The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will kick off its 30th annual “Contemporary Documentaries” screening series with last year’s Oscar®-winning feature, “Inside Job,” and “Casino Jack and the United States of Money” on Wednesday, September 21, at 7 p.m. at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. Admission to all screenings in the series is free.Directed by Charles Ferguson, who produced the film with Audrey Marrs, “Inside Job” traces the financial practices that laid the groundwork for the global economic crisis in an examination that places blame in the hands of many who are still in power. Predatory lending,…
Author: Robin Menken
Robin Menken
Robin Menken Robin Menken lives in Los Angeles. She was the Artistic Director of the Second City Workshops, taught at UC Berkeley, USC, Barcelona\'s Ateneu and the Esalin Institute. She was Roberto Rossellini\'s assistant, and worked with Yevgeny Vevteshenku, Glauber Rocha and Eugene Ionesco. She sold numerous screenplays and wrote the OBIE winning The FTA SHow (touring with Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland and Ben Vereen.) She was a programming consultant and Special Events co-ordinator for numerous film festivals, including the SF, Rio, Havana and N.Y Film Festivals. Her first news outlet was the historic East Village Other.
Ambulante Film Festival, Visions and Voices: The USC Arts & Humanities Initiative – Saturday, September 24, 2011 – Sunday, September 25, 2011 : 7:00pm. Admission is free. Reservations required. To RSVP go to http://web-app.usc.edu/ws/eo2/calendar/113/event/893697RSVP by clicking USC students, staff and faculty or general public.In L.A. for the first time, this groundbreaking festival features provocative documentaries that are socially or cinematically relevant. Join actor, producer and director Diego Luna as the international documentary film festival Ambulante comes to Los Angeles. Luna, who starred in such films as “Y Tu Mama Tambien”, “Milk”, “The Terminal” and “Frida”, co-founded Ambulante in 2005 with…
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences will present the American re-premiere of the first three reels of “The White Shadow” on Thursday, September 22, at 7:30 p.m. at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.As the latest presentation in a screening series of archival rediscoveries un-spooling under the banner “Lost and Found,” the Academy presents the American re-premiere of the first three reels of “The White Shadow,” which was shown in the U.S. in 1924 as “White Shadows.” Believed for decades to be lost, the picture is thought to be the earliest surviving feature film work of Alfred…
In 2003, internationally renowned Quebec filmmaker Denis Arcand received four Academy Award nominations and won the Foreign-Language Oscar for “The Barbarian Invasions”. The year was touted as the “rebirth of Quebec cinema.” In the past eight years since this rebirth, Quebec cinema has moved successfully in two directions, toward both the increasing output of crowd-pleasing, domestic box office successes, and the darker, more complex independent films populating the most prestigious international festivals. Emile Gaudreault’s 2009 crime comedy “Fathers and Guns”( a U.S. remake is in the works), became the highest grossing French-language film in Canadian history, while young Xavier Dolan’s…
Welshman Howard Marks became a world renowned international cannabis smuggler. At one time he controlled 10% of the world’s hashish trade. He maintained forty-three aliases, eighty-nine phone lines, and twenty five companies trading throughout the world. His money laundering vehicles included Bars, recording studios and offshore banks.After a series of high profile court cases, which ousted his connections with the CIA, the IRA, MI6, and the Mafia, he was convicted by the American Drug Enforcement Administration and served seven years of his twenty-five year sentence at the Terre Haute Federal Penitentiary. Once released he began a world wide tour of…
Alice Bergerac, a class call girl (Huppert) covets an antique bowl. A quick piece of calculation (how many blow jobs to meet the price) puts it in her range.She’s not the only antique collector here. Married shrink Xavier (Bouli Lanners) another collector, calls Anne up on the advice of pal Dr. Cassagne they meet at a moment of change for each of them. Afraid of increasing violence, Alice wants to leave the oldest profession and find a secure life. Xavier’s shrink wife (Valerie Dreville) wants a divorce.Jeanne Labrune (“Tomorrow’s Another Day”) reunites with her co-writer-actor Richard Debuisne. Debuisne plays psychiatrist…
Sergio Sánchez Suárez’s “Tequila: the Story Of A Passion”, a standout at LALIFF 2011, was selected as the opening night film of MEXICAN CINEMA: GUADALAJARA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, at The American Cinematheque.First time director Sergio Sánchez’s bravura period film “Tequila: The Story Of Passion”, shot for a mere three million dollars, has the drive and style of a classic Hollywood film. The story of a love triangle begins as a bedroom farce and descends to a hellish madness of vengeance that leaves the three main characters dead. Inspired by “Cavalleria rusticana”, Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” and Mexico’s Golden Age films of…
A wish-fulfillment romance for art-house audiences, Mona Achache’s “The Hedgehog ” Le hérisson”) is an ingratiating adaptation of Muriel Barbary’s international bestseller “The Elegance of the Hedgehog.” Precocious Paloma (Garance Le Guillemic), 11 -years old and already jaded, plans to suicide on her twelve birthday before she’s trapped in the “fishbowl” of conformist adult life. She steals one of her mother’s anti-depressants daily, stockpiling them for the act.Filming her snob bourgeois family in a aggressive video diary which she plans to leave as her document, she narrates her disdain with the conformist lifestyle she’s expected to adopt. Her spaced-out mother,…
Phillip Guzman’s “A Kiss and a Promise” is an admirably restrained portrait of serial killer, co-written by Mick Rossi, who plays the seemingly normal owner of a Bed and Breakfast with more than one secret life. Rossi’s fascinating performance is the reason to watch this film.In a quiet town in Ontario, Samantha (Natasha Gregson Wagner) and David Beck (Rossi) run a bed and breakfast, in a house inherited by Samantha. They have one long-term resident, writer Charlie (Sean Power), who spends his time scrapping with the locals in a cafe and spinning various tales about his life. He claims he’s…
A First time collaboration between The American Cinematheque, Festival International de Cine en Guadalajara, University de Guadalajara Los Angeles, University of Guadalajara Foundation/USA, Consulate General of Mexico in Los Angeles presents a weekend of films from the famed Guadalajara Film Festival.Opening Night: Thursday, September 8TEQUILA: THE STORY OF A PASSION. Egyptian Theatre • Thu, September 8 • 7:30pmDiscussion following with director Sergio Sánchez Suárez and actress Daniela Schmidt.EQUILA: HISTORIA DE UNA PASION2011, Quality Films, 103 min, Mexico, Dir: Sergio Sanchez SuarezIn the Mexican town of Tequila in 1942, honor is paramount. Problems begin when Antonio (Unax Ugalde) falls in love with…