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OUR LAST TANGO opens Friday in Santa Monica and Pasadena! Enter to win the Soundtrack on CD!

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OUR LAST TANGO is a story of love between the two most famous dancers in tango’s history. And the story of their tremendous love of tango. María Nieves Rego (81) and Juan Carlos Copes (84) met when they were 14 and 17, and they danced together for nearly fifty years.

In OUR LAST TANGO Juan and María tell their story to a group of young tango dancers and choreographers from Buenos Aires, who transform the most beautiful, moving and dramatic moments of Juan and Maria’s lives into incredible tango-choreographies.

OUR LAST TANGO opens Friday, April 22nd at the Monica Film Center in Santa Monica and the Playhouse 7 in Pasadena.

Enter to Win the Soundtrack

The film’s soundtrack features original music by Luis Borda, Sexteto Mayor and Gerd Baumann. We’re giving away three soundtrack CDs! Enter to win using the form below!

OUR LAST TANGO CD Soundtrack Giveaway

Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmnY22lNr6M

AFERIM! Return Engagement at the Fine Arts Starts Friday with Special Screenings at the NoHo, Playhouse, Monica Film Center and Claremont 5 April 11-14

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Eastern Europe, 1835. Two riders cross a barren landscape in the middle of Wallachia. They are the gendarme Costandin and his son. Together they are searching for a gypsy slave who has run away from his nobleman master and is suspected of having an affair with the noble’s wife. While the unflappable Costandin comments on every situation with a cheery aphorism, his son takes a more contemplative view of the world.

Radu Jude’s brilliant third feature AFERIM! has been aptly compared to films as diverse as THE SEARCHERS, THE LAST DETAIL and PULP FICTION (the latter for its rambling, coarse and endlessly entertaining dialogue), but the film is ultimately a moving parable about late-feudal Europe developed from historical documents and songs: its power structures and hierarchies, people’s ideas of themselves and others, interaction with minorities and the resulting conflicts. A Balkan Western in black-and-white that brings the cacophony of the times strikingly to life and explores the thematic arcs that stretch into the present.

Cineuropa interviewed Mr. Jude on the occasion of his film’s inclusion at the Berlin Film Festival:

Cineuropa: These days, filmmakers prefer to shoot their films digitally; what persuaded you to return to film and black and white?


Radu Jude: DoP Marius Panduru and I decided that the film should be shot in black and white out of a wish to highlight the historical re-enactment artifice: we wanted to make the audience understand from the very beginning that what they are seeing is a subjective re-enactment, one carefully played out, but still only a re-enactment. We therefore tested different methods: a digital camera, one colour film and two types of black-and-white film. Comparing them, we concluded that the black-and-white film (namely, Kodak Double-X) was the most expressive and the one best suited for our project.

Information about Gypsy slavery was removed from the historical accounts published during the Romanian communist regime. What difficulties did you encounter in documenting the year 1835 and this particular topic?


It’s not really a subject lacking in documentation. There are several Rroma histories, studies and archives that also depict their slavery. Besides, our main historical consultant, Constanţa Vintilă-Ghiţulescu, helped us immensely by suggesting more titles of interest. I cannot say we faced major hurdles, but the past is obviously lost, and we can access only limited information. Starting from there, all one can do is try to create a sufficiently accurate image of the past.

Naturally, the biggest risk – and we have warned the audience of this risk through the way the film is made – is to forget that we are always involved in a process of interpretation. We interpret everything, starting from the reality around us that we access through our senses and brain, so of course we pass our historical reality through the same process. In this respect, I recommend the video installation created by Anca Benera and Arnold Estefan, Pacta sunt servanda (http://www.arnoldestefan.ro/art-projects/-pacta-sunt-servanda/). The installation shows how the same historical event, the Trianon peace treaty, is presented differently in history books from Hungary and Romania. This goes to show that when we speak of the past, we in fact speak of our perspective of the past. I hope this view is obvious in my film and that the vigilant cinemagoer will take note of it.

