French Film Composers Series Winners Announced

Nicola S. from Santa Monica won Elmer Bernstein's Film Music Notebook &

LuAnne Olsen from Sun Valley won the 6 CD set of The Cinema of Georges Delerue!

DIRTY DANCING: An Afternoon at Kellerman's

Nobody puts baby in a corner. And nobody keeps baby off the screen or stage, especially The American Cinematheque, which on Sunday, April 26, hosted a revival screening of the 1987 cult dance classic starring Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey and the late Jerry Orbach. The event – equal parts dance party and big screen tribute – was staged to promote the upcoming musical adaptation of “Dirty Dancing” which opens May 8, 2009 at The Pantages Theatre.
Hosted by Dave Malkoff, the event kicked off with a free dance contest – and some dance lessons to boot – sponsored by Boxers & Ballerinas, Inc., a unique health and fitness organization founded by Rebekah Iliff. Jennifer Perry and Adrienne Malena, both instructors at Boxers & Ballerinas, were among the professional dancers who lead the Egyptian Theatre courtyard in an eye-catching dance show that commanded the center-stage attention on Hollywood Boulevard.
Film buffs and curiosity-seekers alike joined in on the dance lessons and participated in a “Dirty Dancing” trivia contest. Carole Mumford, Judy Calderon, Charles Meyerson and a Marilyn Monroe look-alike were among the trivia contest winners who walked away with tickets to the musical stage adaptation of “Dirty Dancing.”

Following the courtyard festivities, everyone filed inside for a screening of the 1987 film which was introduced by a Q&A between Dave Malkoff and Josef Brown, the classically trained Australian dancer who originated the stage persona of Johnny Castle in both the London and Australian stage versions of “Dirty Dancing,” and who will be reprising that role onstage at The Pantages Theatre for the run of “Dirty Dancing.”

For further information on “Dirty Dancing” the musical, visit www.dirtydancingamerica.com. For more information on Boxers & Ballerinas, please visit their website at www.boxersandballerinas.com.

Reporting & Photos by Lee Christian

Director Arthur Hiller & Producer Martin Ransohoff In Person at the Egyptian

Producer Martin Ransohoff is the subject of a tribute this weekend at the Egyptian Theatre. Though himself, not a household name, his films are quite famous. He got his start in television producing "The Beverly Hillbillies" and went on to produce THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY (starring Julie Andrews & James Garner (forever Jim Rockford of "The Rockford Files" to TV fans), helmed by LOVE STORY director Arthur Hiller. Hiller, a former president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, will appear in person with Ransohoff to reminisce about making 'EMILY' in 1964. MARY POPPINS starring Andrews was also released in 1964.

Ransohoff will be joined by Robert Loggia for a look at JAGGED EDGE on Sunday, May 3rd. Loggia was Oscar-nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role as investigator Sam Ransom. Another highlight is ICE STATION ZEBRA on May 2nd, the film that eccentric, compulsive billionaire Howard Hughes watched repeatedly in his private screening room (remember the days before video let alone DVD???) Join us for some big screen action. Also screening are, SAVE THE TIGER and THE CINCINNATI KID with Steve McQueen.

Friday, May 1 – 7:30 PM Double Feature: THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY, 1964, Warner Bros., 115 min. Director Arthur Hiller and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky skewer the cynical marketing of heroics during wartime. A gung-ho military PR officer (James Coburn) takes seriously the order of an insane general (Melvyn Douglas) to chronicle the first sailor to die landing on D-Day’s Normandy Beach, all to create a "Tomb of the Unknown Sailor." Decidedly unheroic James Garner is stationed in Britain, has just started an affair with beautiful and opinionated Julie Andrews and gets saddled with the job by Coburn. Producer Martin Ransohoff’s favorite from amongst his many films. See the original trailer which opens with the words "Stop the War, I want to Get Off!"

"Chayefsky's scabrously funny script brims with snappy, crackling dialogue." -- Nick Schager, Slant Magazine

"Under Arthur Hiller's brisk direction of Mr. Chayefsky's script, which includes some remarkably good writing with some slashing irreverence…a comedy that says more for basic pacifism than a fistful of intellectual tracts. It also is highly entertaining, and it makes a good case for pure romance." – Bosley Crowther, The New York Times
SAVE THE TIGER, 1973, Paramount, 100 min. Dir. John G. Avildsen (ROCKY). Los Angeles garment businessman Jack Lemmon suffers a devastating intersection of midlife crisis and disillusionment with what he sees as moral decline in changing times. His deepening trauma pushes him to the edge as he considers desperate and illegal measures to salvage his tanking fashion enterprise. Lemmon won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance. Co-starring Jack Gilford, Patricia Smith. "…a virtuoso piece of movie acting. Jack Lemmon holds the movie together by the sheer force of his performance as Harry; he makes this character so convincing that we're fascinated…" – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times Discussion in between films with producer Martin Ransohoff and director Arthur Hiller.

