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You are here: Home / Theater Buzz / Santa Monica

I AM MICHAEL Filmmaker in Person Opening Night at the Monica Film Center.

January 26, 2017 by Lamb Laemmle Leave a Comment

I AM MICHAEL writer-director Justin Kelly will participate in Q&A’s after the 7:10 PM screening at the Monica Film Center on Friday, January 27. Benoit Denizet Lewis, the author of the story upon which the film is based, will interview him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UI19hoTNaC4

Leave a Comment Filed Under: Filmmaker in Person, Q&A's, Santa Monica

Laemmle’s Umpteenth Annual Oscar Contest, 2017 Edition!

January 26, 2017 by Lamb Laemmle 2 Comments

oscars-bgIt’s time for our annual Predict the Oscars Contest! The person who most accurately predicts the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science’s choices in all 24 categories, from the shorts to Best Motion Picture, will win fabulous prizes (free movies and concessions at Laemmle)!

First place wins a Laemmle Premiere Card worth $150. Second place wins a Laemmle Premiere Card worth $100. Third place wins a Laemmle Premiere Card worth $50. Entries are due by 10AM the morning of the awards ceremony on February 26th.

prem-blogNot sure what a Laemmle Premiere Card is? Think of it like a prepaid gift card for yourself! Use it to pay for movie tickets and concessions. Plus, Premiere Card holders receive $2 off movie tickets and 20% off concessions. To find out more, visit www.laemmle.com/premiere-cards.

We’ve got some smart cookies for customers so we have a tie-breaker question: you also have to guess the show’s running time. Take the tie-breaker seriously! Last year, the running time question broke a tie between five entrants who correctly predicted 19 out of 24 categories!

We’ll announce the winners right here on our blog by March 1st. Good luck!

Enter Here

2 Comments Filed Under: Contests, Ahrya Fine Arts, Claremont 5, Featured Post, Films, Music Hall 3, News, NoHo 7, Playhouse 7, Premiere Cards, Royal, Santa Monica, Town Center 5

Adventurous Artist Documentary CARVALHO’S JOURNEY Screenings and Q&A’s Next Week.

January 25, 2017 by Lamb Laemmle Leave a Comment

A real life 19th century American western adventure story, CARVALHO’S JOURNEY tells the extraordinary story of Solomon Nunes Carvalho (1815-1897), an observant Sephardic Jew born in Charleston, South Carolina, and his life as a groundbreaking photographer, artist and pioneer in American history. We’re screening it this Monday, January 30 at 7:30 PM and Tuesday, January 31 at 1 PM at the Claremont 5, Playhouse 7, Fine Arts, Town Center 5 and Monica Film Center as part of our ongoing Culture Vulture series.

Daguerreotypist Robert Shlaer is featured in CARVALHO’S JOURNEY as an interviewee and also on location, re-creating daguerreotypes along the route Carvalho traveled in 1853. He will participate in Q&A’s after the Pasadena screening on Monday night and the Beverly Hills screening on Tuesday afternoon. Filmmaker Steve Rivo will participate in Q&A’s after the Beverly Hills screening on Monday night and after the Encino screening on Tuesday afternoon.

Robert Shlaer, photo by M. Susan Barger.
Robert Shlaer, photo by M. Susan Barger.
Peter Keough of the Boston Globe profiled and interviewed the filmmaker last year:
“Born in Boston, an alumnus of Brookline High, Steve Rivo grew up in a film-loving family. He was exposed at an early age to many of the great films, but he always had a warm spot for Robert Aldrich’s “The Frisco Kid” (1979), in which Gene Wilder plays a rabbi assigned to a synagogue in San Francisco in 1850. To get there, the rabbi must cross the Rockies on horseback with a varmint played by Harrison Ford.

“Today, Rivo makes his own movies. He’s founder and owner of Down Low Pictures, an independent documentary production company based in Brooklyn. When he was offered a project about the painter and daguerreotypist Solomon Carvalho, a Sephardic Jew from Charleston, South Carolina, who accompanied legendary explorer John Fremont on his 1853 Fifth Western Expedition, the story’s resemblance to “The Frisco Kid” helped win him over.

“He talked about the resulting documentary, CARVALHO’S JOURNEY, on the phone from his studio in New York.”

Q. Did repeated viewings of “The Frisco Kid” give you an insight into Carvalho’s story?

A. That was kind of my only frame of reference. The comedic situations involved in having a rube on the trail, and not just any rube, but a classically Jewish character who has Jewish anxieties. Those elements of the Carvalho story were fun to play with. He was an observant Jew, so he couldn’t eat certain foods even when they were starving. And he wasn’t good at a lot of outdoorsy stuff like the rest of the party. He was a 38-year-old city slicker artistic type.

