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Zydeco, Godard, Inuit Throat Singer Tanya Tagaq, Klimt & Koons: The Final Culture Vulture Films of 2023.

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We have finished programming Culture Vulture, our long-running weekly film series of fine art, theater, opera, music and more, for the rest of the year. Have a look! The screenings are every Monday evening and Tuesday matinee at the Laemmle Claremont, Glendale and Monica Film Center. After a hiatus over the holidays, we’ll bring the series back in 2024, likely with additional screening days and venues. Nice! More opportunities to apply the balm of beauty against the burn of our harsh world. Keep an eye on our social media and weekly newsletter for updates.

November 6-7: Klimt & the Kiss: The Kiss by Gustav Klimt is one of the most recognized and reproduced paintings in the world. It is perhaps the most popular poster on student dorm walls from Beijing to Boston. Painted in Vienna around 1908, the evocative image of an unknown couple embracing has captivated viewers with its mystery, sensuality and dazzling materials ever since it was created. But just what lies behind the appeal of the painting – and just who was the artist that created it?

November 13-14: I Went to the Dance: The seminal film on the history of the foot-stomping, toe-tapping music of French Southwest Louisiana. Features many Cajun and Zydeco greats, Michael Doucet, BeauSoleil, Clifton Chenier, Canray Fontenont, Marc and Ann Savoy, D.L. Menard.

November 20-21: Jeff Koons: A Private Portrait: This is not just a documentary but an amazing journey inside the mind of the most controversial artist of our time. Jeff Koons is widely regarded as one of the most influential, popular and disputed artists of the last 30 years. This film shows the hidden mechanisms lying behind the person, the artist and the Koons brand. It’s an intimate exploration of Jeff Koons’ consciousness, aiming to discover what motivates him and shapes his incomparable vision.

November 27-28: Recordially Yours, Lou Curtiss: Yale Strom explores the life and work of Lou Curtiss – creator of the San Diego Folk Festival, audiophile, folklorist, author, raconteur, radio host and proprietor of Folk Arts Rare Records, a mecca for some of the most celebrated American roots musicians in America (Jack Tempchin, Jason Mraz, Tom Brousseau, A.J. Croce, George Winston, Sue Palmer, Alison Brown, Tomcat Courtney, Tom Waits, Gregory Page, Mike Seeger and many others). Archival footage, live interviews and music tell the story of this American icon.

December 4-5: Titanic: The Musical: Five-time Tony Award winner Titanic: The Musical is ‘breathtaking’ (The Guardian) and ‘magnificent’ (The Telegraph). A stunning and stirring production recounting the hopes, dreams and aspirations of her passengers, from the wealthy first class to the third class dreaming of a new life in America.

December 11-12: Ever Deadly weaves together intimate concert footage of Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq alongside moving personal reflections, stunning sequences filmed in Nunavut, and hand-drawn animation by Inuk artist Shuvinai Ashoona to seamlessly bridge history, landscapes, stories, and songs with pain, anger, and triumph – all through the expressions of one of the most innovative musical performers of our time.

December 15-21 at the Royal, December 18-19 at the Claremont, Glendale and Monica Film Center: Godard Cinema with Trailers of the Film that Will Never Exist: ‘Phony Wars’: Jean-Luc Godard is synonymous with cinema. With the release of Breathless in 1960, he established himself overnight as a cinematic rebel and symbol for the era’s progressive and anti-war youth. Sixty-two years and 140 films later, Godard is among the most renowned artists of all time, taught in every film school yet still shrouded in mystery. One of the founders of the French New Wave, political agitator, revolutionary misanthrope, film theorist and critic, the list of his descriptors goes on and on. Godard Cinema offers an opportunity for film lovers to look back at his career and the subjects and themes that obsessed him, while paying tribute to the ineffable essence of the most revered French director of all time.

We’ll screen Godard Cinema with Godard’s final work, Trailer of a Film That Will Never Exist: ‘Phony Wars.’ At the time of his death in September 2022, Jean-Luc Godard had been in the midst of planning another feature, an adaptation of Belgian author Charles Plisnier’s 1937 novel Faux Passports. Though the film was never produced, the intricate and beautiful “trailer” that Godard put together in preparation now stands as his final work, a complex collage of history, politics, and cinema constructed of paper and glue, paintings and photographs, sound and silence.

Godard often transformed his synopses into aesthetic programs. His swan song follows in this tradition and will remain as the ultimate gesture of cinema, which he accompanies with the following text: “Rejecting the billions of alphabetic diktats to liberate the incessant metamorphoses and metaphors of a necessary and true language by returning to the locations of past film shoots, while keeping track of modern times.”