The events in the film take place 180 years ago, but many of the characters’ remarks are relevant to the present day. Is your film a satire of the present?


I truly believe what Johan Huizinga said: “We analyse every age for the sake of the promises it contains for the next age.” My film is about the relationship between the past and the present – or, even better rephrased, about the relationship of the present with the past.

The film’s conversations are peppered with sayings and aphorisms taken from the works of a number of Romanian and foreign authors from those times, whom you list in the closing credits. Why pay so much attention to the folkloric culture of the era?


I started by reading works from the 19th century in order to familiarise myself with the language and mentalities of those times (which, I think, are the true theme of the film). At one point, I found in Iordache Golescu’s works some beautiful sayings that were perfectly appropriate for one of the sequences in Aferim!. I used them in the screenplay, which I wrote together with Florin Lăzărescu, and then we found others that we used, gradually “stuffing” the story with quotes from the literature of those times. This was also a declaration of love for the Romanian language and a way to stress the “artificial construct” characteristic of the film.

https://vimeo.com/135831249

LOOK AT US NOW, MOTHER! Q&A’s with the Filmmaker in Santa Monica and Encino

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LOOK AT US NOW, MOTHER! is a humorous, moving, intimate and courageous film following the transformation of an abusive mother and tumultuous mother-daughter relationship to that of acceptance and love as we follow the personal story of the filmmaker.Most screenings will feature Q&A’s. The complete schedule:

Monica Film Center:

Friday, April 8, 7:20 pm Dr. Mark Goulston, psychiatrist and author;

Saturday, April 9, 7:20 pm: Shirley Hirschberg, social worker, Beth Chayim Chadishim;

Sunday, April 10, 7:20 pm: Gayle Kirschenbaum, director-producer-subject & Rabbi David Wolpe, spiritual leader, Sinai Temple;

Monday, April 11, 7:20 pm: Shayna Lester, marriage and family therapist;

Tuesday, April 12, 4:30 and 7:20 pm: Gayle Kirschenbaum;

Wednesday, April 13, 7:20 pm: Sylvia Thompson, president, National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI) – Westside L.A.;

Thursday, April 14, 7:20 pm: Sylvia Thompson.

Town Center 5:

Saturday, April 9, 5:00 pm: Walter Jacobson, therapist and life coach;

Sunday, April 10, 5:00 pm: Gayle Kirschenbaum & Rosalyn Kahn, author & public speaker;

Sunday, April 10, 7:30 pm: Dr. Judy Rosenberg, founder, Psychological Healing Center;

Monday, April 11, 2:40, 5 and 7:30 pm: Gayle Kirschenbaum;

Tuesday, April 12, 2:40 pm: Gayle Kirschenbaum.

Thursday, April l4, 2:40 pm: Rosalyn Kahn.

https://vimeo.com/119594942

Culture Vulture Q2 2016: Opera, Dance, Theater and More, now also in Santa Monica!

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Prepare for a wealth of high art this April, May and June because we’ll be projecting some excellent stuff on screens at our Claremont, Beverly Hills, Encino, Pasadena and now Santa Monica locations as part of our ongoing Culture Vulture series.

We begin April with a new production The Damnation of Faust, Berlioz’s légende dramatique. Director Alvis Hermanis grapples with the complexity of bringing Faust to modern audiences, asking us to identify the Faust of our times. Seeing a modern equivalent to Faust’s intellectual rigor in the fascinating mind of Stephen Hawking, Hermanis sets Berlioz’s work on the futuristic eve of mankind’s first settlement on Mars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mycqlUgxkjI

Next we’ll have the Bolshoi Ballet’s The Taming of the Shrew. Many suitors dream of marrying the lovely, docile Bianca, but her father will not let anyone marry her before her elder sister, the ill-tempered shrew Katharina, is herself married. French choreographer Jean-Christophe Maillot lands a coup with his adaptation of Shakespeare’s comedy tailored specifically to the Bolshoi dancers, and achieves a magnetic two hours of breathtaking, nonstop dance unlike any other, portraying the Bolshoi’s audacity and energy in a completely new way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJTAMhtHZC4

