The Official Blog of Laemmle Theatres.

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The official blog of Laemmle Theatres

“A stunner, a heartbreaker,” AFTERSUN opens Friday.

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At a fading vacation resort, 11-year-old Sophie treasures rare time together with her loving and idealistic father, Calum. As a world of adolescence creeps into view, beyond her eye Calum struggles under the weight of life outside of fatherhood. Twenty years later, Sophie’s tender recollections of their last holiday become a powerful and heartrending portrait of their relationship, as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the man she didn’t, in Charlotte Wells’ superb and searingly emotional debut film. We open Aftersun this Friday at the Newhall, NoHo and Town Center and November 18 at the Claremont 5.

Charlotte Wells is a Scottish filmmaker based in New York. She wrote and directed three short films as a student in the MBA/MFA dual-degree program at NYU where she was supported by BAFTA New York and Los Angeles. Wells has been featured in Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 Faces of Independent Film” and was a Fellow at the 2020 Sundance Institute Screenwriters and Directors Labs. Aftersun is her first feature.

“A stunner, a heartbreaker on love, grief and the random moments in life that solidify into haunting memories.” ~ Randy Myers, San Jose Mercury News

“Aftersun stirs powerfully inarticulate emotions of what has been given and what is owed – what we had that we missed knowing we had and what we hold on to because it’s the only thing that’s left.” ~ Ty Burr, Ty Burr’s Watchlist

“A film to be experienced — just go with it — the full impact of Aftersun comes as the credits start to roll, and the processing begins.” ~ G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle

“The performances here are quiet marvels.” ~ Stephanie Zacharek, TIME Magazine\

“A work of masterful and almost unbearable melancholy.” ~ Alison Willmore, New York Magazine/Vulture

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8UohWz3Sro

“Sublime,” “meditative and deeply romantic” UTAMA opens Friday the Royal. Plus: Current & coming competitors for the Best International Film Oscar.

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Winner of the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize this year at Sundance, Utama is set in the arid Bolivian highlands and follows an elderly Quechua couple that has been living the same daily routine for years. While he takes their small herd of llamas out to graze, she keeps house and walks for miles with the other local women to fetch precious water. When an uncommonly long drought threatens everything they know, Virginio and Sisa must decide whether to stay and maintain their traditional way of life or admit defeat and move to the city with their descendants. Their dilemma is precipitated by the arrival of their grandson Clever, who comes to visit with news. The three of them must face, each in their own way, the effects of a changing environment, the importance of tradition, and the meaning of life itself. (Watch the trailer.)

This visually jaw-dropping debut feature by photographer-turned-filmmaker Alejandro Loayza Grisi is lensed by award-winning cinematographer Barbara Alvarez (Lucretia Martel’s The Headless Woman).

We open Utama Friday at the Royal. Loayza Grisi and producer Santiago Loayza Grisi will participate in Q&As after the 7:30 PM screenings on Friday and Saturday, November 11 and 12. Moderators: Friday – Carlos Aguilar (Los Angeles Times, New York Times); Saturday – Katie Walsh (Los Angeles Times, The Wrap).

“Sublime. From the breathtaking opening shot… the film looks unlike anything else.” – Variety

“Meditative and deeply romantic. Rarely has the [climate] crisis been addressed as organically—or with quite so many llamas.” – RogerEbert.com

“Visually stunning… combines magical realism with gorgeously precise cinematography. The images conjured in Utama momentarily let us into the language of the unknown, of what we can not comprehend unless we are as in tune with the land as those whose existence is so deeply tied to it.” – IndieWire

Utama is one of several Best International Oscar competitors that we’re already screening, with more to come, including:

Holy Spider (Denmark)
Decision to Leave (South Korea) This one ends Thursday, though we’ll probably bring it back if it gets an Oscar nomination.
EO (Poland)
Return to Seoul (Cambodia)
Corsage (Austria)
Alcarras (Spain)
Last Film Show (India)
Cinema Sabaya (Israel)
Saint Omer (France)
Hirokazu Koreeda’s Broker will not be Japan’s submission but we’re going to show it anyway, of course!