Q. The hardships of his trip were not so funny, though. More like “The Revenant.”

A. It is always surprising how physically difficult, challenging, and a little bit crazy it would be to get in a wagon and try to cross the country in the middle of winter. It’s inconceivable to us today. We get on an airplane and complain.

Q. What do you think viewers will take away from this film other than a new appreciation for air travel?

Solomon Nunes Carvalho. Dageerreotype courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Solomon Nunes Carvalho. Dageurreotype courtesy of the Library of Congress.

A. There are a lot of different things people have responded to — American Jewish history, Western expansion, the birth of photography, and a personal story of an artist. What attracted me was that it was a little bit of biography, but it was also kind of a travel story, and an adventure story through which you could talk about other things, the experience of outsiders in American culture. It’s a film about someone we didn’t know anything about.

Q. I understand you just finished a 10-part series for the True TV network on Hollywood comedies. Did you get to include “The Frisco Kid?”

A. I jokingly raised the possibility, but so few people have seen that movie. It’s the Solomon Carvalho of Jewish Western comedies.

Steve Rivo
Steve Rivo
Finally, here’s an excellent just-published essay about Carvalho that Rivo wrote in Zocalo Public Square.

Leave a Comment Filed Under: Culture Vulture, Ahrya Fine Arts, Claremont 5, Filmmaker in Person, Playhouse 7, Q&A's, Santa Monica, Town Center 5

LAEMMLE LIVE: Presents Sol-La Music Academy – Sunday February 5, 2017

January 24, 2017 by Lamb Laemmle Leave a Comment

SOL-LA 4-tet FBJoin us at the Monica Film Center on Sunday, February 5, 2017 for Sol-LA Variations, LAEMMLE LIVE’s second concert featuring the scholarship winning George Magub String Quartet from Santa Monica-based Sol-La Music Academy, Margaret Lysy, Director. The program will include Debussy and improv with guest violinist Connor Vance from acclaimed roots band, Dustbowl Revival. Also included will be a special performance by Sol-La student, Isolde Fair, who has gained national attention for  All the Little Girls, an original song she wrote using words from Hillary Clinton’s concession speech.  Join us for our unique interactive musical adventure.

Sol-La Music Academy is a non-profit music school in Santa Monica, providing high quality performing arts education to students from all backgrounds and economic circumstances. Their program reflects the belief that vibrant cultural education nurtures all areas of learning, connects diverse societies and enhances enjoyment of life.

RSVP using Eventbrite
This is a Free Event!

EVENT DETAILS
Sunday, February 5, 2017
11:00 AM
Monica Film Center

Leave a Comment Filed Under: Laemmle Live, News, Santa Monica, Special Events

MR. GAGA Filmmaker in Person Opening Weekend.

January 20, 2017 by Lamb Laemmle Leave a Comment

MR. GAGA director Tomer Heymann will participate in Q&A’s after the 7:20pm screenings at the Monica Film Center Friday, Feb 10 and Saturday, Feb 11; and after the 1:10pm screening on Saturday, Feb 11 at the Playhouse.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/196324325

Leave a Comment Filed Under: Featured Films, Filmmaker in Person, Films, Playhouse 7, Q&A's, Santa Monica

SEA OF HOPE Q&A Opening Night at the Monica Film Center.

January 11, 2017 by Lamb Laemmle Leave a Comment

sohSEA OF HOPE explorer and narrator Max Kennedy will participate in a Q&A following the Friday, January 13 7:50 PM showing at the Monica Film Center.

Leave a Comment Filed Under: Q&A's, Santa Monica

LAEMMLE LIVE: New Series Launch with Samohi Chamber Orchestra – Sunday January 22, 2017

January 6, 2017 by Lamb Laemmle Leave a Comment

Don’t miss the debut of LAEMMLE LIVE!  Our new live performance series at the Monica Film Center kicks off Sunday, Jan. 22 with SAMOHI CHAMBER ORCHESTRA and special guest host RICH CAPPERELA of KUSC. 

Santa Monica High School’s 18-piece string orchestra will perform pieces by luminaries such as Villa-Lobos, Beethoven and Elgar. The orchestra is directed by Joni Swenson and Jason Aiello.

ll-samohi-chamber-orchestra-photo

We are delighted to be launching Laemmle Live with these talented youngsters from just up the street.  Please help us welcome them as we celebrate the launch of this new program.  

RSVP using Eventbrite or Facebook.
This is a free event!

