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ART IN THE ARTHOUSE presents: Ronald Dunlap: The Elegance of Silence in Claremont

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Come on over to Claremont for Laemmle’s Art in the Arthouse’s newest show featuring the exquisite photography of Ronald Dunlap. The show will run at the Claremont 5 till June, 2019. Sales benefit the Laemmle Foundation and its support of humanitarian and environmental causes in Los Angeles.

About the Exhibit
Photographer and artist Ronald Dunlap has been “living pictures” both in life and through his lens for forty years. Dunlap’s service in Vietnam as a Marine left an indelible mark. Over the years he has returned to Vietnam, Cambodia and toured the East to record the stark images of daily life in those regions. Many of the fifteen photographs in this collection are from those journeys.Dunlap has a refined eye and fastidious focus. His imagery is evocative and speaks volumes. According to the artist his raison d’etre is “a concern with picture structure and the ability to connect with the viewer without the need for any written explanation.”

Dunlap has studied at Laguna College of Art and Design, Chouinard Art Institute and received his BFA in Fine Art from the California Institute of the Arts. His MFA Fine Art degree is from Otis College of Art and Design.The artist has previously shown his work at both Laemmle’s Pasadena and Claremont community art shows. Dunlap lives and works at his home in Altadena, and continues to focus on honing his craft and speaking to his audience directly through his arresting images.

– Joshua Elias, curator

Sixtieth Anniversary Screenings of Marcel Camus’ Palme d’Or Winning BLACK ORPHEUS

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In celebration of Black History Month, Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Abroad Series present 60th anniversary screenings of BLACK ORPHEUS on February 20. This retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice story in Greek mythology is set in twentieth-century Rio de Janeiro during Carnival. Writer-director Marcel Camus’ film hit the double jackpot for foreign-language films, winning both the Palme d’Or at Cannes and the Academy Award as the year’s best foreign film.

Based on the play “Orfeu da Conceicao” by Vinicius de Moraes with a screenplay by Camus and Jacques Viot, BLACK ORPHEUS takes place in the working class slums (favela) of Rio. Orfeu (Bruno Mello), a streetcar driver by day and musician at night, falls in love with Eurydice (Marpessa Dawn), new to the city, and courts her through the frantic festival. However, a skeleton-costumed character representing Death also pursues her, and the couple’s attempt to flee results in romantic tragedy. The two unknown leads—Mello, a Brazilian soccer player, and Dawn, an American dancer— help convey a sense of naturalism, but the film is most noteworthy for its irresistible score, composed by Luiz Bonfa and Antonio Carlos Jobim, which propels the drama with a captivating samba beat. The success of the film and recordings of its main themes helped ignite the bossa nova phenomenon of the 1960s.

The film was an enormous art-house hit in its day. Frenchman Camus and the two leads remain best known for this movie, as noted by the Village Voice, “the greatest one-hit wonder import we’ve ever seen.” Ann Hornaday of the Washington Post summed up its appeal: “a riotous, rapturous explosion of sound and color. Black Orpheus is less about Orpheus’s doomed love for Eurydice than about Camus’s love for cinema at its most gestural and kinetic.”

No need to take a trip to Rio—come to Carnival via BLACK ORPHEUS at Laemmle’s Playhouse, Royal, and Town Center on Wednesday, February 20 at 7:00 PM. Click here for tickets.

It’s Time for Our Annual Predict the Oscars Contest!

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With the 91st Academy Awards right around the corner, it’s time for our annual Predict the Oscars Contest! The person who most accurately predicts the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science’s choices in all 24 categories, from the shorts to Best Picture, will win fabulous prizes (free movies and concessions at Laemmle)!

First place wins a Laemmle Premiere Card worth $150. Second place wins a Laemmle Premiere Card worth $100. Third place wins a Laemmle Premiere Card worth $50. Entries are due by 10AM the morning of the awards ceremony on February 24th.

prem-blogNot sure what a Laemmle Premiere Card is? Think of it like a prepaid gift card for yourself! Use it to pay for movie tickets and concessions. Plus, Premiere Card holders receive $3 off movie tickets and 20% off concessions. To find out more, visit www.laemmle.com/premiere-cards.

