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The official blog of Laemmle Theatres

SABBATH QUEEN filmmaker Sandi DuBowski in Person for Q&A’s.

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Sabbath Queen Q&A’s:

5-Dec 7:00 Royal, Sandi Simcha Dubowski with Amy Ziering, Producer/Director
6-Dec 7:10 PM Royal Sandi with Gabe Dunn
7-Dec 7:10 PM Royal Sandi with Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie and Jessica Yellin, political journalist
8-Dec 1:20 PM Royal Sandi with Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie and Carolline Libresco,  film festival curator
8-Dec 7:10 PM Royal Sandi with Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie and Rabbi Sharon Brous, Senior & Founding Rabbi, IKAR
9-Dec 7:00 PM NoHo Sandi with Joel Goodman, the film’s composer
10-Dec 7:00 PM Glendale Sandi with Damona Hoffman, Official Love Expert, The Drew Barrymore Show

12/11 Town Center 7:00pm
Sandi Dubowski, Director
Shana Cohen, Director of Major Gifts at Keshet
 
12/12 Glendale 7:00pm
Sandi Dubowski, Director
Ondi Timoner, Documentary filmmaker

FIDDLER – it’s back! Get your tickets to have a Merry Christmas in Anatevka. And before Hanukkah even starts. Nu, what is the world coming to?

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JOIN US on DECEMBER 24th for our umpteenth annual alternative Christmas Eve! That’s right, It’s time for the return of our Fiddler on the Roof Sing-Along! Screening in five shtetls: Claremont, NoHo, West L.A., Encino, and Newhall.

Belt out your holiday spirit … or your holiday frustrations. Either way, you’ll feel better as you croon along to all-time favorites like “TRADITION,” “IF I WERE A RICH MAN,” “TO LIFE,” “SUNRISE SUNSET,” “DO YOU LOVE ME?” and “ANATEVKA,” among many others.

We encourage you to come in costume! Guaranteed fun for all. Children are welcome (Fiddler is rated “G”) though some themes may be challenging for young children.

Prices this year start at $16 for General Admission and $13 for Premiere Card holders. Typically, Fiddler sells out … so don’t miss the buggy!

ABOUT THE FILM:
Originally based on Sholem Aleichem’s short story “Tevye and His Daughters,” Norman Jewison’s adaptation of the long-running Broadway musical is set in a Russian village at the beginning of the twentieth century. Israeli actor Topol repeats his legendary London stage performance as Tevye the milkman, whose equilibrium is constantly being challenged by his poverty, the prejudice of non-Jews, and the romantic entanglements of his five daughters.

P.S.: We will be screening the excellent documentary Fiddler’s Journey to the Big Screen on December 16 and 17.

Tickets for THE ROOM NEXT DOOR, Almodóvar’s first English-language film, go on sale on Friday.

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On December 20th we are opening Pedro Almodóvar’s first movie in English, The Room Next Door, at the Royal. We’ll bring it to Claremont, Glendale, Newhall, North Hollywood, and Encino in January. Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton star as two friends who reconnect after decades apart and embark on an unusual new phase of their friendship. Writing in Time Magazine, Stephanie Zacharek describes how “the colors of The Room Next Door are its secret message, a language of pleasure and beauty that reminds us how great it is to be alive. If it’s possible to make a joyful movie about death, Almodóvar has just done it.”

 

“The Room Next Door, as driven by the scalding humanity of Swinton’s performance, lifts you up and delivers a catharsis. The movie is all about death, yet in the unblinking honesty with which it confronts that subject, it’s powerfully on the side of life.” ~ Owen Gleiberman, Variety

“In these intensely moving moments it feels as if the two artists — [James] Joyce and Almodóvar — are connecting across time, desperate to express the ineffable, and keen to capture a creative moment that honours both the living and the dead.” ~ Kevin Maher, Times

“The Room Next Door turns into something spiky, unnerving, and at times joyously silly.” ~ Leo Robson, New Statesman

Almodóvar, Moore, and Swinton spoke about the film over the weekend at a Deadline Contenders panel discussion. “It’s wonderful. He really honors the female experience,” said Moore. “I think it’s something that he talks about, sitting under the kitchen table when his mother was talking to her friends and absorbing those stories and how powerful they were, and understanding that point of view. I think he’s always in that feminine point of view. Like I said, he honors that world. You feel very, very seen as an actor when you work with Pedro.”