ONLY IN THEATERS, documentary about Laemmle Theatres, tickets on sale + Q&A schedule.

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We have launched advance ticket sales for Only in Theaters, the new documentary about our 84-year-old art house cinema chain. What’s more, Laemmle Theatres third-generation president Greg Laemmle will participate in multiple Q&As all over L.A. County:
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Friday, 11/18 @ 7:30 PM @ Royal
Saturday, 11/19 @ 1:30 PM @ Claremont, moderated by Claremont Courier Editor Mick Rhodes.
Saturday, 11/19 @ 4:30 PM @ Newhall
Saturday, 11/19 @ 7:30 PM @ Royal
Sunday, 11/20 @ 1:20 PM @ Town Center
Sunday, 11/20 @ 4:30 PM @ Royal
Sunday, 11/20 @ 7:30 PM @ NoHo
Monday, 11/21 @ 7:30 PM @ Royal
Tuesday, 11/22 @ 7:30 PM @ Glendale
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Greg’s wife Tish Laemmle will join him for the Q&As at the Royal on the 18th and 19th, and possibly more. Filmmaker Raphael Sbarge will join him for all but the November 18 screening. The film’s editor, Rick Pratt, will join for the Q&A at the Newhall on Saturday at 4:30 PM. We hope you can join them too!
Watch the trailer!

Tribute to Angela Lansbury ~ THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE 60th Anniversary Screening.

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As a tribute to the late Angela Lansbury, we present a 60th anniversary screening of the movie that she considered her greatest achievement, The Manchurian Candidate. When Lansbury joined us in person for a sold-out anniversary screening of Death on the Nile in 2018, she told the audience that The Manchurian Candidate was her favorite of all her film roles. She received her third and final Oscar nomination for her performance in this 1962 movie. The screening is Wednesday, November 16, 7 PM at the Royal Theater.

John Frankenheimer’s film was a hit in 1962 and remains one of the most highly acclaimed of all political thrillers. In 1994 it was selected for the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, an honor reserved for films of “historical, cultural, or aesthetic significance.” This story of a diabolical plot to engineer a Russian takeover of the White House was provocative in 1962 and seems frighteningly prescient today. As Frankenheimer said in remarkably prophetic comments a few years before his death, “I think our society is brainwashed by television commercials, by advertising, by politicians, by a censored press… More and more I think that our society is becoming manipulated and controlled.”

The Manchurian Candidate was adapted from Richard Condon’s novel by screenwriter George Axelrod, who also wrote such films as The Seven-Year Itch and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It tells the chilling story of a soldier in the Korean War, played by Laurence Harvey, who is captured and brainwashed by Russian and Chinese Communists into becoming an assassin in the employ of the Soviet regime. Frank Sinatra plays a fellow soldier trying to halt the assassination plot. Lansbury won awards from the Hollywood Foreign Press and the National Board of Review for her portrayal of Harvey’s manipulative mother, who plays a crucial role in the conspiracy.

In addition to its achievements as a political thriller, the film was one of the first to satirize the anti-Communist hysteria that had gripped the country and divided the Hollywood community during the 1950s. James Gregory plays Lansbury’s husband, a dimwitted U.S. Senator modeled on Joseph McCarthy. This mockery of fanatical politicians enraged right wing pundits at the time of the film’s release, but it received the best reviews of any movie released in 1962. Variety wrote, “Every once in a rare while a film comes along that works in all departments… Such is The Manchurian Candidate.”

Over the years, rave reviews continued to pour in. Roger Ebert called it “a work as alive and smart as when it was first released.” Pauline Kael said, “The picture plays some wonderful, crazy games about the Right and the Left; although it’s a thriller, it may be the most sophisticated political satire ever made in Hollywood.” Writing in Time magazine in 2007, Richard Corliss said, “Lansbury and Harvey are both sensational in a movie that remains pointed and current. It still touches you like a clammy hand in the dark.”

