Good news on Ventura Boulevard: Laemmle Theatres and our landlord in Encino have agreed to a lease extension for our Town Center theater. We expect to be operating there until at least the end of January 2025 and hope to extend beyond that. Valley cinephiles: If you have been waiting to come back to the venue, now is the time to show support! We will bring the best of world cinema to your neighborhood year round. Come see one, some or all of the films we’re proud to open at the Town Center in just the next few weeks: The brilliant, chilling The Zone of Interest, Mads Mikkelsen’s The Promised Land, Ava Duvernay’s Origin, The Monk and the Gun from Bhutan, a re-release of Amelie, The Taste of Things with Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel, and so much more. Happy moviegoing!
Greg Laemmle’s Top Ten Movies of 2023.
What were your favorite films of 2023, an excellent movie year? Click here to tell us and we’ll enter you in a raffle to win Laemmle gift cards! Here’s Greg Laemmle on the year just past and his top ten films:
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While we are still in the process of getting all the numbers together, early projections are that we finally got back into the black in 2023. I know that this post isn’t supposed to be about the economic state of things, but let’s at least take a moment to express thanks that the financial picture for the exhibition business is looking better after three years of less-than-stellar ticket sales.
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Leaving aside the numbers, the following are the films that I found to be the most memorable of 2023. A few are still playing in theatres, so I encourage you to check them out while you can.
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#1 – AFIRE – This summer release from director Christian Petzold may have suffered commercially because it was so hard to define. Was it a drama? Or a comedy? And a comedy from Germany? Whoever heard of such a thing. But while it may be hard to pigeonhole this picture, it should be easy to enjoy and appreciate the complete command the filmmaker has working with a superb cast of actors.
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#2 – ANATOMY OF A FALL – This October release is still playing in theatres. And if there is any justice, it will be recognized on Tuesday with Oscar nominations for writer director Justine Triet, lead performer Sandra Huller, and that rarest of things, a nomination for a foreign language film as Best Picture.
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#3 – SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE – While I appreciated the daring animation style of the preceding film SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE, I was truly wowed by what this film delivered both in terms of further stylistic daring, and a real emotional pull in the storytelling. I believe the film is being brought back this week so if you can, go see it.
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#4 – THE TEACHERS’ LOUNGE – Another terrific film from Germany. And this one is the German entry for the Best International Feature category at the Oscars. Look for it to receive a nomination on Tuesday, and make sure to see it when it goes into wider release following the nominations.
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#5 – PAST LIVES – A word-of-mouth hit that played all summer, this wistful romance is a terrific debut for filmmaker Celine Song, and a superb showcase for actress Greta Lee.
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#6 – THE HOLDOVERS – Writer-director Alexander Payne and actor Paul Giamatti re-team nearly 20 years after their success with SIDEWAYS, and the result is a film of deep maturity and thoughtfulness. With a story and visual style (and soundtrack) that beautifully evokes some of now-classic films and filmmakers of the early ’70s, this is one to see.
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#7 – THE TASTE OF THINGS – The pacing in Tran Anh Hung’s film is deliberate. But also perfectly matched to a time period where the world was not in such a rush. So relax and enjoy the exquisite scenes of food preparation, not to mention the pleasure of seeing the luminous Juliette Binoche.
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#8 – THE ZONE OF INTEREST – A monster movie. But a monster movie where the monsters have spouses, children, pressure at work, and all the other things that we can relate to in our everyday lives. Director Jonathan Glazer takes Hannah Arendt’s idea of “the banality of evil” and it is both terrifying and serene.
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#9 – BOBI WINE: THE PEOPLE’S PRESIDENT – I didn’t see as many of this year’s documentaries as I would like. But of the one’s I did see, this is the best.
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#10 – AIR – I love it when Hollywood makes a thoughtful movie for adults. And I especially love it when it makes such a movie without overly stressing the “importance” of the movie. While the Oscar nominations may end up going to other pictures, for my money, this is the best put-together studio film of the year. Kudos to director Ben Affleck, screenwriter Alex Convery, star Matt Damon, and the always fabulous Viola Davis for their work here. Please, Hollywood, send us lots more like this one in the years to come.
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The business is still in the process of recovering from the pandemic closure. But it is recovering. So another request Please keep coming out to see stuff in theatres, and be a part of rebuilding a vibrant moviegoing scene that has something for everyone.
In-Person Wim Wenders Q&A for ANSELM 3D Saturday in Glendale; 2D runs this week at other venues; MUST END SOON!
