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“Riotously funny” sleeper MEET THE PATELS is “a lively and engaging universal story made with an unmistakable sense of fun.”

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Every year there are at least one or two films that come out of left field and delight audiences enough to generate that most ineffable and valuable kind of publicity, word of mouth publicity. Such is the case with the new comedic documentary MEET THE PATELS, which has shown great legs and made its way from a humble start in just one of our theaters to six of them: by this Friday we’ll be showing it at the NoHo, Royal, Claremont, Town Center and Playhouse. PATELS is a laugh-out-loud real life romantic comedy about Ravi Patel, an almost-30-year-old Indian-American who enters a love triangle between the woman of his dreams…and his parents. This hilarious and heartwarming film reveals how love can be a family affair.

In his L.A. Times review, Kenneth Turan wrote that the film “[turns] one man’s culturally specific journey into a lively and engaging universal story made with an unmistakable sense of fun.” In the New York Daily News, Jordan Hoffman wrote: “MEET THE PATELS is warm and loaded with laughs, and it might even create some intercultural understanding. If only all our relationship woes could be so worthwhile.” In Variety Andrew Barker called the film “often riotously funny.” If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7litSYXbpRs

“Theodore Bikel: In the Shoes of Sholom Aleichem” ~ Join Aimee Ginsburg Bikel and Leonard Maltin to Celebrate the Legendary Actor-Singer-Author-Activist

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Portraits of two beloved icons — Sholom Aleichem and Theodore Bikel — are woven together in the enchanting new documentary Theodore Bikel: In the Shoes of Sholom Aleichem. The two men had much in common: wit, wisdom and talent, all shot through with deep humanity and Yiddishkeit. The film combines Bikel’s charismatic storytelling and masterful performances with a broader exploration of Aleichem’s remarkable life and work.

We will screen Theodore Bikel: In the Shoes of Sholom Aleichem Monday, 10/19 at 7:30 PM and Tuesday, 10/20 at 1 PM at the Ahrya Fine Arts/Beverly Hills, Town Center 5/Encino, Playhouse 7/Pasadena and Claremont 5. Film critic Leonard Maltin and Mr. Bikel’s widow, Aimee Ginsburg Bikel, will introduce and participate in a Q&A after the Monday screening in Beverly Hills. Mrs. Bikel will also participate in a Q&A after the 1 PM screening of the film on Tuesday, October 20th in Encino.

Mrs. Bikel wrote the following about her husband: “Nothing gave Theodore Bikel more pleasure than telling stories and singing songs that connected deeply to his own roots. “I sing the songs of all nations,” he would say, “and all of humanity are my brothers and sisters, we are like flowers in a garden. So,” he would add, “I sing my songs not because they are better, but because they are mine. And if I don’t tend to them, they will wither, and die.”

“On July 21 Theo Bikel passed away, leaving us with an enormous vacuum. Theo was a giant and there will be no one who can walk in his shoes. Actor, singer, author, activist for peace and human rights, he did everything with a deep joy and a commitment to making our world a better place.
“Theo considered this film his crowning achievement, and spent this past year appearing in person at the many film festivals that screened it. The audiences, cheering and clapping, loved it. Theo, who made the film at 88, improved with the years, his voice and performance deepening and softening; his humor and humanity shining bright.
“This will be the first public screening and Theo would have wanted to appear in person. Please come with your friends and family and share with us in the legacy of the one and only and forever Theodore Bikel.”

Mr. Maltin wrote the following, which he titled “Celebrating Theodore Bikel.”

“The challenge in discussing Theodore Bikel is where to start? He led so many lives—as an actor, folksinger, Civil Rights activist, union leader, and more. He is the only person I could think of who could say he worked with Humphrey Bogart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and Frank Zappa! (He played a band manager in 200 Motels, but gently refused Zappa’s request to dress as a nun for one scene.) He was the original Baron von Trapp in The Sound of Music on Broadway, a best-selling recording artist, and a busy character actor who earned an Oscar nomination playing a Southern sheriff in The Defiant Ones. Those are just a handful of his many credits.

