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Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge Launch New Video Podcast INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE.

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Greg Laemmle, President of Laemmle Theaters, along with actor and Emmy Award-winning director Raphael Sbarge, are launching a new  Video Podcast called INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE. The show is dedicated to highlighting new  releases, repertory classics, filmmakers, distributors, and the key personalities who bring movies to the big screen. INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE will be filmed and recorded at the Laemmle Royal Theatre, the 100-year-old theater that has been operated by three generations of Laemmles for the past half century.  

Laemmle says, “My family has been dedicated to providing a home for independent, foreign and documentary film for almost a century, and we have decided to launch INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE in order to promote the release of new films that will ultimately play in arthouses all across the country.” 

“Our interviews will be recorded in person or via Zoom, with filmmakers appearing large on  the screen,” says Sbarge, an independent filmmaker himself. “Opening a movie in theaters requires all the support they can get, and INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE, is dedicated to the  celebration of seeing films in theaters.” 

Their first guests include Stephen Soucy, the director of MERCHANT IVORY, a documentary about art house mainstays Ismail Merchant and James Ivory; the Golden Lion-winning director of the Swedish film PARADISE IS BURNING, Mika Gustafson; the writer and director  of PREY FOR ROCK AND ROLL, Cheri Lovedog and Alex Steyermark, re-released in theaters via Kino Lorber, for their 20th anniversary; and the co-directors of the new documentary UNION, out of the Sundance and Tribeca film festivals, Brett Story and Steven Main.

In subsequent episodes – initially to be released every two weeks – INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE will focus on new releases and repertory classics, filmmakers, distributors, and  personalities who are responsible for bringing movies to the big screen. The first episode of INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE will premiere on August 28, 2024. The show can be found on  YouTube and all major podcast platforms. For more information, visit www.insidethearthouse.com!

“A rare work of art that thrills the senses and the mind… Worthy of that overused superlative ‘masterpiece.’” — Manohla Dargis, The New York Times. Melville’s ARMY OF SHADOWS opens Friday at the Royal and Town Center.

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ARMY OF SHADOWS, Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1969 epic of the French Resistance unseen in the U.S. until its acclaimed 2006 release by Rialto Pictures, returns in a stunning new 4K Studiocanal restoration, having its L.A. premiere starting this Friday at at the Royal in West L.A. at the Town Center 5 in Encino. Winner of the New York Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Language Film of 2006 — 36 years after it was made — ARMY OF SHADOWS stars Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, and Simone Signoret.

Occupied France: an escape from the Gestapo, so sudden and hairsbreadth as to leave Ventura, the toughest of tough guys, gasping with the icy sweat of terror and relief; two brothers remain unaware, to the end, of each other’s clandestine activities; patriots, who, in relentless pursuit of traitors, must steel themselves to the most brutal of face-to-face violence. But heroism can come at a truly high price.

 “A rare work of art that thrills the senses and the mind... Worthy of that overused superlative 'masterpiece.'” — Manohla Dargis, The New York Times. Melville's ARMY OF SHADOWS opens Friday at the Royal and Town Center.

French gangster movie legend Melville (Bob Le Flambeur, Le Samouraï, etc.) realized the dream of a quarter century when he adapted “the book of the Resistance,” written in 1943 by Joseph Kessel (Belle de Jour). Melville turned the detached, unblinking gaze of his film noir classics on these memories of his youth — he himself served for years underground — adding a finale so stoically uncompromising as to reduce Kessel himself to sobs.

Rialto’s 2006 release was the arthouse movie event of the year, getting awards from both the New York and Los Angeles Film Critics Circles, but also appearing on over 20 major Top Ten lists of the year, including the number one pick for Manohla Dargis of The New York Times.

PRAISE FOR ARMY OF SHADOWS

“A rare work of art that thrills the senses and the mind…Worthy of that overused superlative MASTERPIECE!” — Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

“THE TIGHTEST THRILLER IN TOWN! Lovers of cinema should reach for their fedoras, turn up the collars of their coats, and sneak to this picture through a mist of rain.” — Anthony Lane, The New Yorker

“A LOST MASTERPIECE…NOT JUST ONE OF THE GREAT FILMS OF THE ’60s BUT ONE OF THE GREAT FILMS — PERIOD.” — Stephanie Zacharek, Salon

“A rare work of art that thrills the senses and the mind... Worthy of that overused superlative 'masterpiece.'” — Manohla Dargis, The New York Times. Melville's ARMY OF SHADOWS opens Friday at the Royal and Town Center.

