Thompson on Hollywood

Academy's Outdoor Summer Screenings to Include 'Casablanca,' 'Princess Bride,' 'Goonies' and 'Raising Arizona'

News

The Academy's summer screening series, "Oscars Outdoors," at the open-air theater of the Academy Hollywood campus, will kick off Friday, June 15, and run through August 18. These Friday night screenings will focus on classic and contemporary adult favorites (including "Casablanca," "North by Northwest" and "Raising Arizona"), while Saturday's will be family-friendly selections (including "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," "The Princess Bride" and "The Karate Kid"). On August 17, the screening will be "audience choice," as determined by online voting. Most screenings will also include surprise screenings of animated and live-action short films. The schedule is listed below, along with ticket and venue details.

By Sophia Savage
|
May 7, 2012 3:42 PM
|
0 Comments

More:

COLCOA 2012 Opening Night, From New "My Way' to 'A Trip to the Moon' and 'Breathless'

Festivals

Opening night at the City of Lights City of Angels French film week at the Directors Guild always features sweet champagne and pastries, a mediocre French movie that the French consider to be the kind of commercial film American distributors should embrace but never do...

By Anne Thompson
|
April 17, 2012 1:10 PM
|
1 Comment

More:

Brit Week Takes Over Los Angeles, Because Somehow They Need More Attention

News

The British Are Coming! Brit Week takes over Los Angeles April 24 - May 7 to promo everything Brit, from films, fashion and stars from across the pond to the sovereign state's top innovators and artists. This celebration of greatness and prosperity reads like a marketing grab for attention and respect for still being one of the great world powers.

By Sophia Savage
|
April 9, 2012 5:43 PM
|
1 Comment

More:

Introducing ECLA: Emerson College Comes to Hollywood, $110 million Project Breaks Ground March 8

News

Boston's Emerson College, which has long focused on Communications and the Arts, is breaking ground on a new campus in Los Angeles at 5960 W. Sunset Blvd.

By Sophia Savage
|
February 29, 2012 12:08 PM
|
0 Comments

More:

Golden Globes Weekend Party Circuit: AFI Lunch, Paramount, LA Film Critics, Film Independent, BAFTA

Awards

The Golden Globes weekend is well under way. I love roaming a crowded party packed with Hollywood powerbrokers and talent to watch how they interact with one another. I am the ultimate voyeur. Of course I do talk to some of them occasionally.

By Anne Thompson
|
January 15, 2012 2:40 AM
|
2 Comments

More:

Eastwood, DiCaprio, Hammer, Black Talk J. Edgar: DiCaprio Wanted to Gain Weight

Features

The crowd at the Los Angeles County Museum screening of J. Edgar rose to their feet when three tall straight guys—Clint Eastwood, Leonardo DiCaprio and Armie Hammer—joined diminutive gay screenwriter Dustin Lance Black onstage at the Bing for a Q and A moderated by the NYT’s Charles McGrath. While Eastwood grew up with top cop J. Edgar Hoover, Black and his cast did not, and had to pore through reams of research to understand the restrictive mores of a time when to be openly gay was simply not allowed. DiCaprio and Black seemed more critical of Hoover—“he was a political dinosaur at the end of his career,” said DiCaprio, “he was a crockpot of eccentricity…didn’t adapt to civil rights…was obsessed with power”—while Eastwood seemed more admiring of Hoover starting thumbprints and his quest for law and order. That tension is in the movie, for better or worse.

By Anne Thompson
|
November 6, 2011 10:13 AM
|
1 Comment

More:

Academy Celebrates 40th Last Picture Show Anniversary with Restored Definitive Director's Cut

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences celebrates the 40th anniversary of The Last Picture Show with a digitally restored "Definitive Director’s Cut" on Thursday, November 17, at 7:30 p.m. at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater. After the screening the Academy is hosting a cast and crew reunion including director (and indieWIRE blogger) Peter Bogdanovich, his one-time romantic muse Cybill Shepherd and Cloris Leachman. Sadly, Ben Johnson as well as Bogdanovich's ex-wife, the film's production designer Polly Platt, are no longer with us. And where are Jeff Bridges, Timothy Bottoms and Ellen Burstyn?

By Anne Thompson
|
October 27, 2011 11:15 AM
|
1 Comment

More:

Academy Presents Mary Blair Animation Panel: Mary's World of Color

I'm going to the latest Academy Celebration of Animation, Mary Blair’s World of Color: A Centennial Tribute, on October 20. Mary Blair died in 1978 and created the concept art for such Disney greats as Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Song of the South and Cinderella, as well as the character designs for Disneyland's "It's a Small World."

By Anne Thompson
|
October 18, 2011 7:32 AM
|
0 Comments

More:

Film Independent's November LACMA Film Series Lineup Adds Clooney, Fassbender

Elvis Mitchell is booking movies with speakers for his weekly Film Independent at LACMA showings. He's basically doing the same thing any number of subscription film series are doing, he's just inviting the public to buy tickets to see many films that will be available at commercial cinemas or on Netflix followed by Q and As with the likes of George Clooney and Michael Fassbender. I have booked The Descendants for Sneak Previews, for example.

By Anne Thompson
|
October 13, 2011 7:42 AM
|
2 Comments

More:

Bringing Burton’s World to Life: LACMA Hosts Collaborators, Screens 70mm Scissorhands

On October 21, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is hosting a Behind-the-Scenes panel, "Bringing Burton’s World to Life," with key Tim Burton collaborators. Oscar-winning composer Danny Elfman, costume designer Colleen Atwood, and art director, sculptor, installation designer and production designer Rick Heinrichs will participate on a panel about transforming Burton’s vision from concept to three-dimensional film reality, moderated by Ron Magliozzi, Associate Curator, MoMA Department of Film and co-organizer of the Tim Burton exhibition. Their films range across Vincent, Beetlejuice, Batman, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood and Edward Scissorhands, which will be shown in 70mm, a rare screening.