Film Reviews & Previews
BOTSO is the powerfully inspiring story of Wachtang “Botso” Korisheli, a man from the Republic of Georgia who endured both Stalin and Hitler and went on to inspire world-class musicians in a small coastal village in California.
BOTSO director Tom Walters and other members of the production team will be hosting Q&A’s after the 7:20 PM screenings at the Music Hall on Friday through Sunday, October 24-26.
In 1,000 TIMES GOOD NIGHT, Juliette Binoche plays Rebecca, one of the world’s top war photojournalists, capturing dangerous and chilling images in the most dire landscapes, all in an effort to shed light on the real cost of war. But she’s also a wife and mother, leaving behind a husband and two young daughters every time she travels to a new combat zone. After a near-death experience chronicling the ritual of a female suicide bomber, husband Marcus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) levels an ultimatum: give up the dangerous profession or lose her family.
1,000 TIMES GOOD NIGHT director of photography John Christian Rosenlund will participate in a Q&A at the Royal after the 7 PM screening on Friday, October 24. Director-co-screenwriter Erik Poppe will participate in a Q&A after the 7 PM screening on Wednesday, October 29.
In ETERNITY: THE MOVIE, Todd Lucas is a naive songwriter from the Midwest. B.J. Fairchild is a brash saxophonist from the Valley. Alone, they are pathetic losers. Together, they form the 1980s R&B duo Eternity.
Meet the cast — Donna Ruko, Tamzin Brown, Jesse Kove, Scott Seymour, Myko Olivier, Martin Kove, Liz McGeever and Jon Gries — director, Ian Thorpe, and screenwriter, Joey Abi-Loutfi, of this new musical comedy opening night at the Music Hall. They’ll be there for the 7:30 PM screening. Thorpe and Abi-Loutfi will also do a Q&A after the 10 PM show on Friday and the 7:30 show on Saturday.
Don’t forget to enter our A FULLER LIFE Sweepstakes. You can win a private tour of Samuel Fuller’s personal study where he wrote such films as WHITE DOG.
A FULLER LIFE, which we are pleased to open at the NoHo 7 this Friday, celebrates the independent spirit of a true American maverick, Sam Fuller, whose unique output broke new ground in journalism, filmmaking, storytelling and even service to his country. The story takes us through highlights of Mr. Fuller’s unconventional and adventurous life spanning a century of American history, a great man’s great yarn, a love song to democracy, and a hymn to independence, originality, and endurance.
A FULLER LIFE director Samantha Fuller will participate in Q&A’s after all screenings and will be joined by special guests after several screenings:
Joe Dante after the 7:10 screening on Friday, October 24;
Mark Hamill, Bobby Carradine, Perry Lang and Kelly Ward after the 7:10 screening on Saturday, October 25;
Bill Duke after the 5 PM screening on Sunday, October 26;
Amos Gitai after the 7:10 screening on Sunday, October 26;
Paul Fuller after the 5 and 7:10 screenings on Wednesday, October 29, joined by Illeana Douglas and Eric Sherman for the 7:10.
Bobby Carradine, Kelly Ward, Perry Land and Christa Fuller after the 7:10 show on Thursday, October 30.
AWAKE: THE LIFE OF YOGANANDA is an unconventional biography about the Hindu Swami who brought yoga and meditation to the West in the 1920s. Paramahansa Yogananda authored the spiritual classic “Autobiography of a Yogi,” which has sold millions of copies worldwide and is a go-to book for seekers, philosophers and yoga enthusiasts today. By personalizing his own quest for enlightenment and sharing his struggles along the path, Yogananda made ancient Vedic teachings accessible to a modern audience.
AWAKE: THE LIFE OF YOGANANDA co-director Lisa Leeman will be at the Royal this weekend to participate in Q&A’s after the Saturday and Sunday morning screenings. AWAKE co-director Paola di Florio and producer Peter Rader will participate in a Q&A after the 3:10 PM showing at the Playhouse 7 on Saturday, 10/18.
Please note the Monday, October 20 screening of TAMING OF THE SHREW at the Music Hall is cancelled. We will still screen at 1 PM on Tuesday, October 21. The Monday screenings at other Laemmle venues will proceed.