If you haven’t yet seen Wim Wenders’ 3D documentary Anselm in Glendale, there’s still time! We’ll have this fascinating portrait of painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer in 3D for at least one more week in the Jewell City and we’ll open 2D engagements this Friday in Santa Monica, Encino, Claremont and Newhall. What’s more the director will participate in an in-person Q&A following the Saturday, January 13 1 pm screening in Glendale. Matt Carey will moderate.
“Anselm offers both a thrilling portrait of the artist at work and, with the aid of terrific archival footage, lets us see what infuses his work with such intensity.” ~ John Powers, NPR
“The director [Wim Wenders] has fashioned a mesmerizing engagement with Kiefer’s art, including just enough face time with the subject to elevate the work’s immersive, bleak majesty, rather than give it an aggrandizing spin.” ~ Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times
“This is a superbly controlled and expressed film and its high seriousness about the nature and purpose of art really is invigorating.” Peter Bradshaw, Guardian
“The meditative experience is heightened by Wenders’s innovative use of sound: indistinct whispers flutter like bats through the cavernous spaces.” ~ Wendy Ide, Guardian
More Oscar Shortlisted Documentaries this Weekend! BOBI WINE: THE PEOPLE’S PRESIDENT + 32 SOUNDS.
Good news: we’re bringing back even more feature documentaries shortlisted for the 2024 Oscars: Bobi Wine: The People’s President at the Monica Film Center and 32 Sounds in Santa Monica and Glendale.
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The riveting Bobi Wine charts the inspiring activism of the pop star-turned-politician as he seeks to end Uganda’s brutal dictatorship. Rising from the ghetto slums of Kampala to be one of the country’s most beloved superstars, Bobi begins to use his music to call out corruption, then becomes an Independent Member of Parliament to defend the rights of his people. “It’s a gripping piece of film-making: a propulsive, kinetic account of a grassroots campaign captured at what would seem to be considerable personal risk to both the subject and directors.” ~ Wendy Ide, The Guardian
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32 Sounds is immersive feature documentary and sensory film experience that explores the elemental phenomenon of sound and its power to bend time, cross borders, and profoundly shape our perception of the world around us. “The sounds are finite, yet the benefits of tuning in to the film’s wavelengths are endless. It’s the greatest documentary you’ve ever heard.” ~ David Fear, Rolling Stone
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Also, we’re continuing to screen four other fantastic documentaries from the shortlist: Saturday, Sunday and Monday you can catch Beyond Utopia, The Eternal Memory, To Kill a Tiger and A Still Small Voice in Santa Monica and Glendale. Enjoy and Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!
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Contest! Submit your Top Ten Films of 2023 for a chance to win gift cards.
Have you caught up on all the 2023 movies you wanted to see? Regardless, it’s time to submit your Top Ten lists! Tell us which films you liked best here and you’ll be entered into a raffle for one of three $25 Laemmle gift cards. If you need inspiration, here’s my highly subjective alphabetical list. (Greg Laemmle will announce his list when we announce the winners of this contest, at which point he should have caught up to May December, Anatomy of a Fall and a couple others.)
Anatomy of a Fall: Sandra Hüller, formidable in court and dominating one of the gnarliest, most riveting marital arguments in cinema history.
Asteroid City: Wes Anderson gives us another melancholy, gorgeous, sui generis movie. “The notion of a perfect movie is absurd, but some movies attain an ideal synthesis of the director’s body of work. Wes Anderson’s latest, Asteroid City, is one such film.” ~ Richard Brody, The New Yorker
Fallen Leaves: Like Asteroid City, it’s a melancholy but funny and silver-lined one-of-a-kind work from a one-of-a-kind filmmaker.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: A wise man (U.C. Berkeley English Professor Stephen Booth) told his students: never be ashamed of what you like. This movie made me laugh out loud, it was so entertaining. Pass the popcorn!
Oppenheimer: Chilling, masterfully done, and awesome, in the original sense of the word.
Past Lives: Celine Song and Greta Lee! Deeply romantic and moving.
Showing Up: Kelly Reichardt and Michelle Williams! “A serene, pulse-lowering charmer.” ~ Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
You Hurt My Feelings: Nicole Holofcener and Julia Louis-Dreyfus! “Warm-hearted and rueful and hilarious in all the best ways.” ~ Alissa Wilkinson, Vox
The Zone of Interest: The terrifying banality of evil. Sandra Hüller again, this time paired with an equally scary Christian Friedel as Rudolf Höss, as the Macbeth and Lady Macbeth of Auschwitz.
One caveat: I still haven’t seen Barbie, All of Us Strangers, Poor Things or Afire and based one what others have said about them, my list might look different had I seen them. I did see Killers of the Flower Moon with two people who adored it and maybe I caught it on a bad night because, you know what? — I kept checking my watch.
Q1 2024 Culture Vulture Films Announced!