We’ve got some smart cookies for customers so we have a tie-breaker question: you also have to guess the show’s running time. Take the tie-breaker seriously! In 2016, the running time question broke a tie between five entrants who correctly predicted 19 out of 24 categories!

We’ll announce the winners right here on our blog by February 26th. Good luck!

*One entry per person. One winner per household.

Click Here to Enter

 

 

 

 

Valentine’s Day Double Feature: SOME LIKE IT HOT and PILLOW TALK

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Instead of the Valentine’s Day massacre depicted in SOME LIKE IT HOT, Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present comedy and romance to mark the holiday. Two award-winning comedies from 1959 share the bill and you can enjoy both SOME LIKE IT HOT and PILLOW TALK for one admission price!

When the American Film Institute conducted a poll of critics and filmmakers to rank the greatest American comedies, Billy Wilder’s SOME LIKE IT HOT came in at #1. The hilarious film melds violence, cross-dressing, and music, and benefits from a superb cast headed by Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon (Oscar-nominated for his performance), Tony Curtis, Joe E. Brown, and George Raft. Wilder was nominated for his direction and for the screenplay he wrote with frequent collaborator I.A.L. Diamond. Orry-Kelly won the Oscar for best black-and-white costume design, especially for the stunning costumes he created for Monroe, including an almost see-through dress that she wears while performing.

The story follows two down-on-their-luck musicians who inadvertently witness the 1929 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago and are forced to go on the run. Their only option to escape the gangsters is to disguise themselves as women and join an all-girl band on a tour of Florida.

Reviews for the film were ecstatic. The New Republic’s Stanley Kauffmann wrote, “This new Marilyn Monroe-Jack Lemmon-Tony Curtis film is a lulu… With easy mastery, [Wilder] has captured much of the scuttling, broad, vaguely surrealist feeling of the best silent comedies.” Roger Ebert declared, “Wilder’s 1959 comedy is one of the enduring treasures of the movies.” When the Library of Congress established its National Film Registry to preserve important films, SOME LIKE IT HOT was one of the first 25 movies inducted. Joe E. Brown mused in the movie’s famous final line, “Nobody’s perfect.” Maybe not, but this film comes close.

PILLOW TALK marked the first teaming of superstars Doris Day and Rock Hudson and turned out to be a box office bonanza. Although she was not always appreciated at the time, Day was one of the few actresses to regularly play career women in the conservative 1950s. In PILLOW TALK she was cast as a successful interior decorator who shares a party line with a composer and womanizer played by Hudson. Forced to listen to his unending stream of sexual conquests, Day protests vociferously, and Hudson resolves to make her change her tune by seducing her. Both antagonists score a few pointed jabs before the inevitable final clinch.

The film won the Academy Award for best original screenplay, written by Russell Rouse, Clarence Greene, Stanley Shapiro, and Maurice Richlin. It received four other nominations, including Day’s only nod for best actress. Tony Randall and Thelma Ritter head the delectable supporting cast. Ross Hunter produced, and Michael Gordon directed.

Among the film’s many favorable reviews, Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called it “one of the most lively and up-to-date comedy romances of the year.” Leonard Maltin hailed an “imaginative sex comedy… fast-moving; plush sets, gorgeous fashions.” The film’s enormous success led to two other Day-Hudson comedies, Lover Come Back and Send Me No Flowers. The picture was inducted into the National Film Registry in 2009.

Our Valentine’s Day Double Feature screens on Thursday, February 14th in Pasadena, NoHo, and West LA! Click here for tickets to the 5:10pm show of PILLOW TALK with the 7:20pm show of SOME LIKE IT HOT included. Click here for tickets to the 7:20pm SOME LIKE IT HOT, with the 9:45pm PILLOW TALK included.

ART IN THE ARTHOUSE presents: Francisco Alvarado: Underpinnings of a Digital Landscape

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Check out our brand spanking new art show in Santa Monica! Laemmle’s Art in the Arthouse proudly presents Francisco Alvarado: Underpinnings of a Digital Landscape. The show will run at the Monica Film Center till May, 2019. Sales benefit the Laemmle Foundation and its support of humanitarian and environmental causes in Los Angeles.