“His lifelong connection to the celebrated author Sholom Aleichem predates his casting as Tevye in the musical Fiddler on the Roof. (He logged more than 2,000 performances, and acknowledged that the play’s universal appeal is based in part on its ability to make the author’s work palatable to a non-Jewish audience. He described it as “Sholom Aleichem lite.”)

“As for his facility with languages, Theo explained that his father spoke only Yiddish at home and prided himself on his library of Sholom Aleichem books, which they were forced to leave behind when his family fled from Vienna to Palestine in 1938. The postscript is quite amazing: his grandmother, who stayed behind, hounded the Nazis who guarded confiscated property—so much so that they eventually let her reclaim the books, which turned up on the Bikels’ doorstep in Palestine, to the utter amazement of Theo and his parents.

“His mother spoke German at home, his father spoke Yiddish, he was given Hebrew lessons as a child, and learned French while visiting a family retreat during the summer. English was his fifth language—the fifth of many. (When he played linguist Zoltan Karpathy in My Fair Lady and George Cukor asked him to draw on his skill with dialects, Bikel reminded Cukor that of the two of them, he was not the one with Hungarian roots.)

“My wife remembers attending protest rallies at Washington Square Park in the 1960s when Theo’s folk songs roused the young people. When Alice and I moved to Los Angeles and went to our first Rosh Hashanah service, we found ourselves sitting in front of Theo and had the thrill of hearing his sonorous voice in prayer all night long.

“He continued performing, and making a difference, to the very end of his life. In 2013 he was invited to appear before the Austrian Parliament to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Krystallnacht—the dreadful night that synagogues were burned to the ground throughout Germany and Austria. He recognized that today’s Austria is not run by, or populated by, the same people who were responsible for those atrocities, and while he could never forget, he was willing to move on.

“Many of his achievements are covered in the documentary Theodore Bikel: In the Shoes of Sholom Aleichem.  No one film could include every facet of Theo’s remarkable life…but this one provides a welcome overview. And, like Theo himself, it is consistently entertaining.”

https://vimeo.com/114923514

 

German Oscar Submission LABYRINTH OF LIES Opens September 30th at the Royal, October 9th at the Playhouse and Town Center

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The gripping historical drama LABYRINTH OF LIES [Im Labyrinth des Schweigens], Germany’s official submission for the 2016 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, opens in Frankfurt in 1958. Nobody wants to look back to the time of the Hitler’s National Socialist regime. Young public prosecutor Johann Radmann comes across some documents that help initiate a trial against some members of the SS who served in Auschwitz. But both the horrors of the past and others’ hostility towards his work bring Johann close to a meltdown. It is nearly impossible for him to find his way through this maze; everybody seems to have been involved or guilty.

LABYRINTH OF LIES director/co-screenwriter Giulio Ricciarelli said this about his film: “I wanted to tell a story about personal courage, of fighting for what is right and taking a stand. And it is a story of redemption. In Frankfurt in 1963 Germans put Germans on trial for their crimes in the Holocaust. Eighteen years after the war, it was the first time ever Germany really confronted it’s past, and it was a turning point in our history of immense importance.

“In this age of globalization and inter-connectedness, this story reminds us that it is always individuals who bring about change and it is individuals who push forward civilization.

“The film begins in Germany in 1958. An atmosphere of frantic optimism and denial, a country rebuilding itself, only looking forward. Yet the shadow of its war crimes is catching up, literally around the corner. It will be a momentous task- can our heroes force a whole country to look at what it has done, to acknowledge its past?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=2&v=U5ovcBGMLEs

Zhang Yimou on His Potent New Historical Romance COMING HOME: “This type of film is very difficult to make. It needs to be made in a state of serenity.”