WATCHERS OF THE SKY producer Amelia Green-Dove will participate in Q&A’s at the Royal after the 7 PM screenings on Saturday, October 18 and Monday, October 20, and after the 1 and 4 PM screenings on Sunday, October 19. She’ll do the same after the 7 PM screening at the Town Center 5 in Encino on Tuesday, October 21.
From the San Diego Union-Tribune, October 2, by Pam Kragen:
“Boy’s triumph over autism inspires new film: Actress writes movie that draws on her onetime mentoring relationship with San Marcos college student.”
SAN MARCOS — When he was a toddler, Cal State San Marcos freshman Julian Kalb overcame an autism-related communication disorder with the help of L.A. actress Maggie Baird. Fifteen years later, he’s returning the favor as executive producer for Baird’s new film — a drama inspired by their long-ago mentoring relationship.
“Baird co-wrote and stars in “Life Inside Out,” the story of a mother who helps her socially awkward son find himself through music. Baird produced the low-budget, independent film — which opens a weeklong run Oct. 17 at the UltraStar Cinema Mission Valley — with the financial support of family and friends, including Julian, 20, of San Marcos, and his father, Ken Kalb, of Rancho Santa Fe.
“When Maggie started working with Julian, she was his helper and now, flash-forward 15 years, and he can help his teacher make her dream come true,” said Kalb, a film buff and entrepreneur who has started several software and telecommunications companies. He said he and his son cashed in some of their Apple stock to invest in Baird’s movie.
The title, “Life Inside Out,” comes from a song lyric in the film about discovering your inner self, something experienced in life by Julian and on film by the fictional teen son.
“It’s about living your life authentically and being seen for who you really are,” Baird said. “In the film, the mother is dealing with a child who has not found his thing until music clicks for him, and Julian was definitely an inspiration for that.”
The Kalbs first met Baird in the late 1990s, when they lived on the same block in the L.A. neighborhood of Los Feliz. At the time, Baird was a member of L.A.’s comedy improv group The Groundlings. Kalb asked her if she could do some improv and theater exercises with Julian to help him better express his feelings. Beginning at age 2, Julian could only speak by parroting lines from cartoons and movies and he was unable to carry on a conversation, Kalb said.
Baird said she had no training as a therapist, but she decided to improvise when she first sat down with Julian. When he started talking to her with scripted lines he’d memorized from a Charlie Brown television special, she responded to him as Charlie Brown’s arch-nemesis, Lucy.
“I saw a light go on in his eyes when he saw that I was buying into it and we had long conversations as those characters,” she said. “Gradually over time, I expanded the dialogue so he learned the natural give and take of conversation.”
Baird worked with Julian for two years until the Kalbs moved to Solana Beach. With his newfound love for theater, Julian went on to perform in more than a dozen youth-cast musicals with J*Company in La Jolla. The Torrey Pines High School graduate now lives on campus at Cal State San Marcos, where he’s majoring in visual and performing arts.
“When I get onstage, I don’t feel very nervous at all,” he said. “It’s fun creating a character. I would like to work behind the scenes in the film industry as an executive producer and maybe work as a voice artist.”
Baird stayed in touch with the Kalbs over the years, and said she’s been impressed by how Julian has blossomed.
“He’s funny and charming and is still an amazing mimic,” she said.
Baird began writing the “Life Inside Out” screenplay in 2012 with her friend and fellow singer/comedian Lori Nasso. It’s the dual story of a mother of three who rediscovers her love of music at an open-mic night, and her social outcast son Shane, who finds his own musical voice along the way. She co-stars in the movie with her real-life son, 17-year-old Finneas O’Connell, an actor and singer who fronts the L.A. band The Slightlys.
Since its release on the festival circuit earlier this year, “Life Inside Out” has won 10 awards, picked up a distributor and is opening this month in several cities around the country.
“I’ve been delighted at how well it’s been received,” Baird said. “Audiences have responded so positively. Men and women have come up to me and said over and over ‘this is my story.’ ”
Kalb said that when he and Julian agreed to invest in the movie, they did it out of gratitude and friendship, not expecting it would become a festival hit.
“It’s been a remarkable experience and such a nice surprise,” he said. “We gave Maggie the money because we love her and she’s a life force, not because we expected it to become wildly successful. We’re just happy to be a part of it.”
pam.kragen@utsandiego.com