Subsequent to that: Oscar Wilde’s much-loved masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest is one of the most enduring plays in British theatre. Performed shortly before Wilde fell foul of society’s unbending condemnation, this farcical comedy fizzes with wit as Wilde delights in debunking social pretensions and piercing the hypocrisy and pomposity of the Victorian Era. Recorded live from the Vaudeville Theatre on 8 October 2015.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4UVgvzpUnU&app=desktop

After that we will screen Florence and the Uffizi Gallery, a multi-dimensional journey through the city that was the cradle of the Italian Renaissance. Get an exclusive tour through the most beautiful and representative works of art of the period from Michelangelo and Brunelleschi, to Leonardo and Botticelli, with a detailed central chapter dedicated to the treasure house containing their masterpieces: the Uffizi Gallery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIH9eqtzFM4

We’ll start May with Musorgsky’s Boris Godunov. Following the death of the Tsarevich Dmitry, Boris Godunov is persuaded to become Tsar of Russia. Boris, however, seems plagued by guilt. A greedy aristocrat and a restless young monk each plot to turn Boris’s fears to their advantage. Musorgsky based Boris on the play of the same name by Alexander Pushkin, published in 1831 but the censorial ban on which was only lifted in 1866. Pushkin’s play was loosely inspired by the true story of Boris Godunov, Tsar of Russia from 1598 to 1605.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQxDhVNJxJU

 

Then we are excited to host screenings of a dance/sculpture/music hybrid, Journey in Sensuality: Anna Halprin & Rodin. Auguste Rodin said, “the world will only be happy when all people have the souls of artists.” After the international success of Breath Made Visible, Journey in Sensuality brings new insight into Halprin’s influential artistic work. Auguste Rodin’s sculptures and Halprin’s creative process come together with the music of composer Fred Frith in this poetic film of dances in nature.

https://vimeo.com/104396701

Based on the calls and email we’ve been getting, our most hotly anticipated Culture Vulture screening is Les Liaison Dangereuses. Choderlos de Laclos’ 1782 novel of sex, intrigue and betrayal in pre-revolutionary France follows former lovers the Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont, who now compete in games of seduction and revenge. Merteuil incites Valmont to corrupt the innocent Cecile de Volanges before her wedding night but Valmont has targeted the peerlessly virtuous and beautiful Madame de Tourvel. While these merciless aristocrats toy with others’ hearts and reputations, their own may prove more fragile than they supposed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY7l51L1eQM

After that we’ll have Goya: Visions of Flesh and Blood. Heir to Velázquez, hero to Picasso, not only a brilliant observer of everyday life and Spain’s troubled past, Francisco Goya was a gifted portrait painter and social commentator par excellence. Discover Spain’s celebrated artist based on the National Gallery’s must-see exhibition Goya: The Portraits, originally captured as part of the acclaimed Exhibition on Screen series.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/154599374

At the end of May we’ll screen Concerto: A Beethoven Journey. Filmmaker Phil Grabsky is renowned for bringing some of the world’s most important art exhibitions to cinemas. Also famous for his In Search of… classical music documentaries, he has now returned his lens to the world of classical music with Concerto: A Beethoven Journey. Filmed over four years, Grabsky followed leading concert pianist Leif Ove Andsnes’s attempt to understand and interpret one of the greatest sets of works for piano ever written: Beethoven’s five piano concertos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=74&v=6u4hdY3ATRk

As we do at the beginning of each month, we’ll start June with an opera, in this Turandot. No man shall ever possess her – the Chinese princess Turandot sets three riddles for every man that comes to woo her. So far none have been able to solve the riddles, and have paid with their heads. Then an unknown prince achieves the impossible: he correctly answers all three questions. But Turandot is still unwilling to surrender to him. So the Prince is ready to lay down his life if she can find out his name by morning. Throughout the night, no one may sleep: everyone must try to discover his name…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m4aMgPdnO0&feature=youtu.be