SOPHIE SCHOLL: THE FINAL DAYS screenwriter Fred Breinersdorfer in person for a Q&A at the Royal.

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The powerful Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005) is based on the true story of Germany’s most famous, fearless anti-Nazi heroine of the resistance group the White Rose. Armed with long-buried historical records of her arrest and incarceration by the Gestapo‚ the filmmakers expertly recreate the last six days of Scholl’s life: a heart-stopping journey from arrest to interrogation‚ trial and sentence. “Harrowing, heroic, exhilarating, inspiring, riveting.” (L.A. Times)
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If you’ve never seen it on a big screen or want to experience it again, Sophie Scholl is more timely than ever, forcing the audience to ask: what is an individual’s responsibility to resist immorality when living under a terrifying, repressive regime? One that has no compunctions about murdering its own citizens if they are deemed the slightest threat to its hegemony?
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Sophie Scholl screenwriter Fred Breinersdorfer will join us on Thursday, October 26 at the Royal for a post-screening Q&A moderated by Laemmle Theatres President Greg Laemmle. The screening starts at 7 pm.
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Many thanks to the Goethe Institute and Villa Aurora for to making the screening possible.
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“A genius tragicomedy on the elusive nature of freedom,” THE DELINQUENTS opens October 27.

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The free-flowing, delightful heist film/existential comedy from Argentina The Delinquents, which we open October 27 at the Royal, November 3 at the Claremont and Town Center and November 10 in Glendale, has been compared to a Pedro Almodóvar and Eric Rohmer collaboration. It’s “a consistently playful, gradually beguiling existential dramedy on the multitudinous subject of work and freedom.” (Isaac Feldberg, RogerEbert.com)
  
“Rodrigo Moreno methodically unfurls a genius tragicomedy on the elusive nature of freedom.” ~ Carlos Aguilar, The Playlist
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“A meandering and hilarious delight from end to end.” ~ David Jenkins, Little White Lies

“Rodrigo Moreno’s dreamy and discursive The Delinquents might kick off with one of the most low-key bank robberies anyone has ever attempted, but it’s hard to overstate how thrilling it feels once the thief finally tells us about what he stole.” ~ David Ehrlich, indieWire

Moreno wrote the following about The Delinquents: One issue comes forth naturally when considering this film is the matter of freedom in the face of the mechanical routine imposed by work.

Morán imagines a risky plan to conquer that liberation even when it implies committing a crime and paying his dues. Román is his accessory.

These two men embody a collective fantasy: to break free from the rigors and obligations of the working life in order to attain a higher life filled with freedom.

To choose a better life means leaving the city, your job, even a family, and moving to the countryside, the ocean, the mountains, to give in to leisure, and to stop depending on something or someone. There are both existential and practical matters that make this dream a difficult one: How to make a living? How can I live without all the things I already have? When should I pursue it?

The protagonist solves these questions by virtue of a crime: to rob from a bank (the same bank he´s employed by) the equivalent of his salary times 25 years. It’s not about being millionaires; it’s about living without working all the way to the end.

As is the case in heist movies, the morality of the robbery is not the object, even more so when the target is a bank. I’m invoking the old maxim, always ascribed to Brecht, that it is a worse crime to establish a bank than it is to rob one.

This film, in that sense, takes a more anarchistic viewpoint and does not dwell on these bourgeois matters, but rather contemplates the notion that modern life, as it is intended, obliterates the possibility of a truly free man. It is this tension that Morán’s dream is built upon, that he finally acquires by means of the sacrifice of imprisonment. It is said in a passage of the film that the incarceration of jail for three years and a half is preferable to the incarceration of working for the rest of your life.

MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH MARRIAGE Q&A schedule.

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The My Love Affair with Marriage filmmaker will participate in Q&As on the following schedule:
10/12 – Royal – 7:00pm
Director Signe Baumane
10/13 – Glendale 1:30pm
Director Signe Baumane
10/13 – Glendale – 7:20pm
Director Signe Baumane
Moderated by animator Tom Sito
10/14 – Glendale 1:30pm
Director Signe Baumane
10/14 – Glendale 7:20pm
Director Signe Baumane and Shirley Issakhan, YWCA Glendale & Pasadena
Moderated by Wendy Blanco, Peace Over Violence
10/15 – Glendale 1:30pm
Director Signe Baumane
Professor Lilya Kaganovsky, UCLA
10/15 – Glendale 7:20pm
Director Signe Baumane

RUNNING ON EMPTY 35th Anniversary Screening with Actors Christine Lahti and Judd Hirsch in Person October 24.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 35th anniversary screening of the potent Oscar-nominated drama Running on Empty, written by Naomi Foner and directed by Sidney Lumet in one of his late-career highlights. Christine Lahti, who was named best actress of the year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association for her performance, Judd Hirsch, River Phoenix, and Martha Plimpton star in one of the few movies to examine the consequences of the revolutionary movements that swept America in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The film earned two Oscar nominations in 1988, for Foner’s original screenplay and for Phoenix as Best Supporting actor. We’ll screen Running on Empty at the Royal on October 24 at 7 pm with Ms. Lahti as our special guest.

