Triumvirate of critical talent to tackle TCM Fest
Mar
31
2017
It’s that time again. arts·meme is launching, for the eighth year running, its special coverage of TCM Classic Film Festival, a whopping four-day spectacular that would make Cecil B. DeMille proud. It’s when the popular television channel moves off the airways and into real time and space, taking over Hollywood Boulevard like the landing of ...
Capote’s ‘In Cold Blood,’ still harrowing fifty years later
Mar
9
2017
In Cold Blood, the film version of Truman Capote’s immensely popular true crime novel, was nominated for four top Oscars in 1967. Richard Brooks received two nominations, for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, and the film was also nominated for Conrad Hall’s striking cinematography and Quincy Jones’ memorable score. In his best-selling book, Capote ...
‘Group’ therapy … at the movies
Jul
24
2016
Good to get this announcement from Laemmle Anniversary Classics… ***** At a time when critics lament the poor roles for women on screen, Laemmle Anniversary Classics is rolling out a goodie: a celebration of the 50th anniversary of The Group, a rare Hollywood movie to center on eight intelligent, spirited, well-educated women. The film is ...
Jets & Sharks rumble @ Laemmle Anniversary Classics WSS screening
A great evening on Wednesday when film critic Stephen Farber interviewed Russ Tamblyn (“Riff”) at a 55th anniversary screening of “West Side Story” before a very full house at the Laemmle Ahyra Fine Arts Theatre. A slew of dance royalty attended the screening: Dancer Bobby Banas (“Joyboy” in the movie), Barrie Chase of Fred Astaire ...
Kathryn Altman memorialized as gracious, effervescent
Jun
29
2016
Barely a week after savoring Kathryn Altman’s crystalline memories of the filming of McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), shared by the widow of director Robert Altman at an entrancing 45th anniversary screening of the precious movie, we learned that this elegant and classy woman had passed away. A shocker. So we’re very pleased to excerpt ...
William Friedkin reveals his French Connection
Jun
21
2016
Reverence reigned in the room; it was a stirring evening of movie worship. An enthralled, somewhat dazed, audience emptied onto Wilshire Boulevard only at 11:30 pm, following the 45th anniversary screening of THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971) hosted by film critic Stephen Farber for Laemmle’s Anniversary Classics. In a post-screening Q & A, the movie’s director, ...
arts·meme’s TCM Fest coverage announced 1
Mar
24
2016
The dream team debuted last year — and hit a home run. So… three strong film writers are set to do it again! The strategy remains the same: Divide and conquer the densely programmed, movie-studded long weekend of the seventh annual TCM Classic Film Festival. Pounding the (once-glittering, still star-studded) sidewalks of Hollywood Boulevard and ...
Zsigmond’s “McCabe” cinematography revisited
Feb
19
2016
Pauline Kael memorably described Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller as “a beautiful pipe dream of a movie.” This poetic, revisionist Western is set in the Northwest at the turn of the 20th century and stars Warren Beatty and Julie Christie (Oscar-nominated for her performance). The screening is presented as a tribute to Oscar-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond ...
Life is sweet: “La Dolce Vita” turns 55 1
Feb
6
2016
Laemmle Theatres celebrates one of the first foreign films to figure prominently in the Academy Award voting. La Dolce Vita earned four Oscar nominations in 1962, including Best Director Federico Fellini and Best Original Screenplay and it won the Oscar for Piero Gherardi’s elegant costumes. Fellini’s sardonic epic about the decadence of modern Rome was ...
“Spartacus” meets its maker, Dalton Trumbo
Oct
26
2015
In honor of the film’s anniversary, Laemmle Theatres and Reel Talk with Stephen Farber are pleased to present SPARTACUS (1960) in a screening Friday, November 6 at the Royal Theater in West Los Angeles. On the same day that Trumbo opens in theaters, depicting the life of blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, enjoy a tribute of his ...