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The official blog of Laemmle Theatres

SIDEWAYS 20th Anniversary Screening, Discussion and Book-Signing March 20, 2025 Laemmle Monica Film Center

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 20th anniversary screening of one of the most acclaimed movies of the 21st century: Alexander Payne’s Oscar-winning ‘Sideways.’ The March 20 screening at the Monica Film Center is held in conjunction with the publication of the new book, ‘Sideways Uncorked: The Perfect Pairing of Film and Wine,’ written by critic and journalist Kirk Honeycutt and his wife, Mira Advani Honeycutt. Mira comes to the project with 25 years of experience as a wine journalist. They will be joined by the Oscar-nominated producer of ‘Sideways,’ Michael London.

‘Sideways,’ based on a novel by Rex Pickett, was adapted for the screen by Payne and his frequent collaborator, Jim Taylor. It follows a weeklong journey through Santa Barbara wine country by two mismatched pals, a teacher and unsuccessful writer, played by Paul Giamatti, and a part-time actor played by Thomas Haden Church. Along the way they have encounters with two tantalizing women (Sandra Oh and Virginia Madsen). The sharp, often hilarious insights into character energize the film.

When the film opened in the fall of 2004, it earned universally rave reviews. Kirk Honeycutt wrote the very first review out of the Toronto Film Festival. He declared, “The slapstick is perfectly timed and executed. As with the best comedies of Billy Wilder and Blake Edwards, laughs derive from excruciating pain, both emotional and physical.” Roger Ebert praised the film as “the best human comedy of the year—comedy because it is funny, and human, because it is surprisingly moving.” Newsweek’s David Ansen wrote, “Payne has created four of the most lived-in, indelible characters in recent American movies.”

Both the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association named ‘Sideways‘ as the best film of 2004. The screenplay was named the year’s best by those two groups, along with the National Board of Review, the National Society of Film Critics, and the Writers Guild of America. Payne and Taylor also won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, and the film earned Academy nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Acting nods for Church and Madsen.

The film had an influence beyond the world of cinema. In one key scene in the film, Giamatti declaims against merlot and declares pinot noir to be the far superior wine. Sales of pinot noir soared all over the country after the film’s release.

‘Sideways‘ ended up grossing more than $100 million, a huge score for a film that started its life as a small arthouse release.

Kirk and Mira Honeycutt will be selling and signing copies of their book before and after the screening on March 20. Alexander Payne had high praise for it: “The Honeycutts’ account of ‘Sideways‘ and its reverberations is so thorough that even I learned things I hadn’t known. A delightful, accurate chronicle with great wine tips.” Leonard Maltin called ‘Sideways Uncorked’ “an astute and entertaining book about the making of a great American film and its aftermath in the world of wine.”

Producer Michael London has many other distinguished credits, including ‘House of Sand and Fog,’ ‘The Family Stone,’ ‘The Visitor,’ ‘Milk,’ and ‘Trumbo.’

“With a small crew, we were able to work within the ebb and flow of the Camino. We became invisible and nimble, and that allowed us to film the real Camino.” THE WAY, MY WAY opens March 7.

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The Way, My Way, which we open March 7 at our Claremont, Santa Monica, and Encino theaters, is the charming and captivating true story of a stubborn, self-centered Australian man who decides to walk the 800 kilometer-long Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route through Spain. He doesn’t know why he’s doing it… but one step at a time, it will change him and his outlook on life forever. Based on Bill Bennett’s best-selling memoir of the same name.

Bennett penned the following about The Way, My Way:

“I really didn’t want to make this film. I didn’t want to make a film about myself; about my failings and vulnerabilities, and hardships which took me right to the brink. Finally I decided to give it a shot – but then I was faced with the question: how do I make a film on the Camino and make it real?

“I decided the only way to tell my story truthfully was to shoot with a very small crew and use the actual pilgrims I’d walked with ten years earlier. Of the twenty speaking parts in the film, only four are professional actors. The rest are pilgrims.

“They proved to be stellar. They set the standard. They held the truth, the authenticity. The professional actors had to step up to the pilgrims’ benchmark. In fact, we all had to, even those of us behind the cameras.

“And with a small crew, we were able to work within the ebb and flow of the Camino. We became invisible and nimble, and that allowed us to film the real Camino.

“The decision to cast the real pilgrims dictated so many other major creative decisions for me as a director. The shooting style, the editing style, the tone of the movie, the staging and blocking of scenes – even what film gear we should use.