Restored in 4K from the original 35mm negative. Scanned by Image Retrouvée, with the project carried out by Sophie Boyer and Jean-Pierre Boiget of StudioCanal. Digitization and restoration with the support of the CNC.

Repertory Central – Upcoming Classics include THE CONVERSATION, ARMY OF SHADOWS, PARIS, TEXAS and BASQUIAT.

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Wasn’t it fabulous getting to see Akira Kurosawa’s SEVEN SAMURAI on the big screen?  Well, there’s more where that came from. Get fired up for Francis Ford Coppola’s THE CONVERSATION, Jean-Pierre Melville’s ARMY OF SHADOWS, Wim Wenders’s PARIS, TEXAS, and Julian Schnabel’s BASQUIAT in the coming weeks, plus our one-night screening of LEGENDS OF THE FALL (with director Ed Zwick in person for a Q&A).  We’re planning even more for the fall. Add to these all the award-season films coming to Laemmle screens, that is a lot of rewarding moviegoing!
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THE CONVERSATION follows lonely wiretapping expert and devout Catholic Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), who is hired to record a seemingly innocuous conversation in San Francisco’s Union Square between two lovers (Frederick Forsythe and Cindy Williams). Upon re-hearing the tapes, however, Caul believes he may put the couple in danger if he turns the material over to his client (Robert Duvall). But what one hears can ultimately turn out to be quite different from what was actually recorded. Opens this Friday at the Laemmle Royal, Town Center, and Glendale.
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ARMY OF SHADOWS opens August 16 at the Royal and Town Center: A gorgeous restoration of Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1969 epic of the French Resistance during World War II, starring Lino Ventura and Simone Signoret. Based on the novel by Joseph Kessel (perhaps best known for Belle de Jour), the film draws on the wartime experiences of Kessel and Melville himself, both active members of the Resistance and Free French Forces. This is the first time the film has been released in the U.S.
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PARIS, TEXAS opens August 30 at the Royal. New German Cinema pioneer Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire) brings his keen eye for landscape to the American Southwest in Paris, Texas, a profoundly moving character study written by Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Sam Shepard. PARIS, TEXAS follows the mysterious, nearly mute drifter Travis (a magnificent Harry Dean Stanton, whose face is a landscape all its own) as he tries to reconnect with his young son, living with his brother (Dean Stockwell) in Los Angeles, and his missing wife (Nastassja Kinski).
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BASQUIAT, opening September 13 at the Laemmle NoHo, depicts the meteoric rise of the brilliant artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, played by Jeffrey Wright in one of his first roles. Starting out as a street artist, living in Thompkins Square Park in a cardboard box, Jean-Michel is “discovered” by Andy Warhol’s art world and becomes a star. But success has a high price, and Basquiat pays with friendship, love, and, eventually, his life.

LEGENDS OF THE FALL 30th Anniversary Screening Director Ed Zwick in person August 15.

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LEGENDS OF THE FALL (1994)
30th Anniversary Screening
Director Ed Zwick in person, signing his book Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions
Thursday, August 15, at 7 PM, Royal Theatre

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 30th anniversary screening of Ed Zwick’s ‘Legends of the Fall,’ his hit Western epic starring Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, Aidan Quinn, Henry Thomas, and Julia Ormond. The screening is presented in conjunction with the recent publication of Zwick’s best-selling memoir, ‘Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood.’ Zwick will participate in a post-screening Q&A along with the film’s award-winning editor Steven Rosenblum (Oscar-nominated for his work on Zwick’s ‘Glory’ and ‘Blood Diamond’), and he will be selling and signing copies of his book.

‘Legends of the Fall‘ was based on a highly praised novella by Jim Harrison and centers on a family in Montana during the early years of the 20th century. Susan Shilliday and William Wittliff wrote the screenplay. Hopkins plays the patriarch of the family, and his three sons are played by Pitt, Quinn, and Thomas. The film deals with the mistreatment of indigenous people during that period in history and also includes vivid scenes set during World War I, when all three brothers enlist to fight Germany. After the war, they become entangled with Irish bootleggers during the Prohibition era. Ormond is the Eastern woman loved by all three brothers. The cast also includes Karina Lombard, Tantoo Cardinal, and Gordon Tootoosis.

The film won an Oscar for John Toll’s stunning cinematography and also received nominations for art direction and sound. The following year, Toll won a second Oscar for shooting Mel Gibson’s ‘Braveheart.’ Steven Rosenblum, who edited many of Zwick’s movies, also worked on ‘Braveheart.’ The score for ‘Legends‘ was composed by another of Zwick’s frequent collaborators, James Horner (an Oscar winner for ‘Titanic’).

