The official blog of Laemmle Theatres
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.
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
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 directors Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts and featured subject Dr. Hamza al-Kateab following the 4:30 pm show on Sunday, 7/28.
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 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
DARLIN’ director Pollyanna McIntosh will participate in a Q&A following the 9:55 pm show on Friday, 7/12.
BLUE NOTE RECORDS: BEYOND THE NOTES Q&A with director Sophie Huber following the 10:40 am show on Saturday, 7/13 and Sunday, 7/14.