We follow opera with dance: A sensational new dance event from the acclaimed choreographer Matthew Bourne and his Dance Company New Adventures, The Car Man is loosely based on Bizet’s popular opera (CARMEN) and has one of the most thrilling and instantly recognizable scores in classical music, brilliantly arranged by Terry Davies. The familiar 19th century Spanish cigarette factory becomes a greasy garage-diner in 1960’s America where the dreams and passions of a small-town are shattered by the arrival of a handsome stranger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL545D14C00BA0B1A2&v=tUSY3MtAvSM

The summer solstice finds us in London’s West End for Hangmen. In his small pub in the northern English town of Oldham, Harry (David Morrissey, The Walking Dead, State of Play) is something of a local celebrity. But what’s the second-best hangman in England to do on the day they’ve abolished hanging? Amongst the cub reporters and pub regulars dying to hear Harry’s reaction to the news, his old assistant Syd (Andy Nyman, Peaky Blinders, Death at a Funeral) and the peculiar Mooney (Johnny Flynn, Clouds of Sils Maria) lurk with very different motives for their visit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcpcMeJ-1Vc

We’ll end the first half of 2016 with one of the great masters: Leonardo Da Vinci: The Genius in Milan. Based on “Leonardo 1452- 1519,” one of the most decisive exhibitions ever to be held on Leonardo and the result of six years work by leading experts, Pietro Marani and M. Teresa Fiorio, divided into 12 sections, retracing with scientific rigor the multiple paths traveled by the mind of the genius: the foundation of drawing, the role of nature and science, comparison between the arts, reflection on the ancients, the utopian projects, anatomy and mechanics, the unity of knowledge, images of the divine, and more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2JGljDx3tY

Q&A’s with LOLO director, co-writer, and star Julie Delpy Following the 7:10PM Screenings on March 25th in Santa Monica and March 26th in Beverly Hills!

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Julie Delpy, director, star, and co-writer of LOLO, will participate in Q&A’s after the following screenings of her new film:

  • Friday, March 25th after the 7:10PM screening at the Monica Film Center in Santa Monica.
  • Saturday, March 26th after the 7:10PM screening at the Music Hall 3 in Beverly Hills.

Don’t miss this! Click here to purchase tickets.

delpy
In LOLO, Julie Delpy plays Violette, a 40-year-old workaholic with a career in the fashion industry who falls for a provincial computer geek, Jean-Rene (Dany Boon), while on a spa retreat with her best friend. But Jean-Rene faces a major challenge: he must win the trust and respect of Violette’s teenage son, Lolo (Vincent Lacoste), who is determined to wreak havoc on the couple’s fledgling relationship and remain his mother’s favorite.

LOLO opens Friday, March 25th in Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Pasadena, and North Hollywood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpQiWG5O-zw

Hungry? We’ve Got You Covered with the Food Doc CITY OF GOLD and Local Restaurant Pairings!

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city-of-goldUpdate: Q&A with Pulitzer Prize-Winning Food Critic Jonathan Gold Sunday, March 27 in Pasadena. Click here for tickets.

You’re going to be hungry after watching CITY OF GOLD, the new doc about L.A. food critic extraordinaire JONATHAN GOLD. But that’s not going to be a problem. Just hop on over to one of the restaurants listed below — all found on Gold’s list of 101 best — conveniently located near your local Laemmle theater.

Don’t forget to share your favorite spots in the comments. We’d love to highlight a few of your more budget-friendly picks!

Restaurants looking to make the leap from the mediocre to the great will find that the impact the implementation of professional restaurant supply equipment is absolutely integral to achieving this.

CITY OF GOLD opens Friday, March 18th in Pasadena and Encino, and March 25th in NoHo and Santa Monica.

