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“The future of cinema is where it started: in a movie theater.” ~ ANORA director Sean Baker in his Palme d’Or acceptance speech.

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Over the weekend, writer-director Sean Baker (Tangerine, The Florida Project, Red Rocket) was awarded the Palme d’Or, the top prize, at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for Anora, his comedy about a sex worker. New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis called the film “a giddily ribald picaresque.” In his acceptance speech, Baker spoke eloquently about seeing movies in theaters. You can watch the whole thing online, but here’s the key excerpt:
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“This literally has been my singular goal as a filmmaker for the past 30 years. So I’m not really sure what I’m gonna do with the rest of my life, but I do know that I will continue to fight for cinema because right now, as filmmakers, we have to fight to keep cinema alive. This means making feature films intended for theatrical exhibition. The world has to be reminded that watching a film at home while scrolling through your phone and checking mail, emails and half paying attention is just not the way, although some tech companies would like us to think so. Watching a film with others in a movie theater is one of the great communal experiences. We share laughter, sorrow, anger, fear, and, hopefully, have a catharsis with our friends and strangers, and that’s sacred. So I see the future of cinema is where it started: in a movie theater.”

“They don’t know who Fassbinder is and they don’t know who Éric Rohmer is and they don’t know who Kurosawa is. They think they’re modern and they haven’t seen DO THE RIGHT THING. Are you kidding?” Ethan Hawke on encouraging young people to watch older movies.

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Directed and co-written by four-time Academy Award® nominee Ethan Hawke, Wildcat invites the audience to weave in and out of celebrated Southern Gothic writer Flannery O’Connor’s mind as she ponders the great questions of her writing: Can scandalous art still serve God? Does suffering precede all greatness? Can illness be a blessing? In 1950, Flannery (Maya Hawke) visits her mother Regina (Laura Linney) in Georgia when she is diagnosed with lupus at twenty-four years old. Struggling with the same disease that took her father’s life when she was a child and desperate to make her mark as a great writer, this crisis pitches her imagination into a feverish exploration of belief. As she dives deeper into her craft, the lines between reality, imagination, and faith begin to blur, allowing Flannery to ultimately come to peace with her situation and heal a strained relationship with her mother.

We open Wildcat Friday at the Laemmle Claremont, Monica Film Center, Newhall and Town Center and Monday at the NoHo. During his recent press tour to support the release, Hawke spoke passionately about seeing older movies, including his personal favorite (Warren Beatty’s Reds). With one exception (see if you can spot it), we wholeheartedly agree. He name checks some of the greats, including Kurosawa (we’ll be screening Seven Samurai in July) and Fassbinder (we’ll be showing The Marriage of Maria Braun in November as part of our Anniversary Classics series.) What’s more, on May 22 we’ll be screening one of his first movies, Dead Poets Society. From MovieMaker Magazine:

Ethan Hawke hopes he doesn’t sound like the “old man yells at cloud” meme when he says this, but he says it anyway.

“The thing that I don’t understand — and this makes me sound old — but what I don’t understand about young people today is why they don’t watch more movies,” he tells MovieMaker.

“I mean, they’re perfectly willing to binge watch, for weeks of their life, something they know is really super okay [while] they could be watching Badlands as we speak,” he adds.

Hawke is particularly shocked by the lack of film education in young directors, specifically around the greats, like German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder known for Love Is Colder Than Death (1969) and The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972).

“They don’t know who Fassbinder is and they don’t know who Éric Rohmer is and they don’t know who Kurosawa is. They think they’re modern and they haven’t seen Do the Right Thing. Are you kidding? It’s on your damn phone, watch it!” he says. “But they’d somehow rather watch some TV show that came out yesterday that they won’t remember.” [EDITOR’S NOTE: Several years ago, David Lynch succinctly addressed the idea of watching a movie on a telephone.]

Make no mistake: “I say all that not to sound crotchety,” he stresses.

