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TOP SPIN: Ping Pong Exhibition and Table Giveaway!

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ts-posterAn inside look at the offbeat sport of ping pong, the new documentary TOP SPIN turns one of America’s favorite pastimes on its head and reveals a coming-of-age story where success and failure come down to mere millimeters.

Laemmle Theatres and First Run Features are planning special events for our TOP SPIN screenings, including:
– Raffle to Win an Olympic Quality Ping Pong Table!
– Live Ping Pong Exhibitions by Elite Players
– Lots of Q&A’s

Click here to buy tickets to see TOP SPIN!
 

RAFFLE

Everyone who attends ANY screening of TOP SPIN at Laemmle will be given a FREE RAFFLE TICKET to win a top-of-the-line JOOLA Ping Pong Table! This is a  tournament-tested refurbished Olympic-quality table that has been used by the pros.  JOOLA lists this item at approx. $1400.  We will have a sample table at the Playhouse from August 19 to 23.

Grand prize:
JOOLA 3000SC Table Tennis Table, the Official Table of USATT. The JOOLA 3000SC is an ITTF approved high quality centerfold table. It has four heavy-duty durable wheels serving the undercarriage, which is made of powder-coated metal and contains a 50 mm metal frame under its Olympic-quality 22 mm fast playing surface. The 3000SC also boasts adjustable, solid rubber levelers underneath each corner leg and includes a professional quality WM net.

JOOLA will ship the table directly to the winner anywhere in the continental United States.

Joola_3000SC_new_v2

Runner up prizes:

Joola Hit Set Table Tennis Set: Four JOOLA Hit rackets with eight balls.

Joola Falcon Set: High end recreational racket with a protective racket case.

For official Raffle Rules, click here.
 

PING PONG EXHIBITONS

Elite ping-pong players will be at the Playhouse 7 for Q&A’s and LIVE PING PONG EXHIBITIONS at select Top Spin screenings:

Fri. 8/21: 6:30pm – 7:00pm and 9:15pm to 9:30PM* (at the Paseo next to the box office)
Sat. 8/22: 6:30pm – 7:00pm and 9:15pm to 9:30PM* (at the Paseo next to the box office)
Sun. 8/23 – 6:30pm – 7:00pm and 9:15pm to 9:30PM* (location TBD)

* Before and after the 7:30pm screening of Top Spin

Players include 2012 Teenage Olympian ERICA WU and U.S. National Team member, GRANT LI, as well as professionals KIM GILBERT and ADAM BOBROW.

 

Clockwise, from top-left: Erica Wu, 2012 U.S. Olympian; Grant Li, 2015 U.S. National Team Member; Adam Bobrow, Professional Ping Pong Player and Actor; Kim Gilbert, Professional Ping Pong Player
Clockwise, from top-left: Erica Wu, 2012 U.S. Olympian; Grant Li, 2015 U.S. National Team Member; Adam Bobrow, Professional Ping Pong Player and Actor; Kim Gilbert, Professional Ping Pong Player

 

Q&A’S

Playhouse 7 Q&A’s: 

Wed 8/19: Filmmakers Mina T. Son & Sara Newens + Teenage Olympian Erica Wu in Person

Fri 8/21: Filmmakers Mina T. Son & Sara Newens + Teenage Olympian Erica Wu in Person

Sat 8/22: Filmmaker Mina T. Son & Teenage Olympian Erica Wu in Person

Sun 8/23: Filmmaker Mina T. Son & Teenage Olympian Erica Wu in Person

Weekday Q&A’s: 

Mon 8/24 (NOHO 7) : Filmmaker Mina T. Son in Person

Tues 8/25 (ROYAL): Filmmaker Mina T. Son in Person

Wed 8/26 (CLAREMONT 5): Filmmaker Mina T. Son in Person

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=539TOEBuPqM

BRIDGING THE DIVIDE: TOM BRADLEY AND THE POLITICS OF RACE Screenings Next Week with Q&A’s

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tombradleyBRIDGING THE DIVIDE: TOM BRADLEY AND THE POLITICS OF RACE tells the story of Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, the first African American mayor elected in a major American city with an overwhelmingly white majority. His extraordinary multi-racial coalition redefined Los Angeles, transformed the national dialogue on race and set the foundation for elections of minority candidates nationwide, including President Barack Obama.

