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Fantastic Fungi Opening Weekend Q&A’s with Filmmaker and Special Guests at the Monica Film Center.

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FANTASTIC FUNGI Q&A’s after select showtimes.

https://youtu.be/oR4jzC2JDTs

10/25 – Fri., 5:20pm Director Louie Schwartzberg, Ryan Munevar, Decriminalize CA and Ashley Booth, Aware Project

7:40pm Director Louie Schwartzberg, Ryan Munevar, Decriminalize CA, Ashley Booth, Aware Project, Brad Adams, Los Angeles Medicinal Plant Society, and Tara Rodriquez, PsychedeliciA Integration

10/26 – Sat., 7:40pm Director Louie Schwartzberg Andy Lipkis, Founder of TreePeople

10/27 – Sun, 5:20pm Director Louie Schwartzberg, Andy Lipkis Founder of TreePeople, Michael Martinez, Founder of L.A Compost and Jonathan Palfrey, Executive Director, Climate Resolve

Laemmle’s Anniversary Classics presents THE TINGLER and THEM, a Halloween Eve Double Feature on October 30 in North Hollywood.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present our annual scary October program of classic fright films with a double bill of 1950s black-and-white hits: the 65th anniversary of THEM! (1954), paired with the 60th anniversary of THE TINGLER (1959). The vintage horror entries will show in a retro double feature (two movies for the price of one) on Halloween Eve, Wednesday, October 30 at the Laemmle NoHo.

THEM!, considered one of the very best of the 1950s monster movies, tapped into the era’s nuclear paranoia with its tale of giant mutated ants terrorizing the American Southwest.

Unlike many of the low-budget films that capitalized on atomic era fears, THEM! was a major production for Warner Bros., hoping to repeat the commercial success of their 1952 release, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. They assigned studio contract director Gordon Douglas to helm a script written by Ted Sherdeman, Russell Hughes, and George Worthing Yates with a strong cast headed by James Whitmore, Oscar winner Edmund Gwenn (Miracle on 34th Street), James Arness, Joan Weldon and newcomer Fess Parker.

Accomplished cinematographer Sidney Hickox (The Big Sleep, White Heat) and venerable composer Bronislau Kaper (San Francisco, Lili, Mutiny on the Bounty) contributed first-rate work, along with special effects that garnered an Academy Award nomination that year.

Variety capsulized the favorable reviews: “top-notch science fiction shocker. It has a well-plotted story, expertly directed and acted in matter-of-fact style to rate a chiller payoff and thoroughly satisfy fans of hackle-raising melodrama.”

THE TINGLER is a classic of another sort – cultish camp – with its outlandish story of a doctor who discovers a fear-bred organism in the base of the spine. If released, the centipede creature’s grip can kill, only alleviated by a scream.

Producer-director William Castle, one of the period’s rival “king of the Bs,” enlisted writer Robb White to concoct the story, cited by Time Out as “ingeniously ludicrous.” Castle and White had collaborated twice before and hit box office pay dirt with the low-budget hit House on Haunted Hill in 1958. But shlockmeister Castle’s real talents were as a huckstering showman, and he provided a marketing gimmick doozy in “Percepto,” with vibrating buzzers wired to theater seats to jolt the audience when the creature is unleashed.

The good doctor, played by Vincent Price, would then instruct the theater audience to “scream for your lives” to keep the marauding tingler at bay. Price had been the star of House on Haunted Hill and then went on to become the “the master of menace” for a dueling “king of the Bs,” Roger Corman, with his adaptations of the works of Edgar Allan Poe in the early 1960s.

At the time of its release, the New York Times’ Howard Thompson dismissed THE TINGLER as a prime example of Castle “serving some of the worst, dullest little horror entries ever to snake into movie houses.”

Today audiences are mightily amused by the brand of scary mayhem Castle specialized in, endorsing Leonard Maltin’s assessment of THE TINGLER as a ”preposterous but original shocker.”

One night only, enjoy an early Halloween treat (no tricks here) – two vintage horror movies back on the big screen in a classic double feature on Wednesday, October 30 at the Laemmle NoHo. Click here for tickets.

Formats: THE TINGLER, DCP; THEM!, Blu-ray.

THE NATURAL 35th Anniversary Screening and Q&A with Cinematographer Caleb Deschanel & Screenwriter Roger Towne.

