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Laemmle’s Umpteenth Annual Oscar Contest, 2017 Edition!

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oscars-bgIt’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 Motion 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 26th.

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 $2 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! Last year, 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 March 1st. Good luck!

Enter Here

STRIKE A POSE Q&A’s at the Fine Arts with Madonna Dancers. Perez Hilton will Host Friday.

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SAPAll 7:30 PM screenings of STRIKE A POSE will feature Q&A’s with dancers featured in the film. Perez Hilton will host on Friday, January 27.

Adventurous Artist Documentary CARVALHO’S JOURNEY Screenings and Q&A’s Next Week.

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A real life 19th century American western adventure story, CARVALHO’S JOURNEY tells the extraordinary story of Solomon Nunes Carvalho (1815-1897), an observant Sephardic Jew born in Charleston, South Carolina, and his life as a groundbreaking photographer, artist and pioneer in American history. We’re screening it this Monday, January 30 at 7:30 PM and Tuesday, January 31 at 1 PM at the Claremont 5, Playhouse 7, Fine Arts, Town Center 5 and Monica Film Center as part of our ongoing Culture Vulture series.

Daguerreotypist Robert Shlaer is featured in CARVALHO’S JOURNEY as an interviewee and also on location, re-creating daguerreotypes along the route Carvalho traveled in 1853. He will participate in Q&A’s after the Pasadena screening on Monday night and the Beverly Hills screening on Tuesday afternoon. Filmmaker Steve Rivo will participate in Q&A’s after the Beverly Hills screening on Monday night and after the Encino screening on Tuesday afternoon.

Robert Shlaer, photo by M. Susan Barger.
Robert Shlaer, photo by M. Susan Barger.
“Born in Boston, an alumnus of Brookline High, Steve Rivo grew up in a film-loving family. He was exposed at an early age to many of the great films, but he always had a warm spot for Robert Aldrich’s “The Frisco Kid” (1979), in which Gene Wilder plays a rabbi assigned to a synagogue in San Francisco in 1850. To get there, the rabbi must cross the Rockies on horseback with a varmint played by Harrison Ford.

“Today, Rivo makes his own movies. He’s founder and owner of Down Low Pictures, an independent documentary production company based in Brooklyn. When he was offered a project about the painter and daguerreotypist Solomon Carvalho, a Sephardic Jew from Charleston, South Carolina, who accompanied legendary explorer John Fremont on his 1853 Fifth Western Expedition, the story’s resemblance to “The Frisco Kid” helped win him over.

“He talked about the resulting documentary, CARVALHO’S JOURNEY, on the phone from his studio in New York.”

Q. Did repeated viewings of “The Frisco Kid” give you an insight into Carvalho’s story?

A. That was kind of my only frame of reference. The comedic situations involved in having a rube on the trail, and not just any rube, but a classically Jewish character who has Jewish anxieties. Those elements of the Carvalho story were fun to play with. He was an observant Jew, so he couldn’t eat certain foods even when they were starving. And he wasn’t good at a lot of outdoorsy stuff like the rest of the party. He was a 38-year-old city slicker artistic type.

Q. The hardships of his trip were not so funny, though. More like “The Revenant.”

A. It is always surprising how physically difficult, challenging, and a little bit crazy it would be to get in a wagon and try to cross the country in the middle of winter. It’s inconceivable to us today. We get on an airplane and complain.

Q. What do you think viewers will take away from this film other than a new appreciation for air travel?

Solomon Nunes Carvalho. Dageerreotype courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Solomon Nunes Carvalho. Dageurreotype courtesy of the Library of Congress.

A. There are a lot of different things people have responded to — American Jewish history, Western expansion, the birth of photography, and a personal story of an artist. What attracted me was that it was a little bit of biography, but it was also kind of a travel story, and an adventure story through which you could talk about other things, the experience of outsiders in American culture. It’s a film about someone we didn’t know anything about.

Q. I understand you just finished a 10-part series for the True TV network on Hollywood comedies. Did you get to include “The Frisco Kid?”

A. I jokingly raised the possibility, but so few people have seen that movie. It’s the Solomon Carvalho of Jewish Western comedies.

