The official blog of Laemmle Theatres
NO MAPS ON MY TAPS director George T. Nierenberg will participate in Q&A’s following the 7:30pm shows on Friday 9/15, Saturday 9/16, and following the 5pm show on Sunday 9/17. Q&A’s will be followed by a spectacular tap performance by Sarah Reich and Anissa Lee on Friday night and Lee Howard on Sunday 5:00 showing. The Saturday night special tap guest performer will be announced.
Correction: An early version of this post incorrectly stated the director would attend every screening.
Laemmle Live proudly presents BACH TO THE FUTURE – A CELLO MEETUP, Sunday October 1 at the Monica Film Center. Internationally acclaimed cellist and dedicated pedagogue Antonio Lysy invites intermediate and advanced cellists to participate in a unique cello ensemble opportunity. Antonio will lead a cello ensemble in exploring music that spans the ages, from Palestrina, Bach and Dvorak to Bartok, Elvis and more.
Cello students, please RSVP to laemmlecellomeetup@gmail.com by September 21 if you would like to perform and include the following information: name, years of study, and music part you wish to play. Families, friends and cello fans, please RSVP to the same address. Please check in with your teacher if you need direction. Music can be found here.
Antonio Lysy, artist of international stature and dedicated pedagogue, has performed as a soloist in major concert halls worldwide. He has collaborated with distinguished conductors including Yuri Temirkanov, Charles Dutoit, Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Sandor Vegh, and Kees Bakels, and continues to perform regularly both as a solo, and chamber music artist. Lysy has recorded extensively for CBC Radio, BBC Radio, Classic FM, and other radio networks. Lysy enjoys exploring the versatility of the cello’s voice, from Baroque to electric, and is committed to projects which enrich his diverse interests in music. Based on his Latin Grammy award-winning CD, the touring multimedia show, “Te Amo, Argentina”, has met with widespread acclaim. In the summer of 2003, Lysy accepted the position of Professor of Cello at University of California, Los Angeles. Prior to moving to the United States, he held a professorship at McGill University in Montréal.
Ever since I was 12 years old and in the early days of my musical studies at the Yehudi Menuhin School in England, I have been fascinated with the process and notion of teaching. The idea of passing on a legacy through performance practice, and being part of an aural tradition entrusted to me by masters of the instrument is somewhat magical. It is the creation and preservation of history. I am fortunate to have had great opportunities in my life. While the idea of “giving back” has become cliché, I cannot think of a better term to explain my motivation to help those who have the talent, personality, work ethic, and determination to succeed. I am indebted to all my past teachers who took the trouble to share their experience, knowledge, philosophy, and passion with me, and inspired me by their dedication to musical ideals. Their example and belief in me as a young cellist stimulated the development of my own teaching philosophy. Many teachers were pivotal in my artistic development. Those I was fortunate to spend the most time with are the following: Guido Mascellini and Myra Chahin (in my early years), Alberto Lysy (my father), Maurice Gendron, William Pleeth, Radu Aldulescu, Yehudi Menuhin, and Ralph Kirshbaum.
– Antonio Lysy
EVENT DETAILS
Sunday, October 1, 2017
11:00 AM
Monica Film Center
This is a Free Event
RSVP – laemmlecellomeetup@gmail.com
Laemmle Theatres has partnered with Fathom Events to bring you the Met Opera’s award winning Live in HD series. The 2017-18 season begins on October 7 with the company’s new production of Bellini’s Norma. Experience ten incomparable performances broadcast live from the stage of the Met, including five new productions, two of which are Met premieres.
Each event is broadcast live on Saturday mornings at 9:55 am. In addition to the opera presentations, audiences will go behind the scenes with the leading artists that make the Met one of the most renowned opera houses in the world. Backstage access includes special interviews with cast and crew and other features exclusive to the Live in HD series.
Tickets for The Met: Live in HD 2017-18 at Laemmle’s Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills, Town Center 5 in Encino, Playhouse 7 in Pasadena, and Claremont 5 in Claremont can be purchased online now by visiting www.laemmle.com/metoperaHD.
NORMA (Bellini) – New production
Saturday, October 7, 2017 – 9:55 a.m.
This new production of Bellini’s masterpiece stars Sondra Radvanovsky as the Druid priestess and Joyce DiDonato as her rival, Adalgisa—a casting coup for bel canto fans. Tenor Joseph Calleja is Pollione, Norma’s unfaithful lover, and Carlo Rizzi conducts. Sir David McVicar’s evocative production sets the action deep in a Druid forest where nature and ancient ritual rule.
DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE (Mozart)
Saturday, October 14, 2017 – 9:55 a.m.
Music Director Emeritus James Levine conducts the full-length, German version of Mozart’s magical fable, seen in Julie Taymor’s spectacular production, which captures both the opera’s earthy comedy and its noble mysticism.
THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL (Thomas Adès) – Met premiere
Saturday, November 18, 2017 – 9:55 a.m.
The Met presents the American premiere of Thomas Adès’s The Exterminating Angel, inspired by the classic Luis Buñuel film of the same name. Hailed by the New York Times at its 2016 Salzburg Festival premiere as “inventive and audacious … a major event,” The Exterminating Angel is a surreal fantasy about a dinner party from which the guests can’t escape. Tom Cairns, who wrote the libretto, directs the new production, and Adès conducts his own adventurous new opera.
TOSCA (Puccini) – New production
Saturday, January 27, 2018 – 9:55 a.m.
Rivaling the splendor of Franco Zeffirelli’s Napoleonic-era sets and costumes, Sir David McVicar’s ravishing new production offers a splendid backdrop for extraordinary singing. Sonya Yoncheva will make her role debut as the title prima donna alongside Vittorio Grigolo and Bryn Terfel. Andris Nelsons conducts.
L’ELISIR D’AMORE (Donizetti)
Saturday, February 10, 2018 – 9:00 a.m.
Pretty Yende debuts a new role at the Met as the feisty Adina, opposite Matthew Polenzani, who enthralled Met audiences as Nemorino in 2013 with his ravishing “Una furtiva lagrima.” Bartlett Sher’s production is charming, with deft comedic timing, but also emotionally revealing. Domingo Hindoyan conducts.
LA BOHÈME (Puccini)
Saturday, February 24, 2018 – 9:30 a.m.
The world’s most popular opera returns in Franco Zeffirelli’s classic production starring a cast of young stars, including Sonya Yoncheva as the fragile Mimì and Michael Fabiano as the poet Rodolfo. Marco Armiliato conducts.
SEMIRAMIDE (Rossini) – First time in HD
Saturday, March 10, 2018 – 9:55 a.m.
This masterpiece of dazzling vocal fireworks makes a rare Met appearance—its first in nearly 25 years—with Maurizio Benini on the podium. The all-star bel canto cast features Angela Meade in the title role of the murderous Queen of Babylon, who squares off in breathtaking duets with Arsace, a trouser role sung by Elizabeth DeShong. Javier Camarena, Ildar Abdrazakov, and Ryan Speedo Green complete the stellar cast.
COSI FAN TUTTE (Mozart) – New production
Saturday, March 31, 2018 – 9:55 a.m.
A winning cast comes together for Phelim McDermott’s clever vision of Mozart’s comedy about the sexes, set in a carnival-esque environment inspired by 1950s Coney Island. Manipulating the action are the Don Alfonso of Christopher Maltman and the Despina of Tony Award–winner Kelli O’Hara, with Amanda Majeski, Serena Malfi, Ben Bliss, and Adam Plachetka as the pairs of young lovers who test each other’s faithfulness. David Robertson conducts.
LUISA MILLER (Verdi) – First time in HD
Saturday, April 14, 2018 – 9:30 a.m.
James Levine and Plácido Domingo add yet another chapter to their legendary Met collaboration with this rarely performed Verdi gem, a heart-wrenching tragedy of fatherly love. Sonya Yoncheva sings the title role opposite Piotr Beczała in the first Met performances of the opera in more than ten years.
CENDRILLON (Massenet) – Met premiere
Saturday, April 28, 2018 – 9:55 a.m.
For the first time ever, Massenet’s sumptuous take on the Cinderella story comes to the Met. Joyce DiDonato stars in the title role, with mezzo-soprano Alice Coote in the trouser role of Prince Charming, Kathleen Kim as the Fairy Godmother, and Stephanie Blythe as the imperious Madame de la Haltière. Bertrand de Billy conducts Laurent Pelly’s imaginative storybook production.
Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the 35th anniversary of Blake Edwards’ gender-bending musical comedy VICTOR/VICTORIA from 1982.
It will screen on Tuesday, September 19 at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills, with special guest Lesley Ann Warren, Oscar-nominated as Best Supporting Actress for her role. Presented on DCP. Click here for tickets.
