and masculinity for years and this book, these characters, and the need to tell this story have been a part of that journey, which is something I didn’t realize until recently. Ari, has been a mirror and a guide to helping me unpack my own misconceptions and internalized stereotypes around masculinity.  Dante, with his naivety and fearlessness – has inspired me to embrace and fully become who I am, without concern for the ramifications. In fact, being honest about who I am and giving young people permission to do the same has become my mission.

Ari and Dante at its core tells a story of self-discovery and acceptance. And when I think about the world today and my own journey of self-discovery, I believe there is nothing more important than standing up and fully embracing who we are and being seen for it. One great lesson from the story is that when young people and anyone really are given the room to be who they are, the process of self-discovery becomes a natural part of growing up and, ultimately, a superpower.

With the film, I was motivated to place a lens on male vulnerability that includes a more empathic and compassionate gaze. My goal for the film is to help redefine masculinity specifically for the Latinx community and present us as fully realized human beings.

I wanted to make an accessible, grounded, yet elevated teen love story, playing with perspective, where we watch Ari’s unease and emotional isolation shift and expand when Dante enters his life. And by the end of the film, they are engulfed by a bold star filled sky, a hint of exaggerated realism, holding them, finally safe in the world. Through self-acceptance, they have found their place in the universe and the universe embraces them.

Visually I was inspired by the boyish wonder of “Stand by Me”, the surreal pallet of “Virgin Suicides” and the photographic choices in “Badlands,” as well as the composition and color in the photography of William Eggleston – both musing and grounded yet with an ethereal sensibility, an almost gauzy, golden, faded photo album look. There is a naturalistic quality to the book and the script that I wanted to maintain. We wanted to bring the audience into Ari’s world, making the film an immersive experience, where there is not a big formal separation between subject and audience. ~ Aitch Alberto

Laemmle Theatres joining the second National Cinema Day, bringing America’s day at the movies to L.A. this Sunday, August 27.

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Laemmle Theatres is excited to partner with the Cinema Foundation to celebrate the second annual National Cinema Day this Sunday, August 27th.

All seven Laemmle venues will be participating in the one-day event, which celebrates the power of movies to bring us all together, and discounted admissions for all movies in all formats (including Premium Large Format screens) will be no more than $4. What’s more, we’re discounting our fresh popcorn: $2 small, $4 medium and $6 large.

To celebrate the day, choose from any of our movies, including new films opening this weekend like Golda, The Owners, Love Life, Bella! This Woman’s Place is in the House, Mutt, or King Coal. Or catch a newly restored modern classic like Oldboy. Haven’t yet seen box office phenomena Barbie or Oppenheimer? Now you can see them as they were meant to be seen, on a big screen, and for cheap!

For more details, visit NationalCinemaDay.org. Join friends, families, and communities of moviegoers at a Laemmle theater near you.

“A revenge film like none you have seen,” Park Chan-Wook’s OLDBOY is restored, remastered and back in theaters today with a post-screening filmmaker conversation.

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Celebrating the 20th anniversary of Park Chan-Wook’s cinematic masterpiece, Oldboy has been restored and remastered in stunning 4K. After being mysteriously kidnapped and imprisoned with no human contact for fifteen years, Oh Dae-Su (Choi Min-sik) is suddenly released without any explanation. In a twisted game of cat and mouse, he has only five days to retrace his past, track down his captors, and get his revenge.

Oldboy, which remains a cult classic and has served as inspiration for auteurs for nearly two decades, will return to theaters for the first time in 20 years. Now playing at the Laemmle Glendale and NoHo.

All screenings of Oldboy will feature a new post-screening bonus conversation about the film with director Park and filmmaker Nicolas Refn (in English and Korean with English subtitles; running time: 12 minutes).