We will be hosting two screenings of this documentary about this key figure in our city’s history, two of which featuring Q&A’s:

Q&A participants in Pasadena, August 11 at 7:30pm:

  • Lyn Goldfarb, Producer, Director, Writer
  • Alison Sotomayor, Producer, Research Director, Writer
  • Robert Farrell, City Councilmember, 8th district from 1974-1991; Deputy to Councilmember Billy Mills (who represented South L.A.) during the Watts Riot.
  • Lorraine Bradley, Tom Bradley’s eldest daughter
  • Christopher Jimenez y West, Film Advisor, Assistant Professor, History, Pasadena City College

Q&A participants at the Town Center 5 in Encino, August 13 at 7:30pm:

  • Lyn Goldfarb, Producer, Director, Writer
  • Alison Sotomayor, Producer, Research Director, Writer
  • Robert Farrell, City Councilmember, 8th district from 1974-1991; Deputy to Councilmember Billy Mills, who represented South L.A., during the Watts Riot.
  • Lorraine Bradley, Tom Bradley’s eldest daughter

 
Click here to purchase tickets

Special NICKY’S FAMILY Screenings in Honor of the Recently Passed Sir Nicholas Winton

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Sir Nicholas Winton
Sir Nicholas Winton

This month we were saddened to learn that Sir Nicholas Winton, a hero who for half a century said nothing of the fact that he rescued hundreds of mostly Jewish children from Czechoslovakia right before World War II, had died at the age of 106. We were proud to screen NICKY’S FAMILY, the documentary about his life, in 2013 and gladly do so again.

Please join Laemmle, Menemsha Films, and Tugg.com Sunday, August 2nd at the Playhouse, Town Center, Music Hall or Claremont 5 for what promises to be a very moving and special morning.

Use these links to reserve your FREE tickets* now:
10:30am on Sunday, August 2nd at the Playhouse
10:30am on Sunday, August 2nd at the Town Center
10:00am on Sunday, August 2nd at the Music Hall
10:30am on Sunday, August 2nd at the Claremont 5
* While supplies last

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGEXoXkDgqk&feature=youtu.be

Courageous Defiance in the Face of Horror and Evil: Christian Petzold’s Masterful PHOENIX Opens July 31 at the Royal, August 7 at the Playhouse and Town Center

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Next week (July 31 at the Royal, August 7 at the Playhouse and Town Center) we’ll begin screening one of the best movies of the year, the German film noir PHOENIX.  It’s set in Berlin just after the second World War and follows Nelly (the great Nina Hoss), a German Jew and concentration camp survivor. Like her country, she is scarred, her face disfigured by a bullet. After undergoing reconstructive surgery, Nelly emerges with a new face, one similar but different enough that her former husband doesn’t recognize her. Rather than reveal herself, Nelly begins a dangerous game of duplicity and disguise as she tries to figure out if the man she loves may have been the one who betrayed her to the Nazis.

Film critics are hailing the movie. In the Village Voice, Stephanie Zacharek declared the film “rapturous…ardent, urgent and smoldering…so beautifully made that it comes close to perfect.”

August .2013 Dreharbeiten zum CHRISTIAN PETOLD Film PHÖNIX mit Nina Hoss , Ronald Zehrfeld und Nina Kunzendorf Verwendung der Fotos nur in Zusammenhang mit dem Film PHÖNIX von Christian Petzold ( Model release No ) © Christian Schulz Mobil 01723917694

Director/co-writer Christian Petzold (Barbara, Yella) said this about his latest film: “The first day of shooting for PHOENIX: a birch forest, a man in Wehrmacht uniform, women in concentration camp garb. Our reference was a photograph supplied by the Shoah Foundation: a coarse-grain color picture of a woodland crossroads in impressionistic morning light. And, only at second glance, death: the corpse in the grass. Even during the shoot, we noticed that something wasn’t right. The light was good, we’d settled on the framing, it seemed like an accurate recreation of the image, but it didn’t work. The reconstruction of the horror, the cinematography in and around Auschwitz – as if we were saying, ‘Now it’s time. Now we’re going to condense the whole thing into a story and impose order on it.’ We threw away all the material from that first day of shooting.

