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Bloody Disgusting Presents Retro Nightmares Cinema Series in Pasadena, North Hollywood, and Santa Monica!

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Bloody Disgusting presents Retro Nightmares Cinema Series brings campy fun back to theaters starting this September in Pasadena, North Hollywood, and Santa Monica.

Just in time to kick off the Halloween season, five HD digitally remastered cult horror classics–as voted online by fans–will be coming to the big screen for three nights only: The House on Sorority Row (Thursday, September 27th), Amityville: The Evil Escapes & Amityville: It’s About Time – Double Feature Event (Thursday, October 4th), and Sweet Sixteen & The Convent – Double Feature Event (Thursday, October 11th).

https://youtu.be/tD0SX_DeHFA

Many of these films haven’t been shown on the big screen in decades, so now is the opportunity for horror fans to share the experience together and enjoy exclusive in-theater content, including videos produced by Attack Media, the folks behind “The Attack” web show on Twitch and behind-the-scenes footage.

SEPTEMBER 27th

THE HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW (1983) at 7:30pm and 9:55pm
After a seemingly innocent prank goes horribly wrong, a group of sorority sisters are stalked and murdered one by one in their sorority house while throwing a party to celebrate their graduation.

Special in-theater bonus content includes Attack Media’s comedic makeover of The House on Sorority Row (1983) in a five-minute re-edit presented as a ladies’ etiquette school recruitment video.

Cast: Katie McNeil, Eileen Davidson, Janis Ward, Robin Meloy, Harley Jane Kozak, Barbara Harris

OCTOBER 4TH Amityville Double Feature

AMITYVILLE: THE EVIL ESCAPES (1989) at 7:30pm
The demonic forces that were lurking in the infamous house in Amityville for over 300 years escape to a remote California mansion by inhabiting a lamp. This evil latches onto a little girl living in the home by taking on the form of her dead father. Soon it manipulates her completely, overtaking her body to the point of possession. It’s up to a young priest to perform an exorcism and attempt to lift the curse from the desperate family.

Cast: Patty Duke, Jane Wyatt, Fredric Lehne, Lou Hancock, Brandy Gold, Alex Rebar, Aron Eisenberg, David Elliott, Peggy McCay, Robert Alan Brownem, Warren Munson, Zoe Trilling

AMITYVILLE: IT’S ABOUT TIME (1992) at 9:25pm
Widowed father Jake Sterling returns home from a business trip with an antique clock, intended as a gift to his two teenage children. Having been created by a 15th century French necromancer and belonging to the infamous haunted house in Amityville, sinister incidents begin to transpire around the neighborhood after Jake places the clock on his mantle. After a dog attack, fires, and forces that fracture the passing of time, Jake’s son and a neighbor race to uncover the history and mystery of the clock before it’s too late.

Fans will also be treated to exclusive in-theater bonus content from Attack Media, as Amityville: The Evil Escapes (1989) and Amityville: It’s About Time (1992) get the game show treatment in a five minute re-edit presented as a meme montage.

Cast: Stephen Macht, Shawn Weatherly, Megan Ward, Damon Martin, Jonathan Penner, Dean Cochran, Dick Miller, Terrie Snell, Willie C. Carpenter

OCTOBER 11TH Double Feature

SWEET SIXTEEN (1983) at 7:30pm
Big city girl Melissa Morgan (Aleisa Shirley) tries to make new friends in the small Texas town she just moved to. The only problem is, each of the boys that she spends time with ends up brutally murdered. Her sixteenth birthday is on the way, but Melissa turns out to be a suspect when it seems she’s the last person who has seen her boyfriends alive.

Cast: Bo Hopkins, Susan Strasberg, Patrick Macnee, Don Stroud, Dana Kimmell, Don Shanks, Glenn Withrow, Michael Pataki, Sharon Farrell, Steve Antin

THE CONVENT (2000) at 9:20pm
In 1960, a young woman commits a grisly massacre at St. Francis Boarding School, brutally murdering the clergy and nuns inside. Forty years later, college student Clarissa and her fickle friends break into the abandoned convent to tag it with their Greek letters before the Kappas beat them to it. Before long, the group discovers that it’s inhabited by demons that are intent on possessing them. As the group dwindles in numbers and the bodies pile up, those who remain uncover the convent’s long history with malevolent demonic forces and learn about the buried circumstances surrounding that fateful Sixties night.

