Theater Buzz – Page 50 – blog.laemmle.com

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

August 13, 2018 by Lamb L.

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

ART IN THE ARTHOUSE presents: ISABELLA KELLY-RAMIREZ: WHO IS SHE? in Santa Monica

August 10, 2018 by Lamb L.

Laemmle’s Art in the Arthouse presents ISABELLA KELLY-RAMIREZ: WHO IS SHE? Explore the bold, dynamic works of Kelly-Ramirez on Wednesday, September 5 in our intimate theatre setting. Our special event features a slideshow on the big screen, artist talk, and refreshments. Meet Isabella and stay for the wine, cheese, and conversation Art in the Arthouse is known for. A portion of the sales benefit the Laemmle Foundation and its support of humanitarian and environmental causes in Los Angeles.

About the Exhibit

Isabella Kelly-Ramirez creates paintings and collages that introduce a host of fascinating females. Modern-day saints and superheroes, champions of the avant-garde, and fashionable figures to be reckoned with; these are icons of a new mythology from the imagination of the artist. Her arresting collages are playful acts of defiance. Kelly-Ramirez coopts images from fashion and art magazines, repurposing them to create surreal urban legends and ironic emblems of commercialism.

The works address the unattainable standards of beauty in fashion and life by reconstituting mainstream imagery into something quirkier and more humane. Kelly-Ramirez’s visual world continues in the striking paintings framed in soft sculpture. Bright, colorful portraits of humanoid figures appear in whimsical, unearthly settings. Somehow this creative, alternative place is more human, more generous, and more authentic than our curated “reality.”

Isabella Kelly-Ramirez lives and works in Los Angeles. Born in Santa Barbara, she has been involved in the art and theatre communities since she was a child. She received her B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2008 and works primarily in painting, collage, soft sculpture, and assemblage—with a pop surrealist flair.

– Stacey Ravel Abarbanel, Curator

Artist Reception

RSVP HERE

MONICA FILM CENTER
Wednesday, September 5, 7-9pm
1332 2nd Street
Santa Monica, CA 90401

Refreshments will be provided

MAKING A KILLING Cast & Crew Q&A Opening Night at the Music Hall.

August 10, 2018 by Lamb L.

The director, producer and several cast members of MAKING A KILLING will participate in a Q&A after the opening night screening.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijnU4pi7mGU

MAKING A KILLING (2019) Trailer | Michael Jai White Action Thriller Movie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijnU4pi7mGU)

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

August 9, 2018 by Lamb L.

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

40 YEARS IN THE MAKING: THE MAGIC MUSIC MOVIE Q&A Opening Night.

August 6, 2018 by Lamb L.

40 YEARS IN THE MAKING: THE MAGIC MUSIC MOVIE director Lee Aronsohn and producer Fleur Saville will participate in a Q&A at the Music Hall following the 7:20 PM screening on Friday, August 10. Jesse Maltin will moderate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6w-1VzsXCk&feature=youtu.be

40 Years in the Making: The Magic Music Movie – Official Trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6w-1VzsXCk&feature=youtu.be)

Kenneth Turan Extols the “Quietly Ferocious” ‘1945’ & Its Encore Engagement.

August 3, 2018 by Lamb L.

We reopen the Hungarian drama 1945 today. L.A. Times film critic Kenneth Turan wrote about it the other day:

The premise is simple but compelling: Two strangers get off a train in a small town and nothing is ever the same again. It could be the setup for a classic western, but the town is in rural Hungary, the two men are Orthodox Jews, and the year, as the title indicates, is 1945.

Photographed in luminous black and white and returning to theaters by popular demand, this 2017 Hungarian film is a quietly ferocious piece of work that puts a particular time and place under a microscope, revealing hidden fault lines and differences that have been ineffectually papered over. Simple, powerful, made with conviction and skill, it is set in a world that is gone, the better to deal with issues and difficulties that are not even close to being past.