The Official Blog of Laemmle Theatres.

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The official blog of Laemmle Theatres

Masters of El Prado: A Collection of Documentaries about the Most Renowned Artists from Museo del Prado.

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Take a trip to Spain this summer and see Bosch, Sorolla and Murillo on the big screen as part of our Culture Vulture series at the Claremont, Playhouse, Royal, and Town Center.

MURILLO: THE LAST JOURNEY is more than a documentary about one of the greatest geniuses of fine art. It provides a view at the history of the Spanish empire at its height from the perspective of one of Murillo’s most iconic paintings: The Young Peddler. The painting travels from Seville to Paris as world-renowned specialists flesh out the exquisite aesthetics of the painter’s most sublime masterpieces. We’ll screen this August 5 and 6.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V-q9mv6jig

 

BOSCH: THE GARDEN OF DREAMS, screening August 12 and 13, was produced by LópezLiFilms and the Prado Museum, which this year commemorates the fifth centenary of the painter’s death with a major exhibition entitled “Bosch. The Centenary Exhibition.”

Under the direction of Jose Luis Lopez Linares, the film focuses on the most important work of the painter and one of the most iconic in the world: ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights.’ The feature presents a conversation among artists, writers, philosophers, musicians and scientists, regarding the personal, historical and artistic significance of the picture, bringing back a conversation that was started 500 years ago in the court of the Dukes of Nassau (Brussels), when it is believed that the painting was commissioned to Bosch.

We have very little information about the artist’s identity and biography, something that helps feed the enigma of the hidden meaning in his works. As Falkenburg, narrator of the documentary and debate moderator with all participants says, “At the end of the novel, the writer reveals the mystery. In this case, the author does not want you to solve the mystery. He wants you to stay in it.”

BOSCH: THE GARDEN OF DREAMS is the only film about the author’s most important masterpiece: “The garden of earthly delights” and the only one with full access to the mysteries hidden in it.

https://vimeo.com/161909645

 

SOROLLA: THE NATURAL EMOTION is the result of the documentary record of the first great anthological exhibition that the Prado Museum dedicated to the great master of the 19th century and the most important held inside and outside of Spain: Joaquín Sorolla (1863-1923); it’s a culmination of the itinerancy in Spain of the fourteen panels of the Vision of Spain, commissioned by the Hispanic Society of America, which the Bancaja Foundation brought to Spain in 2007. This spectacular set constitutes the most magnificent decorative project of Sorolla’s fecund career, in addition of the true epilogue and synthesis of all its production.

The representation of the light, the beauty of his pastel brushstrokes, the love of his native land as well as the relationship with his family and many other issues, are explored by experts in the field, creating a production where the figure of of Sorolla is exalted and revealed.

Producer López Linares comments that “it was a great discovery that there were so many photos of Sorolla, suddenly we had an incredible photographic archive, with magnificent photos of him painting, when he was older, on the beach, family photos … It was all very well documented. It’s a pleasant surprise for the documentary to find you with this photographic richness, it’s wonderful.”

 

https://vimeo.com/346822352

GOODBYE, COLUMBUS 50th Anniversary Screening with Stars Richard Benjamin and Ali MacGraw and Director Larry Peerce In-Person

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a screening of one of the landmark comedies of the 1960s and perhaps the best screen rendition of the work of Philip Roth: the adaptation of his National Book Award-winning novella, GOODBYE, COLUMBUS.

The movie launched the careers of its two stars, Richard Benjamin and Ali MacGraw, who will both join us for this reunion screening, along with the film’s director, Larry Peerce.

Roth was a master chronicler of the Jewish-American experience, and this film version dealt forthrightly and sardonically with the author’s favorite milieu. In focusing on a doomed love affair between a young working-class man and a spoiled Jewish-American princess, the film caught many of the tensions in affluent American society during the postwar years. Its sexual candor also reflected changing mores of the late 60s.

Arnold Schulman was nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay, and he also won the Writers Guild award for best adapted screenplay of the year. Stanley Jaffe (Kramer vs. Kramer, Fatal Attraction) produced the picture. The Association provided the musical score.

Benjamin plays Neil Klugman, who meets Brenda Patimkin when his cousin invites him to swim at her ritzy country club. Neil is immediately attracted to Brenda, and she finds him intriguing, especially as a way of goading her snobbish, nouveau riche parents, expertly played by Jack Klugman and Nan Martin. When Brenda invites Neil as a house guest, they begin an affair right in the family mansion.

The film includes a number of sharply defined characters, especially Brenda’s affable but dim jock brother, played by Michael Meyers, whom Peerce discovered at a wedding. It turned out to be the only screen performance by Meyers, who went on to have a successful career as a doctor and later wrote a book about his journey from Hollywood to hospitals.