“I’m a very dull or heady director,” said Almodóvar. “I say to the actors many, many, many things, and what I learned about these two is that perhaps I don’t need to say so much information to the actors. There was one very important [scene of Moore reading] the letter at the end. For me, it was very important. I was almost crying when I talked to her and I said, ‘Well, Julianne, this is what I want for this letter.’ [She] said, ‘Pedro, please let me do it, and after that, you give me all the indications.’ And she was right. When she just read it, I mean, I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t intervene, but it was more than perfect. So I learned by then that perhaps I don’t need to tell them so many things to the actors.”

INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE ~ new podcast episode with Professor Ross Melnick on the 100th anniversary of Arthouse Cinema.

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The newest episode of Inside the Arthouse just dropped and it’s a fascinating one. Hosts Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge discuss the centenary of arthouse film with professor, historian, author and Academy Film Scholar Ross Melnick. It’s a lively conversation about the amazing history of arthouse film — Where it started, how far it’s come, and where is it today. Laemmle, third generation arthouse theater owner, adds his perspective, as the trio explores the last century considers the future of arthouse.

Here’s a taste from the beginning of their conversation:

ROSS MELNICK:  The history of arthouse theaters is about a hundred years old.  It really starts around 1925 with Simon Gould and the film guild and the beginning of what were then called “little cinemas.”  So the little cinemas grew out of what was called the “little theaters.”  Little theaters were performing arts theaters across the country.  There were almost 5000 of them.

RAPHAEL SBARGE:  Like vaudeville, kind of?

ROSS MELNICK:  No, actually, literally for performing arts.  For plays and performances that were avant-garde, experimental, off of the…mainstream.  And there’s a growing movement in the ’20s to kind of push away from mainstream narratives and create theaters, legitimate theaters, that were for live performances.  This is across the country.  And so, inspired by little theaters, little cinemas grew, sometimes even in previously legitimate houses, to start showing films that were also experimental, avant-garde and, in this case, often foreign.  They were sort of growing out of an interest in foreign films and if you — with the risk of boring you, let me take you back just a few years earlier, which is that World War I happens between ’14 and ’18.  And when it’s over there’s a huge anti-German sentiment in the United States.

GREG LAEMMLE:  Massive.

ROSS MELNICK:  Massive, to say the least.  And no one wants to show German films.  The only person that’s willing to show a German film is himself a German-American.  A guy named Samuel “Roxy” Rothafel, who most people know as Roxy and who, of course, is the person who created Radio City Music Hall.  He founded it.  He ran the Roxy, the Capitol, the Strand, the Rialto, the Rivoli.  All the major movie houses or many of the major movie houses in New York were run by Roxy.  And when Roxy, underneath Samuel Goldywn — we’ll come back to Samuel Goldywn and later we’ll talk about a different company that his progeny ran — but when Roxy ran the Capitol Theater, he was really interested in this movie called Madame Du Barry.  It’s an Ernst Lubitch film.  1919.  Roxy saw it and said, “I’m going to bring this movie here.”  And he took that nine-reel film, and he cut it to six.  He made new inter-titles…and he released it as Passion.  The Capitol Theater in New York was 5,300 seats.

RAPHAEL SBARGE:  Oh, my God.

ROSS MELNICK:  So it’s the largest theater in the United States.  It was also a trade industry darling…and Roxy was running it and thought, “I’m going to bring this film.”  So it broke the unofficial German boycott, the anti-German boycott, and suddenly there was this massive hit of a foreign film.

Watch the whole conversation here:

MEETING YOU, MEETING ME Q&A schedule.

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MEETING YOU, MEETING ME Q&A schedule at the NoHo:

Friday Nov 15
Moderator – Ki Hong Lee
Panel – Lina Suh (writer/director), Sharon Sunjung Park (producer), Paul Ji Hoon Lee (associate producer/Rotten Tomatoes co-founder)

Saturday Nov 16
Moderator – Kelley Kalí
Panel – Lina, Patrick Luwis (cast), Anna Park (executive producer)

Sunday Nov 17
Moderator – Matt Grobar
Panel – Lina Suh (writer/director)

Wednesday Nov 20
Moderator – Catherine Haena Kim (Actress, The Company You Keep)
Panel – Lina Suh (writer/director), Sharon Sunjung Park (producer)

Stephen Bogart and the BOGART: LIFE COMES IN FLASHES filmmakers in person for Q&A’s this week at the Royal and Town Center.

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Bogart: Life Comes in Flashes in-person Q&A’s with director Kathryn Ferguson: Friday, 11/15, 7:20 PM at the Royal, moderated by Grae Drake (Entertainment Journalist and Film Critic, Rotten Tomatoes & MovieFone); Saturday, 11/16, 7:10 PM show at the Town Center, moderated by Claudia Puig (NPR Film Critics/President L.A. Film Critics Association). Stephen Bogart will participate in a Q&A after the Saturday, 11/16, 1:20 PM show at the Royal; Scott Mantz (former Access Hollywood film critic) will moderate.