Made on a budget of $30 million, the film earned $160 million, making it a major hit and one of the most popular films during the 1994-1995 Oscar season. Although reviews were mixed, many critics praised the film. Variety wrote, “Zwick imbues the story with an easy, poetic quality…the actors, working as an ensemble, are near perfect in their service of the material.” Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers singled out Brad Pitt, declaring that Pitt “proves himself a bona fide movie star, stealing every scene he’s in.” The Chicago Tribune’s Michael Wilmington wrote, “the landscapes, photographed by John Toll, majestically backdrop all the personal and cultural furies.” Steven Rea of the Philadelphia Inquirer concurred: “Check your cynicism at the door, and just revel in its enormity.”

Zwick’s book chronicles his career from his early days writing for television and includes piercingly candid reminiscences of his landmark shows ‘thirtysomething’ and ‘My So-Called Life,’ along with his features ‘About Last Night,’ ‘Glory,’ ‘Courage Under Fire,’ ‘The Last Samurai,’ ‘Blood Diamond,’ ‘Defiance,’ and ‘Shakespeare in Love’ (for which he won an Oscar for Best Picture). The book recounts his conflicts with Matthew Broderick, Julia Roberts, and Pitt, as well as studio executives like the infamous Harvey Weinstein. But Zwick also includes praise for his closest collaborators and many incisive reflections on the essential tenets of moviemaking.

“A puzzle-like homage to the noir genre itself, with echoes of Jean-Pierre Melville and CHINATOWN,” ONLY THE RIVER FLOWS opens Friday at the Royal.

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Nineteen nineties small-town China. A woman’s body washes up in the local river. The chief of police, Ma Zhe, is tasked with heading up the investigation. An obvious perp leads to a hasty arrest, though the mystery lingers in Ma Zhe’s mind. What kind of darkness is truly at play here? Director Wei Shujun’s murky throwback film noir, gritty, textured film grain captures the pulpy proceedings. Torrents of rain envelop the characters as they descend into madness in pursuit of the truth. Equal parts atmospheric tour-de-force and beguiling puzzler, Only the River Flows is a masterfully styled ode to a bygone cinematic era and a sharp-edged portrait of provincial paranoia. The film, starring Zhu Yilong, is based on Yu Hua’s popular short novel Mistakes by the River. We open the film this Friday at the Royal.

“In a seamy offbeat world englobing the gleaming surfaces of Park Chan-wook’s terrific Decision to Leave, all scuzzed-up and grimy and the Diao Yinan’s Black Coal, Thin Ice with seams of absurdist dark comedy, Wei Shujun’s inventive riff on Asian-noir gives the expanding subgenre something its Chinese contributions often lack: a pitch-black sense of humor. Like the greatest genre exponent, Raymond Chandler, Wei cares less about logistics than about mood in this rainy, grainy movie (DP Chengma shoots on film in low light, giving the images a lovely dirty texture), lending the film in a cool retro vibe and a schlocky Brian De Palma-style opening. Humanizing quirks and flourishes abound, providing profundity to this touchingly melancholic portrait of small-town desperation.” -Variety.

  "A puzzle-like homage to the noir genre itself, with echoes of Jean-Pierre Melville and CHINATOWN," ONLY THE RIVER FLOWS opens Friday at the Royal.

“An enigmatic, progressively more engrossing noir directed by Wei Shujun, structurally inventive, if not downright format-twisting. The cinematography is genuinely star-making.” ~ Screen International

"A puzzle-like homage to the noir genre itself, with echoes of Jean-Pierre Melville and CHINATOWN," ONLY THE RIVER FLOWS opens Friday at the Royal.

“A film noir that’s so vintage it comes wrapped in crackling celluloid and old cassette tapes. Written and directed by Wei Shujun, the movie is a puzzle-like homage to the noir genre itself, with echoes of Jean-Pierre Melville, Chinatown, and Memories of Murder.” ~ Hollywood Reporter
"A puzzle-like homage to the noir genre itself, with echoes of Jean-Pierre Melville and CHINATOWN," ONLY THE RIVER FLOWS opens Friday at the Royal.

Wei Shujun was born in 1991 in Beijing, China. He started his career as an actor at age 14. He completed his master’s degree at the Communication University of China. His films include On the Border (short, 2018, Special Jury Award at Cannes Film Festival), Striding into the Wind (2020, Official Selection Cannes Film Festival) and Ripples of Life (2021, Directors’ Fortnight, Cannes). 

