The Official Blog of Laemmle Theatres.

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The official blog of Laemmle Theatres

GROUNDSWELL RISING Q&A’s at the Music Hall

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GROUNDSWELL RISING, the new documentary from Emmy Award-winning Resolution Pictures which we open at the Music Hall on Friday, captures the passion of people engaged in a David and Goliath confrontation. They stand together, challenging a system that promotes profit over health. We meet mothers, fathers, scientists, doctors, farmers and people from all sides of the political spectrum taking a hard look at energy extraction techniques that have not been proven safe. With the oil and gas industry’s expansion of fracking seen as a moral issue, this provocative documentary tracks a people’s movement, a groundswell rising towards reason and sensitivity, to protect life, today and tomorrow.

The GROUNDSWELL RISING filmmakers will be participating in Q&A’s after the 7:40 PM screenings on Friday and Saturday, May 15 and 16, as well as Wednesday and Thursday, May 20 and 21. Special guests participating will include representatives from Food and Water Watch, the Sierra Club, Californians Against Fracking and the League of Women Voters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cpCz0QPMso

Climate Ride 2015 Is This Weekend! Support the Environment and Our Riders at the Concessions Stand!

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Greg Laemmle, Team LACBC and our contest winners embark on Climate Ride 2015 this Sunday, May 17th!

Follow Greg on Twitter (@greglaemmle) for the latest ride updates as he makes his way from California’s historic Redwood Empire near Eureka, along the scenic coast, and into the famed Russian River Valley before crossing the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco.

We’re halfway to our fundraising goal and your help could put us over the top. Just purchase one (or more) of our tasty Climate Ride Concession Specials the next time you see a movie at any of our locations.

When you purchase a –
• CLIF BAR, we give $1 to Climate Ride California
• O.N.E. Coconut Water, we give $2.
• Climate Ride Combo, we give $3.

Climate Ride California raises money for projects and organizations that work on climate change, clean energy, active transportation, sustainable infrastructure, and public health. It seeks to increase awareness and understanding of the inter-connectedness of environmental issues caused by the climate crisis among participants, donors, sponsors, and the general public. For more information, visit: http://www.climateride.org/

Anniversary Classics Goes Subtitled, Comes to the Valley: 50th Anniversary Screening of THE SHOP ON MAIN STREET June 9 at the Town Center 5

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Jozef Kroner and Ida Kaminska

We’ve been having a lot of fun hosting our Anniversary Classics screening along with Los Angeles Film Critics Association President Stephen Farber. Following EXODUS (Eva Marie Saint in person!), WHERE’S POPPA? (George Segal in person!) and LOVERS AND OTHER STRANGERS (Renee Taylor and Joseph Bologna in person and tickets still available!), our fourth screening is our first subtitled film in the series and our first in the Valley: THE SHOP ON MAIN STREET (1965) was the first film from Eastern Europe ever to win an Academy Award.  Fifty years ago this powerful Czech drama won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film. Directed by Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos, it was one of the key films in the Czech New Wave that flourished in the 1960s, before the Soviet invasion of 1968 stamped out this vital movement. Josef Kroner and Yiddish theater legend Ida Kaminska (nominated for an Oscar for her performance) star in this poignant tale of an Aryan functionary who takes over the button shop of an elderly Jewish woman in a Slovakian town in 1942. They develop a tentative friendship that is threatened when the Nazis begin rounding up all the Jews in the area.

Ida Kaminska

Esteemed critic Kenneth Tynan said this was “the most moving film about anti-Semitism ever made.”  Oscar-nominated screenwriter Eleanor Perry (David and Lisa, Diary of a Mad Housewife) reviewed the film for Life magazine and called it “a masterpiece, a flawless examination of the toll of indecision and the penalty of passive decency.”  Perry went on to write, “The film’s lasting power is that it poses a couple of additional questions to every spectator:  ‘If it had been you, what would you have done?’ If it ever is you, what will you do?'”

