Film Reviews & Previews
HEAL Q&A schedule this weekend at the Monica Film Center:
FRIDAY 10/27 7:10pm
Peter Crone, Patti Penn, Dianne Porchia, Dr. Jeffrey Thompson, Moderator – Peter Rader (Producer of AWAKE and Writer of WATER WORLD)
SATURDAY 10/28 4:30pm
Peter Crone, Dianne Pocria, Dr Jeffrey Thompson, Moderator – TBD
SUNDAY 10/29 4:30pm
Dr Michael Bernard Beckwith (Founder of Agape) and Filmmaker Kelly Noonan Gores, Moderator Ginger Pullman
MULLY producer Lukas Behnken will introduce and/or participate in Q&A’s at the Music Hall on Friday, October 27 for the 5:10, 7:30p, and 9:50pm screenings. Director Scott Haze and producer Elissa Shay will join him for the 7:30 and 9:50 shows on Saturday, October 28. Ms. Shay will attend the 5:10, 7:30, and 9:50 shows on Monday, October 30.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu4ZR34rAkE&feature=youtu.be
Opening night 7:10 show features a post-film conversation with ATOMIC HOMEFRONT Producer/Director Rebecca Cammisa, Producer Jim Freydberg, and film subject Dawn Chapman, co-founder of Just Moms STl.
Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a special Halloween double feature in the popular Twofer Tuesday Series (two films for the price of one) on October 31.
We will show a “double treat” of the 85th anniversary of THE MUMMY (1932) with the 75th anniversary of CAT PEOPLE (1942). Both films epitomize atmospheric black-and-white chills from the classical studio era.
THE MUMMY was one of the early efforts from Universal studios to capitalize on the their success in the horror genre (following the 1931 hits Dracula and Frankenstein).
Karl Freund, the German émigré cinematographer of Metropolis and Dracula, made his directorial debut with this film inspired by the opening of Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1922.
Producer Carl Laemmle Jr. hired one of the writers of Dracula, John L. Balderston, to craft a screenplay from a story by Nina Wilcox Putnam and Richard Schayer, and cast Boris Karloff, fresh from his star-making performance in Frankenstein, as the three-thousand-year-old mummy stalking an English girl (Zita Johann) he believes is the reincarnation of his ancient love.
The cinematography is credited to Charles Stumar (who shot the Lon Chaney silent The Hunchback of Notre Dame). The result is a masterpiece of mood, described by critic Pauline Kael as “…disturbingly beautiful. No other horror film has ever achieved so many emotional effects by lighting; the film has a languorous, poetic feeling, and the eroticism that lives on under Karloff’s wrinkled parchment skin is like a bad dream of undying love.”
With David Manners, Bramwell Fletcher, Arthur Byron, and Edward Van Sloan.
CAT PEOPLE was the first venture from producer Val Lewton (I Walked With a Zombie, Curse of the Cat People, The Body Snatcher) as head of RKO’s new horror division in 1942. He gave Jacques Tourneur the chance to direct his first feature with this tale of a new bride (Simone Simon) who fears she is a descendant of a predatory cat family.
DeWitt Bodeen (I Remember Mama, Billy Budd) wrote the screenplay from a short story by producer Lewton, who also employed cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca and editor Mark Robson (future director of Peyton Place and Valley of the Dolls), to create one of the most imaginative low-budget films ever made. Tourneur and Musuraca later collaborated on one of the seminal film noirs, Out of the Past.
Roger Ebert called Cat People one of the “Great Movies,” extolling it as “frightening in an eerie, mysterious way that was hard to define; the screen harbored unseen threats, and there was an undertone of sexual danger that was more ominous because it was never acted upon.”
With Kent Smith, Tom Conway, and Jane Randolph. Inducted into the National Film Registry in 1993.
Our Halloween Twofer plays October 31 at three locations: Royal, NoHo 7 and Pasadena Playhouse 7. The complete double feature screens twice, with THE MUMMY shown at 5:00 pm and 8:20 pm; CAT PEOPLE at 6:40 pm and 10:00 pm.
This is a Free Event
RSVP on Eventbrite
LAEMMLE LIVE IS ON THE MOVE for November only. We proudly present SOL-LA Music Academy and Saint Anne School in a collaborative musical concert on Sunday, November 5, 2017, at Laemmle’s Royal Theatre in West Los Angeles. SOL-LA Music Academy is a nonprofit music school in Santa Monica that provides high quality performing arts education to students from all backgrounds and economic circumstances in an engaging and encouraging environment fostering achievement and community. Their comprehensive program reflects the belief that vibrant cultural education nurtures all areas of learning, connects diverse societies and enhances the enjoyment of life.
Saint Anne School is Santa Monica’s only nonpublic Title I school, with at least 40% of families qualifying as low income according to federal standards. The school serves a diverse population of families from 66 zip codes. Without SOL-LA, most of these students would not have access to the myriad benefits that a comprehensive music education can offer. The SOL-LA at Saint Anne School program, now in its seventh year, was born out of a desire to see music included as a core curriculum subject.
As a parochial school, Saint Anne has the flexibility to include music as a priority rather than as an elective. Saint Anne partners with SOL-LA to bring high-quality music instruction to its students on-site, with an option for the students to further participate in after school instruction at SOL-LA’s campus. SOL-LA at Saint Anne School is a sequential music education program, providing free music instruction and instruments to 270 K–8th Grade students during regular school hours at Saint Anne.
SOL-LA’s program at Saint Anne is thoroughly integrated into the curriculum; all students in all classrooms participate in the program. Additionally, SOL-LA provides instruments to students during the school year at no cost.
EVENT DETAILS
Sunday, November 5, 2017
11:00 AM
Laemmle’s Royal Theatre
11523 Santa Monica Blvd.
This is a Free Event
RSVP on Eventbrite
NEVER HERE writer-director Camille Thoman and lead actress Mireille Enos will participate in a Q&A following the 7:20 PM screening at the Ahrya Fine Arts on Saturday, October 21. Film writer Susan King will moderate.
32 PILLS: MY SISTER’S SUICIDE filmmaker Hope Litoff will participate in Q&A’s after the 7:40 PM screenings at the Playhouse on Friday and Saturday, October 20 and 21.
Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 30th anniversary screening of LETHAL WEAPON, the hyperkinetic buddy cop movie that launched an enormously popular franchise.
LETHAL WEAPON (1987)
Q&A with Director Richard Donner
Tuesday, October 24, at 7:30 PM
at the Ahrya Fine Arts
Click here for tickets
Mel Gibson and Danny Glover star as cops who are polar opposites but are forced to work together to break up a deadly drug ring. Gibson plays a reckless, undisciplined, suicidal detective who is paired with a cautious family man, played by Glover.
Screenwriter Shane Black brought a fresh twist to the thriller genre with these unexpected characterizations, and Richard Donner directed with energy and finesse.
Gary Busey and Mitchell Ryan portray the villains, and Darlene Love and Traci Wolfe co-star. Joel Silver produced the film.
The Washington Post called the film—a box office smash in 1987–“a vivid, visceral reminder of how exciting an action film can be.”
Roger Ebert declared, “This movie thrilled me from beginning to end,” and his critical confrere, Gene Siskel, added, “Gibson and Glover make a great team.” Three sequels and a TV series followed.
After starting in television, Richard Donner scored his first big-screen success with a low-budget horror movie, The Omen. He then launched the comic book film craze with Superman in 1978, which introduced Christopher Reeve as the Man of Steel. Donner’s many other films include the three Lethal Weapon sequels, Inside Moves, Ladyhawke, The Goonies, Scrooged, and Conspiracy Theory.