About the Exhibit
Ecuadorian artist FRANCISCO ALVARADO creates landscapes, foliage and gardens of flat color cut-outs. Raised near fields of beautiful South American farmland, butted against cooled lava pits, the artist recalls his childhood with paint and renders them with joy and animated vision. Alvarado alchemizes both his achievements and his losses through imagery, setting them in a visual forest of filled with intrigue and mystery. His works were painted, photographed, digitized, and reworked, creating fluid landscapes that alternate between internal and external compositions.

Alvarado moved to California in 1969 and began to follow the artwork of PETER MAX. The artist was also greatly influenced by his Ecuadorian roots, his service in the military, the artistry of Chilean painter ROBERTO MATTA and the intricate articulations of Viennese artist FRIEDENSREICH HUNDERTWASSER. Inspired by the emergence of Apple Computers, Alvarado enrolled at Long Beach State to study engineering. He threw himself into a brave new world of coding and digital imaging, ultimately leading to artistic experimentation with mixed media and a process aided by technology. The artist currently lives and works in Monrovia, California.

   – Joshua Elias, CURATOR

A Joyful Noise: All Black Musicals in Honor of African American History Month.

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Next month, in honor of African American History Month, our Throwback Thursday theme is A Joyful Noise: Every Thursday at the NoHo 7 we’ll screen a classic Black musical. We’ll do it in chronological order: Stormy Weather (1943) on February 7, The Wiz (1978) on February 14, School Daze (1988) on February 21 and Dreamgirls (2006) on February 28.

Stormy Weather, February 7: The relationship between an aspiring dancer and a popular songstress provides a showcase for some of the most brilliant African American entertainers of the time. Come for Lena Horne’s performance of the iconic title song; stay for the “Jumpin’ Jive” dance sequence, which Fred Astaire called “the greatest dance number [he had] ever seen.” Directed by Andrew L. Stone and starring Horne, Bill Robinson, Cab Calloway and His Cotton Club Orchestra, Katherine Dunham and Her Troupe, Fats Waller and the Nicholas Brothers.

The Wiz, February 14: Loosely adapted from the 1974 Broadway musical of the same name, The Wiz is a musical adventure fantasy that reimagines L. Frank Baum’s classic 1900 children’s novel. It follows the adventures of Dorothy (Diana Ross), a shy Harlem schoolteacher who finds herself magically transported to the urban fantasy Land of Oz. Befriended by a Scarecrow (Michael Jackson), a Tin Man (Nipsey Russell) and a Cowardly Lion (Ted Ross), she travels through the city to seek an audience with the mysterious Wiz (Richard Pryor), who they say is the only one powerful enough to send her home. Directed by Sidney Lumet.

School Daze, February 21: Spike Lee’s second film is a musical comedy-drama based on his experiences while a student at historically black colleges like Morehouse and Spelman. Laurence Fishburne plays Dap, a politically conscious student enduring the school’s inept administration and the colorism and hair-texture bias of the fraternity-sorority system. Lee plays Half-Pint, a freshman who endures hazing in hopes of admission to a fraternity. Giancarlo Esposito and Tisha Campbell-Martin co-star.

Dreamgirls, February 28: The much-loved musical about a Supremes-like 1960’s girl group, as filmed by Bill Condon (Gods & Monsters, Kinsey) stars Jamie Foxx, Beyoncé Knowles, Eddie Murphy and Danny Glover. “Fulfills the ecstatic promise inherent in all musicals — that life can be dissolved into song and dance — but it does so without relinquishing the toughest estimate of how money and power work in the real world that song and dance leave behind.” (New Yorker) Dreamgirls was an Oscar nominee for Best Supporting Actor (Murphy) and Supporting Actress (Hudson) and a winner of Golden Globes for Best Picture (Comedy or Musical) and Best Supporting Actress and Actor (Hudson and Murphy).