Joining Stephen Farber for a post-screening discussion, special guests director Ivan Passer and Michal Sedlacek, Consul General of Czech Republic in Los Angeles. Mr. Passer was one of the directors of the Czech New Wave of the 1960s. His acclaimed film, Intimate Lighting, was also made in 1965. He was the co-writer of Milos Forman’s films Loves of a Blonde and The Firemen’s Ball. Like Forman, he emigrated to America after the Russian invasion. In this country he directed such films as Born to Win with George Segal, Law and Disorder with Carroll O’Connor, Cutter’s Way with Jeff Bridges, and the Emmy-winning HBO movie, Stalin, starring Robert Duvall.

Purchase tickets here.

‘(Dis)Honesty – The Truth About Lies’ Q&A’s this Weekend with Best-Selling Author Dan Ariely

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It’s human nature to lie; we all do it. From scandalous headlines to little white lies, (Dis)Honesty – The Truth About Lies explores the complex impact dishonesty has on our lives and everyday society. Interweaving groundbreaking experiments from celebrated behavioral economist Dan Ariely with personal stories from individuals affected by the unraveling of their lies, Ariely and a team of scientists uncover our propensity to be dishonest, sometimes even unknowingly. What’s revealed is a fascinating look at the forces behind our collective behavior and the many truths behind lies.

We’ll be opening (Dis)Honesty – The Truth About Lies a week-long engagement this Friday at the Playhouse 7 and have weekend morning shows at the Claremont and Royal. Here’s the Q&A schedule:

Friday May 15, Q&A Following the 7:40pm show at the Playhouse with Director Yael Melamede and Dan Ariely;
Saturday May 16, Q&A Following the 11:00am show at the Royal with Director Yael Melamede and Dan Ariely;
Saturday May 16, Q&A Following the 7:40pm show at the Playhouse with Director Yael Melamede and Dan Ariely.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql4tRBlQIoU

 

Bollywood Blockbuster BOMBAY VELVET Music Video

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We regularly screen Bollywood movies at our Encino theater and on Friday, May 15 we’ve got a good one slated. BOMBAY VELVET is an amalgam of Cotton Club, Scarface and Good Fellas. The official synopsis by the film’s U.S. distributor reads “Set against the backdrop of Bollywood’s Golden Age, BOMBAY VELVET is a noir from acclaimed director Anurag Kashyap and stars Ranbir Kapoor (Barfi), Anushka Sharma (PK), and Karan Johar (My Name is Khan) in a story about an ordinary man who must forge his destiny in the City of Dreams.” This music video will give you a good idea of the energy, production values and tone of the movie. (Interesting to note the continual appearance of the text “SMOKING KILLS” that appears each time somebody a character in the film is depicted smoking a cigarette. This is a requirement of the Indian censors and will only appear on prints that are set to play in India.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBeBLW_vymM

DON’T THINK I’VE FORGOTTEN Filmmaker in Person at the NoHo Opening Weekend

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Through the eyes, words and songs of its popular music stars of the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s, DON’T THINK I’VE FORGOTTEN: CAMBODIA’S LOST ROCK & ROLL examines and unravels Cambodia’s tragic past. Combining interviews with surviving musicians and never-before-seen archival material and rare songs, the film tracks the winding course of Cambodian music as it morphs into a unique style of rock and roll. A vibrant musical culture that was nearly lost forever under the brutal Khmer Rouge regime is revived and celebrated.

DON’T THINK I’VE FORGOTTEN filmmaker John Pirozzi will participate in Q&A’s after the 7:10 screenings at the NoHo on Friday and Saturday, May 15 and 16.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ooaHJCMWpk

André Téchiné on the Themes that Motivated Him to Make IN THE NAME OF MY DAUGHTER: ““I love you how you must be loved, with excess, madness, ardor and despair.’”

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This month we’ll be opening the intense new French thriller IN THE NAME OF MY DAUGHTER, (originally L’homme qu’on aimait trop). Directed by master André Téchiné (My Favorite Season, Wild Reeds), Catherine Deneuve stars as a glamorous casino owner in 1970s Nice. The drama begins when her daughter (Adèle Haenel) moves back home, falls in love with her mother’s formerly trusted adviser (Guillaume Canet), commits a major betrayal and then disappears. Thirty years later, her mother is determined to see justice done. M. Téchiné sat for an interview about his latest film:

The film started out as a commission. What did they want you to do?