EVENT DETAILS
Sunday, Jan. 22, 2017
11:00 AM
Monica Film Center

Leave a Comment Filed Under: Laemmle Live, Music Hall 3, News, Royal, Santa Monica

Our January-March Culture Vulture Schedule is Set!

December 16, 2016 by Lamb Laemmle 1 Comment

Dear opera, ballet, fine art and live theater buffs, we have completed the schedule for our weekly Culture Vulture series, January, February and March 2017 and we have got some wonderful things to show you. As you may or may not know, we screen these every Monday night at 7:30 and Tuesday afternoon at 1 at the Playhouse 7 in Pasadena, the Town Center 5 in Encino, the Claremont 5 in Claremont, the Ahyra Fine Arts and the Monica Film Center in Santa Monica. The full schedule is below and at https://www.laemmle.com/culturevulture.

January 9 & 10: THE GOLDEN AGE from the Bolshoi Ballet

A satire of Europe during the Roaring 20s, THE GOLDEN AGE makes for an original, colorful, and dazzling show with its jazzy score and music-hall atmosphere. This ballet that can only be seen at the Bolshoi has everything to it: mad rhythms, vigorous chase scenes, and decadent cabaret numbers. With its passionate love story featuring beautiful duets between Boris and Rita, the Bolshoi dancers plunge into every stylized step and gesture magnificently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzaCJ2Ps0B4

January 16 & 17: NO MAN’S LAND from the National Theatre

Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart star Sean Mathias’ acclaimed production of NO MAN’S LAND, one of the most brilliantly entertaining plays by Harold Pinter. One evening, two aging writers, Hirst and Spooner, meet in a pub and continue their drinking into the night at Hirst’s stately house nearby. As the pair become increasingly inebriated, and their stories more unbelievable, the conversation soon turns into a revealing power game, further complicated by the intrusion of two sinister younger men.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9RA6B9FOKM

January 23 & 24: THE CURIOUS WORLD OF HIERONYMOUS BOSCH from the Noordbrabants Museum

Who was Hieronymus Bosch? Why do his strange and fantastical paintings resonate with art lovers now more than ever? THE CURIOUS WORLD OF HIERONYMOUS BOSCH features the critically acclaimed exhibition ‘Visions of a Genius’ at the Noordbrabants Museum in the southern Netherlands, which brought the majority of Bosch’s paintings and drawings together for the first time to his home town of ‘s-Hertogenbosch and attracted almost half a million art lovers from all over the world.

January 30 & 31: CARVALHO’S JOURNEY

A real life 19th century American western adventure story, CARVALHO’S JOURNEY tells the extraordinary story of Solomon Nunes Carvalho (1815-1897), an observant Sephardic Jew born in Charleston, South Carolina, and his life as a groundbreaking photographer, artist and pioneer in American history.

February 6 & 7: SAMSON ET DALILA from l’Opéra de Paris.

Based on the biblical story, Saint-Saëns’s 1877 opera would not be performed at the Palais Garnier until fifteen years later. This first Parisian performance in 1892 included the hitherto unperformed “Dance Of The Priestesses.” Nevertheless, it became one of the most performed French operas in the world, together with Faust and Carmen. Conducted by Philippe Jordan, this new production brings back a repertoire masterpiece that has not been performed at the Paris Opera for twenty-five years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbKCdblq9YI&feature=youtu.be

February 13 & 14: FEELINGS ARE FACTS: THE LIFE OF YVONNE RAINER

Feelings Are Facts: The Life of Yvonne Rainer chronicles the defiant, uncompromising, and highly influential ideas of postmodern choreographer and filmmaker Yvonne Rainer. Over the course of her career, she revolutionized modern dance, generated what later became known as performance art, and changed the basic tenets of experimental filmmaking – all during a time when women were largely ignored in the art world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMcoLKQpDF4

February 20 & 21: AMADEUS from the National Theatre

Lucian Msamati (Luther, Game of Thrones, NT Live: The Comedy of Errors) plays Salieri in Peter Shaffer’s iconic play, captured live at the National Theatre, and with live orchestral accompaniment by Southbank Sinfonia. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a rowdy young prodigy, arrives in Vienna, the music capital of the world – and he’s determined to make a splash. Awestruck by his genius, court composer Antonio Salieri has the power to promote his talent or destroy his name. Seized by obsessive jealousy he begins a war with Mozart, with music, and ultimately, with God.