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Zhang Yimou’s new film is set in the last days of China’s Cultural Revolution, following a newly-released political prisoner (Chen Daoming) as he tries to reconnect with his wife (frequent Yimou collaborator Gong Li), who is stricken with amnesia. We open the movie 9/9 at the Royal, 9/18 at the Playhouse and 10/2 at the Town Center. The director wrote this about his powerful new work: “Based on Yan Geling’s novel The Criminal Lu Yanshi, COMING HOME is a love story about joy and sadness, as well as separation and reunion. We used the end of the original story – with Lu Yanshi returning home – as the starting point of the script. Everyone knows that Chen Daoming and Gong Li are the finest actors working in China, and they were my first and only choices for their respective roles. I’ve learned a lot from working with them. They offered a lot of constructive opinions about even the smallest details in the story. That’s why their contribution to the film extends far beyond the portrayal of the characters.

“Having a so-called “rising star” in the daughter’s role was not a must as her character serves a very important function in the story. When I first met [Zhang] Huiwen, I noticed her bright shining eyes, which resembled the aura of young Red Guards. It was what I needed. For the second part of the film, I needed to change the way her eyes look. They should look as if they are in a trance, always hesitant. Huiwen had the ability to do that.

“This type of film is very difficult to make. It needs to be made in a state of serenity. If I thought about benefits and profits even a little, then I would lose my way. That’s why, for me, this film represents a return to an earlier state of mind and an older approach to creativity. The most important thing for me is whether the audience will keep this film in their hearts and whether they will truly remember the emotions behind COMING HOME.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hoea7Cz3Hj0

One of the most important and influential filmmakers in China, and a core member of China’s “Fifth Generation” directors, Zhang Yimou started his career as a cinematographer and became a director in 1987. Over the years, Zhang has directed films which received accolades from around the world: RED SORGHUM (1987, Golden Bear winner at the Berlin International Film Festival), JU DOU (1990, In Competition at the Cannes Film Festival and nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards®), RAISE THE RED LANTERN (1991, Silver Lion winner at the Venice International Film Festival and nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards®), TO LIVE (1994, Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival), to name a few.

In 2002, his martial arts epic HERO ushered in a new era of blockbusters for Chinese cinema, and was followed by the equally successful HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS (2004), and CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER (2006)

The French Hit Comedy PAULETTE Stars Legendary Actress Bernadette Lafont in One of Her Last Roles.

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Next Friday, September 11th we’ll be opening a French comedy that stars the wonderful actress Bernadette Lafont in one of her last performances, playing the title character in PAULETTE. A brash and opinionated retiree, Paulette lives alone in a housing project on the outskirts of Paris. One evening, upon observing some mysterious dealings outside her building, she discovers a surprising way to supplement her meager pension: an unlikely but successful career selling cannabis.

Writing in Film Journal International, Doris Toumarkine wrote that “PAULETTE offers a heap of laughs and ultimately delights like a shelf of colorful fresh pastries.”

In his L.A. Weekly review, Chuck Wilson wrote that Lafont “died in 2013, at age 74, one year after PAULETTE became a hit in France. A working actress since she was 19 [IMDB lists 190 credits over the course of her career], Lafont was at the forefront of the French New Wave, with François Truffaut, who discovered her, once calling her, lovingly, ‘a wild child.’ It would appear that she remained so all her working life.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSkLHvlOzvM

Vox: “The quietly radical DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL turns the page on coming-of-age films.”

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This Friday, at five of our six venues, we’ll be opening a film we enjoyed immensely, THE DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL. The girl of the title is Minnie Goetze (fantastic newcomer Bel Powley), who is longing for love, acceptance and a sense of purpose in the world. She begins a complex love affair with her mother’s (Kristen Wiig) boyfriend, “the handsomest man in the world,” Monroe Rutherford (Alexander Skarsgård). What follows is a sharp, funny and provocative account of one girl’s sexual and artistic awakening, without judgment.

