THE GLASS HOUSE, BANKING ON HEAVEN Screening

Two new documentaries to be screened at the American Cinematheque:
The Glass House (above) with director Hamid Rahmanian In Person
Wednesday, October 28, 2009 at the Aero Theatre
Banking of Heaven with writer-producer Laurie Allen In Person
An Unflinching Look at the Controversial Latter-Day Saint Community
Thursday, October 29, 2009  at the Egyptian Theatre
The Glass House, which was screened at Sundance 2009, is "an intimate portrait of the never-before-seen plight of underclass Iranian women," while Banking of Heaven is " an unflinching look at a controversial Latter-Day Saints community" that is described as "home to a culture that routinely practices child rape, welfare fraud and systematic mind control."
Wednesday, October 28 – 7:30 PM at the Aero Theatre
THE GLASS HOUSE, 2009, 92 min. [...]

STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE at the Egyptian

DeForest Kelley, William Shatner, Stephen Collins, Leonard Nimoy in Star Trek: The Motion Picture

The director’s cut of Star Trek: The Motion Picture will be screened at the American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theatre on Sunday, Sept. 27, at 5:30 pm. Pre-show elements begin at 5 pm.
As per the Cinematheque’s press release, "this program will review the full spectrum of Star Trek’s visual achievements and its contributions to the art of narrative design for science fiction. Production Designers John Jefferies, Joseph R. Jennings, Herman Zimmerman and Scott Chambliss, along with moderator and VFX artist Darin R. Dochterman, will take us on a journey using visual clip pods based on design themes such as the ships, the bridge, alien worlds, gadgets & gizmos, and [...]

Technicolor Series at the Egyptian Theatre

Sean Connery in a publicity shot for From Russia with Love

The American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theatre will present six features (and several shorts) made in the dye-transfer Technicolor process (aka I.B. or "imbibition"), beginning tonight, Sept. 24, at 7:30 pm. The series ends on Saturday, Sept. 26.
The screening features are Blake Edwards‘ comedy The Party, starring Peter Sellers; the 1947 Danny Kaye vehicle The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, co-starring Virginia Mayo; Dave Fleischer’s animated features Mr. Bug Goes to Town and Gulliver’s Travels; and the James Bond flicks On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, starring George Lazenby, and the Sean Connery starrer From Russia with Love — by far the best of the Connery films, chiefly because of two [...]

Los Angeles Irish Film Festival 2009

Kisses by Lance Daly

The Los Angeles Irish Film Festival is currently being held at the American Cinematheque’s Aero Theatre in Santa Monica.
Gabriel Byrne will be present tonight for a screening of Gabriel Byrne: Stories from Home, directed by Pat Collins.
Upcoming films include Vittoria Colonna Di Stigliano’s Identities, about Ireland’s transgender denizens; Tomm Moore and Nora Twomey’s animated adventure tale The Secret of Kells; and Lance Daly’s Kisses, about two pre-teens who run away from home and end up in the streets of Dublin.
The Aero is located at 1328 Montana Avenue (at 14th Street) in Santa Monica.
The schedule and synopses below are from the American Cinematheque’s press release:
Friday, September 25 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature:
CHERRYBOMB, 2009, Little Film Company, [...]

Gabriel Byrne at the Aero

Gabriel Byrne will be present at a screening of Gabriel Byrne: Stories from Home at the American Cinematheque’s Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. Stories from Home, which screens this evening (Thursday), Sept. 24, at 7:30 pm will be followed by Macdara Vallely’s Peacefire. Byrne will take part in an onstage discussion between the two film presentations.
Both films are being screened as part of the Los Angeles Irish Film Festival, which continues until Sunday, Sept. 27.
Schedule and synopses below form the American Cinematheque’s press release:
Thursday, September 24 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature:
GABRIEL BYRNE: STORIES FROM HOME, 2008, South Wind Blows/Harvest Films, 76 min., Dir. Pat Collins. A revealing look at the life and creative impulse of Gabriel Byrne [...]

Japanese Horror Classics: GOKE, HAUSU at the Egyptian

House by Nobuhiko Obayashi (top); Goke, Bodysnatcher from Hell by Hajime Sato (bottom)

Schedule and synopses from the American Cinematheque website.
Wednesday, September 23 – 7:30 PM
Japanese Cult Classics Double Feature:
HOUSE (HAUSU), 1977, Janus Films, 87 min. This long-lost fantasy/horror masterpiece from director Nobuhiko Obayashi has finally surfaced in America. Oshare can’t wait to spend the summer with her father…until he informs her that he plans to remarry. She decides to go away with some friends to visit an estranged aunt…who, unbeknownst to the girls is immortal and can only remain that way by feeding on virgins. Her evil house, with its girl-devouring piano, does the killing for her. Based on an idea given to the director by his then 7-year-old [...]