Happy New Year! Laemmle Theatres President Greg Laemmle just finished putting the finishing touches on our Q1 films for Culture Vulture, our long-running weekly film series of fine art, theater, opera, music and more. Have a look! The screenings are every Monday evening and Tuesday matinee at the Laemmle Claremont, Glendale, Monica Film Center and, expanding the map to the San Fernando Valley, the Town Center in Encino.
01/22 – 01/23 MENUS-PLAISIRS: LES TROISGROS
01/29 – 01/30 DEAR ENGLAND
02/05 – 02/06 CALL ME DANCER
02/12 – 02/13 ROMEO & JULIET
02/26 – 02/27 THE IMMORTALS: THE WONDERS OF THE MUSEO EGIZIO
03/04 – 03/05 SKYLIGHT
03/11 – 03/12 PAINTING THE MODERN GARDEN: MONET TO MATISSE
03/18 – 03/19 VANYA
See the Academy Shortlisted Foreign Films and Feature Documentaries at Laemmle.
As a gifted filmmaker told the New Yorker last year, seeing a movie at home rather than in a movie theater is “like reading a novel where you read one word out of two.” With that in mind, check out the Academy’s just-announced list of feature documentaries and international films that they have shortlisted for nominations. We’ll be playing a number of them:
SOCIETY OF SNOW (Spain) is now playing at the NoHo for two-week run.
THE TEACHERS’ LOUNGE (Germany) opened Christmas Day at the Royal and is expanding in January.
Aki Kaurismäki’s FALLEN LEAVES (Finland) is on screen at the Monica Film Center and set to return to Glendale.
THE PROMISED LAND from Denmark (with Mads Mikkelsen!), THE MONK AND THE GUN from Bhutan and TOTEM from Mexico are all set to open on February 2. And THE TASTE OF THINGS from France (with Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel!) will be back starting February 9.
And finally, we expect to be opening Jonathan Glazer’s THE ZONE OF INTEREST (United Kingdom) and Wim Wenders’ PERFECT DAYS (Japan)!
On the Doc side, we will be playing BEYOND UTOPIA, A STILL SMALL VOICE, THE ETERNAL MEMORY and TO KILL A TIGER for weekend morning shows at Glendale and the Monica starting on January 6. And we expect to have a couple of the other shortlisted docs come back as well.
Twelve of the 15 shortlisted docs played on our screens earlier this year. Not bad!
Make plans to enjoy the cinematic feast of the holiday season well into 2024!
THE STING 50th Anniversary Screening December 27.
Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a year-end holiday treat: a 50th anniversary screening of the Oscar-winning Best Picture of 1973, ‘The Sting,’ featuring the boffo box office team of Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Our screening is presented almost 50 years to the day when it originally opened, on December 25, 1973. It captivated audiences eager for lighthearted holiday entertainment and snagged huge box office returns in addition to seven Academy Awards in the spring of 1974. We’ll screen it at the Royal next Wednesday, December 27, at 7 PM.
Newman and Redford had scored an enormous success four years earlier when they teamed with director George Roy Hill to make the western romp, ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.’ They joined Hill again when they agreed to play two grifters in the 1930s. Their characters set out to get revenge against a mob boss (played by Robert Shaw) by devising an elaborate con to bilk him of a huge fortune. The Oscar-winning script by David S. Ward (inspired in part by a nonfiction book, ‘The Big Con,’ written by David Maurer) is full of nifty twists and turns as the grifters stalk their prey. The expert supporting cast includes Charles Durning, Ray Walston, Eileen Brennan, and Harold Gould. The movie was produced by Tony Bill, Julia Phillips and Michael Phillips.
In addition to its Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay, the film was recognized for its expert art direction by Henry Bumstead and James Payne, costumes by veteran Edith Head, editing by William Reynolds, and music scoring by Marvin Hamlisch. The composer’s adaptation of ragtime hits by Scott Joplin (especially his signature tune, “The Entertainer”) helped to start a ragtime revival craze throughout the country. The award marked Hamlisch’s third Oscar that year; he also won for his Original Score and Best Song from another of the year’s hit movies, ‘The Way We Were.’
Variety raved about the movie, “George Roy Hill’s outstanding direction of David S. Ward’s finely crafted story of multiple deception and surprise ending will delight both mass and class audiences.” Roger Ebert agreed that it was “one of the most stylish movies of the year,” and the Los Angeles Times called it “an unalloyed delight.” According to New York magazine critic Judith Crist, “What glitters here is pure movie gold.” More recently, Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times called ‘The Sting‘ “one of the most enduring and exquisitely crafted blockbusters of all time.”
The movie took in over $160 million, a huge amount at the time, and it was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2005.
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