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RAN, Akira Kurosowa’s final epic masterpiece, back on the big screen May 23.

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There are movies. There is cinema. And then there is auteur cinema. All are best experienced theatrically, but the last category, in particular, necessitates the big screen, the darkness, the audience of strangers. Next week, we are thrilled to once again unveil Ran, the 27th film by legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa (Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Hidden Fortress).

In its epic scale, stylistic grandeur and tragic contemplation of human destiny, Ran (literally, “chaos” or “turmoil”) brings together the great themes and gorgeous images of the director’s life work. A brilliantly conceived meditation on Shakespeare’s King Lear crossed with Japan’s 16th-century civil wars, it stars the great Tatsuya Nakadai (Kagemusha, High and Low, Yojimbo, Hara Kiri) as Lord Hidetora Ichimonji, an aging ruler who decides to abdicate and divide his land equally among his three sons, unleashing an intense power struggle as his sons and daughters-in-law scheme for power and revenge. A spectacular adventure punctuated by epic battle scenes, Ran was, at the time of its release, the most expensive film ever made in Japan, with breathtaking color and a visual splendor that remains unparalleled. (Kurosawa devised the entire film in watercolors ten years before production began). Named Best Foreign Film of the Year by the New York Film Critics Circle and Best Film of the Year by the National Society of Film Critics, Ran was also Oscar-nominated for Best Director, Cinematography, and Art Direction, with Emi Wada winning for her dazzling, three-years-in-the-making costumes.

“Spectacular! Among the most thrilling movie experiences a viewer can have!” -The New York Times

“Awe inspiring! Takes its place among the major screen versions of Shakespeare. The battle scenes are horrifying, yet extraordinarily beautiful.” -The Village Voice

“Kurosawa’s late-period masterpiece, transposing King Lear to period Japan, is one of the most exquisite spectacles ever made, a color-coordinated epic tragedy of carnage and betrayal—passionate, somber, and profound.” -New York Magazine

“Joel Potrykus, the undisputed maestro of ‘metal slackerism,’ again serves up a singular experience by taking a simple idea to its logical conclusion, and then a lot further.” VULCANIZADORA opens May 9.

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Filmmaker Joel Petrykus on his acclaimed, sui generis fifth feature film, Vulcanizadora, opening May 9 at the Laemmle Monica Film Center and NoHo: “One of my biggest concerns about fatherhood is that I’d soften up and start telling stories of hope and inspiration. Five years after the birth of my one and only son, and I’m mostly consumed with fears of inadequacy, abandonment, and mortality; going to prison by accident, falling off a cliff by accident, jumping off a cliff by accident. Vulcanizadora is my most heartfelt and personal, but not in a good way. It’s my most sincere and emotional, but also my bleakest and most haunting.”

“There is no film you’ll ever see like it.” – Collider

“A darkly funny heavy metal comedy that deftly shifts into a poignant existential drama. Potrykus helms with edgy style, but it’s his and Burge’s transformative performances that carry this unconventional gem.” -Meagan Navarro, Bloody Disgusting

“A fascinating film. What I admire most about the truly strange Vulcanizadora is that I haven’t seen anything like it. Joshua Burge is phenomenal.” -Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com

“Unexpectedly poignant. Potrykus’ most accessible film to date. A sincere rumination on mortality and enduring relationships.” -Stephen Saito, Moveable Fest

“Joel Potrykus, the undisputed maestro of ‘metal slackerism,” again serves up a singular experience by taking a simple idea to its logical conclusion, and then a lot further.” -David Ehrlich, IndieWire

“Mind-bending. Nothing can really prepare viewers for where Vulcanizadora ends up going.” -Carla Hay, Culture Mix

WORDS OF WAR ~ In-Person Q&A’s with Sean Penn, Jason Isaacs and Rep. Eric Swalwell.

