Theater Buzz Archives - Page 27 of 247

“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.

August 2, 2023 by Jordan Deglise Moore

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.

July 26, 2023 by Jordan Deglise Moore

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.

“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

30th Anniversary Screenings of Michelle Yeoh’s THE HEROIC TRIO August 9.

July 26, 2023 by Jordan Deglise Moore

Before she demonstrated dazzling fight skills in Ang Lee’s Oscar-winning spectacle ‘Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon,’ and before she became the first Asian performer to win the Academy Award for Best Actress in ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once,’ Michelle Yeoh demonstrated her action movie skills and commanding presence in THE HEROIC TRIO in 1993. Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present 30th anniversary screenings of that martial arts extravaganza to remind moviegoers of Yeoh’s stellar history. Screening at the Laemmle Claremont, Newhall, Glendale and Royal.

The actress had been working in Hong Kong cinema for a decade when she co-starred with Anita Mui and Maggie Cheung in this entertaining action film. Yeoh plays Invisible Woman, Mui portrays Wonder Woman, and Cheung depicts Thief Catcher, three women who band together to foil a kidnapping plot devised by the Evil Master (portrayed by Shi-Kwan Yen). Damian Lau co-stars as the police inspector who heads up the official investigation. The picture is directed by Hong Kong cinema veteran Johnnie To.

Variety praised the film as a “flashy kung fu super-heroine adventure full of solid production values.” Tony Rayns, an expert in Asian cinema, wrote for England’s Sight and Sound, “Its design and mise en scene are expansive and occasionally exhilarating.” The San Francisco Examiner called the movie “a ” And the Austin Chronicle added, “’THE HEROIC TRIO is a live-action comic book and captures the quirky spirit and shrewd logic of the medium better than both ‘Batmans’ put together.”

The movie was successful enough to inspire a sequel later that same year, and Yeoh went on to demonstrate her talents in a rich variety of movies, culminating in her Oscar win this past March. Enjoy an early glimpse of her talents in this rarely revived action spectacle made 30 years ago.

The “gorgeous, quietly affecting” RETURN TO DUST opens July 28 at the Royal.

July 19, 2023 by Jordan Deglise Moore

A beautiful, allegorical gaze at changing rural China, Return to Dust follows a couple overcoming the challenges of their arranged marriage and the disdain of their families to survive, come together and make a home for themselves. We open the film Friday, July 28 at the Royal.

The writer-director Ruijun Li (River Road, Walking Past the Future) released the following statement upon the release of his film: “It is said that film is the art of time. In this sense, a movie director’s work is essentially the same to that of farmers. In movie making, we are constantly faced with issues dealing with time and life. Farmers trust land and time with their crops and livelihood, so shall we trust land and time with our movies. The words on paper, like seeds growing into harvest, are transformed by camera shots into what we remembered in our distant memories.”

“An unhurried but hypnotic portrait of two discards thrown together to scratch out a life as they weather the seasons.” ~ David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

“It’s a gorgeous, quietly affecting film that finds an unassuming beauty in this simple life in rural China, but which doesn’t shy away from the extreme hardships faced by the very poorest.” ~ Wendy Ide, Guardian

“A thought-provoking [film] with beautifully-judged performances that radiate warmth and encourage empathy. It marks Li Ruijun as a significant cinematic talent.” ~ Anna Smith, Deadline Hollywood Daily

“It’s a film which is making the right people angry.” ~ David Jenkins, Little White Lies

“Return to Dust is many things — a vivid portrait of China’s hardscrabble rural north-west, an unexpected victim of state censorship — but it is first and last a love story.” ~ Danny Leigh, Financial Times

The triumphant return of New Deal Tuesdays: $7 tickets all day long.

July 19, 2023 by Jordan Deglise Moore

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.

Christian Petzold’s AFIRE opens this weekend at the Royal with the filmmaker in person for a Q&A.

July 12, 2023 by Jordan Deglise Moore

Afire, German director Christian Petzold’s latest movie is, among other things, extremely funny. This comes as a delightful surprise, because his previous work — like Barbara (2012), Phoenix (2014), Transit (2018) and Undine (2020) — was, as Tim Grierson writes in his just-posted L.A. Times piece, noted for its “incisive character studies [with] drum-tight narratives, thematic complexity and investigations of identity,” but not overt humor. Afire is set at a vacation home by the Baltic Sea, where a pretentious novelist (a terrific Thomas Schubert) mixes awkwardly with a group of old and new friends. From the Times piece: “When we did the table read, there was just nonstop laughter,” actor Schubert says during a separate interview. “He was really surprised by that, because he didn’t necessarily see it that way. At the same time, he was relieved because we’d found the right tonality for the story.”