In addition, fans will get exclusive new in-theater content featuring a behind the scenes and in-depth look at the filming and restoration of The Convent.

Cast: Joanna Canton, Coolio, Megahn Perry, Renee Graham, Adrienne Barbeau, Allison Dunbar, Bill Moseley, Chaton Anderson, Dorenda Moore, Elle Alexander, Liam Kyle Sullivan

Click here for tickets.

PETULIA (1968) 50th Anniversary Screening with Actors Shirley Knight and Richard Chamberlain In Person on September 20th in West LA

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a screening of one of the groundbreaking movies from the tumultuous year of 1968, Richard Lester’s PETULIA. Set in 1960’s San Francisco, the story of a troubled love affair between a divorced surgeon and a free-spirited socialite captures some of the disruptions of a society in transition.

The extraordinary cast includes Oscar winners George C. Scott and Julie Christie, Oscar nominee and Emmy winner Shirley Knight, Golden Globe winner Richard Chamberlain, Pippa Scott, Kathleen Widdoes, and veteran actor Joseph Cotten, one of the stars of ‘Citizen Kane.’

Lester, the winner of the Career Achievement Award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association in 2014, first came to attention as the director of comedies like ‘The Mouse on the Moon’ and the brilliantly innovative Beatles musicals, ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ and ‘Help!’

PETULIA marked his first foray into dramatic filmmaking, though it retained the comic and satiric touches of his early movies. Lester’s daring approach to non-linear storytelling had a tremendous influence on a later generation of filmmakers, including director Steven Soderbergh, who published a series of interviews with Lester.

PETULIA, produced by Raymond Wagner, was adapted from a novel by John Haase. Lawrence B. Marcus, who later earned an Oscar nomination for his script of ‘The Stunt Man,’ wrote the screenplay. The technical team behind the movie was also first-rate.

Master cinematographer Nicolas Roeg went on to become the acclaimed director of such films as ‘Don’t Look Now’ and ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth.’ Film editor Antony Gibbs worked on such films as ‘A Taste of Honey’ and Lester’s ‘The Knack,’ as well as Oscar winners ‘Tom Jones’ and ‘Fiddler on the Roof.’

Five-time Oscar winner John Barry composed the score, with some help from on-screen performances by Big Brother and the Holding Company, the Grateful Dead, and other San Francisco bands of the ’60s.

Roger Ebert reviewed the film at the time and wrote, “I am unable to find a single thing wrong with it.” Life Magazine’s Richard Schickel declared, “PETULIA is a terrific movie, at once a sad and savage comment on the ways we waste our time, our money and ourselves in upper-middle-class America.” Leonard Maltin praised the film’s “terrific acting, especially by Scott and Knight, in one of the decade’s best films.”

Shirley Knight earned two Oscar nominations early in her career, for ‘The Dark at the Top of the Stairs’ and ‘Sweet Bird of Youth.’

She went on to star in the film version of Leroi Jones’ controversial play ‘Dutchman,’ in Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘The Rain People,’ Sidney Lumet’s film version of Mary McCarthy’s best-selling novel ‘The Group,’ and in James L. Brooks’ Oscar winner ‘As Good As It Gets.’

For television she starred in Ingmar Bergman’s script ‘The Lie’ and won an Emmy for her performance in ‘Indictment: The McMartin Trial.’

Richard Chamberlain, star of stage, screen, and television, will join the Q&A of PETULIA with actress Shirley Knight. Chamberlain was best known for the Dr. Kildare TV series when director Richard Lester decided to cast the actor against type as the abusive husband of Julie Christie in PETULIA. The role helped to alter Chamberlain’s image and enhance his reputation and his visibility.

He went on to co-star in Lester’s enormously popular ‘Three Musketeer’ movies. He played Tchaikovsky in Ken Russell’s film ‘The Music Lovers’, also co-starred in such films as ‘The Towering Inferno’ and Peter Weir’s ‘The Last Wave.’

