Thompson on Hollywood

American Cinematheque Announces Aero Theatre's Digital Upgrades, Summer Series of Classics & Restorations

News

The American Cinematheque's Aero Theatre announces its new upgrade, which includes state-of-the-art high performance digital projection and sound at its 435-seat Santa Monica venue.

By Sophia Savage
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June 21, 2012 4:02 PM
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Academy Announces Summer Long 'Last 70mm Film Festival'

News

As the film industry prepares to say good-bye--despite the efforts of celluloid holdout Christoher Nolan-- not only to Kodak but to film stock itself, the Academy is celebrating 70mm films all summer long with "The Last 70mm Film Festival." It will kick off at its Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills on July 9 with "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and a reunion of its cast (including Mickey Rooney, Carl Reiner, Jonathan Winters, Stan Freberg and casting director Lyn Stalmaster). Check out the lineup below. More details will be available here.

By Sophia Savage
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June 19, 2012 5:00 PM
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Barry Diller Gives $30 Million to Motion Picture & Television Fund

News

By Sophia Savage
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June 5, 2012 1:52 PM
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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
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May 7, 2012 3:42 PM
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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
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April 17, 2012 1:10 PM
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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
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April 9, 2012 5:43 PM
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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
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February 29, 2012 12:08 PM
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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
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January 15, 2012 2:40 AM
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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
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November 6, 2011 10:13 AM
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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?