Tickets | Website

Hunky "Dirty Dancing" Stage Actor Josef Brown In Person at the Egyptian Theatre

HTML clipboardSunday, April 26 – 2:00 PM - Egyptian Theatre

A CELEBRATION OF DIRTY DANCING

An Afternoon at Kellerman's

Plus introduction by hunky actor Josef Brown who plays Johnny Castle in the stage play!!!

DIRTY DANCING, 1987, Lionsgate, 100 min. As Los Angeles gets ready to welcome "Dirty Dancing - The Classic Story On Stage," the worldwide musical smash on May 8, the Cinematheque takes a look at the film that started it all. The one, the only, DIRTY DANCING, directed by Emile Ardolino and starring Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze. Jennifer Grey stars as Frances “Baby” Houseman, a college-bound 17-year old spending the summer of 1963 at a Catskills resort with her family. When she falls for working class dance instructor Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze) her world opens up, but her doctor father (Jerry Orbach) puts an end to the romance.But, "Nobody puts Baby in the corner!"

Kenny Ortega the choreographer of HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL also choreographed this film.

The film will be shown at 4:00 PM preceded by the sort of events you might have enjoyed as a guest at Kellerman's Resort - here, presented in the Egyptian Theatre courtyard - including dance lessons from professional instructors, a comedian, giveaways and more! Singles welcome, as we’ll have multiple dance instructors on hand. Audience members will also have an opportunity to win tickets to the stage play at the Pantages Theatre. So bring your dancing shoes and come dressed to do some of your own "dirty dancing." Plus introduction by hunky actor Josef Brown who plays Johnny Castle in the stage play!!!

Read an interview with Josef (and his abs).

About the Stage Play:
This event is a kick-off party for "Dirty Dancing - The Classic Story On Stage," the worldwide musical smash that is having its pre-Broadway, West Coast premiere right here in Los Angeles at the Pantages Theatre! The movie is a legendary entertainment phenomenon. The soundtrack is simply unforgettable. And now you can experience "Dirty Dancing - The Classic Story On Stage" as never before. Reimagined for the stage by the original screenwriter, Eleanor Bergstein, it is an unprecedented live experience, exploding with heart-pounding music, breathtaking emotion and sensationally sexy dancing. Step inside the classic story of Baby and Johnny, two fiercely independent young spirits from different worlds, who come together in what will be the most challenging and triumphant summer of their lives - told by a tremendous cast of 39 and featuring 35 hit songs, including "Hungry Eyes," "Hey Baby," "Do You Love Me?" and the heart-stopping Academy Award Winning song, "(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life." Everything you remember from the movie comes to life, with brand-new songs and scenes that make the story resonate more deeply with fans and newcomers alike. Don’t miss your chance to see this truly spectacular musical theater event, in a strictly limited engagement before it goes to Broadway. Click here for the official website. Trailer

Atom Egoyan in Person with Cast from ADORATION

No, this isn't a film about how much the Cannes Film Festival loves Atom Egoyan's work, HOWEVER, on Friday, April 24th at 7:30 PM, critically acclaimed (and Cannes Film Festival Favorite) director Atom Egoyan will visit the Aero Theatre for a Sneak Preview with previously unannounced cast members from his new film ADORATION in tow. Tickets are still on sale on Fandango. Events like this tend to sell out at the Aero so buy your ticket early! Fans of Egoyan can catch up with two earlier award-winning films on Saturday, April 25th, THE SWEET HEREAFTER and FAMILY VIEWING.

ADORATION (2009, Sony Pictures Classics, 100 min.) is the latest film written, produced and directed by Atom Egoyan. It speaks to our connections with each other, with our family history, with technology and with the modern world. Sabine (Arsinée Khanjian), a high school French teacher, gives her class a translation exercise based on a real news story about a terrorist who plants a bomb in the airline luggage of his pregnant girlfriend. The assignment has a profound effect on one student, Simon (Devon Bostick), who lives with his uncle (Scott Speedman). In the course of translating, Simon reimagines that the news item is his own family's story, with the terrorist standing in for his father. Years ago, Simon's father (Noam Jenkins) crashed the family car, killing both himself and his wife (Rachel Blanchard), making Simon an orphan. Simon has always feared that the accident was intentional. Simon reads his version to the class and then takes it to the internet, creating a false identity that allows him to probe his family secret. As Simon uses his new persona to journey deeper into his past, the public reaction is swift and strong. When an exotic woman reveals her true identity, the truth about Simon's family emerges. The mystery is solved and a new family is formed.

Guests will include: Atom Egoyan (writer/producer/director) Scott Speedman (Tom, the uncle in the film) Devon Bostick (Simon, the adolescent in the film) Rachel Blanchard (Rachel, the mother in the film).

