The official blog of Laemmle Theatres
THE IDOL director Hany Abu-Assad will participate in Q&As following the 5:00 and 7:40 PM shows and introduce the 10:15 PM show on Friday, May 27 at the Monica Film Center. He will also do Q&As following the 4:30 and 7:10 PM shows in at the Fine Arts on Saturday, May 28th.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF0Fh3WU5LI
BEING CHARLIE director Rob Reiner and his son, co-screenwriter Nick Reiner, will participate in Q&A’s following the 7:10 PM screening at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills on Saturday, May 7th and after the 4:30 PM screening at the Town Center in Encino on Sunday, May 8th.
Laemmle’s Anniversary Classics presents one of the most iconic romances in movie history, BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S (1961), with a 55th anniversary screening as a birthday celebration for its beloved star, Audrey Hepburn, and a tribute to her unique collaboration with the legendary composer Henry Mancini. Besides the image of Hepburn in that famous black Givenchy dress, the most enduring legacy of the movie is the song “Moon River,” composed by Mancini for Hepburn, and a “melody of a lifetime.” Henry Mancini’s widow, Ginny Mancini, and daughter, singer Monica Mancini, will participate in a Q&A before the screening, moderated by LAFCA President Stephen Farber. Want to refresh your memory of this iconic film ahead of the Q&A event? You can find BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S on DVD, Blu-Ray, and on a wide range of streaming services that you can access via your streaming box. Streaming services are an excellent way to enjoy classic films in remastered quality and high definition.
BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S was adapted from a popular Truman Capote novella and brought to the screen by director Blake Edwards and writer George Axelrod, with considerable alterations to the story about a flighty call girl from the country aspiring to the high life in New York City. Capote had envisioned Marilyn Monroe in the role, but it was Audrey Hepburn who immortalized Holly Golightly for the screen. Henry Mancini, who had a smash hit with his music for Edwards’ television series, Peter Gunn, provided the Oscar and Grammy-winning soundtrack that accompanied her romantic adventures. TIFFANY’S was a box office hit, and was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Hepburn as best actress and best screenplay. Mancini wrote one of the most popular songs of the twentieth century, “Moon River,” with frequent partner lyricist Johnny Mercer, and the pair won an Oscar (double-winner Mancini also won for his score). Hepburn had inspired Mancini for his most famous melody, and TIFFANY’S was the first of four collaborations for them, with CHARADE, TWO FOR THE ROAD, and WAIT UNTIL DARK to follow in the 60s; they remained lifelong friends.
BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S, also starring George Peppard, Patricia Neal, Mickey Rooney, and Buddy Ebsen, will screen on Wednesday, May 4, 2016 at the Ahyra Fine Arts theater in Beverly Hills. So join us as we celebrate Audrey Hepburn’s birthday and the creative bond she shared with her “huckleberry friend,” Henry Mancini. Tickets are on sale now.
“A completely unbelievable but wholly captivating flight into fancy composed of unequal dollops of comedy, romance, poignancy, funny colloquialisms and Manhattan’s swankiest East Side areas captured in the loveliest of colors.” (A.H. Weiler, New York Times)
Filmmaker Alex de la Iglesia will participate in Q&A’s after the 7:30 PM screening of A PERFECT CRIME at Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills on 4/13 and after the 4:30 PM screening of his new release MY BIG NIGHT at the Music Hall 3 in Beverly Hills on 4/16.
MY BIG NIGHT [Mi Gran Noche] is an audaciously inventive ensemble comedy brimming with showbiz satire that received four GOYA nominations. It opens April 15th at the Music Hall 3 in Beverly Hills and the Playhouse 7 in Pasadena. Click here for tickets.
THE PERFECT CRIME [El Crimen Perfecto or Crimen Ferpecto] is De la Iglesia’s 2004 black comedy set in an upscale department store in Madrid. It screens at 7:30PM on April 13th at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills, NoHo 7 in North Hollywood, and Playhouse 7 in Pasadena. Click here for tickets.
Eastern Europe, 1835. Two riders cross a barren landscape in the middle of Wallachia. They are the gendarme Costandin and his son. Together they are searching for a gypsy slave who has run away from his nobleman master and is suspected of having an affair with the noble’s wife. While the unflappable Costandin comments on every situation with a cheery aphorism, his son takes a more contemplative view of the world.