Lansbury’s portrayal of the malevolent Mrs. Iselin was ranked as one of the 25 greatest villains in film history by the American Film Institute. Unlike other female villains in film noir, who were motivated by sex or money, Lansbury’s character had much more grandiose ambitions; her aim was to become the most powerful person in the entire country, a concept that was way ahead of its time in 1962.

After the screening, Stephen Farber and Michael McClellan, co-authors of Cinema ’62: The Greatest Year at the Movies (which includes a lengthy section on The Manchurian Candidate) will discuss the film with the audience. Other surprise guests may join the conversation.

LOUIS ARMSTRONG’S BLACK & BLUES: Experience an unprecedented look into the life of the founding father of jazz.

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We are honored to open Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues, the new bio-doc that offers an intimate and revealing look at the world-changing genius musician. Presented through a lens of archival footage and never-before-heard home recordings and personal conversations, this definitive documentary, directed by Sacha Jenkins, honors Armstrong’s legacy as a founding father of jazz, one of the first internationally known and beloved stars, and a cultural ambassador of the United States. The film shows how Armstrong’s own life spans the shift from the Civil War to the Civil Rights movement, and how he became a lightning rod figure in that turbulent era. Screenings begin Friday, October 28 at the NoHo.
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“Sacha Jenkins is undaunted by the complexity of his subject, plunging ahead with swagger and not worrying if we have unanswered questions at the end. A delightful experience for jazz buffs and more than an eye-opener for any youngsters who barely know who Armstrong was.” ~ John DeFore, The Hollywood Reporter
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“A doc that will make you appreciate Armstrong, the man. Someone far too complex to reduce to any one thing.” ~ Christian Blauvelt, indieWire
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“Like one of Armstrong’s great solos, it feels packed with dynamics, sprinkled with astonishing high notes, and immensely pleasurable.” Leslie Felperin, The Guardian
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“The magical sounds Satchmo created gave people joy and so will this deeply affecting bio/doc.” ~ Dwight Brown, DwightBrownInk.com
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“The director’s spelunking of the film archives is amazing.” Ty Burr, Ty Burr’s Watch List

Ingmar Bergman’s PERSONA 55th Anniversary screenings December 13 at Laemmle Glendale, Newhall & Royal

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Abroad Series present the 55th anniversary of Ingmar Bergman’s Persona (1967) on December 13 at three Laemmle locations. The intense, provocative psychological drama was one of the keystone films of the late-period golden age of the art-house in the 1960s and energized the “Film Generation” that came of age in that seminal decade.

The story concerns an actress (Bergman newcomer Liv Ullmann) who stops speaking in the middle of a performance and refuses to communicate. She is placed in the care of a nurse (Bergman regular Bibi Andersson) and they retreat to the isolation of a beach house for her recovery. As their relationship progresses, it takes fascinating twists and turns. Some have compared their relationship to that of a psychiatrist and patient, with Ullmann paradoxically playing the role of the psychoanalyst whose silence prods the nurse into revealing some of her innermost secrets and deep-seated anxieties. Andersson’s confessions include one vivid memory of an uninhibited sexual encounter that critic Pauline Kael described as “one of the rare truly erotic sequences in movie history.”

Swedish auteur and all-time film titan Bergman was one of the directors at the center of the international film explosion that captivated moviegoers during that era. College students and engaged moviegoers debated long into the night, trying to decipher all the mysteries of this utterly compelling but sometimes puzzling film, not unlike the reaction to Alain Resnais’ enigmatic Last Year at Marienbad earlier in the decade. Andrew Sarris, the influential film critic of The Village Voice, noted that the film “seems to bewitch audiences even when it bewilders them.” Michael Wilmington in the Chicago Tribune cited it as “one of the screen’s supreme works and perhaps Ingmar Bergman’s finest film.” Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian called it “sensually brilliant, an endlessly questioning and mysterious disquisition on identity. Persona is a film to make you shiver with fascination, or incomprehension, or desire.”

