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Italy’s Great Toni Servillo Returns to U.S. Screens in VIVA LA LIBERTA

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Many U.S. arthouse moviegoers were wowed last year when they were introduced to Toni Servillo, one of Italy’s finest actors, in The Great Beauty. The film went on to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Next Friday the 28th we are excited to open Mr. Servillo’s latest film to make the journey from overseas, VIVA LA LIBERTA. Servillo plays Enrico Oliveri, a politician who realizes that the decline of his party is inevitable and decides to disappear, fleeing to Paris to find peace in the home of his ex-girlfriend Danielle (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi) while creating a panic within the party. His top aide and his wife decide to contact his twin brother, a genius philosopher suffering from bi-polar disorder and living in a psychiatric institution. The three of them concoct a dangerous plan.

We will open VIVA LA LIBERTA at the Royal, Playhouse and Town Center on Friday, November 21.

http://www.vimeo.com/106627472
Italy's Great Toni Servillo Returns to U.S. Screens in VIVA LA LIBERTA
Toni Servillo

BRAHMIN BULLS Q&A’s this Weekend at the Playhouse

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In BRAHMIN BULLS, when Ashok makes a surprise trip to L.A. to visit his estranged son, the two begin a journey to mend their relationship until Sid discovers that his father has actually come in search of an old flame.  Starring Sendhil Ramamurthy (Heroes, Beauty and the Beast), Roshan Seth (Gandhi), Academy Award winner Mary Steenburgen (The Help), Justin Bartha (The Hangover), and Academy Award nominated Michael Lerner (Barton Fink), BRAHMIN BULLS is a heartfelt and humorous look at the ever-evolving relationship between a father and son, the women in their lives, and the powerful secrets they keep.
The BRAHMIN BULLS filmmakers will participate in Q&A’s all weekend at the Playhouse: they will answer audience member’s questions after the 11/21, 22, and 23 7 PM screenings, as well as after the 1:20 PM show on Sunday the 23rd.
11/21 – Cassidy Freeman (actor), Mahesh Pailoor (director), Anu Pradhan (co-writer), Yoshi Tsuji (producer);
11/22 – Presented by Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, Gingger Shankar (Composer), Mahesh Pailoor (director), Anu Pradhan (co-writer);
11/23 (1:20 PM) – Mahesh Pailoor (director), Anu Pradhan (co-writer);
11/23 (7 PM) – Presented by the Indian Film Festival Los Angeles, Mahesh Pailoor (director), Anu Pradhan (co-writer).

SHADOWS FROM MY PAST Q&A’s this Weekend at the Town Center

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The documentary SHADOWS FROM MY PAST, which we open this Friday at the Town Center 5, juxtaposes interviews of prominent contemporary Austrians grappling with their nation’s complicity in the Holocaust with desperate letters written by filmmaker Gita Kaufman’s Jewish family from Vienna, 1939 – 1941, begging to save their children. Both the interviews and the letters reverberate to today.

SHADOWS FROM MY PAST  co-director Gita Kaufman will participate in Q&A’s after the 8 PM screenings on Friday and Saturday and the 1 PM and 3:20 PM screenings on Sunday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJetDlcLUxk

FOOD CHAINS, Documentary Expose About the Exploitation of Farm Workers, Opens this Weekend with Q&A’s and Panel Discussions

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This weekend we open FOOD CHAINS, a new feature documentary that exposes the abuse of farm workers within the United States and the complicity of the multi-billion dollar supermarket and fast food industries. There is more interest in food these days than ever, yet there is very little interest in the hands that pick it. Farm workers, the foundation of our fresh food industry, are routinely abused and robbed of wages. In extreme cases they can be beaten, sexually harassed or even enslaved – all within the borders of the United States.

The FOOD CHAINS filmmakers are planning a number of events around the screenings at the Playhouse 7:

November 21st

5:20PM – TENTATIVE PANEL – details tbd

7:30PM – PANEL:

Thomas Saenz (MALDEF)

Lupe Gonzalo (CIW),

Elena Stein (CIW)

November 22nd

5:20PM – PANEL:

David Damien Figueroa (MALDEF, Executive Producer of Food Chains),

Jon Esformes (Operating Partner of Pacific Tomato Growers featured in Food Chains)

7:30PM – PANEL:

Lupe Gonzalo (CIW),

Elena Stein (CIW); UNCONFIRMED PANELIST: Melody and Bobby Kennedy Jr

(After 5:20 screening there will be Wine Happy Hour at Whole Foods Pasadena).

November 23rd

1:00PM – PANEL:

Joann Lo (Food Chains Worker Alliance),

Lupe Gonzalo (CIW),

Elena Stein (CIW)

7:30 PM – TENTATIVE PANEL – details tbd

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqZLrXVAde4

GLEN CAMPBELL…I’LL BE ME Q&A Tonight at the Music Hall

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In 2011, music legend Glen Campbell set out on an unprecedented tour across America. He thought it would last five weeks. Instead it went for 151 spectacular sold-out shows over a triumphant year and a half. What made this tour extraordinary was that Glen had recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He was told to hang up his guitar and prepare for the inevitable. Instead, Glen and his wife went public with his diagnosis and announced that he and his family would set out on a “Goodbye Tour.”