“But there’s so much excellence in the past, so many of these thoughts of what we’re all going through emotionally and what we’re looking for — authenticity in our lives and healing — all these common threads of humanity people have been talking about for centuries. Cinema is a young art form, but it’s 100 years old now, and there’s a lot of great work, and you can rip it off madly.”

For those young filmmakers who might be interested in taking some of Hawke’s advice, he also suggests looking to your collaborators for recommendations. Like a director of photography, for example.

“The fun thing about having a great DP is the more you explain what you’re trying to drive at, they can turn you on to, ‘Well, you know who’s also into that idea — let’s watch this film. Let’s steal that shot. That’s a great shot.’ I really enjoy that,” he says.

“But I’m always amazed at how often young people who say, ‘I love movies and I want to make movies’ don’t actually watch movies.”

Click here to read the whole piece.

“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes:” MACBETH with Ralph Fiennes & Indira Varma

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We’re thrilled to screen Shakespeare’s leanest, meanest tragedy, Macbeth with Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma, May 2 and 5 only, following its highly acclaimed U.K. tour. It was filmed live at Dock X in London especially for cinemas. Tony and BAFTA Award-winner Fiennes (Antony & Cleopatra, Schindler’s List, Coriolanus) and Olivier Award-winner Indira Varma (Present Laughter, Game of Thrones, Luther) star in this brand-new ‘full-voltage visceral’ (★★★★ Daily Telegraph) production of the Scottish play. Designed for a custom-built space, this gripping and breathtaking play about the couple utterly corrupted by their relentless lust for power is unmissable on the big screen. By the end of the run in London and following seasons in Liverpool and Edinburgh, this production played to sell-out audiences of over 100,000 people at 110 performances. We’ll show Macbeth at our Claremont, Glendale, Santa Monica, Newhall and Encino theaters.

Directed by Simon Godwin (Antony & Cleopatra, Romeo & Juliet, Hansard) with set and costume design by Frankie Bradshaw (Jerusalem, Blues for an Alabama Sky), this stunning production brings ‘Shakespeare’s tragedy pulsing into the present day’ (★★★★★ The I).

Regard this clip. It really gives one a (bloody) taste of what awaits:

Joining Ralph Fiennes as Macbeth and Indira Varma as Lady Macbeth are Ben Allen as Ross, Ewan Black as Malcolm, Levi Brown as Angus, Jonathon Case as Seyton, Danielle Fiamanya as Second Witch, Keith Fleming as King Duncan/Siward, Michael Hodgson as Second Murderer, Lucy Mangan as First Witch, Jake Neads as First Murderer/Donalbain, Richard Pepper as Lennox, Steffan Rhodri as Banquo, Rose Riley as Menteith, Lola Shalam as Third Witch, Rebecca Scroggs as Lady Macduff/Doctor, Ethan Thomas as Fleance, and Ben Turner as Macduff.

Patricia Rozema in person for the new 4K director’s cut restoration of her queer classic WHEN NIGHT IS FALLING + screenings of her latest, MOUTHPIECE.

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We’re proud to soon screen two films by Canadian filmmaker Patricia Rozema: her just-restored 1995 romance When Night is Falling (May 7 at the Royal and May 8 at the NoHo) and her most recent film, Mouthpiece (May 13 & 14 at the Town Center, Monica Film Center, Glendale, and Claremont). Rozema will participate in Q&As after the Tuesday, May 7 and 8 screenings of When Night is Falling at the Royal and NoHo. Tracy E. Gilchrist, VP, Executive Producer of Entertainment for equalpride, will moderate the Royal Q&A.

Long considered to be a pivotal entry in the LGTBQ+ canon, When Night is Falling is a sexy, daring and visually resplendent story about the thrilling temptations of passion. Camille, a Christian academic, is engaged to Martin, a fellow theologian. Then she meets Petra, a flamboyant performer in an avant-garde circus. To her surprise, Camille finds herself falling deeply and almost magically in love. Forced to choose between the woman she wants, and the man who loves her, Camille discovers that the only true duty of the soul is desire.