Phoenix_Schrammfilm5062

“Raul Hilsberg wrote that the terror meted out by the Nazis and the obedient public essentially made use of well-known techniques. What was novel were the extermination camps – the industrial extermination of people. For the old techniques, there was literature, stories, songs… None of that exists for the Holocaust.

 

PHOENIX ein Film von CHRISTIAN PETZOLD mit NINA HOSS und RONALD ZEHRFELD.Die Geschichte einer Holocaust Ueberlebenden die mit neuer Intentität herausfinden will ob ihr Mann sie verraten hat. Story on a woman who has survived the Holocaust. Presumedly dead, she returns home under a new identity to find out if her husband betrayed her Phoenix. Il racontera l'histoire, après la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, d'une femme qui a survécu à l'Holocauste. Tout le monde la croit morte. Elle revient chez elle sous une nouvelle identité et découvre que son mari l'a trahie... ACHTUNG: Verwendung nur fuer redaktionelle Zwecke im Zusammenhang mit der Berichterstattung ueber diesen Film und mit Urheber-Nennung PHOENIX ein Film von CHRISTIAN PETZOLD mit NINA HOSS und RONALD ZEHRFELD.Die Geschichte einer Holocaust Ueberlebenden die mit neuer Intensität herausfinden will ob ihr Mann sie verraten hat. Story on a woman who has survived the Holocaust. Presumedly dead, she returns home under a new identity to find out if her husband betrayed her Phoenix. Il racontera l'histoire, après la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, d'une femme qui a survécu à l'Holocauste. Tout le monde la croit morte. Elle revient chez elle sous une nouvelle identité et découvre que son mari l'a trahie... ACHTUNG: Verwendung nur fuer redaktionelle Zwecke im Zusammenhang mit der Berichterstattung ueber diesen Film und mit Urheber-Nennung“One text had a major influence on our preparations: Ein Liebesversuch (‘An Experiment in Love’) by Alexander Kluge. The story is set in Auschwitz. The Nazis are looking through peepholes into a sealed room. They’re observing a couple who, according to their records, used to be passionately in love. The Nazi doctors are trying to revive this love: They want the couple to sleep with each other. The goal is to establish whether the woman has been successfully sterilized. They try everything: champagne, red light, spraying them with ice-cold water – thinking that the need for warmth might drive them together again. But nothing happens – the two of them don’t look at each other. In a strange way, the Nazi doctors’ failure is a victory for love: a love lost that can’t be re-kindled by these criminals. I think that was the most significant text for us. Is it possible to leap back over the deep, nihilistic chasm torn by the National Socialists and the Germans, and to reconstruct things: emotions, love, compassion, empathy – life?

 

“Nelly doesn’t accept stories, songs, poems claiming that love is no longer possible. She wants to turn back time. I’m interested in people who don’t accept something and, in doing so, are defiant and stubborn.”

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

Robert Redford on FALL TO RISE: “A heart-filling drama about the outstanding dedication of dancers to their art.” Culture Vulture screenings this Monday and Tuesday at all Laemmle venues.