Michelangelo Antonioni’s RED DESERT (1964) 60th Anniversary Screenings.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classic Series present this month’s screening in our popular Anniversary Classics Abroad program: Michelangelo Antonioni’s vibrant masterpiece RED DESERT, which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1964 and collected rave reviews around the world on its release over the next several months. We will show the film at five of our theaters at 7 PM on Wednesday, July 31.

Antonioni had earned critical acclaim for the three movies in his “alienation trilogy”—’L’Avventura,’ ‘La Notte,’ and ‘Eclipse’ — made during the early 1960s. RED DESERT explored some of the same themes but introduced a new element to the director’s work. The three earlier movies were all shot in black-and-white, but with RED DESERT Antonioni decided to experiment with color cinematography for the first time, and critics heralded his achievement. The New Republic’s Stanley Kauffmann declared, “With Michelangelo Antonioni’s RED DESERT, the art of the film advances…quite simply, it is the best use of color I have ever seen in a film, exquisite in itself.” Kauffmann added, “there is a buried history of modern painting in it, from the Impressionists through Mondrian to Hopper and Wyeth.”

Monica Vitti, who had starred in all three of Antonioni’s earlier movies, has the leading role of Giuliana, the wife of an industrialist in Ravenna. She is emotionally troubled and eventually begins an affair with an employee at her husband’s factory. Carlo Chionetti plays the husband, and Richard Harris — fresh from his Oscar-nominated performance in Lindsay Anderson’s ‘This Sporting Life’ — plays her lover. Antonioni wrote the screenplay with frequent collaborator Tonino Guerra.

In addition to its psychological themes, the film offers prescient critique of industrial pollution, with the color cinematography contributing to this political commentary. A key collaborator was director of photography Carlo Di Palma, who worked closely with Antonioni to paint the landscapes when necessary to create the desired mood of malaise. Antonioni and Di Palma collaborated again on the director’s most successful movie, the English-language ‘Blowup,’ an Oscar nominee in 1966. Other directors around the world — including Ettore Scola, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Sidney Lumet — worked with Di Palma. The cinematographer later established a fruitful collaboration with Woody Allen on such films as ‘Hannah and Her Sisters,’ ‘Radio Days,’ and ‘Bullets Over Broadway.’

Time magazine called RED DESERT “at once the most beautiful, the most simple and the most daring film yet made by Italy’s masterful Michelangelo Antonioni.” More recently, Geoff Andrew of Time Out hailed “perhaps the most extraordinary and riveting film of Antonioni’s entire career.” Robbie Collin of London’s Daily Telegraph declared, “Almost half a century on, RED DESERT remains a film of rare beauty and brooding erotic intensity.” The New Yorker’s Richard Brody called the film Antonioni’s “most mysterious and awe-inspiring work.”

Screening one night only at the Royal in West Los Angeles, the Town Center in Encino, and Laemmle Theatres in Glendale, Claremont, and Newhall.

Glendale Arts Summer Soiree “Under A Thousand Stars” to Honor Laemmle Theatres’ Greg & Tish Laemmle.

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Laemmle Theatres President Greg Laemmle and his wife Tish Laemmle are being honored by the good folks at Glendale Arts “in recognition of their unparalleled legacy of dedication to independent filmmakers and the art of storytelling on the screen.” Glendale Arts is an award-winning 501(c)3 non-profit organization that generates opportunities throughout greater Los Angeles to showcase, promote, encourage, and engage with the arts. From their announcement:

Glendale Arts proudly announces the organization’s highly-anticipated Summer Soiree “Under A Thousand Stars” to be held on Saturday, July 27, 2024 from 7:00-10:00 P.M. at ace/121 Gallery. Tickets for the event of the season are now available for purchase here.

Guests are invited to revel in the dazzling beauty of the gallery, transformed into an elegant indoor/outdoor spectacle of art and performance. The inspirational evening will comprise epicurean delights, artful mixology, a silent auction featuring original works of art by emerging and renowned artists from the Los Angeles area and beyond, and a celebratory program highlighting GA’s dynamic programmatic pillars – the Glendale International Film Festival, Solo Fest, and ace/121 Gallery.

A highlight of the event will be the presentation of The Aura, Glendale Arts’ inaugural award honoring luminaries who power the arts. The first-ever recipients of The Aura are Laemmle Theatres Head Greg Laemmle and his wife Tish Laemmle, Art in the Arthouse Curator at the family-run theatres which have brought the best of foreign and independent cinema to Los Angeles for over 85 years. The Laemmles will be honored in recognition of their unparalleled legacy of dedication to independent filmmakers and the art of storytelling on the screen.