“A revenge film like none you have seen.” ~ Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press

“Oldboy is a delirious, confronting ride, a movie full of visceral shocks and aesthetic pleasures: it has an explosive immediacy and a persistent afterlife, a lingering impact that is hard to shake.” ~ Philippa Hawker, The Age (Australia)

“Both brutal and lyrical, writer-director Park Chan-wook’s existential nail-biter has torture scenes that will have you avoiding dentists, sushi bars and badly appointed hotel rooms.” ~ Jami Bernard, New York Daily News

“A dark and thrillingly horrible adventure into the realms of the unthinkable.” ~ Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

“It’s mesmerizing and discomfiting, engaging the viewer on a visceral and an intellectual level.” ~ Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel
“A visually beguiling trip that keeps pulling you along and keeps you wondering what fresh hell could possibly come next.” ~ Bob Townsend, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“A Deeply Human Experience You’ll Never Have on Your Couch” ~ The New York Times on BARBENHEIMER and the power and importance of the theatrical experience.

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Seeing a movie from your sofa is convenient and pleasant but watching the same film in public takes it from passive consumption to active experience. Funny, frightening, sexy, exciting, awesome movies are 100 times funnier, scarier, sexier and more exciting when seen in public. Being in a theater with strangers allow a frisson that you just do not get at home. The laughter that Barbie elicits and the awe, fear and terror that Oppenheimer elicits make this perfectly clear.

The New York Times just posted a terrific piece about this that articulates this beautifully. It’s by the writer Mark Jacobson.

“For a moment, at least, the Barbenheimer phenomenon brought back the sensation of the movie theater as a semi-sacred public place, a space where we congregate to have an experience, made all the more transcendent by having it together.”

Here’s how it starts:

“It seemed like a miracle. The Cobble Hill Cinemas, a neighborhood joint that opened in the 1920s as the Lido and that served for decades as a venue for B-movie action films, was packed on what would ordinarily be a dead Monday night — and without a single La-Z-Boy recliner, goat cheese pizza or other modern enticement in sight. I was there with 200 or so other patrons, a gloriously mixed crowd, to see Oppenheimer, one-half of the Barbenheimer cultural moment. When the bomb finally went off in the New Mexico desert — this fulcrumatic moment in our species’ history — it was beheld simultaneously, an exhilarating common experience, which is exactly what the movie house is supposed to deliver. In the end, it didn’t matter if you liked the picture or not. What mattered is that we’d seen it together.

“After a few years in which the pandemic and streaming platforms combined to break Americans of their movie theatergoing habits, we’d surged back joyfully, triumphantly, to theaters, producing the fourth biggest domestic weekend of all time. For a moment, it was possible to forget the grim realities that still linger for the cinema business, circling like vultures. The actors’ and writers’ unions (I am a member of the latter) are still on strike with no end in sight. With far fewer products in the pipeline, there won’t be many Barbenheimer-shaped rabbits to pull out of the hat anytime soon. AMC is in trouble. So is Regal, which narrowly avoided having to close its theater in Union Square. On the day before the blockbuster weekend, the Regal UA in Staten Island, one of the last remaining theaters in that borough, closed its doors for good. The 2016 demise of the Ziegfeld means that the largest single-screen theater in Manhattan is now the relatively diminutive 571-seat Paris — which tellingly was saved by and is run by Netflix.

“In the time of streaming and 146-inch TV screens, the simple act of going out to the movies feels contrarian, even subversive. It also feels endangered. That’s grim news, because the beauty of going to the movies was never just about the films on the screens; it was about the way we all gathered to watch them.”

Click here to read the full piece.

The “fresh-faced, funny” SHORTCOMINGS opens at the NoHo, Town Center and Monica Film Center August 4.