Chamberlain became best known for his starring roles in several popular TV movies and miniseries, including ‘Centennial,’ ‘Shogun,’ ‘The Thorn Birds,’ and ‘Wallenberg: A Hero’s Story.’

PETULIA screens on Thursday, September 20th at 7pm at the Laemmle Royal in West LA. Q&A with Shirley Knight and Richard Chamberlain. Click here for tickets.

Format: DVD

Screwball Comedies Every Throwback Thursday in September at the NoHo 7!

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Join us for a September filled with mistaken identities, witty repartee, farcical situations, and… a pet leopard. Indulge in one of the most enduring genres of all time, screwball comedies, every Throwback Thursday in September at the NoHo 7.

Our Throwback Thursday (#TBT) series is presented in partnership with Eat|See|Hear every Thursday at 7:30pm in North Hollywood. Check out the full schedule below. For tickets and our full #TBT schedule, visit laemmle.com/tbt.

September 6: Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant star in this inspired comedy about a madcap heiress with a pet leopard who meets an absent-minded paleontologist and unwittingly makes a fiasco of both their lives. Format: DVD. Click here for tickets.

September 13: The Lady Eve (1941)

In Preston Sturges’ comedy, Henry Fonda stars as Charles Pike, the son of a beer magnate who becomes the target of the father-daughter team of card sharps ‘Colonel’ Harry and Jean Harrington (Charles Coburn and Barbara Stanwyck). Their plan to rob the naive young man blind hits a snag, however, when Jean actually falls head over heels for an equally-smitten Pike. Format: DCP. Click here for tickets.

September 20: The Seven Year Itch (1955)

When his family goes away for the summer, a thus-far faithful husband is tempted by a beautiful neighbor. Starring Marilyn Monroe, Tom Ewell, and Evelyn Keyes. Format: DCP. Click here for tickets.

September 27: What’s Up, Doc (1972)

The accidental mix-up of four identical plaid overnight bags leads to a series of increasingly wild and wacky situations in Peter Bogdanovich’s homage to the genre. Barbra Streisand, Ryon O’Neal, and Madeline Kahn star. Format: Blu-ray. Click here for tickets.

Tribute to Neil Simon: THE ODD COUPLE (1968) on Thursday, September 13 at the Royal in West LA

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series pay tribute to the late, great prolific playwright and screenwriter Neil Simon with a 50th anniversary screening of one of his most influential works, THE ODD COUPLE.

This film version of his hit Broadway play about the friction between two divorced men who decide to live together in a Manhattan apartment despite a difference in their personalities was a box office bonanza in 1968, the fourth highest grossing movie that year.

As noted by playwright Harvey Fierstein, “Simon could write a joke that would make you laugh, define the character, the situation, even the world’s problems.” Another successful television producer calls The Odd Couple, “a Master class in character creation.”

Seems like everyone wanted to see the comic complications between the neurotic neat freak Felix, played by Jack Lemmon, and the fun-loving slob Oscar (Walter Matthau). Simon had created those characters in 1965 for the stage, and he earned the first of four Oscar nominations for his screen adaptation. His other nominations were for adapting his plays The Sunshine Boys and California Suite, and for his original screenplay for The Goodbye Girl (a best picture nominee and best actor winner for Richard Dreyfuss in 1977).

Both Lemmon and Matthau would go on to star in several more movies written by Simon, including The Out-of-Towners and The Prisoner of Second Avenue (Lemmon), and Plaza Suite, The Sunshine Boys and California Suite (Matthau).

Gene Saks, a frequent Simon collaborator on Broadway, directed the film version with a spirited cast including Herb Edelman, John Fiedler, Monica Evans and Carole Shelley. Lemmon replaced Art Carney who had originated the role of Felix on the stage, with Matthau reprising his Tony-winning role. Both Lemmon and Matthau garnered acclaim for their performances, and the success of the play and film took Matthau to full-fledged star status after years as primarily a supporting player.

The film’s rousing reception at the box office spawned a hit television series in 1970 with Jack Klugman and Tony Randall, and other incarnations in gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation diversity through the ensuing decades. The 1968 film stands out as a definitive version of Simon’s creation.