See it first, at the Aero Theatre! Watch a trailer here.

Futuristic Design Lecture and Screening of THINGS TO COME at the Egyptian

Calling all Steam Punks, Art Deco Aficionados, Sci Fi Fans Everywhere!

Saturday, April 18, 2009 at 2:00 PM at the Egyptian Theatre is a spectacular multi-media event examining how
We Imagined the Future - In the Past... visions ranging from the outlandish to the on target!

"Dr. Zarkov, Ask the Robot to Fetch My Zeppelin: Art Deco Era Imagines the Future"

Co-Presented with the Art Deco Society Los Angeles

If you love futuristic design, then this multi-media lecture (approx. 45 min.) is for you. Delivered in Walter Nelson's usual witty style, Nelson examines the future as it was viewed in the past. The lecture is followed by a screening of THINGS TO COME. The 1920s and 30s were a time of rapid technological change, and those who experienced it expected that change would continue at the same hectic pace into the future. In extrapolating from their own time, they foresaw a time of mega-cities, robot servants, space ships, giant aircraft and any number of other scientific wonders. They also generally saw the future as a better place than the present (especially during the Great Depression) and the Art Deco style of design embraced that optimistic view.

THINGS TO COME, 1936, 100 min. Director William Cameron Menzies (INVADERS FROM MARS and of course, GONE WITH THE WIND) directs H. G. Wells' apocalyptic sci-fi novel, with input from Wells himself. A World War that begins in 1940 lasts until 1966 when a plague hits the planet and destroys half the population. Isolated primitive communities struggle through, but it soon becomes apparent a pocket of humanity has not only survived war and disease but has made enormous strides in technological achievement and design. With Raymond Massey, Ralph Richardson. THINGS TO COME was an influential film on Forrest J Ackerman. The film, with its incredible angled Deco sets was clipped in the documentary on Forry that screened at his tribute on March 8th. See it now in its entirety. (Screened from a digital source).

Walter Nelson has been involved in numerous aspects of public history for over thirty years, and has participated in hundreds of living history programs in the US and Britain covering eras from the Middle Ages to the Second World War. He has lectured on topics such as Victorian etiquette, historical games, phrenology, historical costume and the history of dance.

He has been involved in organizing highly successful "Vintage Dance" programs such as the "Jane Austen Evening" and the "Avalon Ball". He also works as a consultant in historical programs for organizations like the Huntington Library, The Los Angeles Master Chorale, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and Rancho Los Cerritos.

Audience members are encouraged to come in Futuristic Costumes... Steam Punks, 1930s Aliens, Flash Gordon... are all welcome! Not sure what a steam punk is? Here is a "steam punk styled computer."

See this event on our website

THE 11th ANNUAL FILM NOIR FESTIVAL PAYS TRIBUTE TO ANTHONY MANN AND ANN RUTHERFORD

Wrapping its second week, the 11th Annual Film Noir Festival at the historic Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard paid tribute to noir icon Anthony Mann, featuring two of Mann’s early noir nuggets TWO O’CLOCK COURAGE and DESPERATE.

Co-programmer Alan K. Rode hosted the double bill and moderated a lively Q&A with actress Ann Rutherford who played a feisty female cabbie in the evening’s headliner TWO O’CLOCK COURAGE. Rutherford said she had never seen the picture. "Nobody was ever that young" Ann exclaimed in a strong, resonant voice as she took the stage. "I was on loan out to RKO,." she explained. "Had I had a contract there, they might have invited me to see the film. I think I was out of town when it opened." So 64 years later, Ann saw the film for the first time with a packed house at the Egyptian Theatre on April 9, 2009! She did recall that Tom Conway, her leading man was "a joy to work with and never bumped into the furniture."

“I listened and I reacted. That’s all I knew about acting,” exclaimed Rutherford, recalling her youth in theatre and radio from 1925 to the mid 1930’s.

Born to Metropolitan Opera singer John Rutherford and actress Lillian Mansfield, Rutherford revealed during Thursday’s discussion that she literally rolled into her acting career. As a girl, roller skating home from school, she often stopped to watch the radio players at station KFAC, performing through the glass at the studio on Wilshire Blvd. One day she boldly asked for a job, reciting the names of all the plays her mother had taken to her to see, as if she had acted in them. Soon she was doing radio and loved it. After a night of roller-skating, Ann recalled, she paid a visit to former MGM producer-turned-agent John Lancaster. A month later, Lancaster met with Ann and her mother pitching a Mascot (later Republic Pictures) contract for Ann with only one hitch; mother and daughter would have to claim Ann to be eighteen years old. She wasn’t.