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For his directorial debut, actor Randall Park chose the screenplay Adrian Tomine based on his graphic novel of the same name, Shortcomings. It follows Ben, a struggling filmmaker who lives in Berkeley with his girlfriend, Miko, who works for a local Asian American film festival. When he’s not managing an arthouse movie theater as his day job, Ben spends his time obsessing over unavailable blonde women, watching Criterion Collection DVDs, and eating in diners with his best friend Alice, a queer grad student with a serial dating habit. When Miko moves to New York for an internship, Ben is left to his own devices, and begins to explore what he thinks he might want.
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“A fresh-faced, funny directorial debut from the ever-engaging Park.” ~ Jessica Kiang, Variety

“Shortcomings takes some bruising blows at cultural expectations… it’s also about growing up a little too late and having to reckon with your own rotten self. Oh, and it’s hilarious.” ~ Alissa Wilkinson, Vox
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The triumphant return of New Deal Tuesdays: $7 tickets all day long.

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Coinciding with the liberation of the term “Taco Tuesdays” from the clutches of Big Taco, Laemmle Theatres is pleased to bring back our weekly discount program New Deal Tuesdays. We first introduced it during the Great Recession of 2007-2009 and although economists are now saying we will probably avoid another economic downturn any time soon, it is always a good time to encourage people to see movies as they were meant to be seen, where they are scientifically proven (research pending) to be 1000% better: in theaters.

For a limited time, we will sell all tickets for all Tuesday afternoon and evening screenings for only seven dollars. (Fine print: the discount only applies to movies we’re screening as part of regular engagements, so that excludes operas and film festivals. But those represent a fraction of the films we show.) This means that if one were to bring six friends or family members to a Laemmle movie on any given Tuesday, said person and their party could all enjoy the flick for only [7 x 7, checks calculator] $49!

What’s more, we are planning  Tuesday concessions discounts. Stay tuned to our socials to keep abreast of the developing New Deal Tuesdays tidings. Use laemmle.com/connect as a way to stay connected and get further announcements. And consider enjoying tacos before or after the movies! Tacos, too, are wonderful and affordable.

POSTPONED: 50th Anniversary sing-along screenings of JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR with stars Ted Neeley and Yvonne Elliman in person.

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July 17, 2023 update: The Jesus Christ Superstar actors postponed their appearances in support of the SAG-AFTRA strike. They plan to reschedule once the work stoppage is over. All tickets will be refunded at the point of purchase. For tickets purchased through Laemmle, call 310-478-3836.

Adapted from Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Broadway rock opera, Jesus Christ Superstar recounts the last days of  Christ (Ted Neeley) from the perspective of Judas (Carl Anderson), his betrayer. As Jesus’ following increases, Judas begins to worry that Jesus is falling for his own hype, forgetting the principles of his teachings and growing too close to the prostitute Mary Magdalene (Yvonne Elliman). After Jesus has an outburst in a temple, Judas turns on him.

Neeley and Elliman will attend our Jesus Christ Superstar screenings at the Royal on July 25th, NoHo 7 on July 26th, and the Claremont 5 on July 27th with a brand-new, remastered sing-a-long digital print! Both stars will do pre-film talks about the making of the movie, which was filmed completely on location in Israel. All screenings start at 7 pm.

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the film, the reunited cast members will also sign autographs and take photos with fans.

Kate Beckinsale and Brian Cox star in Catherine Hardwicke’s PRISONER’S DAUGHTER, opening June 30.

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Next week we’ll be opening the new indie thriller Prisoner’s Daughter. Directed by Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight, Thirteen, many more), Brian Cox (Succession and many more) stars as Max, an ex-con trying to reconcile with his estranged daughter, Maxine, played by Kate Beckinsale (Cold Comfort Farm and many more). Here’s a clip:

Max is terminally ill and granted a compassionate release with the condition he live with his daughter. She’d much rather say no but desperate for money to support herself and her son, Ezra (Christopher Convery), she grudgingly agrees. As Max seeks one final chance to redeem himself in her eyes, Maxine’s abusive, drug addict ex-husband turns up. Max’s history of violence reappears too, with explosive consequences. Tyson Ritter and Ernie Hudson co-star.

We open Prisoner’s Daughter June 30 at the Monica Film Center and Town Center/Encino and are hosting a free advance sneak preview screening on June 28 at the NoHo where Ms. Hardwicke will participate in a post-screening Q&A.