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At the climax of baseball season, Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a screening of the film regarded as one of the greatest of all baseball movies, Barry Levinson’s THE NATURAL.

Adapted from the acclaimed 1952 novel by Bernard Malamud, the film earned four Academy Award nominations in 1984: Best Supporting Actress Glenn Close, Best Cinematography Caleb Deschanel, Best Musical Score Randy Newman and Best Art Direction.

The beautiful, impeccably designed recreation of an earlier era in American sports history also scored at the box office. Robert Redford plays the title character, and the all-star cast also includes Robert Duvall, Kim Basinger, Wilford Brimley, Barbara Hershey, Richard Farnsworth, and Joe Don Baker.

Malamud’s story, adapted for the screen by Roger Towne and Phil Dusenberry, tells the story of a young baseball prodigy named Roy Hobbs (Redford) who travels from his bucolic Midwestern home to try out for the Chicago Cubs. On his journey he is assaulted by a mysterious woman, and disappears for some 15 years. When he reappears and tries out for a New York team, the owners and manager are skeptical that a middle-aged man can ever succeed in the majors. But Roy’s skills as a slugger silence the skeptics and encourage the owners to give him a shot. His rise to the top is complicated by his romance with a rather shady woman (Basinger) and by the reappearance of his childhood sweetheart (Close), who has a surprise revelation that disorients Roy.

In addition to the rousing baseball scenes and the poignant personal story, the film captivates as a lush evocation of a more innocent American past. Cinematographer Deschanel, who had made his mark with his work on Carroll Ballard’s ‘The Black Stallion’ and Philip Kaufman’s ‘The Right Stuff,’ made a major contribution in bringing the era to life. Levinson also made an unconventional choice in selecting new composer Randy Newman to create the rousing symphonic score.

Although the filmmakers altered the dark ending of Malamud’s novel, they retained his piercing insights into some of the contradictions of the American character. The film earned mixed reviews at the time, but its reputation has grown. James Berardinelli of ReelViews called THE NATURAL “arguably the best baseball movie ever made,” and ESPN also called it one of the best sports movies of all time. On its original release Gene Siskel declared, “Redford scores in an uplifting celebration of the individual.”

Deschanel has earned six Oscar nominations over the course of his career. In addition to nominations for THE NATURAL and ‘The Right Stuff,’ he was cited for his work on Mel Gibson’s blockbuster, ‘The Passion of the Christ,’ and for ‘The Patriot,’ ‘Fly Away Home,’ and last year’s Oscar nominee for best foreign language film, ‘Never Look Away.’ This year Deschanel shot Disney’s smash-hit live-action version of ‘The Lion King.’

Our 35th anniversary presentation of THE NATURAL (1984) and Q&A with cinematographer Caleb Deschanel and screenwriter Roger Towne screens Thursday, October 24, at 7PM at the Royal in West LA. Click here for tickets.

Format: DCP

THE PORTAL Q&A’s with Filmmakers and Special Guests Opening Weekend at the Monica Film Center.

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THE PORTAL Q&A’s after select showtimes.

https://youtu.be/KkfyntkbpWI

Friday 11/1 5:20pm
Tom Cronin – Producer and Co-Writer
Jacqui Fifer – Director, Producer and Co-Writer
Heather Hennessy – Film Subject
Amandine – Film Subject

Friday 11/1 7:40pm
Tom Cronin – Producer and Co-Writer
Jacqui Fifer – Director, Producer and Co-Writer
Heather Hennessy – Film Subject

Saturday 11/2 5:20pm
Tom Cronin – Producer and Co-Writer
Jacqui Fifer – Director, Producer and Co-Writer
Heather Hennessy – Film Subject
Amandine – Film Subject

Saturday 11/2 7:40pm
Tom Cronin – Producer and Co-Writer
Jacqui Fifer – Director, Producer and Co-Writer
Heather Hennessy – Film Subject

GOING ATTRACTIONS, a Love Letter to Historic Movie Theaters, to Premiere October 24 at Our Historic Ahrya Fine Arts with Director & Expert Q&A’s.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Culture Vulture series present GOING ATTRACTIONS: The Definitive Story of the Movie Palace, a tribute to the spectacular monuments created as temples for the enjoyment of movies.

