CHAPERONE star Elizabeth McGovern will participate in a Q&A following the 4:30 pm show and intro the 7:10 pm show on Friday, 4/5. Jenelle Riley from Variety will moderate the Q&A.
The official blog of Laemmle Theatres
by Lamb L.
CHAPERONE star Elizabeth McGovern will participate in a Q&A following the 4:30 pm show and intro the 7:10 pm show on Friday, 4/5. Jenelle Riley from Variety will moderate the Q&A.
by Lamb L.
This is a Free Event!
RSVP via Eventbrite
LAEMMLE LIVE presents cellist Armen Ksajikian in a solo recital with music by composer/friends. Rich Capparela returns to host this robust program which includes pieces by Sulkhan Tsintsadzè, J.S. Bach, Alan Hovhaness, James Horner, Haim Shtrum, Gabrielle Rosse Owens, Leslie La Barre, Peter Schickele and more.
Admired as much for his artistry and his sense of humor, Armen Ksajikian joined Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra as Associate Principal cello in the 2001-02 season. He is also Associate Principal cello of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. He started out his professional career at age 12 with the Abkhazian State Philharmonic in the former Soviet Union. Since 1976, Armen has been very active in LA’s musical life, working with such notables as Heifetz, Rostropovich, Van Cliburn, Pavarotti, Rosza, Giulini, Baryshnikov, Cage, Mancini, Corea, Dudamel, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Randy Newman, Zubin Mehta and James Cameron, and with groups such as the Eagles, Incubus, System Of Down, and with the Duke Ellington, Dancing with the Stars and Academy Awards orchestras.
Armen has appeared as a soloist with the Nacional Orchestre du Brazil, Pacific Symphony, and Hollywood Bowl and Los Angeles Chamber orchestras, and regularly subs with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He is a member of several ensembles including The Catgut Trio, The Rio Trio, California String Quartet and the award-winning Armadillo String Quartet, with whom he performed Haydn’s complete string quartets in a 34 ½ hour marathon. He made his Carnegie Hall debut premiering a quartet by PDQ Bach in 1999 and has appeared in the Cabrillo, Colorado, Banff, Sitka Summer, Oregon Bach, High Desert, Park City and Venice Film festivals; the Rio International Cello Encounter and Jasper Festival of Music and Wine.
In 1993, Armen made his ‘limousine-driving” debut in James Cameron’s True Lies with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis and played his own death scene in the movie. Also a busy recording musician – he has over 1,100 movies to his credit. Armen’s performances in less conventional venues include 16-day whitewater tours down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, “concerts for grizzlies” inside a clarifier tank of an old pulp mill in Sitka, Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro and at Neverland Ranch. He is particularly proud to have soloed with the Hiland Mountain Women’s String Orchestra at the Hiland Mountain Correctional Center.
This is a Free Event!
RSVP via Eventbrite
Sunday, April 14, 2019
Monica Film Center
1332 2nd Street
Santa Monica
11am – 12 pm
by Lamb L.
SATAN & ADAM director V. Scott Balcerek will participate in Q&A’s following the 7:30 pm shows on Friday, 4/19, and Saturday, 4/20 at the Glendale and on Tuesday, 4/23 at the Monica Film Center. Producer Ryan Suffern will join the Q&A on Saturday.
by Lamb L.
BATHTUBS OVER BROADWAY director Dava Whisenant will participate in Q&A’s following the 10:30 am shows on Saturday, 4/6 and Sunday, 4/7 and after the 7:30 pm show on Sunday.
by Lamb L.
THE BIKES OF WRATH director Cameron Ford will participate in Q&A’s after the 7:30 pm screenings at the following locations and dates:
Monica Film Center on Apr 14th
Ahrya Fine Arts on Apr 15th
Playhouse 7 on Apr 16th
Glendale on Apr 17th
Claremont 5 on Apr 18th
by Lamb L.
The Secret Life of Fascia director/producer Bruce Schonfeld will be present for daily Q&As starting Friday, 4/5 – Thursday, 4/11 following the 4:20 pm shows. Cast member Jill Miller will join him on Friday and Saturday.
by Lamb L.
Spring. A time of rebirth. But not at the NoHo 7! Join us as we explore the great beyond with four tales of the hereafter each Throwback Thursday in April!
Our Throwback Thursday series screens every Thursday evening at our NoHo 7 theater. Doors open at 7pm, trivia starts at 7:30, and movies begin at 7:40pm. More details at www.laemmle.com/tbt!
Defending Your Life, April 4: Albert Brooks wrote, directed, and stars in this philosophical comedy about a man having a hard time making a case for himself in the afterlife. Co-starring Meryl Streep. Format: DVD.