Steve Rivo
Steve Rivo

LAEMMLE LIVE: Presents Sol-La Music Academy – Sunday February 5, 2017

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SOL-LA 4-tet FBJoin us at the Monica Film Center on Sunday, February 5, 2017 for Sol-LA Variations, LAEMMLE LIVE’s second concert featuring the scholarship winning George Magub String Quartet from Santa Monica-based Sol-La Music Academy, Margaret Lysy, Director. The program will include Debussy and improv with guest violinist Connor Vance from acclaimed roots band, Dustbowl Revival. Also included will be a special performance by Sol-La student, Isolde Fair, who has gained national attention for  All the Little Girls, an original song she wrote using words from Hillary Clinton’s concession speech.  Join us for our unique interactive musical adventure.

Sol-La Music Academy is a non-profit music school in Santa Monica, providing high quality performing arts education to students from all backgrounds and economic circumstances. Their program reflects the belief that vibrant cultural education nurtures all areas of learning, connects diverse societies and enhances enjoyment of life.

RSVP using Eventbrite
This is a Free Event!

EVENT DETAILS
Sunday, February 5, 2017
11:00 AM
Monica Film Center

THIS IS EVERYTHING: GIGI GORGEOUS Director Barbara Kopple and Gigi Gorgeous in Person at the Music Hall.

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THIS IS EVERYTHING: GIGI GORGEOUS subject Gigi Gorgeous and the film’s producers will participate in a Q&A after the 7:10 PM screening at the Music Hall on Friday, February 3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83jGTVHGj1Y

MR. GAGA Filmmaker in Person Opening Weekend.

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MR. GAGA director Tomer Heymann will participate in Q&A’s after the 7:20pm screenings at the Monica Film Center Friday, Feb 10 and Saturday, Feb 11; and after the 1:10pm screening on Saturday, Feb 11 at the Playhouse.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/196324325

IN PERSON: Alan Alda, Carol Burnett, and Bess Armstrong Following our 35th Anniversary Screening of THE FOUR SEASONS on 1/24 at the Royal.

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Alan Alda, actress Carol Burnett, and actress Bess Armstrong will participate in a Q&A following our 35th Anniversary screening of THE FOUR SEASONS on Tuesday, January 24, at 7:00 PM at the Royal Theatre. Click here to buy tickets now SOLD OUT.

JUST ADDED: 6:30PM screening with an introduction by Mr. Alda (No Q&A)! You can get tickets here: http://bit.ly/2k5sp68

THE FOUR SEASONS was one of the biggest box office hits of 1981. This wise dramatic comedy written and directed by Alan Alda centers on three long-married couples who have vacationed together for many years. But their friendship is threatened when one of the men leaves his wife for a much younger woman, which causes the others to examine their own relationships.

ac-aldaAlda also stars in the film, along with Carol Burnett, Len Cariou, Sandy Dennis, Jack Weston, Rita Moreno, and Bess Armstrong. The New York Times’ Janet Maslin wrote that Alda “succeeds in presenting a gentle, likable, frequently funny glimpse of everyday types doing their everyday best to get by.”

Alan Alda is best known for his starring role in the smash hit TV series, MASH, which ran from 1972 to 1983. But he has also appeared in many feature films, including Paper Lion, Same Time Next Year, California Suite, The Seduction of Joe Tynan (which he also wrote), Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors, Flirting with Disaster, The Aviator (for which he earned an Oscar nomination), and Bridge of Spies. He wrote and directed several other films, including Sweet Liberty and Betsy’s Wedding. He returned to television with a recurring role in the award-winning series, The West Wing.

ac-burnettCarol Burnett starred in one of the most popular and beloved television series of all time, The Carol Burnett Show, which ran from 1967 to 1978. She has excelled on stage, on screen, and on television.

Other films include Pete ‘n Tillie, Billy Wilder’s The Front Page, Robert Altman’s A Wedding, Annie, and Noises Off. She won an Emmy for her recurring role on the popular sitcom, Mad About You, and played a number of dramatic roles as well.

ac-armstrongBess Armstrong made her feature film debut in The Four Seasons after starting out in television. She went on to co-star in High Road to China, Jaws 3-D, Nothing in Common, and the TV series My So-Called Life and House of Lies, among many other credits.

For more about our Anniversary Classics Series, including an upcoming screening of GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER, visit www.laemmle.com/ac and join our Facebook Group.

THEY CALL US MONSTERS Filmmaker Q&A at the Royal.

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THEY CALL US MONSTERS filmmaker Benjamin Lear will participate in Q&A’s after the 5:20 and 7:40 PM screenings at the Royal on Friday and Saturday, January 27 and 28, as well as after the 7:40 screening on Thursday, February 2. Representatives from InsideOut Writers, the screenwriting program for juvenile offenders featured in the film, will participate in the 2/2 Q&A.

https://vimeo.com/194588281