The film’s L.A. run kicks off Thursday, October 24 with the world theatrical premiere at the historic Ahrya Fine Arts, followed by a discussion with filmmaker April Wright and subject Escott O. Norton, executive director of the Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation. Several of the film’s other subjects will be in attendance as well!

Other countries built palaces for royalty. In the United States, we built them to watch movies.

Following the premiere, GOING ATTRACTIONS will play for a week, from October 25-31, at the Music Hall (showtimes here), and Monday, October 28 & Tuesday, October 29 at four additional Laemmle theatres — the Claremont, Playhouse, Royal and Town Center — as part of the Culture Vulture series (see list of shows and ticketing links below).

GOING ATTRACTIONS captures the splendor and grandeur of the great historic cinemas of the U.S., built when movies were the acme of entertainment and the stories were larger than life, as were the venues designed to show them: Giant screens, thousands of seats, ornate interiors, amazing marquees, in-house organs and orchestras, and air conditioning back when peoples’ homes had none. The film also tracks the eventual decline of the palaces, through to today’s current preservation efforts — with a special focus on Los Angeles, which enjoys two separate historic theater districts (downtown and Hollywood).

“I feel passionately about both the text — these beautiful structures —  and the subtext of GOING ATTRACTIONS, how we have changed so much in the past 50 years as a people in how we spend our time, socialize and experience entertainment,” director April Wright said. “Our content is personalized now, at our fingertips — but I fear we are losing something important by not having the local, communal experiences we used to have with our friends, families and fellow movie-going audiences.”

“Awesome and Wonderful!” — TC Kirkham, ECinemaOne

Escott O. Norton, who will participate in a Q&A at the October 24 premiere.

Culture Vulture screenings:

Claremont:
Oct. 28, 7:30 pm
Oct. 29, 1 pm
Playhouse:
Oct. 28, 7:30 pm
Oct. 29, 1 pm
Royal:
Oct. 28, 7:30 pm
Oct. 29, 1 pm
Town Center:
Oct. 28, 7:30 pm
Oct. 29, 1 pm

Speakers after three of the Culture Vulture screenings:

Mon., Oct. 28 7:30 pm at the Playhouse: David Saffer, LAHTF board member, and Ross Melnick, film historian, UCSB professor
Mon., Oct. 28 7:30 pm at the Royal: Mike Hume, LAHTF board member and filmmaker April Wright
Tue., Oct. 29 1 pm at the Town Center: filmmaker April Wright
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9bMiEt8_xQ

Forty-Fifth Anniversary Screenings of Louis Malle’s LACOMBE LUCIEN on October 16th

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present our Anniversary Classics Abroad program for October: Louis Malle’s LACOMBE LUCIEN, nominated for Best Foreign Language Film of 1974.

The film was one of the movies, following Marcel Ophuls’ monumental documentary ‘The Sorrow and the Pity,’ that scrutinized French collaboration with the Nazis during World War II.

Malle’s movie tells a fictional but provocative story, written by the director and novelist Patrick Modiano, about a teenage boy who savors the power he accrues when he joins the Gestapo during the final months of the war.

LACOMBE LUCIEN takes place in 1944, after the Allies have landed in Normandy but the Nazis are still fighting to retain their hold on the country. Lucien Lacombe is an uneducated peasant boy who first tries to escape his humdrum life by volunteering for the Resistance.

When they reject him for being too young, he stumbles into an opportunity working for the Gestapo in his town and discovers a taste and talent for brutality. His loyalties are complicated, however, when he falls in love with a beautiful Jewish girl who is in hiding with her father and grandmother.

Malle found a brand new actor, Pierre Blaise, to play the part of Lucien. He was working as a woodcutter when Malle discovered him. Although his debut performance was highly acclaimed, Blaise’s career was cut tragically short when he died in a car crash just a year after the release of the film. But Aurore Clement, cast as the young Jewish girl, went on to have a long and rewarding career in French cinema, even appearing in some American movies like ‘Apocalypse Now’ and ‘Paris, Texas.’

Distinguished European actors Therese Giehse and Holger Lowenadler filled out the cast. Lowenadler, who played Clement’s cultivated father, was voted best supporting actor of the year by both the National Society of Film Critics and the National Board of Review.

Critics praised the film for its dispassionate insight into how perfectly ordinary people could be seduced by a taste of power and violence. Pauline Kael wrote, “Malle’s film is a long, close look at the banality of evil; it is—not incidentally—one of the least banal movies ever made.”