“That’s how I lied my way into the business,” Ann declared to a round of applause. It was a ruse that paid well. So well, in fact, that while working regularly with Gene Autry in such films as MELODY TRAIL and THE SINGING VAGABOND, she was paid more than Autry himself, Rutherford revealed, because she had an agent. She also worked with John Wayne in THE LAWLESS NINETIES and THE OREGON TRAIL before taking the huge step from Republic Pictures to MGM.
Ann appeared as Polly in all but the first Andy Hardy picture with Mickey Rooney (who will be the subject of an in person tribute at the Aero in May). She got stuck on the film THE DEVIL IS DRIVING that ran over schedule due to a drunken accident involving the leading man.

Much of Thursday’s discussion revolved what is perhaps Rutherford’s most well-known role as Carreen, one of Scarlett O’Hara’s sisters in GONE WITH THE WIND, which celebrates its seventieth anniversary this year.

“I’ve already got my reservations,” said Rutherford of her plans to visit Atlanta, Georgia to help celebrate the fame bestowed on the city thanks to David Selznick’s Civil War epic.

Talk of WIND brought a flurry of euphoria to Rutherford who reveled that with each year the film continues to appeal to even younger audiences. Given the size and demographic of Thursday’s film noir audience, The American Cinematheque isn’t having any problems tapping into a new generation of movie buffs young and old.

Film noir continues through April 19th at the Egyptian Theatre, including a memorial tribute to Ann Savage who brought noir audiences great pleasure as DETOUR's femme fatale! Screening are PASSAGE TO SUEZ (1943) in a new 35mm print and MY WINNIPEG (2007), Ann's last film, directed by Guy Maddin.

Reported and Photographed by Lee Christian with additional reporting by Margot Gerber.

Rogen, Faris, Hill at Aero Sneak Preview Screening of OBSERVE AND REPORT

The conversation about the Sneak Preview screening of OBSERVE AND REPORT quickly turned to the trend for male frontal nudity in cinema, little dicks being funnier than big dicks and a lot of balls with Seth Rogen, Anna Faris and director Jody Hill. How did you get this film made was the question of the evening. Director Jody Hill attributes it to Seth Rogen. Seth explained that they went to Warner Bros. revealing straight away that there would be "Ten minutes of balls towards the end." What WB saw in the script is what they got. Rogen went on to add that "we told them, it won't get any softer. When asked what he did to prepare for the role of Ronny, Rogen said, "Nothing, its really disappointing. I don't know what's in Ronny's wallet." Hill says he wrote the part for Rogen. It takes guts to show your dick everyone agreed, but Rogen pointed out that it is even more perverse to show a little dick, than a big dick and he believes that is funnier. He thinks perhaps they got away with it with the studio because "The Dick is so little, its less offensive." The other revelation of the evening? Rogen surmised that "Balls are just like little breasts anyway." Faris stated that female nudity doesn't seem to be so funny anymore and this explains why she kept her bra on during the "lovemaking" scenes. That and in her mind, her character had a nipple mutation to which Rogen added, "She didn't have any nipples."
Hill and Rogen agree that nothing was really cut out due to censorship and nothing great was lost to the cutting room floor. "There is no big scene where I fight dinosaurs," said Rogen. "But it would have been cool if there were."

Faris related that a lot of what you do as an actor "is attempt to win over the audience" so playing a completely unsympathetic character was very different. She recalled meeting "with these guys to convince them I could be a slutty whore."
In discussing the intensity of the material (penial sight gags), director Hill said, "I lied a lot" when the cast recalled that he was constantly saying, "This will never make it in the film." And who was that guy who played the pervert and got to reveal his private parts for an extended period of time? "Randy is a friend from college," Hill explained. "He said he wanted to do the film and I told him he should think about it." Randy took on the role and finally called his parents after the premiere to warn them about it.

For Hill, his foray into bigger budget filmmaking was so different from THE FOOT FIST WAY, he would say to Rogen, "Aren't those lights down the road going to mess up the shot?" and Rogen would reply, "Those are our lights."

Anna opted for a smart pair of black patent leather sandals with a very high heel (5-6 inches) and black short shorts, while the men went with New Balance, t-shirts and sweatshirts. More coverage to follow. Here are some early photos for now.

Anna Faris joins Seth Rogan and Jody Hill at the Aero Tonight

The OBSERVE AND REPORT Sneak Preview screening is already sold out, but we just thought we would let you know that Anna Faris is joining Seth Rogan and director Jody Hill for the q & a tonight in case you already have tickets. Arrive early. Its gonna be a zoo! If all goes well we will report on the screening and q & a here tomorrow. Thanks Ain't Cool News for your help with this screening. If you are a Cinematheque member, don't forget that we have a members only sneak preview of MYSTERIES OF PITTSBURGH at the Egyptian on April 8. Join now and get invited that it (and a lot more free screenings through out the year - plus all your paid admissions are only $7 for public programs.)