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Buoyed by her peers, “spectacular” Andrea Riseborough and TO LESLIE return to theaters.

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Chameleonic English actress Andrea Riseborough earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actress this month but got some flack because the campaign to push her over the top was unusual. Rather than rely on a Hollywood studio’s massive publicity and advertising budget, which was unavailable to her because her film To Leslie — which we are returning to our Glendale theater this Friday — was released by the tiny film distributor Momentum Pictures, some of her more famous friends rallied online urging people to see the film and her bravura performance. Surprise! It worked. She now has her first Oscar nomination, something film critics understood she deserved but probably would not get.

“Riseborough’s performance is nothing short of spectacular. She doesn’t compromise, she doesn’t hold back, but she doesn’t endow the character with any sort of fake flamboyance.” ~ Owen Gleiberman, Variety
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“A personal and heartfelt drama with yet another stellar turn from the always-great Andrea Riseborough.” ~ Brian Tallerico,
RogerEbert.com
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“In To Leslie Riseborough presents the rough and tumble of the films eponymous character with a tender and sensitive rawness and authenticity.” ~ Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, AWFJ.org
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“Unglamorous and unflinching, lilting from dive bars to motels across an errant desert wind. So too is Riseborough’s performance as Leslie.” ~ Fran Hoepfner, TheWrap
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“This week’s shocker Oscar nomination for British actress Andrea Riseborough as an alcoholic single mother from West Texas who squanders her $190,000 lottery win on booze turns a movie no one ever heard of into an absolute must-see. Prepare to be wowed!” ~ Peter Travers, ABC News
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“Breathtaking, slow burn, poetic journey” GODLAND opens February 10 at the Laemmle Glendale and Monica Film Center.

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The struggle between the strictures of religion and our own brute animal nature plays out amid the beautifully forbidding landscapes of remote Iceland in Godland, a stunning psychological epic from director Hlynur Pálmason. In the late nineteenth century, Danish priest Lucas (Elliott Crosset Hove) makes the perilous trek to Iceland’s southeastern coast with the intention of establishing a church. There, the arrogant man of God finds his resolve tested as he confronts the harsh terrain, temptations of the flesh, and the reality of being an intruder in an unforgiving land. What unfolds is a transfixing journey into the heart of colonial darkness attuned to both the majesty and terrifying power of the natural world.

We open Godland February 10 at the Laemmle Glendale and Monica Film Center.

“This transfixing drama is certainly austere. But there’s also a marvelously odd vein of sneaky humor running through it, along with an unpredictability that keeps you glued.” ~ David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

“Godland tells a story of natural wonder, elemental beauty and human folly.” ~ Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times

“An engrossing account of a voyage to the dark side of permanent daylight.” ~ Wendy Ide, Screen International
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“It’s a breathtaking, slow burn, poetic journey through an utterly gorgeous hell for this Danish missionary-colonialist-photographer.” ~ Alex Billington, FirstShowing.net

“A work of handcrafted beauty,” THE BLUE CAFTAN opens February 10 at the Royal.

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“The blue caftan, both the clothing and the piece of cinema, are crafted like an elegant act of welcome resistance.” ~ Namrata Joshi, New Indian Express
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“Not only about abiding love, but also about a deep, unspoken understanding between two people who are committed to each other.” ~ Shubhra Gupta, Indian Express
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“Touzani has introduced the caftan as a symbol, and it’s touching to see how the film uses it in the end.” ~ Peter Debruge, Variety
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“Stunning…working with an intricacy that rivals that of the craftsman at the center of her film, the auteur crafts a surprisingly warm story that subverts expectations at almost every turn.” ~ Christian Zilko, indieWire
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Moviegoers, start your guesses: The Umpteenth Annual Laemmle Oscar Contest has begun.

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The Oscar nominations are out, and in spite of the fact that Hallelujah, Nope, RRR and Decision to Leave, Dolly De Leon, Viola Davis, Paul Dano, and Danielle Deadwyler were inexplicably excluded, at least Brian Tyree Henry and Judd Hirsch were honored. Anyway, it’s time for our Umpteenth Annual Laemmle Oscar Contest! If you, dear moviegoer, can accurately predict how the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences will vote in all 23 categories, (or close to it), you will win movie passes good at all Laemmle venues! The 95th Academy Awards take place on Sunday, March 12 and we’ll announce the winners soon afterwards. Good luck!

REMEMBER THIS Q&A schedule at the Monica Film Center Feb. 5 & 6.

