Laguna Beach Film Society

10/18/2013

A very successful and enjoyable gathering of the Laguna Beach Film Society on October 17 - Next month ( Thursday, November 21) "I am I."

A charming paean to the late Spanish composer Rodrigo

10/18/2013

A charming paean to the late Spanish composer Rodrigo

07/31/2013

Our August 15 feature is "Sideways," directed by Alex Payne, the director who made "Election" and "About Schmidt."

Paul Giamatti plays Miles, a depressed, divorced writer and wine-aficionado who takes his college roommate, Jack, on a road trip through wine country. It is a last chance for Jack to sow wild oats before getting married.

Once they arrive in Santa Ynez, the men meet Maya and her friend Stephanie, played by Sandra Oh. During their double date, Jack has s*x with Stephanie while Miles and Maya converse nearby. Miles lets it slip that Jack is soon to be married. Disgusted with the dishonesty, Maya dumps Miles and tells Stephanie, who then breaks Jack's nose using her motorcycle helmet.

Upon finding out his latest manuscript has been rejected again, Miles gets drunk and meets hilarious misadventure beginning by getting ejected from a winery. Meanwhile Jack hooks up with another waitress named Cammi. The plot thickens.

A very amusing summertime movie. Be there!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS9ocP6FNvM

06/27/2013

Our July 18 pick is The Big Lebowski, a 1998 comedy written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. Jeff Bridges stars as Jeff Lebowski, an unemployed Los Angeles slacker and avid bowler, nicknamed "The Dude." After a case of mistaken identity, The Dude is introduced to a millionaire also named Jeffrey Lebowski. When the millionaire Lebowski's trophy wife is later kidnapped, he commissions The Dude to deliver the ransom to secure her release. The plan goes awry when The Dude's friend Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) schemes to keep the ransom. The story is narrated by a cowboy known only as "The Stranger", played in inimitable style by Sam Elliott.

04/23/2013

Coming up on May 23 we have an American classic! The Best Years of our Lives was made in 1946.

The film is about three servicemen trying to piece their lives back together after coming home from World War II. Samuel Goldwyn ( as in Metro Goldwyn Mayer) was inspired to produce a film about veterans after reading an August 7, 1944 article in Time about the difficulties experienced by men returning to civilian life. Former war correspondent MacKinlay Kantor wrote the screenplay.

The Best Years of Our Lives won seven Academy Awards in 1946, including Best Picture, Best Director (William Wyler), Best Actor (Fredric March), Best Supporting Actor (Harold Russell), Best Film Editing (Daniel Mandell), Best Adapted Screenplay (Robert Sherwood), and Best Original Score (Hugo Friedhofer). It also set the record at the box office, the first film to outgross Gone with the Wind.

09/25/2012

WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY LAGUNA BEACH NATIVE ROB HEDDEN, THE PROCEEDS OF THIS FILM WILL BENEFIT AUGIE'S QUEST!

An unassuming pet photographer is thrown into serious action, adventure and romance when he's forced to marry a Croatian bride and spend his honeymoon at a remote tropical resort where she is kidnapped.

Writer and director Rob Hedden, who grew up and currently lives in Laguna beach and who has worked in Hollywood for many years, will be in attendance.

Tickets to the pre-screening reception ( 6:00PM at the Laguna Art Museum) and the film are $30. Proceeds will benefit Augie's Quest (www.augiesquest.org), a charity very close to Hedden's heart . Augie's Quest is devoted to finding a cure for Lou Gehrig's Disease.

Tickets for the film screening only are $10.
Call for advance tickets from 949/494-8871 or go to www.Lagunaartmuseum.org/LBFS

09/10/2012

September 20 - STARBUCK directed by Ken Scott

Suddenly discovering you have a child would be an overwhelming experience for most men, so imagine discovering you've fathered hundreds of children, and that a good number of them want to know who you are.

This is the rather outlandish dilemma facing David (Huard), a 42-year-old slacker living the life of an irresponsible adolescent in this slapstick, feel-good French Canadian comedy.