Pasadena:

Bulgarini Gelato in Alta Dena was #93 on Gold’s list in 2014 but we’re including it because it’s available at our concession stand! We’ve been serving select flavors of Leo’s famous gelato for years and customers love it.

About a mile west of out theater you’ll find two spots on Gold’s latest list. Numer 101 is Union, serving minimal, California cuisine. But if Basque-style tapas is more your speed, Ración is definely worth a visit.

Union. $$$. 37 E. Union St, Pasadena. map
Ración. $$$. 119 W. Green St, Pasadena. map

Encino:

This is awkward. West Valley eateries are conspicuously absent from Gold’s list. No Valley jokes here. Instead, here are few of our favorites.

Batterfish is a small fish and chips shop where you can choose the type of fish, batter, and chips. Choose from traditional, chili, curry, lemon basil, or garlic ginger batters. I usually go with Cod, Chili batter, and traditional chips.

Sushi Yotsuya on Ventura Blvd in Tarzana serves traditional style sushi. The sign at the front says, “No! California Roll! Spicy Tuna! Trust the Chef!” Sit at the bar for an excellent omakase (chef’s choice) meal. And whatever you do, don’t stir wasabi or ginger into your soy sauce!

Vinh Loi Tofu is over in Reseda but their vegan dishes with homemade tofu are delicious and deserving of a special trip. It’s one of Greg Laemmle’s favorites!

Batterfish. $. 16200 Ventura Blvd, Encino. map
Sushi Yotsuya. $$$. 18760 Ventura Blvd, Tarzana. map
Vinh Loi Tofu. $. 18625 Sherman Way, Reseda. map

Santa Monica:

Ranking high at number five is Rustic Canyon. Gold says, “Rustic Canyon is a wonderful place… you’re going to see the produce you were browsing this morning at the Santa Monica farmers market presented in the nicest possible way: fried Weiser Family Farms peewee potatoes with chicken gravy…”

After reading Gold’s description of Cassia, number 17, it’s moving to the top of my own Must Eat List. “Plum salad with wild arugula, egg custard with uni, a mayonnaisey jellyfish salad you could imagine encountering on the Left Bank and what is undoubtedly the best Singapore-style white pepper Dungeness crab in town.”

Rustic Canyon. $$$. 1119 Wilshire Blvd, Santa Monica. map
Cassia. $$$. 1314 7th St, Santa Monica. map

North Hollywood:

Two more of Gold’s favorites are in nearby Studio City. Coincidentally, both are run by former Top Chef contestants. Chris “CJ” Jacobson operates Girasol, #53, a New American bistro with farmers market vegetables and sustainably raised meats.

Number 79 on the list is Phillip Frankland Lee’s The Gadarene Swine, a purely vegan bistro opened by a carnivorous chef.

As with Pasadena, select flavors of Bulgarini Gelato are available at the concession stand!

Girasol. $$$. 11334 Moorpark St, Studio City. map
The Gadarene Swine. $$$. 11266 Ventura Blvd, Studio City. map

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__2uT1cZWkY

Julie Delpy’s LOLO Opens March 25 at the NoHo, Playhouse, Monica Film Center and Music Hall

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In her new romantic comedy LOLO, director/co-writer Julie Delpy plays Violette, a 40-year-old workaholic with a career in the fashion industry who falls for a provincial computer geek, Jean-Rene (Dany Boon), while on a spa retreat with her best friend. But Jean-Rene faces a major challenge: he must win the trust and respect of Violette’s teenage son, Lolo (Vincent Lacoste), who is determined to wreak havoc on the couple’s fledgling relationship and remain his mother’s favorite. Writing for the Tribune News Service, Katie Walsh wrote that “Delpy brings an unflinching perspective to the realities of balancing new love and motherhood, even while playing it for laughs.” Boyd van Hoeij of the Hollywood Reporter described the film as “a high-concept comedy that’s French actress-director Julie Delpy’s most winningly mainstream concoction yet.” And Adam Morgan of the Chicago Reader called the film “an infinitely quotable riot, especially when Delpy and Viard share the screen.”