Julie Andrews, who was celebrated as Broadway’s My Fair Lady in the 1950s, and Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins in the 1960s, emerged from a decade long career slump in the 1970s to some of the best notices of her career in 1982’s Victor/Victoria, written and directed by her husband, Blake Edwards (Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Pink Panther).
Andrews put a whole new spin on her musical sweetheart persona by playing a down-on-her-luck singer in 1930s Paris who finds fame, fortune and romance disguised as a man pulling off a female impersonator act.
A skillful supporting cast added to the merriment, including James Garner as a Chicago gangster who falls for Andrews, Alex Karras as his bodyguard, Robert Preston as a gay cabaret performer who coaches Andrews in the masquerade, and Lesley Ann Warren as Garner’s moll.
Nominated for 7 Academy Awards, including Andrews as best actress, Edwards for best screenplay adaptation, and Preston and Warren in the supporting acting categories. Henry Mancini and Leslie Bricusse won the Oscar for their delightful Original Song Score.
Roger Ebert applauded it as “a classic movie sex farce…not only a funny movie, but a warm and friendly one.”
Vincent Canby in The New York Times heaped praise on the entire cast, especially Andrews, Garner, and Preston, “each giving the performance of his and her career in a marvelous fable about mistaken identity, sexual role-playing, love, innocence and sight gags.”
Canby also had kudos for Warren (“squeaky-voiced Norma is enchantingly self-possessed and very comic.”) and for Edwards (“His chef d’oeuvre, his cockeyed, crowning achievement.”)
Our special guest Lesley Ann Warren began her lengthy show biz career on the stage, debuting on Broadway in 1963, which led to her being cast in the title role of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical Cinderella in 1965. Following her work as Walt Disney’s main ingénue (The Happiest Millionaire) et al, she graduated to more mature roles in television movies in the 70s before being cast in Victor/Victoria, and played the archetypal dumb blonde with such aplomb that Stanley Kauffmann of the New Republic was impressed that Warren “plays her as if the character had just been invented.”
Warren is also known for playing Miss Scarlet in the cult movie Clue, and for recent recurring TV guest roles in series such as Will & Grace, Desperate Housewives, and Blunt Talk.
The 35th anniversary screening of Victor/Victoria, with a Q&A with Lesley Ann Warren, plays Tuesday, September 19 at 7:30 pm at the Ahrya Fine Arts theatre in Beverly Hills. Click here for tickets.
THE VAULT writer-director Dan Bush, lead actresses Taryn Manning and Francesca Eastwood, and actor Scott Haze will participate in a Q&A following the 7:30 PM screening at the Ahrya Fine Arts Theater on Thursday, August 31.
Starring James Franco, Taryn Manning, Francesca Eastwood and Scott Haze, THE VAULT opens at the Laemmle NoHo 7 on Friday, September 1st.
Kristen Stewart will participate in a Q&A after the 7:30pm screening of THE 2017 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL SHORT FILM TOUR on Friday, August 25th at our Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills.
Her short film COME SWIM is one of seven short films featured in the program.
The 2017 Sundance Film Festival Short Film Tour is a 95-minute theatrical program of seven short films selected from this year’s Festival, widely considered the premier showcase for short films and the launch pad for many now-prominent independent filmmakers for more than 30 years. Including fiction, documentary and animation from around the world, the 2017 program offers new audiences a taste of what the Festival offers, from laugh-out-loud comedy to contemplative reflections of the world we live in.
Tickets are available here.
SUDDEN FEAR (1952) 65th Anniversary Screening
With Introduction by film historian Jeremy Arnold
Tuesday, August 29, at 7:30 PM at the Ahrya Fine Arts Theatre
Presented on DCP. Click here for tickets.
One of the dominant series in this year’s Emmy competition is Feud: Bette and Joan, which earned a near-record total of 18 nominations, and the top contender for Best Actress is Jessica Lange for her multi-dimensional portrayal of screen icon Joan Crawford.
During this Emmy season, Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 65th anniversary screening of one of Crawford’s most memorable performances in the film noir favorite, SUDDEN FEAR.
The film earned four Oscar nominations in 1952, including one for Crawford as Best Actress, one for Jack Palance as Best Supporting Actor and another for Charles Lang’s moody black-and-white cinematography.
The ingenious screenplay by Lenore J. Coffee and Robert Smith, adapted from a novel by Edna Sherry, casts Crawford as a highly successful New York playwright who rejects an aspiring young actor when he auditions for the leading role in her latest play. Crawford insists that he lacks the charisma to be convincing as a romantic lead.