We open Afire this Friday at the Royal and July 21 at the Laemmle Glendale and Town Center in Encino. Petzold will participate in a Q&A after the 7:10 pm, July 15 screening at the Royal. The Los Angeles engagement is co-presented by the Goethe-Institut.

“Another masterwork about characters who are trapped by internal and external circumstances from which they find it intensely difficult to escape.” ~ Nick Schager, The Daily Beast

“In depicting a novice artist forced to unwrite everything to move forward, “Afire” also shows a veteran one open to self-editing, and vigorous self-renewal.” ~ Guy Lodge, Variety

“Deceptive simplicity makes way for illuminating depths.” ~ David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

“[Adds] another compelling and precise layer of texture to Petzold’s multifaceted oeuvre.” ~ Marina Ashioti, Little White Lies

MATINEE 30th Anniversary Screening with Director Joe Dante in Person Thursday, July 27 at Laemmle’s Royal Theatre.

July 12, 2023 by Jordan Deglise Moore

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 30th anniversary screening of director Joe Dante’s cinematic love letter to the movies and movie makers, ‘Matinee‘ (1993). The period comedy, set in that milestone movie year 1962, is a delightful homage to not only the movies, but also to the moviegoing experience and growing up in that era.

John Goodman stars as an independent filmmaker, Lawrence Woolsey, specializing in low-budget science fiction and horror movies who comes to Key West, Florida with his actress girlfriend (Cathy Moriarty) for a special premiere of his latest exploitation quickie, ‘Mant!’ Woolsey, who is also a huckster showman, brings his newest gimmick, “Rumble-Rama,” to the Saturday afternoon opening. The premiere coincides with the real-life fears of nuclear annihilation generated by the Cuban Missile Crisis unfolding as a backdrop. The movie within a movie, ‘Mant!’, is a clever parody morphing of the sci-fi horror cheapies of the 50s and early 60s, melding radioactivity paranoia with mad scientists and mutations. With a knowing screenplay by Charles S. Haas, including a subplot involving a budding teenage romance when a local teen (Simon Fenton), whose U.S. Navy father is called to duty during the Cuban crisis, falls for a high school classmate (Kellie Martin) with a very jealous boyfriend. The film climaxes at the vintage local movie theater in a mash-up of mayhem and affectionate moviegoing memories.

Dante cast a number of veteran actors, some of whom actually played in the movies he was sending up, including William Schallert, Dick Miller, Kevin McCarthy, and Jesse White as the theater owner, with Robert Picardo as the anxious theater manager who has a bomb shelter in the basement. Featuring writer–director John Sayles in a cameo, and one of the earliest screen appearances for future Oscar-nominated actress Naomi Watts.

Critics of the day fully embraced the film, with Roger Ebert calling it “a delightful comedy and one of the most charming movies in a long time.” Rita Kempley of the Washington Post cited it as “a funny, philosophical salute to B-movies and the B-movie moguls who made them. Dante looks back fondly on growing up with the apocalypse always on your mind and atomic mutants lurking under your bed.” In USA Today, Mike Clark was equally enthusiastic, writing, “Part spoof, part nostalgia trip and part primer in exploitation-pic ballyhoo, ‘Matinee‘ is a sweetly resonant little movie-lovers’ movie.”

Our special guest Joe Dante started his career in the late 70s, directing and sometimes writing and editing the kind of low budget genre films (‘Hollywood Boulevard,’ ‘Piranha’) that he enjoyed in his formative moviegoing years, before making a major critical and commercial breakthrough with 1981’s ‘The Howling.’ He followed that success with the classic horror comedy ‘Gremlins,’ with ‘Explorers,’ ‘Innerspace,’ ‘The ‘Burbs,’ ‘Gremlins 2,’ ‘Small Soldiers,’ and ‘Looney Toons: Back in Action’ among his subsequent credits.

Join us at 7 pm on Thursday, July 27 at the Royal in West Los Angeles for a special evening with Joe Dante and a screening of ‘Matinee.’ For added fun enjoy a trivia contest with prizes about the landmark movie year of 1962, which is arguably “the greatest year at the movies.”