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FALLTORISE.blog The engaging, richly textured drama FALL TO RISE follows a renowned principal dancer whose injury forces her out of her company and uncomfortably into the role of motherhood. She realizes that her identity depends on dance and struggles to return with the help of another former company dancer. With its star turns by Martha Graham Principal Dancer Katherine Crockett (featured in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and the acclaimed actress Daphne Rubin-Vega, this is a timeless tale with a distinctly New York flavor, revealing the conflict between art and life, between marriage and independence.

https://vimeo.com/82422098

OFFICIAL SELECTION of 13 fests and counting including Dance Film Association and Film Society of Lincoln Center’s DANCE ON CAMERA
WINNER “Best Feature” On Location:Memphis International Music and Film Festival
WINNER Director Jayce Bartok “Bulleit Bourbon Frontier Filmmaker Award”
WINNER Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival (FLiFF) Spirit of Independents Award

“FALL TO RISE is a heart filling drama about the outstanding dedication of dancers to their art. Director Jayce Bartok beautifully captured the emotional difficulties of dancers coming to terms with age and identity.” – Robert Redford

“Daphne Rubin-Vega gives a performance that’s raw, real, funny, passionate, and full of aching humanity.”
Michael Musto – OUT/ADVOCATE

“These universal themes and ideas are what makes the film successful on a base level, but the performances are what elevate it. Rubin-Vega’s Sheila is of particular note, as she shows an impressive range throughout.” 3 1/2 STARS – FILM THREAT

“Remarkable, convincing, very physical lead performances by Daphne Rubin-Vega and Martha Graham dancer Katherine Crockett.” John Beifuss – MEMPHIS COMMERCIAL APPEAL

THE OUTRAGEOUS SOPHIE TUCKER Opens July 24th, Exclusively at Laemmle Theatres

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THE OUTRAGEOUS SOPHIE TUCKER is the rags to riches story of one of old time showbiz’s biggest personalities. From 1906 through the beginning of television, Sophie Tucker and her bawdy, brash, and risqué songs paved the way for performers such as Mae West, Marilyn Monroe, Bette Midler, Cher, Madonna, Lady Gaga, and Beyoncé.

Diego 18- 1934- Amsterdam, w Ted at piano1After eight years spent reading hundreds of Tucker’s personal scrapbooks, visiting fourteen archives, and interviewing dozens of family, friends, and fellow icons of stage and screen, producers Susan and Lloyd Ecker completed their comprehensive documentary about the Last of the Red Hot Mamas.

“Sophie was like the Forrest Gump of the first half of the 1900s,” says co-producer Susan Ecker. “She was close friends with seven U.S. presidents, King George VI, young Queen Elizabeth, Charlie Chaplin, J. Edgar Hoover, Al Capone, Judy Garland, Jerry Lewis, Frank Sinatra and every other notable of her era.”

The documentary includes many delicious bits of show business dirt, arrests, romance, murder, gangsters, and more. You’ll learn all about it when THE OUTRAGEOUS SOPHIE TUCKER opens July 24th in Encino, Pasadena, and West LA, and on July 25th in Claremont.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyUlZm4O4yE

THROWBACK THURSDAY Screenings in July

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tbacktdayWe’ve joined forces with EAT|SEE|HEAR for a special THROWBACK THURSDAY film series with movies, music, and food trucks every Thursday night at one of our venues!

The current slate of films are hand-picked classics that are paired to upcoming major Hollywood releases.  Think 2001: A Space Odyssey vs. Terminator; Innerspace vs. Ant-Man; Raging Bull vs. Southpaw.

Not only do you get to see these gems on the big screen and listen to a curated music playlist while you wait, but you can also bring your gourmet Food Truck grub inside the theatre!  How cool is that?

The latest schedule is:

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968)
Thursday, July 2
@ NoHo 7
Food Truck Arrives 6:30pm
Film Begins 7:30pm
Why? For those who can’t get enough of killer machines, there’s TERMINATOR GENISYS. And then there’s the iconic Kubrick film that started it all. All we can say is ‘Do you read us H.A.L.? Open the theatre doors…’

THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE (2003)
Thursday, July 9
@ Royal
Food Truck Arrives 6:30pm
Film Begins 7:30pm
Why? Taking the kids to see Universal’s MINIONS? Consider adding a delicious French appetizer to the summer animation menu. When her grandson is kidnapped during the Tour de France, Madame Souza and her beloved pooch Bruno team up with the Belleville Sisters–an aged song-and-dance team from the days of Fred Astaire–to rescue him.