Summer Soiree proceeds benefit Glendale Arts, the city’s premier arts non-profit. Funds raised will support GA’s mission to cultivate year-round opportunities for artists and audiences to convene around mutually enriching experiences that promote creativity, foster meaningful connections, and build community through the performing, cinematic, and visual arts mediums.

“We are excited to bring supporters and community, business, and industry leaders together for a night that salutes the transformative power of the arts,” said Glendale Arts Board Chair Marci DeSousa. “The Summer Soiree will not only showcase the heart and soul that drives Glendale Arts’ mission, but will also celebrate what distinguishes GA as a unique non-profit with local roots, regional impact, and a global footprint.”

“I set out to make a film about solidarity and finding the small gestures of kindness and understanding between strangers and family alike.” Levan Akin on his film CROSSING, opening July 19 at the Royal.

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Next week at the Royal we open Crossing, the acclaimed new film by the Swedish-Georgian director Levan Akin (And Then We Danced). It follows Lia, a retired teacher living in Georgia, as she tries to fulfill a promise to find her long-lost niece, Tekla. The search takes her to Istanbul, a beautiful city that seems full of connections and possibilities. There she meets Evrim, a lawyer fighting for trans rights, and Tekla starts to feel closer than ever.
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Akin will attend the July 20 evening screening for a Q&A.
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“A piercing portrait of forgiveness across generations…Dumanli, making her screen feature debut here, is a pure joy to watch, enveloping the movie in a sense of warm coziness and safety as, just being in her presence, you feel like everything will somehow work out.” ~ Ryan Lattanzio, indieWire

“It’s seductive, fragmented, involving.” ~ Fionnuala Halligan, Screen International

"I set out to make a film about solidarity and finding the small gestures of kindness and understanding between strangers and family alike." Levan Akin on his film CROSSING, opening July 19 at the Royal.

“Akin makes a calculated choice to raise awareness of the trans community in Istanbul, but he does so through representation rather than manipulation.” ~ Peter Debruge, Variety

“This novelistic drama takes time to connect its central triangle but does so with a suppleness and restraint that amplify the emotional rewards of its lovely open-ended conclusion.” ~ David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

"I set out to make a film about solidarity and finding the small gestures of kindness and understanding between strangers and family alike." Levan Akin on his film CROSSING, opening July 19 at the Royal.

Director’s statement: With Crossing I set out to make a film about solidarity and finding the small gestures of kindness and understanding between strangers and family alike. I also wanted to show rooms and places that are rarely explored in stories from the region. 

The film is based on a true story I was told whilst researching And Then We Danced, about a grandmother traveling from Georgia to Turkey in search of her trans granddaughter. Just like with my previous film, making Crossing was very challenging. The existence of LGBTQ+ people in Georgia and Turkey is under large pressure and Turkey’s president Erdogan ran most of his  recent presidential campaign around anti-LGBTQ+ rhetorics. 

"I set out to make a film about solidarity and finding the small gestures of kindness and understanding between strangers and family alike." Levan Akin on his film CROSSING, opening July 19 at the Royal.

In my film we follow retired schoolteacher Lia who is looking to fulfill her recently deceased sister’s dying wish – to find her lost trans daughter, Tekla. Together with a down on his luck  young man, Achi, who claims to have Tekla’s address in Istanbul, she travels from Georgia to  Turkey to find her niece. Lia and Achi are from different generations and as such don’t have  much in common even though they live in the same country. There is a great divide of ideology in Georgia between the Soviet and the post-Soviet generation. Achi desperately wants to leave Georgia as he lives under the oppressive rule of his older brother and he knows there is no future in Georgia for his young western leaning generation. 

As the journey unravels, so does Lia. Through her relationship to Achi and her encounters with  the trans community in Istanbul, specifically with Evrim (a trans woman who works as a lawyer for an NGO in Istanbul), Lia begins to open up and see the world and her place in it differently. All three main characters have made great sacrifices in limiting their lives and inhibitions in order to not upset the ruling hegemony. 

"I set out to make a film about solidarity and finding the small gestures of kindness and understanding between strangers and family alike." Levan Akin on his film CROSSING, opening July 19 at the Royal.

I myself am Georgian born in Sweden (my ancestry is from Batumi), and I have ties to Turkey (both my parents were born there). The journey from Batumi in Georgia, along the Black Sea to Istanbul is a journey I have taken many times myself as a child. I am a mix of many cultures, traditions and norms and the themes of modernity versus tradition are very personal and  something I have struggled with myself. I drew a lot from my own experiences, asking myself if  my grandparents were living today, would they accept me for who I am? Probably not – but in  showing these examples of acceptance I hope to inspire new ways forward.