Ryan Lattanzio, film critic and staff writer at Indiewire’s Thompson on Hollywood blog, published an interview with Ms. Delpy last week, the beginning of which we excerpt here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpQiWG5O-zw

“I’m starting to look like Christopher Walken. I’ve had people say that to me. It’s a little scary,” Julie Delpy told me during our interview about her sixth feature, “Lolo,” which FilmRise opens stateside on March 11. It’s the sort of flippant non-sequitur you can expect from the French writer, director and actress whose trademark is her manic charm.

So, true to the form of her neurotic and often coordination-impaired characters, Delpy was strapped into an ankle brace for an injury that, yes, she assured, she brought with her to the festival, where her new French farce made its North American premiere.

lolo3

Delpy writes, directs and stars in “Lolo” as Violette, a forty-something single mother and fashion director living in Paris who is romantically fretting over Jean-René (Dany Boon), a less-than-hip engineer who is not in her league. Their courtship gets heated with anxiety and confusion as Violette’s tyrannical teenage son Lolo (Vincent LaCoste) attempts to manipulate and control the relationship in psychotic ways, from drugging and humiliating Jean-René (during an encounter with Karl Lagerfeld!) to sprinkling his clothes with rash-making chemicals. It gets worse, which is why Delpy sees the film more as a comedic cousin of “Carrie” and “The Bad Seed” than as a rom-com.

Though perhaps too narrowly French to click with US audiences, “Lolo,” while not quite as satisfying a meal as the “Before” trilogy or her “2 Days” films, is a sweet surprise from Delpy, a poison bonbon she injects with frank sexual dialogue that is true to how people talk. In France, anyway.

Ryan Lattanzio: Because of its sexual frankness, this movie is brash and funny in ways I wish more American films were.

Julie Delpy: Thank you. I like that. That comes up a lot, which says it’s not happening much in American film. It’s happening a little on American TV, like “Girls,” but films are still a domain where women don’t talk frankly about sex, which is weird. Of course, not all women talk about sex this way, like someone uptight in the Midwest — not that the Midwest is uptight, but you know what I mean! — or like some housewife who’s never been out of their house. But I feel like a lot of women do talk like this. It was important for me that the women talked about sexuality, made fun of it, had no hangups, and were natural about it.

It’s unusual to have your kind of female perspective. “Lolo” is politically incorrect, as were “2 Days in Paris” and “New York,” and it’s anti-puritanical. That’s why I enjoyed it. Politically correct is so boring.

lolo2

Yeah, it’s so boring to me, and it’s not even a question because I do it in every one of my films. Political correctness bores me. Especially as a woman, it’s like you can’t really be funny. It’s changing a little bit, like Sarah Silverman is very politically incorrect. Sometimes she goes overboard. She always gets in trouble, which is really fun. I love the thing about her taking a shower with her mom and the water falling off her mom’s pussy and onto the daughter.

She’s here now too for her movie, “I Smile Back,” as a drug-addicted housewife.

To get an award! [laughs] Is she paralyzed in the film? That’s the question!

Well, looking at your broken ankle right now, it seems you’re planning that for your next film.

I’m already working on it. I’m method acting right now.

In “Lolo” I also admired the “girl talk,” the way the women talk about their rolls of fat, and their sagging, well, “pussies,” as you wrote it.

Well that’s how it is. We talk about those things. I wanted to describe the kind of women that don’t censor themselves anymore. They’ve reached a level in life where they’re comfortable talking about everything. They don’t have those hangups about their looks as much. It comes so naturally for me to talk and write like this, because I talk like this!

lolo1

I’m sure everyone is asking for your assessment of the state of women directors working today, because the big question in the US is “Why so little?” Is that a question in France?