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Words of War Q&A’s at the Monica Film Center: Sean Penn and Jason Isaacs will participate in Q&A’s following the 7:00 P.M. screening on Friday, May 2; the 4:00 P.M. & 7:00 P.M. screenings on Saturday, May 3; and the 4:00 P.M. screening on Sunday, May 4. U.S. Congressional Rep. Eric Swalwell will join them for the 4:00 P.M. screening on Sunday.

Culture Vulture Q2: Beethoven, Chekhov, Tennessee Williams, and more.

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Our long-running Culture Vulture series continues every Saturday and Sunday morning and Monday evening at our Claremont, Glendale, Newhall, Encino, and Santa Monica theaters.

April 5-7: Far Out: Life on and After the Commune ~ In 1968, a group of radical journalists leave the city and politics to live communally as organic farmers. The film examines their lives and return to the political world and how the commune became a community.

April 12-14: In Search of Beethoven ~ The makers of In Search of Mozart return with a new feature-length bio-doc about Beethoven. Director Phil Grabsky brings together the world’s leading performers and experts on Beethoven to reveal new insights into the legendary composer.

April 19-21: Art for Everybody ~ Thomas Kinkade’s pastoral landscapes made him the most collected painter of all time — and the most despised. Following his shocking death, his family discovers a vault of never-before-seen paintings that upend his entire image, revealing a complex, multifaceted American artist.

April 26-28: Escape to Life: The Erika and Klaus Mann Story ~ Narrated by Corin Redgrave and Vanessa Redgrave as the voices of Klaus Mann and Erika Mann, Escape to Life: The Erika and Klaus Mann Story is the result of a remarkable pairing between fiction and nonfiction filmmakers Wieland Speck and Andrea Weiss. It depicts another remarkable relationship, that of Erika and Klaus Mann, the brilliant eldest children of German author Thomas Mann.

May 3-5: Vanya ~ Andrew Scott (Sherlock, Fleabag) brings multiple characters to life in Simon Stephens’ radical new version of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. Hopes, dreams, and regrets are thrust into sharp focus in this one-man adaptation which explores the complexities of human emotions, directed by Sam Yates. Filmed live during its sold-out run in London’s West End.

May 10-12: Marcella ~ Marcella Hazan didn’t just teach Italian cooking—she changed the way America eats. Fearless, passionate, and exacting, she introduced authentic recipes to millions. Julia Child called Marcella “my mentor in all things Italian.” Featuring Jacques Pépin, Danny Meyer, April Bloomfield, and Lidia Bastianich, this intimate portrait reveals the bold woman who forever shaped home kitchens.

May 17-19: ADA: My Mother the Architect ~ Ada Karmi-Melamede is one of the most accomplished architects in the world, yet her work remains largely unrecognized beyond architectural circles. In the 1970s, she moved to New York from Israel, following her husband’s rising career, and spent the next 15 years balancing academia, large-scale public projects, and motherhood. In the early ’80s, after being denied tenure at Columbia, Ada left New York and her family for Israel where she designed landmarks such as the Supreme Court Building, the Open University, the Israel Institute for Democracy, and Ben Gurion University, among many others.

May 31-June 2: Michelangelo: Love and Death ~ Spanning his 89 years, Michelangelo: Love and Death takes a cinematic journey from the print and drawing rooms of Europe, through the great chapels and museums of Florence, Rome and the Vatican to explore the tempestuous life of Michelangelo. We go in search of a greater understanding of this most charismatic figure, his relationship with his contemporaries and his valuable artistic legacy.

June 7-9: A Streetcar Named Desire ~ Gillian Anderson (The X-Files, The Crown), Vanessa Kirby (The Crown), and Ben Foster (Lone Survivor) lead the cast in Tennessee Williams’ timeless masterpiece, returning to cinemas. As Blanche’s fragile world crumbles, she turns to her sister Stella for solace – but her downward spiral brings her face to face with the brutal, unforgiving Stanley Kowalski. From visionary director Benedict Andrews, this acclaimed production was filmed live during a sold-out run at the Young Vic Theatre in 2014.