Simon drew from his personal life for inspiration, and his works explored the ethos of mid-to-late twentieth century America, often centered in New York. The Odd Couple in particular looks at old-school masculinity on the edge of profound change in American society. There is pathos (as played by Lemmon) underlining the comedy, and the movie touches on those dramatic elements.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A58OtN9h918

 
In Simon’s obituary, The New York Times noted that he “helped redefine popular American humor with an emphasis on the friction of urban living and the agonizing conflicts of family intimacy.” Among the tributes after his death, actor Treat Williams neatly summarized Simon’s contribution to American culture, “Neil Simon is the Norman Rockwell of comedy. His artistry will only gain ground as the years pass.”

THE ODD COUPLE screens at the Royal theatre in West LA on Thursday, September 13 at 7:00 PM. Discussion on Simon’s career and cultural impact with film critic Stephen Farber and guests TBA. Click here for tickets.

Format: Blu-ray

Bond Villain Robert Davi in Person with LICENCE TO KILL.

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LICENCE TO KILL actor Robert Davi will participate in a Q&A after the screening at the NoHo on Thursday, August 23.

65th Anniversary Screening of SHANE with David Ladd In Person on Sunday, August 26 at the Ahrya Fine Arts

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 65th anniversary screening of one of the most beloved Westerns of all time, George Stevens’ production of SHANE.

The 1950s happened to be a golden age for cowboy sagas, and as the Hollywood Reporter observed, “George Stevens’ SHANE earns a place along with ‘High Noon’ and ‘The Gunfighter’ as one of the great tumbleweed sagas of the decade.” Or as Leonard Maltin declared decades later, “Classic Western is splendid in every way.”

Alan Ladd, Paramount’s biggest star of the era, plays a mysterious gunfighter who arrives in a small Western town and finds a turf war between the farmers and cattle ranchers who want to drive them off the land.

Shane decides to become a protector of these homesteaders and strikes up a friendship with one family; Van Heflin plays the father, Jean Arthur (in her final screen performance) plays the mother, and young actor Brandon De Wilde plays their son, Joey.

Jack Palance was cast as the villain of the piece, a black-clad gunslinger hired by the cattle ranchers to eliminate Shane, along with the rest of the farmers.

The supporting cast includes gifted character actors Ben Johnson, Edgar Buchanan, Emile Meyer, and Elisha Cook Jr. Ladd received the best reviews of his career for the picture. The Saturday Review wrote, “As Shane, Alan Ladd has one of his best roles and gives what is surely his most rewarding performance.”

Stevens had won the Academy Award for best director of 1951 for ‘A Place in the Sun.’ SHANE gave him his third nomination in the directing category (he would win a second Oscar for ‘Giant’ in 1956).

SHANE earned six nominations in all, including Best Picture and two nods in the supporting actor category, for both Palance and De Wilde. The Oscar-nominated screenplay was written by A.B. Guthrie Jr., who adapted the novel by Jack Schaefer. The picture won the Oscar for the magnificent color cinematography of Loyal Griggs.

In tune with the fashions of the era, Stevens chose to shoot on location in the magnificent Grand Tetons outside Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Because of the care he took with the production, the film went over budget, and the studio was nervous. But the film turned out to be a box office smash and proved enticing to adult and family audiences alike. Kids who saw the move in 1953 are not likely to forget the emotional ending and young De Wilde’s cry, “Come back, Shane!”

Joining us for a Q&A will be David Ladd, the son of Alan Ladd. David went on to be a popular child actor in the 1950s. He appeared with his father in two films, ‘The Big Land’ and ‘The Proud Rebel;’ he then starred on his own in two family hits, ‘Misty’ and ‘A Dog of Flanders.’ He went on to act in a few films as an adult but then segued into a career as producer and studio executive.

SHANE screens on Sunday, August 26, at 3pm at Ahrya Fine Arts Theatre. Click here for tickets.

Format: DCP

35th Anniversary Screenings of THE MAKIOKA SISTERS on Wednesday, August 22 in Encino, Pasadena, and West LA

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the latest offering in our Anniversary Classics Abroad program, Kon Ichikawa’s poignant family drama, THE MAKIOKA SISTERS.