Beetlejuice, April 11: Newlyweds killed in a freak auto accident employ the help of shady “bio-exorcist” to scare away the living occupants of their former home. Starring Michael Keaton, Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, and Winona Ryder. Format: DCP.
The Sixth Sense, April 18: An eight-year-old cursed with the ability to see ghosts is paired with a child psychologist determined to bring him peace. Directed by M. Night Shyamalan and starring Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment. Format: Blu-ray.
The Crow, April 25: Musician Eric Draven (Brandon Lee) and his fiancé are brutally murdered the day before their Halloween wedding. One year later, a crow taps on Draven’s grave stone awakening him to seek vengeance on the gangsters responsible. Format: DCP.
by Lamb L.
Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series pay tribute to director Stanley Donen, who died in February, with a screening of one of his best loved musical films, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. The film was nominated for Best Picture of 1954 and earned four other Academy Award nominations; it won the Oscar for Best Scoring of a Musical.
Donen often strived to expand the musical form in such landmark films as Singin’ in the Rain, On the Town, It’s Always Fair Weather, and Funny Face. With Seven Brides he chose to do an outdoor musical with a Western setting, though much of it was actually shot on the MGM lot.
The most important innovation was that Donen, working closely with choreographer Michael Kidd, decided to focus the musical numbers on a group of male dancers. The film’s producer and MGM executives were nervous about this emphasis, but Donen persisted, and the film’s box office success and critical acclaim vindicated his iconoclastic approach. To execute the musical numbers, Donen recruited experienced dancers Jacques d’Amboise, Tommy Rall, Marc Platt, and our evening’s special guest speaker, Russ Tamblyn, who had one of his most memorable roles as the youngest member of a backwoods family.
Howard Keel plays the oldest of the seven brothers, who comes down from their mountain home to find a bride who can help to keep house for him and his family. Jane Powell, who had starred in Donen’s first solo directing effort, Royal Wedding with Fred Astaire, plays the feisty frontier woman who proves more than a match for the domineering Keel. Other cast members include Julie Newmar, Ruta Lee, Jeff Richards, and Ian Wolfe.
The music was by Saul Chaplin and Gene de Paul, with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. The screenplay was written by veterans Albert Hackett, Frances Goodrich, and Dorothy Kingsley, adapted from a short story by Stephen Vincent Benet, which was in turn inspired by Roman histories by Plutarch.
That original story about the rape of the Sabine women provoked controversy in later years. Following the ancient history books, Keel’s character encourages his brothers to kidnap the women they love and bring them by force to their mountain home, which is then blocked by an avalanche that prevents their family members from rescuing them until spring. Contemporary audiences have rightly questioned this sexist plot element. But it should be noted that the women more than hold their own against their abductors. Powell in particular plays a very strong-willed character who protects the kidnapped women and forces the men to live in the barn while she watches over the women in the family homestead.
One of Donen’s achievements in all his films was to create imposing, three-dimensional female characters, and Powell’s Milly is just one striking example of the way in which the director—and his female screenwriters—defied the prevailing norms of the 1950s toxic masculinity. Beyond any political controversies, however, the film endures as one of the most scintillating musicals of the era, praised at the time and lovingly remembered today.
In 1954 Variety wrote, “This is a happy, hand-clapping, foot-stomping, country type of musical with the slickness of a Broadway show.” (It was adapted for Broadway two decades later and also inspired a TV series in the 1980s.) The Washington Post’s Richard L. Coe wrote, “Dandy dancing, singable songs and the ozone of originality make Seven Brides for Seven Brothers the niftiest musical I’ve seen in months.”
Many years later, Leonard Maltin wrote, “Rollicking musical perfectly integrates song, dance, and story.” Time magazine’s Stephanie Zacharek called the barn-raising sequence “one of the most rousing dance numbers ever put on screen.” The film was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2004.
Russ Tamblyn appeared at our anniversary screenings of the classic West Side Story and the chilling suspense film, The Haunting. He first came to attention when he played Elizabeth Taylor’s kid brother in Father of the Bride and its sequel. He also co-starred in Hit the Deck, The Fastest Gun Alive, Don’t Go Near the Water, Tom Thumb, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, and he earned an Oscar nomination for 1957’s Peyton Place. Later he drew renewed attention for his role in David Lynch’s cult series, Twin Peaks.
Format: Blu-ray
SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS with Russ Tamblyn in person screens Saturday, April 6, at 7:30pm at the Ahrya Fine Arts Theater in Beverly Hills. Click here for tickets.