June 14-16: A Photographic Memory ~ How well can we know someone through the things they leave behind? Director Rachel Elizabeth Seed was only 18 months old when her mother, the world-travelling journalist Sheila Turner-Seed, died suddenly. Thirty years later, after she discovers more than 50 hours of audio interviews conducted by her mother, Seed hears her mother’s voice for the first time. Through a wealth of audio recordings, photographs and films, the filmmaker sets out to connect with her late mother while at the same time unveiling an invaluable archive of conversations with some of the most renowned photographers of the 20th century.

We’re still finalizing the Culture Vulture schedule beyond that, but we do have two other terrific titles locked in for July and September:

July 5-7: Heartworn Highways ~ In the mid 1970s, filmmaker James Szalapski documented the then-nascent country music movement that would become known as “outlaw country.” Inspired, in part, by newly long-haired Willie Nelson’s embrace of hippie attitudes and audiences, a younger generation of artists including Townes Van Zandt, David Allan Coe, Steve Earle and Guy Clark popularized and developed the outlaw sound. It borrowed from rock, folk and bluegrass, with an edge that was missing from mainstream Nashville country. This newly restored documentary includes rarely captured performances of these musicians as they perfected this then-new style and helped change the course of country music history.

September 27-29: Inter Alia ~ Oscar-nominated Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl, Saltburn) is Jessica in the much-anticipated next play from the team behind Prima Facie. Jessica Parks is a smart Crown Court Judge at the top of her career. Behind the robe, she is a karaoke fiend, a loving wife and a supportive parent. When an event threatens to throw her life completely off balance, can she hold her family upright? Writer Suzie Miller and director Justin Martin reunite following their global phenomenon Prima Facie, with this searing examination of modern motherhood and masculinity.

 

 

The bio-documentary JANIS IAN: BREAKING SILENCE opens tomorrow.

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Tomorrow we’ll be opening Janis Ian: Breaking Silence, the new documentary about the singer-songwriter. Filmmaker Varda Bar-Kar will participate in Q&A’s after the 7:00 o’clock shows on Thursday, April 3 at the Laemmle NoHo and April 4 and 5 at the Monica Film Center, as well as after the 1:00 o’clock show at the Laemmle Glendale on April 5.  Ms. Ian will join her for the NoHo and Santa Monica screenings. The filmmaker is also featured on the latest episode of Raphael Sbarge and Greg Laemmle’s video podcast Inside the Arthouse.

Director’s Statement: “The pandemic began when I finished my music documentary Fandango at the Wall (HBO/MAX), about a transformative musical convergence at the border between the United States and Mexico. Before Fandango, I had made another music documentary called Big Voice (Netflix) about a high school choir director and his most advanced ensemble. I love experimenting with the alchemy of combining film with music and wanted to continue working in that genre.

“Conversations about identity and how we identify were buzzing at that time. I considered my own identity. How do I identify? Do I feel represented in mainstream media? I resist defining my identity since definitions mainly serve to box us in. I am a free thinker, a bisexual woman, born Jewish, now with a Buddhist bent, and an artist. Like all artists, I am an outsider. I am capable, a roll-up-your-sleeves can-do-it kind of person, and I am an optimist. I don’t see many women like me represented in the media.

“I sat with the question, ‘If I made a film about a female artist with whom I closely identify, who would she be?’ Janis Ian popped into my mind. Her name hit me like a lightning strike. Yet I knew nothing about her outside of a lingering high school memory of listening to her masterful album Between the Lines and crying because her music penetrated my isolation, making me feel seen and heard. Her music assured me that I was not alone. Her music meant the world to me at that time.

“Through research, I discovered that Janis Ian has a significant body of work spanning 60 years. I compiled lengthy playlists of my favorite of her songs – many I had never heard before. I discovered she had written a riveting autobiography called Society’s Child. I could not put the
book down. I learned that not only has Janis made significant contributions to the music world, but she is also a social justice champion and an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. She has endured tremendous hardships and overcome them one after another. Her story of commitment to
artistry and incredible resilience inspired me.