One of the great Japanese masters, Ichikawa is perhaps less widely celebrated than his countrymen Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, and Ozu. He began directing features in the 1940s, and his films The Burmese Harp, Fires on the Plain, Tokyo Olympiad, and others found passionate critical defenders.

One of his later films, THE MAKIOKA SISTERS, is adapted from a popular Japanese novel by Junichiro Tanizaki and follows the fortunes of four sisters from a wealthy family in Osaka. Set in the 1930s on the eve of World War II, the film stars Keiko Kishi, Yoshiko Sakuma, Sayuri Yoshinaga, and Yuko Kotegawa as the orphaned sisters, heirs in a wealthy manufacturing family. Their marriages and romantic relationships are a source of tension and jealousy.

The sumptuous art direction and costume design help to create the lush atmosphere of the film. Reviewing the film at the time of its American release, the Los Angeles Times’s Kevin Thomas called it “exquisitely, subtly sensual.”

John Powers of the L.A. Weekly agreed that “this is an uncommonly vibrant and beautiful film.”

And the New Yorker’s Pauline Kael called it “the most pleasurable movie I’ve seen in several months…the rich colors, the darkness, the low-key lighting—they’re intoxicating.”

THE MAKIOKA SISTERS (1983) screens on Wednesday, August 22, at 7pm in Encino, Pasadena, and West LA. Click here for tickets.

Format: Blu-ray

Cary Grant Double Feature on August 14th in NoHo, Pasadena, and West LA

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a tribute to one of most popular stars in Hollywood history, Cary Grant, in two of his most entertaining movies.

The program, part of the Twofer Tuesday series of double bills (two-for-the-price-of one) features a 55th anniversary screening of CHARADE (1963) paired with a 70th anniversary screening of MR. BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE (1948) at three Laemmle locations: the Royal, NoHo 7 and Playhouse 7.

Cary Grant is remembered for his elegance, casualness and charm As writer Tom Wolfe once put it, he is “consummately romantic and consummately genteel.” These two movies showcase all the facets of his timeless appeal.

MR. BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE is a genial comedy adapted from a novel by Eric Hodges (screenplay by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama) about a married advertising executive (Grant) with two daughters in post-WWII Manhattan who decides to leave the crowded city for the country life.

Myrna Loy, one of the popular female stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age, plays his disarming wife and, according to Leonard Maltin, “no one ever described room colors better than Loy!” Melvyn Douglas plays a “friend of the family” who causes comic complications for Grant.

Directed by H.C. Potter (‘The Farmer’s Daughter’) with black-and-white cinematography by the great James Wong Howe, the film was the inspiration for the Tom Hanks’s 1986 comedy ‘The Money Pit.’

CHARADE is a tongue-in-cheek thriller set in Paris with Audrey Hepburn as a recent widow being pursued by villainous thugs for a cache of stolen money involving her murdered husband.

Grant plays an American stranger allegedly “helping” Hepburn. Stylishly directed by Stanley Donen (‘Singin’ in the Rain,’ ‘Two for the Road’) and written by Peter Stone (‘1776,’ ‘The Taking of Pelham One Two Three’) and Marc Behm, the film is a cross between screwball black comedy and Hitchcockian suspense.

Bosley Crowther of the New York Times called it “a fast-moving urbane entertainment,” with Variety citing Grant as the “suave master of romantic banter.” Grant and Hepburn make for a delightful team, and a terrific supporting cast features turns by three future Oscar winners, all in the supporting actor category: Walter Matthau, James Coburn and George Kennedy.

The Oscar-nominated music (Best Song) is by Henry Mancini. The film was a smash hit in 1963, and kept Grant in the top ten box office stars poll that year.

We present the Twofer Tuesday Cary Grant double bill as a refreshing movie tonic to help beat the summer heat. MR. BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE plays at 5:00 pm and 9:30 pm; CHARADE at 7:00 pm on Tuesday, August 14 at the Royal, NoHo 7 and Playhouse 7.

Click here to buy tickets for the 5:00pm MR. BLANDINGS with the 7:00pm, CHARADE included. Click here to buy tickets for the 7:00pm CHARADE with the 9:30pm MR. BLANDINGS included.

CHARADE Format: DCP
MR. BLANDINGS Format: DVD