Not as much. There are many women directors, but there’s a different approach. For example, it’s very hard to be a mother and a director. As a director, you leave town a lot, for long periods of time, so it makes it very difficult to be with your kid. It’s very hard for a mother to be away from her kid. It’s hard for a father, but for a mother comes the guilt. I don’t think men have that guilt of leaving. They might miss their kid, the emotional part is there. But they don’t have the guilt of leaving. Society has put a guilt on women when you leave your child, which you can’t help. Also it’s more natural for a woman to feel guilty in general. I was talking to an actress who was talking to a woman director and she was telling me that women directors have kind of quit making features because now they’re focusing on TV in LA, to be near their kids. I’m not making a film every year, so I can handle it. “Lolo” was shot in Paris, but the next film I want to do in the US to be as close as possible to my son.

To read the complete interview, click here.

Francophiles, allez voir ces films! A plethora of new French movies coming to Laemmle Theatres in March and April

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Francophiles and French expats, in the coming weeks we will have a wealth of French movies on our screens for you. Valérie Donzelli’s Marguerite & Julien opens at the Royal on March 4 and the Playhouse and Town Center on March 11. The film is based on the true story of Julien and Marguerite de Ravalet, son and daughter of the Lord of Tourlaville, whose childhood bond veered into a voracious, scandalous passion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDlwcOgZga8

Julie Delpy stars in the comedy Lolo, which she also directed and co-wrote. She plays Violette, a 40-year-old workaholic with a career in the fashion industry who falls for a provincial computer geek, Jean-Rene (Dany Boon). But Jean-Rene faces a major challenge: he must win the trust and respect of Violette’s teenage son, Lolo (Vincent Lacoste), who is determined to wreak havoc on the couple’s fledgling relationship and remain his mother’s favorite. We open Lolo on March 25 at the NoHo, Playhouse and Monica Film Center.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpQiWG5O-zw

Another comedy is Xavier Giannoli’s Marguerite, starring the delightful Catherine Frot. Set in 1920’s Paris, Frot plays Marguerite Dumont, a wealthy music lover who loves to sing for her friends, although she’s a ghastly singer. Both her friends and husband humor her and perpetuate her fantasy that she has talent. The problem begins when she decides to perform for a real audience. We open Marguerite on March 18 at the Playhouse and Town Center and March 25 at the Fine Arts, Monica Film Center and Claremont 5.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XB3bB7ktMI

On March 25 at the Playhouse and Town Center we’ll open My Golden Days, writer/director Arnaud Desplechin’s rich and extraordinary new feature. An epic yet intimate portrait of youth in all its terrifying beauty, Mathieu Amalric reprises the role of Paul Dédalus from Desplechin’s My Sex Life…or How I Got into an Argument in My Golden Days, the character’s origin story. Paul, now an anthropologist, prepares to leave Tajikistan and reflects on his life. He has a series of flashbacks that unfold in three episodes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4D7XhKZoTg

On April 1 at the Royal we’ll open Guillaume Nicloux’s Valley of Love, a mysterious and beautiful examination of a broken family starring acclaimed actors Isabelle Huppert and Gerard Depardieu. They play thinly disguised versions of themselves as a separated couple who journey to Death Valley after receiving a mysterious letter from their dead son in the expectations that he will appear to them at a certain place and time in the desert. An official selection at the Cannes Film Festival, Valley of Love opens this year’s Rendezvous in French Cinema Film Festival.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9xHh1nCDLc

Also opening April 1 at the Royal: Emmanuelle Bercot’s Standing Tall, starring Catherine Deneuve. Abandoned by his mother (Sara Forestier) at the age of 6, Malony (Rod Paradot) is constantly in and out of juvenile court. An adoptive family grows around this young delinquent: Florence (Deneuve), a children’s magistrate nearing retirement, and Yann (Benoît Magimel), a caseworker and himself the survivor of a very difficult childhood. Together they follow the boy’s journey and try unfailingly to save him. Then Malony is sent to a stricter educational center, where he meets a young girl who gives him hope. Here’s the French (un-subtitled) trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGUN70CSpdc