From WHEN NIGHT IS FALLING.

A Canadian classic that was in Official Competition at the 1995 Berlin International Film Festival, When Night is Falling tells a lesbian story beautifully photographed by Douglas Koch, catching a romantic, wintry Toronto landscape.

Adapted from the play by Amy Nostbakken and Norah Sadava, Mouthpiece follows Cassandra, an aspiring writer who, while struggling to compose a eulogy after the sudden death of her mother, comes to discover that her own rebelliousness is as much a response to the male gaze as her mother’s conformity. Enacting the two sides of Cassandra’s conflicting inner dialogue, playwright-performers Nostbakken and Sadava create a compelling portrayal of the tension between regression and progress that is often found within women.

From MOUTHPIECE

Mark Olson of the L.A. Times just published a good piece about Rozema and her work and also interviewed her, as did Gilchrist for The Advocate:

There’s a scene in Patricia Rozema’s 2018 film Mouthpiece where the main character, Cassandra, is flooded with a memory of her mother, who’s just died. The camera pans the room, lingering on Cassandra’s mother’s books and music. In the frame there appear works by Joni Mitchell, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, and the groundbreaking lesbian author, actor, and activist Ann-Marie McDonald, who appeared in Rozema’s first feature, 1987’s I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing. Through Cassandra’s memories of her mother, Rozema pays tribute to Canada’s great women storytellers, and considering the filmmaker’s body of work, her name belongs among them…Throughout her canon and evident in the restored films is Rozema’s singular poetic film language that includes queer identity, interior monologues, and a duality in her characters or what she refers to as “twoness.” Unburdened by the machine of Hollywood and working from artists’ grants from Canada, Rozema cemented herself as a true auteur out of the gate with I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing, a self-reflexive and heartfelt comedy about a quirky secretary to a lesbian art gallery owner. The film investigates the nature of art itself, something that Rozema would continue to examine throughout her career.

“But I think I was protecting my ability to make movies, because I was ambitious too. Not for fame or for money but for being able to make movies, which is the best job in the whole fucking world in my mind,” she adds. “I was terrified that I would be shut down. So I was careful, maybe too careful sometimes, so that I think some people wished was different sooner.”

Despite Rozema’s thoughts of being “too careful” at some points, as a progenitor of the Toronto New Wave with the likes of Atom Egoyan and Jeremy Podeswa, her contributions to cinema include making elevated films about queer women with happy or hopeful endings that expanded the notion of fixed sexuality.

“I also spoke quite early about fluidity, a gender continuum, and a sort of orientation continuum,” Rozema says. “At the time, it was very binary: You’re gay or you’re straight. Period. I felt like there’s got to be more colors in this human palette.”

Greg Laemmle on the return of the senior moviegoer.

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We know that over the past four years, you may have become accustomed to hearing bad news from us.  So we are pleased to share some good news. Qualified good news. But still, a sign of improvement.

It appears that older audiences are returning in larger numbers. That’s welcome news for all of us at Laemmle Theatres, and at art houses across the U.S. Before the pandemic, the hand wringing was about the “graying” of the arthouse audience. But since reopening, as arthouses have had success with younger-skewing films, the concern instead has been about how to reconnect with the older audiences that were once weekly guests at our theaters.  

Now, we love showing films like HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS and LOVE LIES BLEEDING. But we also love showing the English-language period films (i.e., Merchant Ivory films), foreign-language romantic dramas (pick your prototypical French film) and non-studio American independent films that are aimed at an audience that grew up in a world without cell phones and the internet. And since reopening, while we’ve had some success with films like THE DUKE, THE TASTE OF THINGS and MOVING ON, we can’t help but notice that the numbers are still not where they would have been in the days before COVID.