The film climaxes with a scene of Meyers’ garish and gargantuan wedding reception, which was somewhat controversial because of the gusto with which it satirized Jewish conspicuous consumption. In this wedding sequence, director Peerce’s father—the noted tenor, Jan Peerce—makes a sly cameo appearance.

The film scored at the box office and received enthusiastic reviews. The New York Times’ Vincent Canby declared, “Goodbye, Columbus is so rich with understanding… that it is a thing of real and unusual pleasure.” Variety called the film “a joy in striking a boisterous mood” and added that Benjamin and MacGraw “offer fresh portrayals seasoned with rich humor.”

Indeed the film catapulted both actors to the top ranks in Hollywood. MacGraw earned an Oscar nomination the following year for the smash hit Love Story, and she starred in Sam Peckinpah’s The Getaway with her husband-to-be, Steve McQueen. She also starred in Sidney Lumet’s satire, Just Tell Me What You Want, and in the enormously successful TV miniseries, The Winds of War. Benjamin played in such films as Diary of a Mad Housewife, Westworld, The Last of Sheila, The Sunshine Boys, as well as the adaptation of Roth’s most controversial novel, Portnoy’s Complaint. Later Benjamin became an acclaimed director of such films as My Favorite Year, Racing with the Moon, and Mermaids.

Peerce made his feature directorial debut with the groundbreaking 1964 film about an interracial romance, One Potato Two Potato, and followed up with a gritty urban thriller, The Incident. His other films include The Sporting Club, A Separate Peace, The Bell Jar, and the uplifting female sports movie, The Other Side of the Mountain.

Our 50th anniversary presentation of GOODBYE, COLUMBUS (1969) followed by a Q&A with stars Richard Benjamin and Ali MacGraw and director Larry Peerce screens Friday, August 2nd at 7:30 PM at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills. Click here for tickets.

Format: DVD.

CHAIN OF DEATH Q&A with Cast & Crew Opening Night at the Music Hall.

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CHAIN OF DEATH director David Martin Porras  and  producer Elisa Lleras will participate in a Q&A joined by cast members Adrienne Barbeau, Josh Patrick Amedori, Madeline Zima and Jamie Clayton and moderated by John Alan Simon following the 9:55 pm show on Friday, 7/19.

 

https://youtu.be/i-bfIajGeGg

ART IN THE ARTHOUSE presents: GERARD BURKHART: NoHo & Shimmering Sky

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Art in the Arthouse presents a fascinating exploration of local cityscapes and nearby landscapes in our latest art show in North Hollywood. Don’t miss photographer Gerard Burkhart’s exhibit NOHO & SHIMMERING SKY, now extended through 2020. All of the art is for sale and a portion of the proceeds benefits the Laemmle Foundation and its support of humanitarian and environmental causes in Los Angeles.

About the Exhibit
As a NoHo resident from 1999 to 2001, Photographer Gerard Burkhart viewed his neighborhood as his own personal Cuba – an island in the vast sea of Los Angeles untouched by a larger outside world, waiting to be opened. Years later, Burkhart produced Shimmering Sky as an artist-in-residence for the Mojave National Preserve Foundation, living in a canvas bell tent at Hole in the Wall Campground. Despite a government shutdown and the 2018 drought, Burkhart explored the soul nurturing inventiveness that desert isolation encourages.

States the artist, “Arguably, visual art is an indulgence of perception. We can use our interior landscape of experience to filter and decode the world we inhabit. As a photojournalist, it is a prism that sees the outside world with a critical eye for accurate and fair storytelling images. As an artist, it is a fertile realm rich with the possibilities of creation. The NoHo and Shimmering Sky projects represent a 20-year development crossing back and forth through both those territories.  The North Hollywood Neighborhood Project was made with a keen eye toward community engagement with a pure photojournalistic ethic. Shimmering Sky was a near-transcendent journey struggling with the constraints and celebrations of photography’s realism. Spiritually, they both contain the same DNA.”

Burkhart’s photos have been published in Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, USA Today, the Washington Post, the New York Times and internationally through the Associated Press. He worked at the Los Angeles Times for six years where his photos were included in three collaborative Pulitzer Prize winning editions.

– Sheryl Myerson, curator

LAEMMLE LIVE presents: McCabe’s Guitar Shop August 4

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Our summer tradition continues when our good friends from McCabe’s share their musical gifts Sunday, August 4. LAEMMLE LIVE presents McCabe’s Guitar Shop for a free pop-up celebration of all things guitar, vocal and other choice instruments. Come on down to the Monica to sample McCabe’s students and teachers’ wit and wisdom. Hosted by Head of Music School Denny Croy.