Cybill Shepherd In Person for BEING ROSE on Sunday in Beverly Hills

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Actress Cybill Shepherd (The Last Picture Show, Moonlighting) will participate in a Q&A after the 3pm screening of BEING ROSE on Sunday, 1/20 at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills. The film also stars James Brolin and Pam Grier.

Click here for tickets.

About the film:
After being diagnosed with serious health issues, ex-cop Rose Jones (Cybill Shepherd) goes on a road trip in a wheelchair to search for her estranged son. Along the way, she falls in love with Max (James Brolin), a handsome old cowboy who has come to a crossroads of his own. Pam Grier co-stars. Written and directed by Rod McCall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw2M-SKDfoo

Looking Forward to Looking Back: Repertory Cinema at Laemmle Theatres with Bergman, Truffaut and more.

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We are beginning the fifth year of our Anniversary Classics and Anniversary Classics Abroad series — our first three films back in 2015 were Exodus, Getting Straight and Where’s Poppa? — and got 2019 off to a strong start this week with Fellini’s Amarcord. Here’s what we have planning for the coming months:

We’ll screen Black Orpheus on February 20 at the Playhouse, Royal and Town Center. Winner of both the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar and the Palme d’Or at Canne, Marcel Camus’ film brings the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice to the twentieth-century madness of Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. With its eye-popping photography and ravishing, epochal soundtrack, Black Orpheus was an international cultural event, and it kicked off the bossa nova craze that set hi-fis across America spinning.

On February 26 at the Playhouse only we’ll screen The Wild Bunch. Sam Peckinpah’s controversial revisionist Western takes place in Texas and Mexico in 1913. The titular outlaws, headed by ethical-in-his-fashion Pike (William Holden), stages violent bank robberies in their old, time-honored tradition. After a particularly brutal holdup in the town of San Rafael, the gang — or what’s left of it — heads for the hills of Mexico, pursued by a posse led by Thornton (Robert Ryan). Our Pasadena neighbor Vroman’s Bookstore will present a Q&A and book signing with THE WILD BUNCH: Sam Peckinpah, a Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Film author W.K. Stratton in conversation with Stephen Farber after the screening.

François Truffaut’s 1959 The 400 Blows is the kind of film we at Laemmle Theatres cut our teeth on, so to speak, back in a very different time for film exhibition. With Jean-Pierre Léaud playing his stand-in for the film time, Truffaut brilliantly re-creates the trials of his own difficult childhood in the film that marked his emergence as one of Europe’s most brilliant auteurs and signaled the beginning of the French New Wave. We’re bringing it back for one night, March 20, at the Playhouse, Royal and Town Center.

This year is the 45th anniversary of the U.S. release of the French slapstick masterpiece The Mad Adventures of “Rabbi” Jacob. In this riot of frantic disguises and mistaken identities, Victor Pivert, a blustering, bigoted French factory owner, finds himself taken hostage by Slimane, an Arab rebel leader. The two dress up as rabbis as they try to elude not only assassins from Slimane’s country, but also the police, who think Pivert is a murderer. Pivert ends up posing as Rabbi Jacob, a beloved figure who’s returned to France for his first visit after 30 years in the United States. We’ll show it April 17 at the Playhouse, Royal and Town Center.

On May 15 we’ll screen Wild Strawberries at the Playhouse, Royal and Town Center. Ingmar Bergman’s elegiac story of elderly Professor Isak Borg (Victor Sjöström) facing his past is the film that catapulted the Swedish auteur to the forefront of world cinema. Released in 1957, this is the 60th anniversary of its release in the States.

On June 19 we’ll enjoy some laughs to celebrate the 40th anniversary of La Cage Aux Folles, the French comedy about a gay couple living in St. Tropez who have their lives turned upside down when the son of one of the men announces his impending marriage. Screening at the Playhouse, Royal and Town Center.

For our regular Anniversary Classics series we typically stick to domestic fare. To mark Valentine’s Day we’re planning a Twofer Tuesday double feature at the NoHo, Playhouse and Royal of two 1959 romantic comedy classics: Doris Day and Rock Hudson’s Pillow Talk and Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot with Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe. With these two films, no chance of ending up with the fuzzy end of the lollipop!