But starting at the end of 2023, it felt as if things were beginning to turn around a bit. Films like ANATOMY OF A FALL and THE HOLDOVERS made more of a mark at the box office than “comparable” films did in 2021 and 2022.  And you also have FALLEN LEAVES doing more business than almost any prior film from director Aki Kaurismäki.

So far this year, and leaving aside films that were part of the Oscar race, films like DRIVING MADELEINE, ONE LIFE, THE OLD OAK, FAREWELL MR. HAFFMANN, COUP DE CHANCE and WICKED LITTLE LETTERS are performing better. In fact, the latter four are hanging around, showing good word-of-mouth. These films are still doing a fraction of the business that they would have done pre-pandemic. But better is good. And hopefully, we and our distributor partners can build on this trend.

“When pandemic restrictions eased, many couldn’t wait to get back to the movie theater,” wrote Jon Keller of CBS last year. “But a new study found older adults are in no rush to return. And that trend is about more than just fear of COVID. Before the pandemic, people over 40 bought 41% of all movie tickets in the U.S. and Canada.”

It’s not COVID rates, which a quick check of the L.A. County Department of Public Health website shows are vanishingly low. And the fact remains that seeing a movie in a theater instead of at home is still 1000% better. (We’ll never tire of quoting the filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev, who compared watching a movie at home to reading a novel while skipping every other word.)

According to one of Variety’s recent dispatches from the annual trade show CinemaCon, “the box office hasn’t recaptured its pre-pandemic stride — studios estimate that roughly 15% to 20% of frequent moviegoers have yet to resume their old entertainment habits now that COVID has dissipated. Plus, the labor strikes that consumed the media industry for much of the previous year as actors and writers hit the picket lines resulted in production delays that left theaters with fewer movies to hawk on their marquees.”

Big budget popcorn movies that mostly appeal to younger audiences can be fantastic and we happily screen them at some of our venues, but those kinds of films are not Laemmle Theatres’ popcorn and butter, to alter a phrase. The current drama CIVIL WAR may be a surprise hit because it combines action movie elements with serious subject matter, drawing cinephiles of all ages. But what about films with zero guns which are purely cerebral? If audiences don’t turn out for these films, fewer will get made or picked up for distribution; it’s just supply and demand.

How do we reach older moviegoers when the L.A. Times isn’t running reviews?

We are happy to see some new signs of strength recently. But more would be better. So if you know an older moviegoer who used to attend regularly, but no longer does, we’d like to hear why not. Because the existence of a local movie theater that can show, for example, classic reissues like CLASSE TOUS RISQUE (opening May 3 at the Royal!) or the artful woman-made Senegalese drama BANEL & ADAMA (opening June 14 at the Royal!) is not a given.

I AM GITMO and BEYOND THE RAGING SEA Q&As May 3-5 at the Monica Film Center..

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BEYOND THE RAGING SEA

Friday May 3 – 7:30 PM

  • Q&A follows with director Maro Orsini, Omar Nour and Omar Samra

Saturday May 4 – 4:30 PM

  • Q&A follows with director Maro Orsini, Omar Nour and Omar Samra, moderated by Alya Alghamdi, Saudi Arabian athlete.
Sunday May 5 – 12:45,* 3:00* and 5:10 with the Q&As following 12:45 and 3:00
  • Q&A follows* with director Maro Orsini, Omar Nour and Omar Samra

I AM GITMO

Friday May 3 – 1:00* and 4:10

  • *Q&A with director Philippe Diaz and Fionnuala D. Ní Aoláin who was UN Special Rapporteur on Human rights and Counterterrorism moderated by journalist Jeremy Kuzmarov.

Saturday May 4 –1:00 & 7:00*

  • Q&A with director Philippe Diaz & cast members Eric Pierpoint and Chico Brown, moderated by journalist Jeremy Kuzmarov.

Sunday May 5 @ 7:15

  • Q&A with director Philippe Diaz & cast members Eric Pierpoint and Chico Brown, moderated by journalist Jeremy Kuzmarov.