INNERSPACE (1987)

Thursday, July 16

@ Playhouse

Food Truck Arrives 6:30pm
Film Begins 7:30pm
Why? Paul Rudd’s ANT-MAN is the latest Marvel hero to save the universe, using the ability to shrink to the size of ant while gaining the proportional strength, but Dennis Quaid was there first. Martin Short plays a hapless store clerk who must foil criminals to save the life of a man (Quaid) who, miniaturized in a secret experiment, was accidentally injected into him. Winner of the Oscar for Best Visual Effects. Directed by Joe Dante (GREMLINS).

RAGING BULL (1980)

Thursday, July 23

@ NoHo

Food Truck Arrives 6:30pm
Film Begins 7:30pm
Why? SOUTHPAW looks to be the latest good boxing movie, but there’s little doubt that the champion of the genre is Martin Scorcese’s RAGING BULL. The story of Jake LaMotta, a former middleweight boxing champion, whose violence and anger brought him success in the ring but destruction outside it. “Though RAGING BULL has only three principal characters, it is a big film, its territory being the landscape of the soul.” (Vincent Canby, New York Times)

RISKY BUSINESS (1983)

Thursday, July 30

@ NoHo

Food Truck Arrives 6:30pm
Film Begins 7:30pm
Why? Sometimes “star-making turn” is not a cliché. In RISKY BUSINESS plays a Chicago teenager looking for fun at home while his parents are away, but the situation quickly gets out of hand. Before seeing the latest iteration of the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE franchise, see where it all began.

Each night will feature a themed FOOD TRUCK for patrons to grab dinner and a movie! For instance, a truck serving French cuisine (frog legs) may accompany a screening of The Triplets of Belleville. All movie-goers (not just those attending Throwback Thursday) will be allowed to bring food truck items inside the venue.

With respect to the “Hear” aspect, patrons will relax inside the auditorium to playlists specifically curated for each event as they wait for the program to start. What’s more, on certain occasions, celebrities connected to the film will be on hand to make a special presentation or stay afterward for a Q&A.

Tickets and more info will be available at http:/EatSeeHear.com/TBT

Tickets are $12 and may be purchased online at http://www.laemmle.com or at the theater. As with regular screenings, discounts are available for children, seniors, and Laemmle Premiere Card holders.

*Venues and movies subject to change – check http://www.eatseehear.com/tbt or www.laemmle.com for possible updates to the schedule.

Typical Event Schedule
· 6:30pm – Food Truck Arrives
· 7:30pm – Movie begins

For more information about the #TBT series, guests are encouraged to visit the Eat|See|Hear website or Laemmle website as well as the Eat|See|Hear Facebook page, Twitter feed (@EatSeeHear) and Instagram for the latest updates.

Ken Loach’s lovely, heartfelt JIMMY’S HALL opens July 3

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A week from Friday we are very pleased to open JIMMY’S HALL, the latest from prolific — 49 turns in the director’s chair and counting, beginning in 1964 — British filmmaker Ken Loach. A drama set in 1921 and based on a shameful episode in Irish history, follows Jimmy Gralton, whose sin was to build a dance hall on a rural crossroads in an Ireland on the brink of Civil War. The Pearse-Connolly Hall was a place where young people could come to learn, to argue, to dream…but above all to dance and have fun. As the hall grew in popularity, its socialist and free-spirited reputation brought it to the attention of the church and politicians who forced Jimmy to flee and the hall to close.

A decade later, at the height of the Depression, Jimmy returns to County Leitrim from the U.S. to look after his mother. He vows to live the quiet life. The hall stands abandoned and empty, and despite the pleas of the local youth, remains shut. But as Jimmy reintegrates into the community and sees the poverty, and growing cultural oppression, the leader and activist within him is stirred. He makes the decision to reopen the hall in the face of what they may bring…

In his Variety review from Cannes, Scott Foundas wrote, “Ken Loach has taken a despicable episode of modern Irish history — the 1933 deportation without trial of one of its own citizens, James Gralton — and made a surprisingly lovely, heartfelt film from it with JIMMY’S HALL.”

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