With a pregnant girlfriend, a dead-end job and an overdue loan from a gang, David finally sets about sorting his life out. His newfound maturity is challenged somewhat when he discovers he's a s***m bank legend.

A prolific s***m donor in his 20s, David learns he's fathered 533 children, of whom 142 are legally trying to discover the identity of their biological father, known only by the pseudonym Starbuck. David is intrigued and begins to seek out his "children", but rather than telling them he's their father he takes on a more guardian angel role.

It's a crazy idea, although recent newspaper articles about the success rates of real life s***m donors makes it less surreal; I doubt the real fathers' reconciliations with their biological children would be as warm.

Though debut feature director Ken Scott pushes the premise to its preposterous limits, he keeps it on track by always retaining the heartfelt and sweet manner of his lead character. While David begins as a frustrating loser making lousy decisions the film hits a turning point when we learn the reason for his frequent flyer status at the local s***m bank and from here it's impossible not to wish the best for this man-child.

Scott wraps up David's problems a little too easily so it makes for a syrupy conclusion, but a heartwarming one as well.

04/04/2012

April 19, 7pm, South Coast Cinema
Conversation and refreshments before the film: Laguna Art Museum, 6pm.
Non-members $20

Mikio Kobayashi lives quietly with his wife, daughter, and divorced sister in downtown Tokyo, where xenophobic neighbors insist on them participating in community meetings, and the most exciting thing to happen is the disappearance of a pet parrot.

But one day Kagawa appears, claiming to be the son of a financier who once helped Kobayashi's company. In return for his family's past help, Kagawa requests to move in, and Kobayashi's quiet lifestyle is quickly forgotten when Kagawa invites his Brazilian (or is she Bosnian?) wife and a myriad of eclectic and foreign visitors to join him in the cramped apartment.

The Kobayashis are comically tossed about in confusion as Kagawa and his associates run amuck in their home. Kagawa, with the help of his visitors, manages to reveal old secrets and stir up the monotony of Mikio's former life with affairs, blackmail, and rampant youthful partying.

Director: Koji Fukuda
Cast: Kanji Furutachi, Kumi Hyôdô
Language: Japanese with English subtitles

01/26/2012

'Google translate' summary of February's (subtitled) French-language feature, "Queen of Hearts":

"The Queen Apples" - Adele is a young thirty out by Mathieu, the love of his life. Crushed, suffocated, Adele does one thing: death. Rachel, a distant cousin, the supports. She decides to help him Adele trying to find work, give him a taste for life and advise emotionally. His main advice: sleep with other men to desecrate this story ... In defending his body and heart, Adele part in the fighting.

Clearly, 'Google translate' has not yet been perfected! Here's our translation:

"Queen of Hearts" begins as Mathieu breaks up with Adele, leaving her devastated. All she wants to do is die. But unwilling to go that far, Adele turns to her distant cousin Rachel. Reluctantly at first, her cousin agrees to help. They become friends. Rachel urges Adele to sleep with others to interrupt her obsession with the absent Mathieu, which she does.

Le Monde calls it "Elegant, original, hilarious, full of life and full of grace," all in French, of course. More details on this flick at LagunaBeachExchangeClub.org

01/24/2012

Little late on the uptake this month, as the feature has already happened. (It was good too!)

Winter Documentary Series to be posted in a few hours!

Caroline Bottaro's tangy comic bonbon, "Queen to Play," plucks the game of chess out of the metaphorical realm of spy thrillers and reimagines it as a fable about relationships and upward mobility.

Adapted from Bertina Henrichs' novel "The Chess Player," this slight but captivating movie compares the strategies of chess to the erotic maneuvers in a flirtatious pas de deux that may be more satisfying than actual s*x.

At the same time, a woman's winning the game symbolizes female empowerment in a man's world and ascent from working-class drudgery to the bourgeoisie. "

Queen to Play" is a lighthearted, grown-up fairy tale in which chess consumes Hélène's imagination and transforms her life.

Director: Carolyn Bottaro
Cast: Sandrine Bonnaire, Kevin Kline,
Country: France
Language: French