Jazz musicians, politicians, painters, historians, and feminists: Our upcoming Culture Vulture films.

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We have the next several months of our Culture Vulture series set, and as always the films are eclectic and stimulating, featuring documentaries about artists and writers, gallery films, a National Theater Live stage production, and more.

April 22 & 23 ~ On the Adamant ~ Winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Fest, this affecting, enlightening documentary from nonfiction master Nicolas Philibert (To Be and to Have) invites viewers to come aboard the Adamant and witness the transformational power of art and community. The Adamant is a one-of-a-kind place: a floating refuge on the Seine in the heart of Paris that offers day programs for adults with mental illnesses. Its attendees come from across the city and are offered care that grounds and helps them recover and stabilize.

April 29 & 30 ~ John Singer Sargent is known as the greatest portrait artist of his era. What made his ‘swagger’ portraits remarkable was his power over his sitters, what they wore and how they were presented to the audience. Through interviews with curators, contemporary fashionistas and style influencers, John Singer Sargent: Fashion & Swagger examines how Sargent’s unique practice has influenced modern art, culture and fashion.

May 6 & 7 ~ J’Accuse! ~ This blistering documentary recalibrates the dialogue between the Jewish People and Lithuania by demanding that the Lithuanian government stops telling Holocaust lies. Made on a shoestring budget of less than $30,000, this painful, angry film has has won over 120 Best Documentary Awards and film festival selections across the world and has become one of the key weapons in the ongoing fight for Holocaust Truth. J’Accuse! also powerfully challenges the silence of the EU, the UN and NATO… and asks if the Holocaust has ceased to have moral meaning.

May 13 & 14 ~ Patricia Rozema’s Mouthpiece centers on Cassandra, an aspiring writer who, while struggling to compose a eulogy after the sudden death of her mother, comes to discover that her own rebelliousness is as much a response to the male gaze as her mother’s conformity. Enacting the two sides of Cassandra’s conflicting inner dialogue, playwright-performers Nostbakken and Sadava create a compelling portrayal of the tension between regression and progress that is often found within women.

May 20 & 21 ~ In the vein of Frederick Wiseman’s work, Art Talent Show offers insightful commentary on the intergenerational cultural dissonance surrounding topics like identity politics and social justice in relation to art and its practice. A “documentary less about art or talent than about the Sisyphean task of assessing one and nurturing the other” (Variety), filmmakers Adéla Komrzý and Tomáš Bojar take a sensitive and ultimately light-hearted approach to the examination of art school admission.

June 3 & 4 ~ Nye ~ Michael Sheen plays Nye Bevan in a surreal and spectacular journey through the life and legacy of the man who transformed Britain’s welfare state. From campaigning at the coalfield to leading the battle to create the National Health Service, Aneurin ‘Nye’ Bevan is often referred to as the politician with greatest influence over the UK without ever being Prime Minister. Confronted with death, Aneurin ‘Nye’ Bevan’s deepest memories lead him on a mind-bending journey back through his life; from childhood to mining underground, Parliament and fights with Churchill.

June 10 & 11 ~ My National Gallery~ The National Gallery of London is one of the world’s greatest art galleries. It is full of masterpieces, an endless resource of history, an endless source of stories. But whose stories are told? Which art has the most impact and on whom? The power of great art lies in its ability to communicate with anyone, no matter their art historical knowledge, their background, their beliefs. This film gives voice to those who work at the gallery – from cleaner to curator, security guard to director – who identify the one artwork that means the most to them and why.

June 17 & 18 ~ Lyd ~ A sci-fi documentary that follows the rise and fall of Lyd — a 5,000-year-old metropolis that was once a bustling Palestinian town until it was conquered when Israel was established in 1948. As the film unfolds, a chorus of characters creates a tapestry of the Palestinian experience of this city and the trauma left by the massacre and expulsion.