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On February 5th following the 1:30pm screening, Howard Gordon of 24 Homeland will join Eva Anisko, producer of REMEMBER THIS for a Q&A.

On February 5th, following the 4:30pm screening, Jon Kean, President of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District will moderate a post screening discussion with Rabbi, Writer & Professor Michael Berenbaum and Jessica Handler, Educator from Holocaust Museum in Los Angeles and 3rd generation survivor.

On February 6th, following the 7:20 screening, Lisa Ling, journalist, author, executive producer, television host of CNN/s original documentary series THIS IS LIFE WITH LISA LING ’s will join Jeff Hutchens, co-Director of REMEMBER THIS for a post screening discussion.

The Top Ten Films of 2022 contest results are in!

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And the Top Ten Customer-Chosen films of 2022, in order from 1 to 10, are [drum roll]:

  1. Everything Everywhere All at Once
  2. The Banshees of Inisherin
  3. TÁR
  4. The Fabelmans
  5. RRR
  6. Top Gun: Maverick
  7. Nope
  8. Aftersun
  9. Triangle of Sadness
  10. Decision to Leave

It’s a terrific list, arguably better than the one AMPAS announced this week, which excluded RRR, Nope, Aftersun and Decision to Leave. Films 2-4 and 9, hyperlinked for your convenience, are still in theaters!

Randomly chosen winners for free Laemmle movie passes are:
1) Jodi Siegner
2) Drew McAnany
3) Jacob Berman
Thanks to everyone who played!

Top Ten Films of 2022 contest ends Sunday: Tell us your favorites for a chance to win free movie passes!

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Keep those Top Ten contest entries coming. You have until this Sunday, January 22 to give it some thought and enter here. So far, unsurprisingly, it looks like many Laemmle moviegoers are kvelling about Everything Everywhere All at Once, Top Gun: Maverick, and RRR. We’ll have final results next week. You can read Greg Laemmle’s list and leading American film critics’ lists if you need inspiration. Personally, my favorite is Jordan Peele’s spectacular Nope. No doubt my reaction was influenced by the fact that I saw it in a packed, sold-out theater on opening night, because movies are better in theaters!

“One of the most visually ravishing pictures of all time,” THE CONFORMIST opens February 3 at the Royal, February 10 at the Laemmle Glendale.

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Never has The Conformist been more timely. The new restoration of Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1970 masterpiece about a repressed Italian who becomes a fascist hitman is inspiring a lot of thoughtful journalism. “It’s not the ideology that attracts people to fascism,” writes Eric Alterman in the American Prospect. “It’s the permission it offers to ordinary people to behave like thugs.” In his recent New York Magazine/Vulture review, headlined “It’s Time to See The Conformist Again,” critic Bilge Ebiri describes the film as “one of the most visually ravishing pictures of all time.” Ebiri’s piece is well worth excerpting at some length:

“All great films, at some point, ask the question: Who am I? The greatest films go beyond asking this on a narrative level; through their very form, they embody the question of identity. And what makes Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist (1970) the very greatest of movies isn’t just its staggering, legendary beauty, but its maze-like journey into its protagonist’s — and, by extension, its creator’s — mind.

“The Conformist has just been rereleased in a lovely new 4K restoration, which is certainly cause for celebration given that it’s one of the most visually ravishing pictures of all time. (It’s currently playing New York’s Film Forum, and will soon travel around the country.) There’s no real debate over Bertolucci’s achievement; this is one of those canonical titles whose place in history is a given at this point. You can see its influence in The Godfather series, in Taxi Driver, in movies as varied as Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, Dick Tracy, Call Me by Your Name, and Clueless — and yet, it remains as startling and revolutionary as it was upon original release, in part because few filmmakers nowadays are willing to embrace the sensuous and the monstrous at the same time. You never quite know what you’re supposed to feel at any given moment of The Conformist, because it asks you to feel everything.”

  

Some praise from past years:

“Bertolucci’s boldest and most expressive film.” – Calum Marsh, Village Voice

“It’s easy to overlook how stark The Conformist‘s political and allegorical message is because it’s just so damn beautiful.” – Aja Romano, Vox

“One of the greatest-looking movies ever made.” – Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader

“Bernardo Bertolucci is a master of turning harsh realities into free-flowing dreams and fantasies of sex and power into bracing, often uncomfortable moments of truth…The Conformist is perhaps his richest and most beautiful work.” – Max O’Connell, IndieWire

We are proud to open The Conformist at the Royal on February 3 and the Laemmle Glendale on February 10.