“How could it be that a film had not yet been made about her? This might sound crazy, and maybe it is, but I felt it was my destiny to make a film about Janis.

“I am forever grateful that Janis entrusted me with her magnificent musical story, and I am excited to share it with the world. I am also thankful to my unstoppable producing team and creative collaborators for working with me to overcome a myriad of obstacles and challenges to bring Janis Ian’s story to the screen so that today’s audiences can feel seen and heard just as I did when I listened to Between the Line so many years ago.”

“The French public’s relationship to movies and movie theaters is ‘almost mystical.'” The New York Times on the resurgence of moviegoing in France.

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It says a lot that the grandest French movie theaters are designed by famous architects. (Renzo Piano designed the Pathé Palace in Paris.) Over the weekend, the New York Times published a fascinating glimpse into cinema’s profound place in French culture and how that strength has led to a renaissance of moviegoing. “France was one of the few countries that saw an increase in movie theater attendance last year over 2023, with more than 181 million attendees, an uptick of nearly a million. Brazil, Britain and Turkey also saw an increase.”

One reason is the French version of American exceptionalism: The French people believe their culture is superb. The national government agrees and backs up that conviction with subsidies of tiny cinemas in small towns and supporting schoolchildren’s field trips to movie theaters. “In a statement, the National Center for Film and Moving Images, or CNC, the French government film agency, chalked up the industry’s recovery from the pandemic to ‘the artistic and industrial excellence of our model of cultural exception,’ a reference to national policies meant to promote and protect French culture.”

But the French reverence for cinema is not mere nationalism. Citizens simply feel a “moral obligation to support the arts.” If you go to the Pathé Palace website, you’ll see that right now they’re mostly showing American movies you can see at Laemmle Theatres, and one of the photos accompanying the article shows a theater box office featuring stills from David Lynch films.

You can read the article here.

“Modest and moving, it’s a new sports-movie classic, as sneakily effective as the pitch which gives it its title.” ~ EEPHUS opens Thursday.

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Perhaps no other sport lends itself as well to cinema as baseball, and there have been some memorable ones over the years. The Natural, Moneyball, 42, Field of Dreams and Bull Durham spring to mind. Well, we have a funny, soul-soothing treat for you this week at our Glendale and Santa Monica theaters. “Modest and moving, it’s a new sports-movie classic, as sneakily effective as the pitch which gives it its title.” ~ Nick Schager, The Daily Beast

The filmmakers will participate in Q&A’s in Glendale after the 7:10 PM screenings on 3/13 with writer-director Carson Lund and actor Keith William Richards and moderator Amber A’Lee Frost (Chapo Trap House) and 3/15 with writer Mike Basta, writer-actor Nate Fisher, and moderator Brandon Harris (writer, filmmaker, baseball fan). Lund is also featured on the latest episode of Greg Laemmle (huge Dodger fan and former youth baseball coach) and Raphael Sbarge’s podcast Inside the Arthouse.

Film critics adore Eephus. As of this writing, its Rotten Tomatoes score is 100% with 37 reviews.

“Its pearls of practical wisdom and jewels of melancholic wit make Eephus a gem, which is fitting, for a movie about a game played on a diamond.” ~ Jessica Kiang, Variety

“Many a true devotee will tell you that part of the game’s charm lies in its ability to facilitate socialization… Eephus is a film that understands this, and the script shuffles along with the rhythm of a baseball game.” ~ Christian Zilko, indieWire

“A modest but poignant hangout film that resonates long after the last pitch.” ~ Tim Grierson Screen International

“Carson Lund treats the power of a shared interest with profound, elegiac empathy.” ~ Jake Cole, Slant Magazine
*
“Eephus isn’t exactly a baseball movie — it’s something closer to movie-baseball, where characters endlessly jostle back and forth under no real time constraints, watching the day slowly pass them by, simply out of love for the sport.” ~ Jordan Mintzer, Hollywood Reporter
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“Has about it a mournful, lightly absurd poetry of the mundane, a rapt attention to the intimacy of transience and the meanings we make from relics and rituals of a time we’re passing through.” ~ Isaac Feldberg, RogerEbert.com