Lahti and Hirsch play a married couple who were part of a 1960s revolutionary group, probably modeled on the Weather Underground, who participated in the bombing of a napalm laboratory that resulted in the serious injury of a janitor who was not supposed to be on the premises. Since then, they and their two sons have been on the run from the FBI, constantly changing their identities and moving when the authorities seemed close to locating them.  An added complication arises when their teenage son, played by Phoenix, begins to demonstrate extraordinary gifts as a pianist, and the parents realize that their unsettled lives could hinder the development of his talent. At the same time, Phoenix falls in love with the daughter (Plimpton) of his music teacher and feels compelled to reveal his true identity to her.

Lumet (12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, The Verdict), who received an honorary Oscar late in his life, brought his characteristic dramatic vigor and emotional intensity to the film. A highlight is the meeting between Lahti and her long estranged father, played by Steven Hill, that is one of the most wrenching scenes in any film of the period. Most critics recognized the film’s achievements. Roger Ebert called it “one of the best films of the year,” and Newsweek’s David Ansen called it “emotionally overpowering.” Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times wrote, “Sophisticated, uncompromising and refreshingly original, it is one of those rare films which is likely to mean as much to teens as it does to their parents.”

Christine Lahti made her film debut opposite Al Pacino in 1979 in …And Justice for All. She went on to co-star in Whose Life Is It Anyway? opposite Richard Dreyfuss, The Doctor with William Hurt, Just Between Friends with Mary Tyler Moore, Bill Forsyth’s Housekeeping, and, more recently, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood with Tom Hanks. She earned an Oscar nomination when she co-starred with Goldie Hawn in Swing Shift. Later she won an Oscar for a live action short film that she directed, Lieberman in Love, in 1995. Lahti won an Emmy for her starring role in the hit TV series, Chicago Hope, and also had a recurring role in Law and Order SVU. In 2001 she directed her first feature, My First Mister, starring Albert Brooks and Leelee Sobieski.

Judd Hirsch has received two Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor—for the Oscar-winning best picture of 1980, Ordinary People, and for his performance just last year in Steven Spielberg’s acclaimed memory piece, The Fabelmans. He also won two Emmy Awards for his performance in the critically acclaimed and immensely popular TV show of the late 1970s, Taxi. Among his other notable feature film credits are Independence Day, A Beautiful Mind, The Meyerowitz Stories, and Uncut Gems. Hirsch co-starred in several other TV series—Dear John, Damages, Superior Donuts, and The Goldbergs.

CAT PERSON Opens Friday; Director Susanna Fogel in Person for Conversations with Monica Lewinsky & Alex Winter October 12 & 13.

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“Margot met Robert on a Wednesday night toward the end of her fall semester. She was working behind the concession stand at the artsy movie theatre downtown when he came in and bought a large popcorn and a box of Red Vines.”

So begins Kristen Roupenian’s short story Cat Person. When The New Yorker published it in 2017, it struck a nerve with readers and was the first work of short fiction to ever go viral, spurring conversations around the world about the modern dating scene, seduction, and consent. After the film adaptation’s buzzy premiere at Sundance in January, Cat Person is finally where it belongs, at “artsy movie theatre[s],” opening this weekend at the Royal, Town Center and Glendale and October 13 at the Monica Film Center and NoHo. We’re also pleased to host two special screenings at the NoHo with the filmmaker Susanna Fogel in person for conversations with social activist and writer Monica Lewinsky on October 12 and  with actor-writer-director Alex Winter on October 13.

Director Susanna Fogel stated “Like the short story that stirred so much controversy, Cat Person will call upon you to reflect on romantic encounters you’ve had in the past, and to question the role (or multiple roles) you may have played. We’ve all been the victim in some narratives and the villain in others, and I hope you’ll walk out of this film with a strong opinion, ready to debate.”

Susanna Fogel. Credit: Roger Kisby/Getty Images for Disney
Monica Lewinsky. Credit: Greg Gorman
Alex Winter

“A film that’s funny in places, horrifying in others and all but destined to be a reference point in future discussions about courtship.” ~ Peter Debruge, Variety

“The relief…is in the filmmakers’ approach to these tense scenes: Fogel and Ashford loosen their grip, at last trusting us to sit in our discomfort, draw our own conclusions and sharpen our tools for the discourse.” — The Hollywood Reporter

“Once upon a midnight dreary,” Price, Corman, Karloff & Lorre! THE RAVEN 60th Anniversary Screening October 19.