Agnès Varda Aero Schedule II

Agnès Varda at the Aero: Part I
Friday, June 26 – 7:30 PM
Los Angeles-Inspired:
LIONS LOVE (AND LIES), 1969, Ciné-Tamaris, 110 min. A blissed-out experiment in anarchy and illusion, featuring Warhol superstar Viva (from LONESOME COWBOYS) and "Hair" authors James Rado and Jerome Ragni playing "themselves" — three innocents adrift in Hollywood. Freely mixing improvisation with scripted dialogue, and occasional news reports on the shootings of Robert Kennedy and Warhol, which interrupt the film, LIONS LOVE is Agnes Varda’s gloriously screwy time capsule of L.A. in its free-love acid-tripping let-it-all-hang-out heyday. In English.
MURS MURS, 1980, Ciné-Tamaris, 81 min. Essential viewing for all Angelenos, MURS MURS is Varda’s lively tribute to this city’s outdoor murals, from the riotous Pig Paradise [...]

Agnès Varda Tribute at the Aero

Except for Vagabond, a 1985 drama that earned Sandrine Bonnaire best actress awards from both the French Academy and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, I’m unfamiliar with Agnès Varda’s oeuvre, which encompasses more than 40 films — both shorts and features, narrative and documentaries — spanning 54 years (1954-2008). Well, I’ll now have the chance to rectify that glaring omission in my cinematic connoisseurship — on the big screen — and so will other Los Angeles area denizens.
One of the most respected filmmakers in the world, the iconoclastic Agnès Varda will be the subject of a mini-retrospective at the American Cinematheque’s Aero Theatre in Santa Monica from June 24-July 1. Varda, whose films frequently focus on women and their [...]

Nagisa Oshima at the American Cinematheque

“No other director of Oshima’s generation has made more vital, inventive and challenging films, or taken more risks. He is a giant in contemporary cinema.” – Tony Rayns
“Plainly the greatest living Japanese filmmaker.” – Jonathan Rosenbaum
“Japan’s greatest living filmmaker.” – J. Hoberman
Those in the Los Angeles area can judge for themselves as Nagisa Oshima is the subject of an eight-film series from April 23-26 at the American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. The Oshima series is being presented in collaboration with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (which will have its own Oshima series in May) and is co-sponsored by the Japan Foundation.
"I am not interested in making films that can be understood [...]

Oscar 2008: Film Editors and Art Directors Seminars at the American Cinematheque

Josh Brolin in No Country for Old Men (top); Matt Damon in The Bourne Ultimatum (bottom)

A couple of American Cinematheque events at the Egyptian Theatre at 6712 Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles:
The American Cinema Editors‘ seminar "Invisible Art, Visible Artists" will be held at 10 a.m. on Saturday, February 23. The scheduled participants are the 2008 Oscar nominees:

Christopher Rouse, The Bourne Ultimatum
Juliette Welfling, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Jay Cassidy, Into the Wild
"Roderick Jaynes" (Joel and Ethan Coen), No Country for Old Men
Dylan Tichenor, There Will Be Blood

Saoirse Ronan, James McAvoy in Atonement (top); Jayne Wisener in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (bottom)

The Art Directors [...]

Golden Globes 2007: Foreign-Language Film Screenings

Penélope Cruz in Volver (top); Martina Gedeck in The Lives of Others (middle); Pan’s Labyrinth (bottom)

The American Cinematheque and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association will present all five foreign-language films nominated for the 2007 Golden Globe Awards at The Aero’s Max Palevsky Theatre in Santa Monica.
The five nominees are:

Apocalypto (U.S.)
El Laberinto del fauno / Pan’s Labyrinth (Spain / Mexico / U.S.)
Das Leben der Anderen / The Lives of Others (Germany)
Letters from Iwo Jima (U.S.)
Volver (Spain)

Invited guests (to be confirmed) for each screening are directors Pedro Almodóvar, Guillermo del Toro, Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson, and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, all of whom should also take part in a round-table discussion moderated by Screen International U.S. editor [...]