Ironically, when she later meets the actor on a train heading back to her home in San Francisco, she finds him more compelling and begins to fall in love with him. But this is only the beginning of a romantic melodrama with some startling and frightening twists ahead for both characters.
Film noir historian Spencer Selby called the film ”undoubtedly one of the most stylish and refined woman-in-distress noirs.” Leonard Maltin agreed that the film is a “solid suspense thriller with many neat twists.”
Gloria Grahame, who made four movies in 1952, including The Bad and the Beautiful (which won her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress), has a juicy supporting role as Palance’s secret lover.
David Miller (Midnight Lace, Lonely Are the Brave, Captain Newman, M.D.) directed.
The screening will be introduced by film historian Jeremy Arnold, author of TCM’S The Essentials, who provided the audio commentary on the recent Blu-Ray edition of SUDDEN FEAR.
Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present our second annual tribute to the cowboy genre, Western Weekend, a six-shooter collection of vintage sagebrush films.
This year’s round-up includes John Ford’s late masterpiece, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, Fred Zinnemann’s venerated HIGH NOON, Sam Peckinpah’s early landmark, RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY, John Sturges’ influential GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL, and rediscoveries of revisionist oaters from Martin Ritt, HOMBRE, and Philip Kaufman, THE GREAT NORTHFIELD MINNESOTA RAID.
The star-studded line-up of legendary cowboys, lawmen and outlaws features John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Paul Newman, James Stewart, Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, Fredric March, Robert Duvall, and Grace Kelly, among others. So saddle-up for a retro Western weekend August 18-20. Hitching posts available at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills.
Special guests: THE GREAT NORTHFIELD MINNESOTA RAID Director Philip Kaufman, RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY Co-Star Mariette Hartley, and HOMBRE Actress Barbara Rush.
Admission is $13 per film. Laemmle Premiere Card holders pay only $10 per ticket. A six film series pass is available for $60 at the Fine Arts box office.
HIGH NOON (1952) – 65th Anniversary
Introduction by Karen Sharpe-Kramer, widow of producer-director Stanley Kramer and president of the Stanley Kramer Library
DCP presentation
This seminal film in the Western canon, deftly directed by Fred Zinnemann (From Here to Eternity, A Man For All Seasons) won 4 Oscars, including Best Actor for Gary Cooper in one of his best roles as a small town sheriff, abandoned by fearful townsfolk, who must face a desperado and his gang sworn to kill him.
The film had political undertones of the era, and screenwriter Carl Foreman (The Bridge on the River Kwai) was blacklisted after taking the Fifth amendment at the HUAC hearings.
The New York Times praised the film and its anti-McCarthy sentiments with a timely note still resonating 65 years later, “It bears a close relation to things that are happening in the world today, where people are being terrorized by bullies and surrendering freedoms out of senselessness and fear.”
The hit theme song won Dimitri Tiomkin two Oscars (Song and Score). The film was notable for having its running time match the story countdown to high noon, and that editing effort won Elmo Williams an Oscar. Also nominated for Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay. With Grace Kelly, Lloyd Bridges, Katy Jurado, and Lon Chaney. New York Film Critics’ Best Film of the Year; included in the National Film Registry at its inception (1989). Shows August 20 at 4:30 pm. Click here for tickets.
GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL (1957) – 60th Anniversary
35mm presentation
A popular and influential oater that recreated the legendary 1881 shootout in Tombstone, Arizona, notable for its inspired casting of Kirk Douglas as Doc Holliday and Burt Lancaster as Wyatt Earp, who give solid performances as the iconic figures of the Old West.
Well-directed by John Sturges (Bad Day at Black Rock, The Great Escape), and written by Leon Uris (Exodus), the film scored big at the box-office. Its success paved the way for the Western super-productions of the 60s, including Sturges’ The Magnificent Seven and Best Picture Oscar nominee How the West Was Won.
The sharp color cinematography is by Charles B. Lang; Music by Dimitri Tiomkin. Nominated for 2 Academy Awards (Sound and Film Editing).
The strong supporting cast includes Rhonda Fleming, Oscar winner Jo Van Fleet, John Ireland and rising actors Dennis Hopper, Earl Holliman and Deforest Kelley. Shows August 19 at 5:30 pm. Click here for tickets.
THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE (1962) – 55th Anniversary
DCP presentation
The penultimate Western of director John Ford, re-teamed with frequent collaborator John Wayne, and joined by James Stewart, who had found major success in the 50s in saddles and spurs for director Anthony Mann. By this time Wayne had become a cultural icon, symbolizing the cowboy-soldier hero both on and off the screen. Stewart gives perhaps his greatest Western performance as an idealistic lawyer who brings civilization to the primitive frontier, but rises to national recognition ironically through a gunfight showdown.
Shot in black and white, and using mostly studio interiors, Ford and company (producer Willis Goldbeck co-scripting with James Warner Bellah) spin a yarn of archetypes and myths, but with new self-awareness of the lies that perpetrated the Western mythology (“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”).
Kenneth Turan applauded, “Told with a simplicity that feels almost like ritual…Liberty Valance unfolds seamlessly, without a frame wasted or out of place.”
Added to the National Film Registry in 2007. With Vera Miles, Edmond O’Brien, Woody Strode, Andy Devine and Lee Marvin as the snarling varmint, Liberty Valance. Shows August 19 at 8:00 pm. Click here for tickets.
RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY (1962) – 55th Anniversary
Actress Mariette Hartley in Person
35mm presentation
This autumnal Western dealt with many of the same themes of a changing West that John Ford explored in Liberty Valance. But young director Sam Peckinpah brought an edgier perspective to his examination of the closing of the frontier.
Western film veterans Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea play aging gunfighters confronting a new world at the start of the 20th century. Laced with irreverent humor and sometimes startling sexual candor, the film turns into a deeply moving elegy for its upright cowboy heroes. Despite a haphazard release by the studio, the film was named by Newsweek as the best film of 1962, and in his four-star review, Leonard Maltin called it a “literate, magnificent Western.” It was inducted into the National Film Registry in 1997.
This screening will be followed by a Q & A with actress Mariette Hartley, who made her film debut in the role of an innocent but spirited frontier woman. The cast also includes Warren Oates, Ron Starr, L.Q. Jones, R.G. Armstrong, and Edgar Buchanan. Cinematography by Lucien Ballard. Shows August 19 at 3:00 pm. Click here for tickets.
HOMBRE (1967) – 50th Anniversary
Actress Barbara Rush in Person
DCP presentation
This was one of the first of a new breed of Westerns of the 1960s and 70s that challenged the negative portrayals of Native Americans perpetrated in many earlier films. Paul Newman plays a white man raised by the Apache and embittered by the mistreatment of his adoptive tribe.
The film was created by the same team that made the Oscar-winning modern Western, Hud, four years earlier: director Martin Ritt, screenwriters Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr., and cinematographer James Wong Howe, in addition to Newman.
Adapted from a novel by Elmore Leonard, the plot owes a debt to John Ford’s classic Stagecoach, retooled with anti-Establishment bite. The extraordinary ensemble cast includes Oscar winners Fredric March and Martin Balsam, Oscar nominee Diane Cilento, Richard Boone, Barbara Rush, Cameron Mitchell, and newcomers Maggie Blye and Peter Lazer.
As Roger Ebert wrote, “The performances are uniformly excellent.” The New York Times’ Bosley Crowther said, “Savor it for its fine ingredients…this is a first-rate cooking of a western recipe.” Shows August 20 at 2:00 pm. Click here for tickets.
THE GREAT NORTHFIELD MINNESOTA RAID (1972) – 45th Anniversary
Writer-director Philip Kaufman in Person
35mm presentation
Of all the revisionist Westerns made during the late 1960s and early 1970s, this may be one of the least heralded and most inventive. The story of the last bank robbery perpetrated by the James and Younger gangs stars Oscar winners Cliff Robertson as Cole Younger and Robert Duvall as Jesse James.
Duvall’s witty portrayal of the iconic outlaw as a sly, loony psychopath is one of the most original additions to Western film lore. New writer-director Philip Kaufman mixes humor, lyricism, and breathtaking action set-pieces.
Jay Cocks of Time magazine called Northfield “the kind of first movie so rich in texture and invention that we can look forward to a lot more from Philip Kaufman.”
Indeed, Kaufman went on to direct the first remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Wanderers, The Right Stuff, and The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The supporting cast includes film veterans R.G. Armstrong, Elisha Cook Jr., Royal Dano, Dana Elcar, and Donald Moffat, along with newer faces Luke Askew, Matt Clark, and Mary-Robin Redd. Photographed by Bruce Surtees, with a musical score by Oscar winner Dave Grusin. Kaufman will make an in-person appearance on the opening night of our Western Weekend. Shows August 18 at 7:30 pm. Click here for tickets.