The New York Times’ Vincent Canby wrote, “’Lacombe Lucien’ is easily Mr. Malle’s most ambitious, most provocative film.” Leonard Maltin called it a “subtle, complex tale of guilt, innocence, and the amorality of power; masterfully directed.”

Although it is a vivid historical recreation, the film remains startlingly timely in its examination of the deadly lure of fascism.

LACOMBE LUCIEN screens Wednesday, October 16, at 7PM in Glendale, Pasadena, and West LA. Click here for tickets.

Director of Photography Fan Chao in Person for a Tribute Screening of the Chinese Masterpiece AN ELEPHANT SITTING STILL.

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On Sunday, October 27 at the Ahrya Fine Arts, we’ll screen one of the finest films of the year, AN ELEPHANT SITTING STILL, in honor of its late creator. Set under the gloomy skies of a small town in northern China, the movie follows different protagonists whose lives are intertwined in a furious tale of nihilistic rage. Written, directed and edited by Hu Bo, it’s the novelist-turned-director’s first and only feature. On October 12, 2017, at the age of 29, he killed himself soon after completing the film. Based on a story with the same title from his 2017 novel Huge Crack, it premiered at the 68th Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Best First Feature (Special Mention) and FIPRESCI prizes, nominations for Best First Feature and the C.I.C.A.E. awards and acclaim from other established directors such as Bela Tarr, Wang Bing, Ang Lee and Gus Van Sant. It went on to screen at prestigious festivals and cinemas around the world.

From AN ELEPHANT SITTING STILL. Courtesy of KimStim.

As a fellow Beijing Film Academy graduate and close friend of Hu Bo, cinematographer Fan Chao was one of his chief collaborators for much of Hu’s too-brief career. Fan worked on several of Hu’s short films and served as DP to AN ELEPHANT SITTING STILL, for which Fan received a Best Cinematography nomination at the Golden Horse Awards (the Chinese language Oscars). Fan will be present for a post-screening Q&A.

Filmmaker Bo Hu. Courtesy of KimStim.

One of the most talked about films this year, AN ELEPHANT SITTING STILL is an intense epic drama sure to be remembered as a masterpiece and a landmark in Chinese cinema.

From AN ELEPHANT SITTING STILL. Courtesy of KimStim.

“Powerfully absorbing…an act of solemn, disciplined and passionate protest.” —A.O. Scott, The New York Times

“Should become an enduring classic…one of the greatest recent films.” —Richard Brody, The New Yorker

From AN ELEPHANT SITTING STILL. Courtesy of KimStim.

“This is a film of extraordinary beauty, invention, and grace.” —Jonathan Romney, Film Comment

Fan Chao’s travel is made possible through the generous support of the Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation.

https://vimeo.com/281649547

Celebrate 40 years of George Harrison’s HandMade Films at THE OTHER HANDMADE’S TALE FILM FESTIVAL

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HandMade Films was the boutique movie company created by George Harrison to finance MONTY PYTHON’S LIFE OF BRIAN. Started by a Beatle to help some Pythons, the company went on to revitalize the British film industry with movies such as TIME BANDITS, WITHNAIL & I, MONA LISA, and many others.

Celebrate 40 years of HandMade Films with the first-ever U.S. retrospective of the films made by the studio. THE OTHER HANDMADE’S TALE runs Thursday, October 10th through Sunday, October 20th at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills. presented by The Mods & Rockers Film Festival in association with Laemmle Theatres.

Opening night on Thursday, October 10th will feature the U.S. Premiere of the brand-new documentary about HandMade Films, AN ACCIDENTAL STUDIO, with unreleased archive interviews and footage with Harrison, new and exclusive interviews with Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, Richard E. Grant and Neil Jordan plus previously-unseen interview footage with Bob Hoskins.

A few additional highlights from the festival include:

  • A Bob Hoskins double feature of MONA LISA (1986) and THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY (1981).
  • MONTY PYTHON’S LIFE OF BRIAN (1979) with producer John Goldstone and musical director John Altman in person!
  • A Richard E. Grant double feature of HOW TO GET AHEAD IN ADVERTISING (1989) and WITHNAIL AND I (1987).
  • TIME BANDITS (1981).
  • NUNS ON THE RUN (1990) in 35mm.
  • And much, much more!

Click here for full details and schedule of films!