Steve McQueen’s masterful BLITZ opens Friday.

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Tomorrow we open Blitz, the latest film English filmmaker Steve McQueen (Shame, 12 Years a Slave, Occupied City), at the Claremont, Glendale, Monica Film Center, Newhall, and Town Center. Starring Saoirse Ronan, it follows the stories of a group of Londoners during the events of the British capital bombing in World War II. Top film critics have been singing its praises:

“McQueen—a director who understands we can only look forward by looking back—gives us a new lens through which to examine WWII in this masterful film.” ~ Emily Zemler, Observer

“I’ve been to whole film festivals with less cinema than Steve McQueen packs into just two hours.” ~ William Bibbiani, TheWrap

“The quiet puncturing of the myth of WWII solidarity on the homefront feels nearly as visceral a shock to the system… It’s not Blitz’s sensory-overload sturm und drang that leaves you gasping for breath. It’s the sneak attack.” ~ David Fear, Rolling Stone

“McQueen makes a point of integrating into the film what is rarely seen in movies of this sort: a sharp depiction of racism among Londoners, the enraging sort that has so calcified it still surfaces when people are just trying to survive.” ~ Alissa Wilkinson, New York Times

“Blitz is a welcome reminder that a bruised, searching and flawed home front, in the waning days of empire, was its own fascinating emotional terrain too.” ~ Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times

“This is a movie about the way resilience can blossom from vulnerability. No child asks to be a victim of war; sometimes survival, with your soul intact, is the best possible outcome.” ~ Stephanie Zacharek, TIME Magazine

“Blitz, while not exactly a movie for children, is nonetheless a story about a child, and it has powerful moments of wonderment, humor and even joy.” ~ Justin Chang, NPR

“Arguably the most heroic character in the film is the city. And Blitz is, instantly, one of the great “London Movies.” ~ Kevin Maher, Times (UK)

In memory of Maggie Smith – THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE screening November 13.

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THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE (1969)
55th Anniversary Screening
Tribute to Oscar Winner Maggie Smith
Wednesday, November 13, at 7 PM
Laemmle Royal Theatre

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a tribute to the late, great Maggie Smith with a screening of her first Oscar-winning movie, ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.’ Smith had impressive competition in 1969, including Jane Fonda, Liza Minnelli, Genevieve Bujold, and Jean Simmons, but she prevailed. The film also earned an Oscar nomination for the theme song, “Jean,” written by Rod McKuen.

Jay Presson Allen adapted the highly acclaimed novel by Muriel Spark about an eccentric but popular teacher at a girls’ school in Edinburgh during the 1930s. Ronald Neame (‘The Horse’s Mouth,’ ‘Tunes of Glory,’ ‘The Poseidon Adventure’) directed. The cast includes Robert Stephens (Smith’s husband at the time), Pamela Franklin, Jane Carr, Gordon Jackson, and Celia Johnson, an Oscar nominee two decades earlier for her role in the romantic classic, ‘Brief Encounter.’

Allen had also written the successful play adapted from Spark’s novel; it starred Vanessa Redgrave in London and Zoe Caldwell on Broadway. But most critics agreed that Smith’s portrayal was definitive. She caught the charisma and eccentricity as well as the sometimes dangerous egotism of a revered teacher who steers some of her impressionable students in the wrong direction, even leading one of her charges to volunteer to fight for Franco during the Spanish Civil War.

Variety had high praise for “Maggie Smith’s tour-de-force performance.” Leonard Maltin called the film a “remarkable character study.” In the most detailed review, Pauline Kael wrote, “Maggie Smith, with her gift for mimicry and her talent for mannered comedy, makes Jean Brodie very funny—absurdly haughty, full of affectations, and with a jumble shop of a mind… a bit of an Auntie Mame.” Kael also had praise for the other performances, writing “The casting in general is superb,” and she singled out one supporting performance in particular: “Celia Johnson has a genuine triumph as Miss Mackay, who in the film becomes Miss Brodie’s true adversary.”

Maggie Smith earned a total of six Academy Award nominations over the course of her long career, winning a second Oscar in the supporting actress category for her performance in 1978’s ‘California Suite.’ She won a Tony award for her performance in Peter Shaffer’s ‘Lettice and Lovage’ on Broadway, and she snagged three Emmys for her role in the beloved ‘Downton Abbey.’