Radu Jude’s brilliant third feature AFERIM! has been aptly compared to films as diverse as THE SEARCHERS, THE LAST DETAIL and PULP FICTION (the latter for its rambling, coarse and endlessly entertaining dialogue), but the film is ultimately a moving parable about late-feudal Europe developed from historical documents and songs: its power structures and hierarchies, people’s ideas of themselves and others, interaction with minorities and the resulting conflicts. A Balkan Western in black-and-white that brings the cacophony of the times strikingly to life and explores the thematic arcs that stretch into the present.
Cineuropa interviewed Mr. Jude on the occasion of his film’s inclusion at the Berlin Film Festival:
Cineuropa: These days, filmmakers prefer to shoot their films digitally; what persuaded you to return to film and black and white?
Radu Jude: DoP Marius Panduru and I decided that the film should be shot in black and white out of a wish to highlight the historical re-enactment artifice: we wanted to make the audience understand from the very beginning that what they are seeing is a subjective re-enactment, one carefully played out, but still only a re-enactment. We therefore tested different methods: a digital camera, one colour film and two types of black-and-white film. Comparing them, we concluded that the black-and-white film (namely, Kodak Double-X) was the most expressive and the one best suited for our project.
Information about Gypsy slavery was removed from the historical accounts published during the Romanian communist regime. What difficulties did you encounter in documenting the year 1835 and this particular topic?
It’s not really a subject lacking in documentation. There are several Rroma histories, studies and archives that also depict their slavery. Besides, our main historical consultant, Constanţa Vintilă-Ghiţulescu, helped us immensely by suggesting more titles of interest. I cannot say we faced major hurdles, but the past is obviously lost, and we can access only limited information. Starting from there, all one can do is try to create a sufficiently accurate image of the past.
Naturally, the biggest risk – and we have warned the audience of this risk through the way the film is made – is to forget that we are always involved in a process of interpretation. We interpret everything, starting from the reality around us that we access through our senses and brain, so of course we pass our historical reality through the same process. In this respect, I recommend the video installation created by Anca Benera and Arnold Estefan, Pacta sunt servanda (http://www.arnoldestefan.ro/art-projects/-pacta-sunt-servanda/). The installation shows how the same historical event, the Trianon peace treaty, is presented differently in history books from Hungary and Romania. This goes to show that when we speak of the past, we in fact speak of our perspective of the past. I hope this view is obvious in my film and that the vigilant cinemagoer will take note of it.
The events in the film take place 180 years ago, but many of the characters’ remarks are relevant to the present day. Is your film a satire of the present?
I truly believe what Johan Huizinga said: “We analyse every age for the sake of the promises it contains for the next age.” My film is about the relationship between the past and the present – or, even better rephrased, about the relationship of the present with the past.
The film’s conversations are peppered with sayings and aphorisms taken from the works of a number of Romanian and foreign authors from those times, whom you list in the closing credits. Why pay so much attention to the folkloric culture of the era?
I started by reading works from the 19th century in order to familiarise myself with the language and mentalities of those times (which, I think, are the true theme of the film). At one point, I found in Iordache Golescu’s works some beautiful sayings that were perfectly appropriate for one of the sequences in Aferim!. I used them in the screenplay, which I wrote together with Florin Lăzărescu, and then we found others that we used, gradually “stuffing” the story with quotes from the literature of those times. This was also a declaration of love for the Romanian language and a way to stress the “artificial construct” characteristic of the film.
Re-visit the Golden Age of the Science Fiction Film as Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series presents SCI-FI WEEKEND, a festival of six classic films April 15-17 at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills.
It was dawn of the Atomic Age and the Cold War, as Communist and nuclear war paranoia swept onto the nation’s movie screens to both terrify and entertain the American public. All the favorite icons are here: Robby the Robot from FORBIDDEN PLANET, the pod people from INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, the blood-seeking creature from THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, and so much more.