“It all had to point towards the authenticity of the Camino experience.

“Now having almost completed post-production, I feel I’ve achieved what I set out to do – to make a truthful film about a man who ultimately undergoes a fundamental shift in character and outlook, through walking the Camino.”

PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK ~ 50th anniversary screenings of one of Australia’s premiere films.

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Before The Year of Living Dangerously, Witness, The Mosquito Coast, Dead Poets Society, The Truman Show, and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Peter Weir’s estimable career took off with his eerie, languorous 1975 drama Picnic at Hanging Rock. A milestone for the Australian film industry, it has stood the test of time, and we are thrilled to open a week of screenings this Friday at the Royal. The keepers of world cinema at Janus Films have released a new 4K restoration of Weir’s 1998 director’s cut. Here’s film critic J. Hoberman in the New York Times:

“Once upon a time in Australia: Three schoolgirls and their teacher vanish in broad daylight while touring a prehistoric landscape. Peter Weir’s 1975 film Picnic at Hanging Rock epitomizes the idea of the quasi-supernatural ‘outback uncanny’ — the incongruity of a decorous settler civilization on what appears to be an alien planet.

“Based on the 1967 novel by Joan Lindsay that was inspired by a dream, Picnic at Hanging Rock is something of a national treasure, anointed the country’s greatest movie by the Australian Film Institute…On Valentine’s Day, 1900, the young ladies of Appleyard College, an exclusive finishing school well-stocked with Victorian knickknacks, flutter with anticipation at the prospect of a daylong excursion to Hanging Rock, a craggy volcanic formation in central Victoria dating to the Miocene epoch. Swans grace the pond, billets-doux circulate, the Romanian folk musician Gheorghe Zamfir’s pan flute fills the air.

“’What we see and what we seem are but a dream — a dream within a dream,’ the beautiful and beloved Miranda (Anne-Louise Lambert), muses, loosely citing a poem by Edgar Allan Poe. Once the party reaches the Rock, time stands still … literally. Disregarding the orders of the school’s dragon-like headmistress (Rachel Roberts), the young French teacher, Mademoiselle Dianne de Poitiers (Helen Morse), allows several of the girls to explore the forbidden geological formation, led by Miranda, whom Mademoiselle compares to a Botticelli angel. The afternoon passes, the girls do not return, even as the remaining classmates fall into a languorous erotic trance. The ensuing procedural scarcely demystifies the absence.

“Hanging Rock has echoes of L’Avventura and Psycho, two movies that create an existential void when a main character vanishes less than midway through. It is more genteel yet more erotically charged than either — ‘both spooky and sexy,’ Vincent Canby wrote in his 1979 New York Times review — and, like the Rock itself, has cast a resilient spell. The actress Chloë Sevigny has namechecked Hanging Rock as a favorite film. Sofia Coppola, whose movies are often set in hermetic worlds populated by privileged young women, seems to have been especially impressed.” (Click here to read the rest of Mr. Hoberman’s piece.)

Top Ten contest results!

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Our movie-loving customers have votes for their favorite films of 2024! The top ten customer-chosen films are, in order from 1 to 10:
  1. Anora
  2. Conclave
  3. The Brutalist
  4. Dune: Part Two
  5. A Complete Unknown
  6. Emilia Pérez
  7. Wicked
  8. A Real Pain
  9. Challengers
  10. The Substance
The lucky randomly chosen winners for free passes (soon to be mailed) are:
1) Jeff W.
2) Mia S.
3) Riley K.
Congratulations to our winners and thanks to everyone for playing!

“A visually arresting exploration of resistance,” the acclaimed WWII drama THE FISHING PLACE opens March 7 at the Monica Film Center.

