The Official Blog of Laemmle Theatres.

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The official blog of Laemmle Theatres

“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.

“Like discovering a bottle of marvelous French wine,” CLASSE TOUS RISQUE opens May 3 at the Royal.

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Family man and gangster Abel Davos (Lino Ventura), holed up in Italy for over a decade, needs some startup money in order to return to France, where he’s been sentenced to death. With Milan’s Duomo looming in the background (shot on location), he and a crony execute a split-second payroll heist — in broad daylight — then begin a lightning-fast getaway via underground passages, cars, motorcycle, bus, speedboat, and ambulance. Only the beginning of the mounting mayhem.

Bridging argot-rich ’50s masterworks like Dassin’s Rififi and Becker’s Touchez Pas Au Grisbi with Melville’s pared-down thrillers of the ’60s, Classe Tous Risque (referring to a kind of insurance policy, à la Double Indemnity, but also a pun on “tourist class”) is a penetrating study of a tough guy at the end of his rope, drawn from screenwriter and ex-con José Giovanni’s first-hand knowledge of the post-war French underworld.

“Film noir is a French coinage but France’s homegrown crime movies, a staple of the 1950s and early ’60s, seldom get their due in the United States, however first-rate they might be. Case in point: Claude Sautet’s 1960 slam dunk Classe Tous Risque.” — J. Hoberman, The New York Times

“Powerful and timeless.” — John Woo

“As revolutionary as Breathless.” — Bertrand Tavernier

“Like discovering a bottle of marvelous French wine you didn’t remember you had, opening it and finding it every bit as delicious as its reputation promised. That’s how good this classic fatalistic French gangster film is.” — Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

“Never wastes a minute of your time, right up to its abrupt ending: this is condensed, intense story-telling that never once loosens its grip.” — David Gritten, Daily Telegraph

“The young Belmondo alone is worth the price of admission to Classe Tous Risque.” — Andrew Sarris, Observer

“Belmondo is the clincher: He’s got so much jaunty charisma, the screen can barely contain him.” — Jan Stewart, Newsday

Directed with an acute feeling for characterization, this was the first major feature for Sautet (Cesar and Rosalie, Les Choses de la Vie, Original title: Un Coeur en Hiver, etc.) and the first teaming of the two great French cinema icons: former wrestling champ Ventura, here making a career-decisive move into lead roles, and 26-year-old New Wave wunderkind Jean-Paul Belmondo, straight from Godard’s Breathless.

Despite a “Who’s Who” crew and cast — including composer Georges Delerue (Contempt), cinematographer Ghislain Cloquet (Au Hasard Balthazar), and co-stars Marcel Dalio (Grand Illusion, The Rules of the Game, Casablanca) and Sandra Milo (the late star of Fellini’s 8 1/2) — Classe Tous Risque got lost in the New Wave shuffle. In this country, a dubbed version called The Big Risk came and went in drive-ins and grindhouses before disappearing — until Rialto Pictures’ first U.S. release of the complete French language version in 2005.

2024 marks the centennial of director Claude Sautet.

Restored in 4K HDR Dolby Vision by TF1 Studio at Éclair Classics laboratory, from the original camera negative and the French sound negative. Funding provided by the CNC, Coin de Mire Cinéma, and OCS.

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.

UNCROPPED Q&A Saturday at the Royal with cinematographer Robert Yeoman.

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Robert Yeoman (Uncropped) and Scott Peterson (moderator) are confirmed for the 4pm Q&A on Saturday 4/27 at Laemmle Royal.

Celebrated cinematographer Robert Yeoman is known for his collaboration with director Wes Anderson, having worked on all of Anderson’s films beginning with Bottle Rocket (1996). Yeoman was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel. Other notable credits include Gus Van Sant’s Drugstore Cowboy (for which he won the Independent Spirit Award for Cinematography), Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale, and Paul Feig’s Bridesmaids and Ghostbusters. Yeoman currently teaches at USC in the School of Cinematic Arts.

Scott Peterson is a Los Angeles-based script supervisor who has worked with Scott Cooper, Tom Ford, Steven Soderbergh, Joel Coen, Martin McDonagh, Gus Van Sant, and Wes Anderson. A highlight for Scott was working with his chums James Hamilton and Bob Yeoman on The Royal Tenenbaums.

‘Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story’ Q&As at the Royal and Glendale.

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Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story LAEMMLE PANELS

ROYAL:

4/25 Thursday 7:30

Q&A with 

Jennifer Takaki / Director

George Hirose / Executive Producer 

Linda Lew Woo / Producer

Moderated by: Jeff Yang / Author and Friend of Corky Lee

GLENDALE:

4/26 Friday 4:30 

Informal Q&A with 

Jennifer Takaki / Director

George Hirose / Executive Producer 

Linda Lew Woo / Producer

4/27 Saturday 4:30

Q&A with 

Jennifer Takaki / Director

George Hirose / Executive Producer 

Linda Lew Woo / Producer

Moderated by: Chris M. Kwok / Community Organizer

4/28 Sunday 4:30

Informal Q&A with 

Jennifer Takaki / Director

George Hirose / Executive Producer 

Linda Lew Woo / Producer

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.