Schedule:
| Date | Title | Tickets |
| 04/15 at 7:30PM | THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (1951) | Available |
| 04/16 at 2:30PM | THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1951) | Available |
| 04/16 at 5:00PM | WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE (1951) | Available |
| 04/16 at 7:30PM | INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956) | Available |
| 04/17 at 2:30PM | FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956) | Available |
| 04/17 at 5:00PM | FANTASTIC VOYAGE (1966) | Available |
Tickets:
Tickets for individual shows are available NOW on Laemmle.com & at the Ahrya Fine Arts box office:
Anniversary Classics Sci-Fi Weekend Ticket Specials (Available only at Box Office):
Trailer:
Movies:
THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (1951) – 65th Anniversary
“Klaatu barada nikto”: One of the most famous phrases in all science fiction was first uttered in The Day the Earth Stood Still, which cast its spell over audiences in September 1951, in the early years of the Cold War and Atomic Age. This tale of a humanoid alien visitor (Michael Rennie), with a message and ultimatum for the human race, was directed by Robert Wise from a screenplay by Edmund H. North, and featured a memorably eerie score by Bernard Herrmann. Also starring Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe, and our special guest, Billy Gray, the only survivor of the cast and crew. Gray, who is also well known for his role in the classic 1950s sitcom Father Knows Best, will appear at the 65th anniversary screening on opening night of the Anniversary Classics Sci Fi Weekend, April 15-17. (April 15 at 7:30 PM) [Read more…]
Prepare for a wealth of high art this April, May and June because we’ll be projecting some excellent stuff on screens at our Claremont, Beverly Hills, Encino, Pasadena and now Santa Monica locations as part of our ongoing Culture Vulture series.
We begin April with a new production The Damnation of Faust, Berlioz’s légende dramatique. Director Alvis Hermanis grapples with the complexity of bringing Faust to modern audiences, asking us to identify the Faust of our times. Seeing a modern equivalent to Faust’s intellectual rigor in the fascinating mind of Stephen Hawking, Hermanis sets Berlioz’s work on the futuristic eve of mankind’s first settlement on Mars.
Next we’ll have the Bolshoi Ballet’s The Taming of the Shrew. Many suitors dream of marrying the lovely, docile Bianca, but her father will not let anyone marry her before her elder sister, the ill-tempered shrew Katharina, is herself married. French choreographer Jean-Christophe Maillot lands a coup with his adaptation of Shakespeare’s comedy tailored specifically to the Bolshoi dancers, and achieves a magnetic two hours of breathtaking, nonstop dance unlike any other, portraying the Bolshoi’s audacity and energy in a completely new way.
Subsequent to that: Oscar Wilde’s much-loved masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest is one of the most enduring plays in British theatre. Performed shortly before Wilde fell foul of society’s unbending condemnation, this farcical comedy fizzes with wit as Wilde delights in debunking social pretensions and piercing the hypocrisy and pomposity of the Victorian Era. Recorded live from the Vaudeville Theatre on 8 October 2015.
After that we will screen Florence and the Uffizi Gallery, a multi-dimensional journey through the city that was the cradle of the Italian Renaissance. Get an exclusive tour through the most beautiful and representative works of art of the period from Michelangelo and Brunelleschi, to Leonardo and Botticelli, with a detailed central chapter dedicated to the treasure house containing their masterpieces: the Uffizi Gallery.
We’ll start May with Musorgsky’s Boris Godunov. Following the death of the Tsarevich Dmitry, Boris Godunov is persuaded to become Tsar of Russia. Boris, however, seems plagued by guilt. A greedy aristocrat and a restless young monk each plot to turn Boris’s fears to their advantage. Musorgsky based Boris on the play of the same name by Alexander Pushkin, published in 1831 but the censorial ban on which was only lifted in 1866. Pushkin’s play was loosely inspired by the true story of Boris Godunov, Tsar of Russia from 1598 to 1605.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQxDhVNJxJU
Then we are excited to host screenings of a dance/sculpture/music hybrid, Journey in Sensuality: Anna Halprin & Rodin. Auguste Rodin said, “the world will only be happy when all people have the souls of artists.” After the international success of Breath Made Visible, Journey in Sensuality brings new insight into Halprin’s influential artistic work. Auguste Rodin’s sculptures and Halprin’s creative process come together with the music of composer Fred Frith in this poetic film of dances in nature.
Based on the calls and email we’ve been getting, our most hotly anticipated Culture Vulture screening is Les Liaison Dangereuses. Choderlos de Laclos’ 1782 novel of sex, intrigue and betrayal in pre-revolutionary France follows former lovers the Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont, who now compete in games of seduction and revenge. Merteuil incites Valmont to corrupt the innocent Cecile de Volanges before her wedding night but Valmont has targeted the peerlessly virtuous and beautiful Madame de Tourvel. While these merciless aristocrats toy with others’ hearts and reputations, their own may prove more fragile than they supposed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY7l51L1eQM
After that we’ll have Goya: Visions of Flesh and Blood. Heir to Velázquez, hero to Picasso, not only a brilliant observer of everyday life and Spain’s troubled past, Francisco Goya was a gifted portrait painter and social commentator par excellence. Discover Spain’s celebrated artist based on the National Gallery’s must-see exhibition Goya: The Portraits, originally captured as part of the acclaimed Exhibition on Screen series.