June 24 & 25 ~ An informed and intimate portrayal of the jazz scene that offers revelatory glimpses for fans of the genre, Music for Black Pigeons strikes a universal chord in its pursuit of wider questions centered around creativity. How does it feel to play? What does it mean to listen? Is it even possible to put the emotions of music into words?

July 1 & 2 ~ My Name is Andrea ~ A hybrid feature documentary about controversial feminist writer and public intellectual Andrea Dworkin, who offered a revolutionary analysis of male supremacy with iconoclastic flair. Decades before #MeToo, Dworkin called out the pervasiveness of sexism and rape culture, and the ways it impacts every woman’s daily life.

July 8 & 9 ~ Apolonia, Apolonia ~ A talented Parisian painter grows up seeking her place in the art world while grappling with the agonies and joys of womanhood and relationships in a world dominated by patriarchy, capitalism, and war.

“If it is indeed Loach’s farewell, it’s one hell of a fine note to go out on.” THE OLD OAK opens Friday.

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The 28th feature directed by renowned British filmmaker Ken Loach follows a once-vibrant mining town’s response to the arrival of a group of Syrian refugees. TJ, the amiable proprietor of the titular pub – the last meeting point left in town – struggles to keep his more narrow-minded local clientele amid prejudice as he befriends these new residents, in particular a Syrian photographer, Yara. As he has over his six-decade career, Loach gives compassionate voice to the oppressed – both the Syrian migrants as well as the out-of-work locals — in this, the concluding chapter of his Northeast England trilogy (following I, Daniel Blake and Sorry We Missed You) and his self-proclaimed final film. 

Laemmle Theatres is proud to open The Old Oak this Friday, April 12 at the Royal, Town Center and Claremont and April 19 at our Glendale theater.

“It’s as engrossing, thoughtful, heartfelt, angry, hopeful, and altogether valuable as his best work. If it is indeed Loach’s farewell, it’s one hell of a fine note to go out on.” ~ Matt Zoller Seitz, RogerEbert.com

“With The Old Oak, Ken Loach goes out with one last, full-throated call for brotherhood and solidarity. It’s the most hopeful the old soldier’s been in years.” ~ Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture

“A film as fired up and human as any you’ll see this year.” – Phil de Semlyen, Time Out 

“Ken Loach’s fierce final call for compassion and solidarity… He is the fierce plain-speaker of political indignation with a style that is unironised and unadorned… It is a filmmaking language utterly without the cynical twang that is de rigueur for everyone else…I hope that this isn’t Loach’s final film, but if it is, he has concluded with a ringing statement of faith in compassion for the oppressed.” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian (UK)

“[Loach] could hardly have delivered a more resonant, timely or indeed angry swansong than this feature which takes up arms against the decay of national compassion.” – Jonathan Romney, Screen International

“What Loach adds to this scenario, as he’s done in most of his films, is a natural intimacy that goes beyond the issues to bring something human and emotional to the table… Working with screenwriter Paul Laverty, who’s been the auteur’s trusted scribe ever since Carla’s Song in 1996, Loach builds up to such emotional high points through a slow-burn narrative that sets up all the conflicts and then has them play out as naturally as possible…as if he were capturing real life as it happened, with cinematographer Robbie Ryan (American Honey) adding a dose of warmth and color to the drab town setting.” – Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter

“A poignant and moving coda to a career spent chronicling personal indignities amid broader social ills like poverty and unemployment.” ~ Jocelyn Noveck, Associated Press

“In place of magical thinking and a happy ending, “The Old Oak” serves up something harder: a meditation on hope.” ~ Alissa Wilkinson, New York Times

“The chemistry between Turner and Mari leads to a relationship rarely seen in cinema.” ~ Sophie Monks Kaufman, indieWire

“The film unfolds with a fierce crackle. And a wide lens is in play alongside the micro close-up.” ~ Danny Leigh, Financial Times

“Loach’s faith in the human capacity for empathy prevails in the end. Best of all, he brings off this optimistic flourish without the taint of sentimentality.” ~ Sandra Hall, Sydney Morning Herald