Based on a 2002 graphic novel, film critics have embraced the film (it has a 93% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes as of this writing). Writing in New York Magazine, Bilge Ebiri exclaimed, “the first thing to know about THE DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL is that young British actress Powley is staggeringly good in it.” In the L.A. Times, Rebecca Keegan wrote, “big summer action movies can be thrilling, but if you really want to feel your heart pounding out of your chest, try being a 15-year-old girl for 101 minutes.” In the New Republic, Elaine Teng called the film “a startlingly tough, authentic depiction of budding womanhood.” And in the New York Times, Manohla Dargis declared the film “exhilarating…the novel is life-specific, but what makes Minnie – on the page and now on the screen – greater than any one girl is how she tells her own story in her own soaringly alive voice.”

The extended Vox review included this observation by the film’s director, Marielle Heller: “I think as a society, we’re just a little bit afraid of teenage girls, and we’re definitely afraid of their sexuality. There’s a desire to shelter girls and also to ignore what they might be feeling or experiencing. The result of that is if you’re a teenage girl who’s having thoughts about sex, you think something’s wrong with you.” This is the same approach to the topic as what you can find other people writing about, and what the reasons are it for, for instance on this Lovegasm blog article about sexual forward-thinking within the media.

THE DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL wonderfully rejects that path.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2M9kqb5wVw

Riveting Brazilian Film THE SECOND MOTHER Opens Next Week

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An excitingly fresh take on some classic themes and ideas, THE SECOND MOTHER centers around Val, a hard-working live-in housekeeper in modern day Sao Paulo. Val is perfectly content to take care of every one of her wealthy employers’ needs, from cooking and cleaning to being a surrogate mother to their teenage son, who she has raised since he was a toddler. But when Val’s estranged daughter Jessica suddenly shows up the unspoken but intrinsic class barriers that exist within the home are thrown into disarray. Jessica is smart, confident, and ambitious, and refuses to accept the upstairs/downstairs dynamic, testing relationships and loyalties and forcing everyone to reconsider what family really means.

Variety film critic Geoff Berkshire called THE SECOND MOTHER “immensely endearing” and “a savvy, socially conscious crowdpleaser that occupies a rare middle ground between genteel and intellectual world cinema.” Hollywood Reporter writer Boyd van Hoeij declared “beautifully written and acted with precision, this film’s a winner.” We are extremely pleased to open THE SECOND MOTHER on August 28th at the Royal, September 4th at the Playhouse and Town Center, and September 11th at the Claremont.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOrbWcObwR4

ROSENWALD Filmmaker Aviva Kempner in the Forward: “To me, Julius Rosenwald is the best antidote to Donald Trump.”

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Aviva Kempner’s Rosenwald, which we open at the Royal, Playhouse and Town Center on August 28th and the Claremont on September 5th, is the incredible story of Julius Rosenwald, who never finished high school but rose to become the president of Sears. Influenced by the writings of the educator Booker T. Washington, this Jewish philanthropist joined forces with African American communities during the Jim Crow South to build over 5,300 schools during the early part of the 20th century. The film sheds light on this silent partner of the pre-Civil Rights Movement. Rosenwald awarded fellowship grants to a who’s who of African American intellectuals and artists including: Marian Anderson, James Baldwin, the father and uncle of civil rights leader Julian Bond, Ralph Bunche, W. E. B. DuBois, Katherine Dunham, Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Gordon Parks, Jacob Lawrence and Augusta Savage along with Woody Guthrie. Inspired by the Jewish ideals of tzedakah (charity) and tikkunolam (repairing the world) and a deep concern over racial inequality in America, Julius Rosenwald used his wealth to become one of America’s most effective philanthropists. Because of his modesty, Rosenwald’s philanthropy and social activism are not well known today. He gave away $62 million in his lifetime.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqcMisvNASg

In a Forward article titled “Is Julius Rosenwald Our Greatest Philanthropist,?” Ms. Kempner (The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg, Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg) recently spoke about his latest film, saying “to me, Julius Rosenwald is the best antidote to Donald Trump. You see how pompous rich people can be, but Rosenwald is quite the contrary; he is one of the greatest examples for American Jews of tzedakah, tikkun olam , and repairing the world without fanfare — doing it just because he wants to make a difference.”