https://player.vimeo.com/video/154599374
At the end of May we’ll screen Concerto: A Beethoven Journey. Filmmaker Phil Grabsky is renowned for bringing some of the world’s most important art exhibitions to cinemas. Also famous for his In Search of… classical music documentaries, he has now returned his lens to the world of classical music with Concerto: A Beethoven Journey. Filmed over four years, Grabsky followed leading concert pianist Leif Ove Andsnes’s attempt to understand and interpret one of the greatest sets of works for piano ever written: Beethoven’s five piano concertos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=74&v=6u4hdY3ATRk
As we do at the beginning of each month, we’ll start June with an opera, in this Turandot. No man shall ever possess her – the Chinese princess Turandot sets three riddles for every man that comes to woo her. So far none have been able to solve the riddles, and have paid with their heads. Then an unknown prince achieves the impossible: he correctly answers all three questions. But Turandot is still unwilling to surrender to him. So the Prince is ready to lay down his life if she can find out his name by morning. Throughout the night, no one may sleep: everyone must try to discover his name…
We follow opera with dance: A sensational new dance event from the acclaimed choreographer Matthew Bourne and his Dance Company New Adventures, The Car Man is loosely based on Bizet’s popular opera (CARMEN) and has one of the most thrilling and instantly recognizable scores in classical music, brilliantly arranged by Terry Davies. The familiar 19th century Spanish cigarette factory becomes a greasy garage-diner in 1960’s America where the dreams and passions of a small-town are shattered by the arrival of a handsome stranger.
The summer solstice finds us in London’s West End for Hangmen. In his small pub in the northern English town of Oldham, Harry (David Morrissey, The Walking Dead, State of Play) is something of a local celebrity. But what’s the second-best hangman in England to do on the day they’ve abolished hanging? Amongst the cub reporters and pub regulars dying to hear Harry’s reaction to the news, his old assistant Syd (Andy Nyman, Peaky Blinders, Death at a Funeral) and the peculiar Mooney (Johnny Flynn, Clouds of Sils Maria) lurk with very different motives for their visit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcpcMeJ-1Vc
We’ll end the first half of 2016 with one of the great masters: Leonardo Da Vinci: The Genius in Milan. Based on “Leonardo 1452- 1519,” one of the most decisive exhibitions ever to be held on Leonardo and the result of six years work by leading experts, Pietro Marani and M. Teresa Fiorio, divided into 12 sections, retracing with scientific rigor the multiple paths traveled by the mind of the genius: the foundation of drawing, the role of nature and science, comparison between the arts, reflection on the ancients, the utopian projects, anatomy and mechanics, the unity of knowledge, images of the divine, and more.
They don’t make them like Akira Kurosawa’s magisterial RAN anymore, but the truth is, they didn’t really make them like this regal epic back then either.
– Kenneth Turan, LA Times
Laemmle and Rialto Pictures are proud to present a stunning 4k restoration of Akira Kurosawa’s RAN beginning March 18th at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills. Also starting March 18th is the re-release of AK, Chris Marker’s (La Jetée) Kurosawa documentary filmed during the production of RAN.
In 1985, the production of RAN was possible thanks to a French-Japanese collaboration and 30 years later, Studiocanal and Kadokawa replicated this partnership to restore the film. The majority of the restoration work was done manually image by image, based on an original negative. Color grading was approved by Masaharu Ueda, one of RAN’s three cinematographers and a close associate of Kurosawa’s. The 4K restoration premiered at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.
RAN (literally, “chaos” or “turmoil”) brings together the great themes and gorgeous images of the director’s life work. A brilliantly conceived meditation on Shakespeare’s King Lear, crossed with Japan’s 16th-century civil wars, it stars the great Tatsuya Nakadai (Kagemusha, High and Low, Yojimbo) as Lord Hidetora Ichimonji, an aging ruler who decides to abdicate and divide his land equally among his three sons, unleashing an intense power struggle. A spectacular adventure punctuated by epic battle scenes with breathtaking color and a visual splendor that remains unparalleled. Kurosawa storyboarded the entire film in watercolors ten years before production began.