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Update October 12: This screening has been cancelled.

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the 60th anniversary of THE RAVEN (1963), the fifth film of Roger Corman’s cinematic adaptations of the works of American literary titan Edgar Allan Poe. The movie, written by acclaimed horror, fantasy, and mystery author Richard Matheson, stars horror icons Vincent Price and Boris Karloff in a rare big screen collaboration, and co-stars Peter Lorre, Hazel Court, and future superstar Jack Nicholson early in his career. The horror comedy plays one night only, Thursday, October 19 at 7 PM at the Royal in West Los Angeles. For added fun there will be a Poe/Corman trivia contest before the movie.

 

Producer-director Roger Corman, who began his career in the 1950s, is one of the most prolific independent filmmakers in movie history. Corman specialized in low budget cinema and is regarded as the “king of the B movie” with a steady diet of exploitation titles that spanned six decades and multiple movie genres. In 1960 he turned to the works of an author he had read and admired growing up, Edgar Allan Poe, the nineteenth century inventor of detective fiction and master of mystery and the macabre, and made a stylish if frugal version of The Fall of the House of Usher, hiring Vincent Price for the lead and acclaimed author Richard Matheson (The Incredible Shrinking Man, I am Legend, Somewhere in Time) to write the screenplay adaptation. The movie’s unexpected critical and commercial success spawned seven more Poe films in five years. The Raven, the fifth film, was released in January 1963 and was the first outright feature-length comic take on Poe’s most celebrated poem. The worldwide reception afforded the poem in 1845 made Poe the most famous American author of the 19th century, and he remains beloved in the 21st century for his pioneering detective fiction, horror tales, and haunting verse.

Matheson’s story lightens considerably the tone of the mesmeric poem, with the invention of sorcerer characters (Price and Karloff) who duel over Price’s wife (Hazel Court). Peter Lorre, transformed by Karloff into a raven, induces Price to help him break the spell and rescue Court. They are aided by Lorre’s son, played by Nicholson. Corman retained venerable cinematographer Floyd Crosby, production designer Daniel Haller, and composer Les Baxter from the prior Poe films to continue the atmospheric style which marks all the films. Matheson’s choice to inject humor throughout the movie led critics to pick up on the tongue-in-cheek tone, with one reviewer calling it “less of a Raven, and more of a lark.” Leonard Maltin found it a “funny horror satire [with the] climactic sorcerers’ duel a highlight.

This would be Matheson’s final Poe adaptation after writing House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), and Tales of Terror (1962). Price would continue as the principal Poe player to the end of the eight-film series with Tomb of Ligeia in 1964. All the Poe/Corman films entrenched Price as a legendary horrormeister, but in The Raven he would demonstrate his comic chops along with unexpected humorous turns from Boris Karloff and an improvising Peter Lorre. A young Jack Nicholson is the bonus in this affectionate, amusing homage to the genius of Edgar Allan Poe.

ANOTHER BODY Q&A schedule at the Royal.

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Several screenings of Another Body at the Royal will feature Q&As. Here is the schedule:

Friday Oct 27 at 7:30 pm
Los Angeles Premiere screening followed by a Q&A with Directors Reuben Hamlyn & Sophie Compton, Producer Elizabeth Woodward, moderated by Emmy nominated and BAFTA winning Actress Juno Temple (Ted Lasso, Atonement).
 
Saturday Oct 28 at 7:30 pm
Screening of short film MARIANNE by Rebecca Ressler and Lara Porzak before the ANOTHER BODY screening.
 
Screenings followed by a Q&A with ANOTHER BODY Directors Reuben Hamlyn & Sophie Compton, Producer Elizabeth Woodward & MARIANNE co-directors Rebecca Ressler and Lara Porzak and Pulitzer-nominated Author Marianne Wiggins, moderated by Korama Danquah, co-hosted by Brown University Club of LA.
 
Sunday Oct 29 at 7:30 pm
Screening followed by a Q&A with Co-Director Reuben Hamlyn, moderated by Filmmaker and Actor Mojean Aria (Shayda).
 
Monday Oct 30 at 7:30 pm
Screening followed by a Q&A with Co-Director Reuben Hamlyn, moderated by Diane Becker (Oscar winning Producer of NAVALNY).
 
Tuesday Oct 31 at 7:30 pm
Screening of short film AIRHOSTESS-737 by Thanasis Neofotistos before the ANOTHER BODY screening.
No Q&A to follow the 10/31 7:30pm screening.