GLEN CAMPBELL…I’LL BE ME director James Keach, producer Trevor Albert, executive producer Susan Lord Disney and CEO of Alzheimer’s Association Susan Galeas will introduce and participate in a Q&A following the 7:20 pm screening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAtgraWN5-I

AS NIGHT COMES Q&A Saturday at the Music Hall with Cast and Crew

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In the new thriller AS NIGHT COMES, troubled 17-year-old Sean Holloway falls in with a group of teenage outcasts called ‘The Misfits,’ whose charismatic leader, Ricky, takes him under his wing. But as Sean becomes more and more entangled in the gang’s anarchist ways, things begin to spiral out of control, and Sean realizes Ricky is a ticking time bomb on a rampage of revenge. On the eve of Halloween, as night comes, everything explodes…

AS NIGHT COMES producer/co-writer/director Richard Zelniker, co-producer/actor Jesse Kove and cast members Luke Baines (playing Ricky), Myko Oliver (playing Sean), Evanne Friedmann (playing Sarah) will participate in a Q&A at the Music Hall after the 4:40 screening on Saturday, November 15.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX8PvmCRhdI&feature=youtu.be

Claremont 5 Showtimes for Friday, Nov. 14 through Sunday, Nov. 16

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We are experiencing intermittent issues with our internet connection thanks to our internet service provider. Unfortunately, we lose the ability to display showtimes and sell tickets online when the internet is down. You can still purchase tickets in person at the box office. Sorry, no telephone sales. This weekend’s showtimes are below. Matinee shows are in parentheses.

Showtimes for Friday, November 14th only.

INTERSTELLAR [PG-13] (1:00PM) (4:40PM) 8:20PM
BIG HERO 6 [PG] (1:40PM) (4:20PM) 7:10PM 9:45PM
WHIPLASH [R] (1:50PM) (4:30PM) 7:20PM 10:00PM
BIRDMAN [R] (1:10PM) (4:10PM) 7:00PM 9:50PM
ROSEWATER [R] (1:20PM) (4:00PM) 7:10PM 9:45PM

Showtimes for Saturday and Sunday, November 15th and 16th only.

INTERSTELLAR [PG-13] (1:00PM) 4:40PM 8:20PM
BIG HERO 6 [PG] (11:10AM) (1:40PM) 4:20PM 7:10PM 9:45PM
WHIPLASH [R] (1:50PM) 4:30PM 7:20PM 10:00PM
BIRDMAN [R] (1:10PM) 4:10PM 7:00PM 9:50PM
ROSEWATER [R] (10:45AM) (1:20PM) 4:00PM 7:10PM 9:45PM
FORCE MAJEURE [R] (10:45AM)
DIPLOMACY [R] (11:00AM)
WALKING THE CAMINO [NR] (11:00AM)

Frederick Wiseman’s Latest: “Inside the Secret World of London’s NATIONAL GALLERY”

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Documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman, now in his sixth decade of filmmaking, always gets good reviews but his latest, a film that immerses its audience in London’s National Gallery and we open November 21 at the Royal Theater, is garnering raves. From Manohla Dargis at the New York Times (“Like most of Mr. Wiseman’s work, the movie is at once specific and general, fascinating in its pinpoint detail and transporting in its cosmic reach.”), to Tim Grierson at Paste Magazine (“Nourishing and enthralling, NATIONAL GALLERY is the work of a man still invested in the arts, in the world and in people.”), to David Denby at the New Yorker (“Holds the movie viewer in a state of intense and pleasurable concentration”), even the toughest of critics are telling us that Mr. Wiseman’s latest is not to be missed.

The Daily Beast just published a good piece about the film by Tim Teeman:

Inside The Secret World of London’s National Gallery

“Frederick Wiseman’s entrancing ‘National Gallery’ roves freely around the great British institution, turning its lens on both visitors and the people that run the show.
“Observing the observers observing: there is a brave and remarkable poise to Frederick Wiseman’s National Gallery, a three-hour documentary presently showing at New York’s Film Forum—before a wider release on November 21—which takes the viewer on an ambling, extremely nosey tour of London’s National Gallery, focusing on both visitors and the staff who run it.”The most wonderful thing about it, the moments Wiseman keeps studding the documentary with, are images of people looking at pictures on walls. This, unexpectedly, is fascinating: you watch as they/we crinkle our faces up, really looking at brushwork; or walk in front of a canvas, and then walk back; or quickly move on, and then return; or sit, rapt in contemplation; or look confused or elated, tired or utterly immersed.”Given the amount of explosions and dumb sex comedies on our cinema screens, how can you not applaud a three-hour film that explores our reception and appreciation of art, and how that art is curated, lit, and displayed for us?“National Gallery is Wiseman’s latest, burrowing journey into an institution in a film-making career that has spanned almost sixty years, including movies like High School (1968), Missile (1987), Central Park (1989), and La Danse (2009), about the Paris Opera Ballet. Wiseman goes to places or into the reality of a lived experience—a hospital, army basic training, or a police precinct—and quietly, without his presence overtly felt, interrogates and observes it.”There is something imperiously subversive about National Gallery. Unlike the loud, pantomimishly structured documentaries of today, the parade of freaks and freakish, combusting and self-combusting, and warzones in gruesome close-up, there is no dramatic arc, no salivating over conflicts, no set-ups. There are no captions explaining who anybody is, no explanations of what they are doing. There is no spoon-feeding of anything.”

Read the complete Daily Beast piece by clicking here.

Frederick Wiseman's Latest: "Inside the Secret World of London's NATIONAL GALLERY"
Frederick Wiseman by Larry Busacca for Getty Images