Persona plays one night only, Tuesday, December 13 at 7:00 PM at three Laemmle locations: the Royal (West Los Angeles), Glendale, and Newhall (Santa Clarita).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wu_Jvil6ToY

“A genre work of superior, silken craftsmanship, so sinister, serpentine and sexy as to be downright swoon-worthy,” DECISION TO LEAVE opens Friday.

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What happens when an object of suspicion becomes a case of obsession? Winner of the Best Director prize earlier this year at Cannes, Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, The Handmaiden) returns with Decision to Leave, a seductive romantic thriller that takes his renowned stylistic flair to dizzying new heights. As of this writing the film’s Rotten Tomatoes’ score is 93%, with the most sophisticated critics kvelling about the film’s artistry and suggesting repeat viewings. We open the film Friday at the NoHo and Glendale with additional engagements planned in the subsequent weeks around town.

“Even the most expositional passages of this elegant, tricky murder mystery brim with quietly stunning craft.” ~ A.A. Dowd, Chron
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“The film is a box of secret compartments; just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, one more panel springs open.” ~
Stephanie Zacharek, TIME Magazine
“A genre work of superior, silken craftsmanship, so sinister, serpentine and sexy as to be downright swoon-worthy.” ~ Nick Schager, The Daily Beast
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“[Park Chan-wook’s] perspective is unmistakable in exploring the dark and twisted ways in which people relate to each other… So sumptuous, wrong, and fun.” ~ Christy Lemire, FilmWeek (KPCC – NPR Los Angeles)
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“The ambiguity of what is really going on is what makes the film so tantalizing…. Decision to Leave is a stunning achievement that ends by deliberately raising more questions than it answers.” ~ Gary M. Kramer, Salon.com
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“If the erotic thrillers of the past explored the dangers of lust, Park Chan-wook explores the risks of longing. His take on the genre isn’t just sexy; it’s playful and mordant and convoluted — and it begs to be rewatched.” ~ Shirley Li, The Atlantic

“In a world fraught with corporate values and shareholders, this was a family business that…understood the importance of planting a tree for the next generation.” Director Raphael Sbarge on his documentary ONLY IN THEATERS.

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Only in Theaters filmmaker Raphael Sbarge kindly penned a director’s statement to share with you:

“I grew up in New York City, which at the time felt like a city filled with artists and colorful, intellectual, people. My father was an artist and a filmmaker, my mother, a Broadway costume designer. When I met the Laemmle family, they felt very familiar to me—their caring for one another, their openness and curiosity, their shared passion for art, music and culture, and their recognition that those things make life richer. 

“It was always the Laemmle family that drew me to this story. 

Greg & Tish Laemmle

“Our plan was to highlight the Laemmle family’s unbelievable legacy and impact on the motion picture industry and set it against the slowly changing landscape. What we didn’t realize was the extent to which we were poised to witness history unfold. Not long after we started, we realized the story was much bigger than we had imagined. 

“We ended up following the family for over two-and-a-half years, during which the Laemmle story became a microcosm of the macrocosm. The question was, where was it all headed? 

Greg Laemmle

“Multiple generations of a family had built a business on the core principle of celebrating artists. There was something so innate, so essential about the Laemmle family mission, which was ever more remarkable in a world that often undervalues artists, even though artists help us see the world, interpret it, and give it meaning. 

“In a world fraught with corporate values and shareholders, this was a family business that wasn’t driven only by money, but by people who understood the importance of planting a tree for the next generation. 

Greg & Tish Laemmle

“We feel quite privileged to have been there, during what was the most tumultuous 24-month period in the theater’s history. We found ourselves quite suddenly in the “hot part of the flame,” witnessing the Laemmle’s’ challenges, which were echoed over and over by theaters around the country and around the world.” ~ Raphael Sbarge

Mr. Sbarge and cast member Greg Laemmle will participate in a Q&A following the 7 o’clock screening of Only in Theaters at the Monica Film Center on November 14 as part of the Reel Talk with Stephen Farber series. The regular engagements begin November 18 at the Royal and other Laemmle venues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er1BIUWv3MA