Originally, the idea was for me to make a loose adaptation of Renée Le Roux’s memoirs, Une femme face à la mafia (lit: A woman up against the Mafia) written by her son Jean- Charles. From the outset, I knew that I wanted Catherine Deneuve to play the part of Renée Le Roux. The book tells the story of the casino wars on the French Riviera between the 1970s–1980s, from the protagonist’s point of view. It includes the account of the take-over of Madame Le Roux’s Palais de le Mediterranée casino by Jean-Dominique Fratoni, with the support of Jacques Medecin, the then-mayor of Nice. The casinos in this story are a far cry from the casinos of today. In fact, some of the most popular ones, like the ntc33, operate solely as online casinos now. It adds to the growing list of online casino websites that players can enjoy from the comfort of their own homes. Casinos are becoming more accessible, with some allowing their users to play and deposit with phone credit and other amenities. However, this abundance of online casinos isn’t necessarily a good thing. Back in the 1970s-1980s, when the story was set, you knew how good a casino was because of its reputation. You could guarantee that lots of people would have visited them and could give an opinion on them. Today, there are so many online casinos, meaning there will be many which won’t have been played by people you know, so you won’t know how good they are. This is where sites like Casino Martini come in handy; they review online casinos like Barbados so you know which ones are best to use.

André Téchiné. Photo by Roberto Frankenberg. Courtesy of Cohen Media Group.

What interested you about this story?

I focused my attention on the relationship between Renée Le Roux, her daughter Agnès, and Maurice Agnelet: the iron-fisted mother, the rebellious daughter and Agnelet’s desire for recognition by society. It was Agnès that I was most interested in. I wanted to paint her portrait. I agreed to make the film after reading the letters that Agnès had written to Agnelet because, quite unexpectedly, I found a surprising resemblance with another female character that I had long wanted to bring to the screen, Julie de Lespinasse. There are many parallels between the passionate love letters of this woman of letters and Agnes – heir to the Palais de la Mediterranée’s – letters. For example: “I love you how you must be loved, with excess, madness, ardor and despair.”

You turned the story of the casino wars into a story of psychological confrontation that takes on a myth-like status.

This is a war film. But on a human level. I was determined not to remove the events that drive the plot. I wanted to show the process of a takeover of power, the methods used to bring down a casino, the workings of a business in this very shady environment with all the elements of cruelty and servitude. I wanted to follow through on all the events that really happened until the downfall, until defeat. This war-like aspect structures the narrative.

[Read more…]

‘CicLAvia: Pasadena’ is Sunday, May 31st! Stop by our Playhouse 7!

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Join us for a day of car-free fun at our Playhouse 7 theater during CicLAvia on Sunday, May 31st! Our green screen photo booth will transport you directly into scenes from iconic films like BREAKING AWAY, PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE, and more! You can vote for your favorite scenes here. Plus, any photos shared on Twitter and Instagram using #LaemmleVia will appear on one of our movie screens! Come inside, sit back with friends, post photos, enjoy some free popcorn, refill your water, and listen to Pasadena-related songs.

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for updates!

CicLAvia – Pasadena takes place from 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, May 31. Our Playhouse 7 theater located right on the route at 673 East Colorado Boulevard, just east of El Molino Avenue.

laemmle-ciclavia-pasadena

Since 2010, CicLAvia has challenged the concept of Southern California as a car-only region. By temporarily removing cars from streets for one day, people are encouraged to transform their relationship with their communities and with each other.

New to CicLAvia? Here are four things you need to know for May 31:

  • It’s FREE!
  • It’s not a race and you don’t need a bike to participate. You can walk or skate to your heart’s content.
  • There’s no beginning or end. You can start anywhere and go as far or as short as you want.
  • The flow of participants goes both ways, just like regular traffic.

Hope to see you there!