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Laemmle Theatres and Cinema Parallel are proud to present the U.S. theatrical release of Rob Tregenza’s latest feature film, The Fishing Place. The film had its North American theatrical premiere at MoMA in New York City on February 6 and will open at the Monica Film Center on March 7.
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In this formally inventive historical drama, acclaimed American filmmaker Rob Tregenza explores the moral complexities of World War II and the permutations of history and its representation. Set in occupied Norway, the drama follows Anna (Ellen Dorrit Petersen), a housekeeper who arrives to work for a German priest in rural Telemark. As the priest grapples with his faith amid the corruption of power, Anna navigates her own secrets through clandestine meetings with a local SS officer.
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Known for his masterful debut Talking to Strangers (1988)—which caught Jean-Luc Godard’s attention and led to their collaboration on Inside/Out (1997)—Tregenza brings his distinctive visual style to this nuanced exploration of war’s impact. The director, who also served as cinematographer for Béla Tarr’s Werckmeister Harmonies (2000), employs his characteristic philosophical depth to challenge conventional war narratives, crafting both a powerful meditation on human nature and a meta-commentary on cinema itself. Rob Tregenza’s Gavagai had its U.S. theatrical release in 2018.
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“[Rob] Tregenza displays a virtuosity that is fully integrated into his comprehensive cinematic vision, his finely imagined re-creation of history, and his long-gestating complex of ideas. Not only is he an artist; he’s an artisan of the highest order, whose sense of craft and skill are finer, deeper, and more adventurous than most of the competition in Hollywood—or, for that matter, anywhere. Very few of the year’s officially acclaimed and critically lauded cinematographers can match him in audacity and in achievement; none of the five Oscar-nominated directors unites a world view and an aesthetic as staunchly or deeply.” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker

“A visually arresting exploration of resistance… beautifully shot.” – Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

Watch the trailer.

Moviegoers, start your guesses! The Umpteenth Annual Laemmle Oscar Contest has begun.

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The Oscar nominations are out and it was another excellent cinematic year. As always, some categories will be more unpredictable than others. Last year, most contestants 59.5% thought Lily Gladstone would win Best Actress for Killers of the Flower Moon, while only 29.7% correctly divined that Emma Stone would win for Poor Things. This year, Best Picture may be the most challenging category; there are at least six real possibilities. That’s where you come in because it’s time for our Umpteenth Annual Laemmle Oscar Contest! If you, dear cinephile, can accurately predict how the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences will vote in all 23 categories, (or close to it), all while coping with the fact that Marianne Jean-Baptiste was snubbed for her stupendous turn in Hard Truths, you will win movie passes good at all Laemmle venues! These contests are always close so we have a tie-breaker question: try to guess the running time! The 97th Academy Awards ceremony takes place on Sunday, March 2 and we’ll announce the winners (with snazzy charts) soon afterwards.

A very entertaining way to improve your odds is to watch the Oscar-nominated shorts. We’ll start screening all of them — the animated, live action, and documentary — beginning February 14.

Good luck!

SWEPT AWAY 50th anniversary screening February 13 at the Royal. Regular engagement starts February 21 in Glendale.

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For those who don’t like Valentine’s Day, join us for an “anti-romantic” evening with Lina Wertmuller’s Swept Away. Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 50th anniversary screening of the odd-couple arthouse sensation Swept Away. Lina Wertmüller’s provocative, fable-like two-hander brings together Mariangela Melato and Giancarlo Giannini for an oft-ugly battle of the sexes (and classes) cage match with the sparkling Mediterranean for a beautiful backdrop.

 

Not long after setting off on a yachting expedition, Milanese millionairess Raffaella (Melato) finds herself stranded on an obscure island with the boat’s deckhand (Giannini), a working-class Sicilian communist who promptly establishes dominion over the isle — and his once-prideful ex-employer. A contentious cinematic war of words, which has lost none of its power to inspire heated debate among its viewers.

We will also have a daily regular engagement February 21-27 at the Laemmle Glendale.

In 1976, Wertmüller became the first woman ever to earn an Oscar nomination as Best Director for her film Seven Beauties.

“[With Swept Away,] Wertmüller delivered the first girl power picture, and it’s a stunning masterstroke of a movie.”  – Bill Gibron, DVD Talk

“Wertmüller didn’t just tap the tangled sexual politics of the ’70s— she lit a fuse under them.” – Owen Gleiberman, Variety

“As ferocious as it is funny.” – Judith Crist

“A powder keg of class and sexual politics.” – Scott Tobias, AV Club

 

35th Anniversary WILD AT HEART in memoriam screening for David Lynch February 19 at the NoHo.

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The news of David Lynch‘s death hit like David Bowie’s. Here were two sui generis, irreplaceable artists so original their names became adjectives, and they were gone. There will never be another David Lynch movie, but we can watch Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire, Lost Highway and the extravagantly violent and sexy romantic comedy Wild at Heart — February 19 at the NoHo — on the big screen as the auteur intended. The 1990 Palme d’Or winner stars Laura Dern and Nicolas Cage as Lula and Sailor, roadtripping lovers plagued by Lula’s crazed mother (Diane Ladd, Oscar nominated for this performance). Willem Dafoe’s frightening turn as the creepy Bobby Peru earned him a Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.