It began in 1958. Furniture designer Gerald McCabe repaired guitars for his folk-singer wife’s musician friends who had no local music store. Gerald and his friend Ed Kahn decided to open a small music shop on Pico Blvd in Santa Monica. They began repairing instruments, selling folk music books and records, carrying Mexican guitars and old banjos. Word spread and local musicians began hanging out, relishing one of the only guitar shops in the Southern California area. One of those young musicians was Bob Riskin. Bob started as an employee in 1960. In the early 60’s lessons and classes were added. In 1969 McCabe’s began presenting live concerts. Bob Riskin became sole owner in 1986. Bob and his wife Espie are still running McCabe’s today! Over the years, musicians from all aspects of the musical spectrum, from gifted amateurs to seasoned professionals, have come to appreciate McCabe’s friendly, knowledgeable sales staff, expert repair shop and world class teaching staff.  Join us for memorable music from a local treasure!

EVENT DETAILS
Sunday, August 4, 2019
11:00 AM
Monica Film Center

RSVP USING EVENTBRITE
This is a Free Event

FOR SAMA Q&A with Filmmakers and Special Guest at the Monica Film Center.

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FOR SAMA Q&A with directors Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts and featured subject Dr. Hamza al-Kateab following the 4:30 pm show on Sunday, 7/28.

 

https://youtu.be/vsvBqtg2RM0

Ang Lee’s EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN 25th Anniversary Screenings on July 24 in West LA, Pasadena, and Glendale.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present this month’s installment in our popular Anniversary Classics Abroad program, Ang Lee’s delectable 1994 comedy, EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN. Lee had directed two previous films that earned acclaim, but this 1994 film was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar and propelled his career to a new level of esteem and success.

Made in Taipei, the film centers on a widowed master chef, Mr. Chu (played by Sihung Lung), who has weekly feasts for his three unmarried daughters (Kuei-Mei Yang, Chien-Lien Wu, Yu-Wen Wang), during which he tries to oversee their personal lives along with their eating habits. An ensemble piece in the spirit of movies like Love, Actually and The Joy Luck Club, the film interweaves the personal and professional stories of the three daughters, along with the issues facing their father, who also embarks on a new romantic adventure during the course of the movie. Winston Chao (who starred in Lee’s earlier film, The Wedding Banquet) and Sylvia Chang co-star.

The script by Lee, James Schamus, and Hui-Ling Wang etches all the characters with wit and finesse. Equally important to the film’s success are the lovingly photographed scenes of an abundance of Chinese delicacies, which led the movie to be compared to other memorable movies about food, including the Oscar-winning Babette’s Feast, Tampopo, and Like Water for Chocolate. Time magazine’s Richard Schickel wrote, “Like the cuisine it celebrates, this movie is tart, sweet, generous and subtle.” The New York Times’ Janet Maslin called the film “wonderfully seductive, and nicely knowing about all of its characters’ appetites.”

Variety’s Leonard Klady summed up the film’s achievement: “The overall result is a cinematic feast that will have audiences returning for Lee’s next movie meal.” Those words proved to be prophetic. Lee’s next film, Sense and Sensibility, released in 1995, was nominated for Best Picture, and over the next several years, he produced an extraordinary body of work, including the international blockbusters Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Life of Pi. Lee won two Oscars for Best Director — for Brokeback Mountain as well as Life of Pi — and is now universally regarded as one of the leading auteurs of our time. His remarkable journey was prefigured by his early achievement with Eat Drink Man Woman.

EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN screens Wednesday, July 24, at 7 PM in Glendale, Pasadena, and West L.A. Click here for tickets.

Format: Blu-ray.

ART IN THE ARTHOUSE presents: David Palmer: RetroPop at the Royal

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   ART IN THE ARTHOUSE is delighted to welcome artist DAVID PALMER and his mouthwatering new show, RetroPop. The show will run at the Royal till November 2019. Sales benefit the Laemmle Foundation and its support of humanitarian and environmental causes in Los Angeles.

About the Exhibit
As a student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the late 80s, pop artist DAVID PALMER drew inspiration from his mentors JOHN ROY and GREGORY GILLESPIE. Between Roy’s analytical rigor and Gillespie’s wildly improvisational methods, Palmer unearthed an exploratory approach to image-making that evokes dreams and memories, literature and film, science, popular culture and art history. His paintings combine the vocabulary of Pop Art with a Renaissance sensibility. Their surfaces are distressed, revealing patches of underlying color, reminiscent of aging frescoes and peeling billboards.

States the artist: “When I start a piece, I don’t know what it’s going to look like when it’s finished. I like to discover the image as I work. I begin with an idea, but at some point the painting takes on a life of its own, and it leads me to a place I couldn’t have predicted. It’s like having a conversation, or taking a walk in a new neighborhood.”

Palmer has been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the country. He has also created digital effects for over a dozen feature films, including The Polar Express, Spider-Man 3, and the first Harry Potter movie. Palmer’s pieces continually amaze with masterful technique and playful, yet grand imagery. Humor is also a constant presence, especially in his desserts … as they always seem to make me hungry.

– Tish Laemmle, Curator