“Baseball is the star, the game is the story, and the only conflicts that matter are the ones that the athletes resolve in play. Nonetheless, in Lund’s keenly discerning view, the game is inseparable from the human element.” ~ Richard Brody, The New Yorker
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“Something about Eephus reminds me of Wiseman’s long, slow, methodical probing of institutions and of human behavior more broadly.” ~ Alissa Wilkinson, New York Times

“We come to Eephus expecting a metaphor for life and instead we are faced with life itself.” ~ Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture
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“Eephus luxuriates in an unhurried afternoon of leisure.” ~ Dan Kois, Slate

Oscars 2025: The ANORA director advocates for movie theaters, and the Academy honors Robert Laemmle. Plus: Oscar Contest winners.

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The 2025 Oscars are in the history books. It was a good night, with a funny, skilled host in Conan O’Brien and a fairly equitable distribution of statuettes for some terrific movies. It was also a good night for theatrical exhibition, better known as good, old-fashioned moviegoing. As he did during his speech accepting the Palme d’Or last year in Cannes, Anora filmmaker Sean Baker gave a passionate, trenchant speech in favor of seeing movies as filmmakers have always intended them to be seen, in theaters. After accepting the Oscar for Best Director from filmmaker (and movie theater owner) Quentin Tarantino, Baker said the following to almost 20 million Americans watching live and far more people worldwide:
“I’m going to take this time up here really quick to read something I’m very passionate about…so we’re all here tonight and watching this broadcast because we love movies. Where did we fall in love with the movies? At the movie theater. Watching a film …in the theater with an audience is an experience. We can laugh together, cry together, scream in fright together, perhaps sit in devastated silence together. And in a time in which the world can feel very divided, this is more important than ever. It’s a communal experience you simply don’t get at home, and right now the theatergoing experience is under threat. Movie theaters, especially independently owned theaters, are struggling, and it’s up to us to support them. During the pandemic we lost nearly 1000 screens in the U.S., and we continue to lose them regularly. If we don’t reverse this trend, we’ll be losing a vital part of our culture. This is my battle cry. Filmmakers, keep making films for the big screen. I know I will. Distributors…please focus first and foremost on the theatrical releases of your films. Neon did that for me, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Parents…introduce your children to feature films in movie theaters, and you’ll be molding the next generation of movie lovers and filmmakers. And for all of us, when we can, please watch movies in the theater, and let’s keep the great tradition of the moviegoing experience alive and well.”
The always moving In Memoriam section of the Oscars broadcast was especially powerful this year. This may have been because the losses of huge talents seemed particularly heavy this year. For us at Laemmle Theatres, of course, we are still grieving the loss of Robert Laemmle, our former president and Greg Laemmle’s father. What an honor for Bob to be the first exhibitor included in the in Memoriam montage.
Finally, we are pleased to announce this year’s winners of the Umpteenth Annual Laemmle Oscar Contest.
FIRST PLACE: Stefan with 18 correct answers.
SECOND PLACE: Joel with 18 correct answers.
TIE for THIRD PLACE: Kelly & Cole with 17 correct answers (plus closest run-time to actual runtime broadcast).
Check out our nifty pie charts to see how our savvy customers divined the Academy members’ choices. Last year our winner correctly guessed 21 categories, so this was a tough year. As predicted, the Best Actress category was one of the trickiest; only 10.7% guessed that Mikey Madison would win for her turn in Anora, defying the conventional wisdom that Demi Moore would win for The Substance, and that Fernanda Torres was the true dark horse for her performance in I’m Still Here. Half of our contestants thought The Wild Robot would take the Best Animated Feature prize, but the acclaimed little Latvian film Flow came out on top. Almost 25% of contestants thought Timothée Chalamet would win for Best Actor for A Complete Unknown, no doubt misled by his Screen Actors Guild Awards victory.
Winners, we will be in touch to get you your movie pass prizes. Congratulations!