February 27 & 28: I, CLAUDE MONET

From award-winning director Phil Grabsky comes this fresh new look at arguably the world’s favorite artist – through his own words. Using letters and other private writings I, CLAUDE MONET reveals new insight into the man who not only painted the picture that gave birth to impressionism but who was perhaps the most influential and successful painter of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

March 6 & 7: UN BALLO IN MASCHERA from the Bayerische Staatsoper

The Bavarian State Opera’s former music director Zubin Mehta returned to the fabled house, where his image in bronze adorns one of the foyers, to celebrate his 80th birthday by conducting Verdi’s middle-period masterpiece for the first time in a staged production. His remarkable cast includes soprano Anja Harteros singing Amelia for the first time and “filling every note with Verdian intensity;” tenor Piotr Beczala as a “visually and vocally dashing Riccardo;” and George Petean as an “exemplary” Renato (Neue Musikzeitung).

March 13 & 14: WOOLF WORKS from the Royal Opera House Ballet

The first revival of Wayne McGregor’s critically acclaimed ballet triptych to music by Max Richter, inspired by the works of Virginia Woolf and starring Alessandra Ferri and Mara Galeazzi.

March 20 & 21: SAINT JOAN from the National Theatre

Joan: daughter, farm girl, visionary, patriot, king-whisperer, soldier, leader, victor, icon, radical, witch, heretic, saint, martyr, woman. From the torment of the Hundred Years’ War, the charismatic Joan of Arc carved a victory that defined France. Bernard Shaw’s classic play depicts a woman with all the instinct, zeal and transforming power of a revolutionary. Josie Rourke (Coriolanus, Les Liaisons Dangereuses) directs Gemma Arterton (Gemma Bovery, Nell Gwynn, Made in Dagenham) as Joan of Arc in this electrifying masterpiece.

March 27 & 28: THE ARTIST’S GARDEN: AMERICAN IMPRESSIONISM from the Florence Griswold Museum

American impressionism took its lead from French artists like Renoir and Monet but followed its own path that over a thirty-year period reveals as much about America as a nation as it does about a much-loved artistic movement. The story of American impressionism is closely tied to a love of gardens and a desire to preserve nature in a rapidly urbanizing nation. Traveling to studios, gardens and treasured locations throughout the Eastern United States, UK and France, this mesmerizing film is a feast for the eyes.

1 Comment Filed Under: Culture Vulture, Ahrya Fine Arts, Claremont 5, Featured Post, Opera, Playhouse 7, Santa Monica, Town Center 5

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Tickets: http://laemmle.com/film/artfully-united | Subscribe: http://bit.ly/3b8JTym | ARTFULLY UNITED is a celebration of the power of positivity and a reminder that hope can sometimes grow in the most unlikely of places. As artist Mike Norice creates a series of inspirational murals in under-served neighborhoods in and around Los Angeles, the Artfully United Tour transforms from a simple idea on a wall to a community of artists and activists coming together to heal and uplift a city.

Tickets: http://laemmle.com/film/artfully-united

RELEASE DATE: 10/17/2025
Director: Dave Benner
Cast: Mike Norice

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ABOUT LAEMMLE: Since 1938, Laemmle [Theatres] has been showing the finest independent, arthouse, and international films.

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Tickets: http://laemmle.com/film/brides | Subscribe: http://bit.ly/3b8JTym | Nadia Fall's compelling debut feature offers a powerful and empathetic look into the lives of two alienated teenage girls, Doe and Muna, who leave the U.K. for Syria in search of purpose and belonging. By humanizing its protagonists and exploring the complex interplay of vulnerability, societal pressures, and digital manipulation, BRIDES challenges simplistic explanations of radicalization.

Tickets: http://laemmle.com/film/brides

RELEASE DATE: 9/24/2025
Director: Nadia Fall

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ABOUT LAEMMLE: Since 1938, Laemmle [Theatres] has been showing the finest independent, arthouse, and international films.

Subscribe to Laemmle's E-NEWSLETTER: http://bit.ly/3y1YSTM
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Tickets: http://laemmle.com/film/writing-hawa | Subscribe: http://bit.ly/3b8JTym | Afghan documentary maker Najiba Noori offers not only a loving and intimate portrait of her mother Hawa, but also shows in detail how the arduous improvement of the position of women is undone by geopolitical violence. The film follows the fortunes of Noori’s family, who belong to the Hazaras, an ethnic group that has suffered greatly from discrimination and persecution.

Tickets: http://laemmle.com/film/writing-hawa

RELEASE DATE: 10/8/2025

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ABOUT LAEMMLE: Since 1938, Laemmle [Theatres] has been showing the finest independent, arthouse, and international films.

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An “embrace of what makes us unknowable yet worthy of forgiveness,” A LITTLE PRAYER opens Friday at the Claremont, Newhall, Royal and Town Center.

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