Andrew McCarthy, left, Molly Ringwald and Jon Cryer in the 1986 movie “Pretty in Pink.” It screens at Vidiots on Nov. 14.
(Paramount Pictures)
The 10 movies you need to see in L.A. in November
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Watch Sissy Spacek take the stage (no pig’s blood, we promise) and discuss her most iconic role. Revisit a Gen-X teen classic. Prep in 70mm for the return of Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth. November is a good month to live in Los Angeles and go to the movies. The repertory scene continues to offer up an avalanche of riches, with local programmers outdoing themselves.
These screenings feature special guests, archival prints and other surprises. Consider our guide a handy catch-all of the best repertory screenings of the month, reserved for older films playing in unique circumstances.
Whatever your plans may be, change them for the following 10 events.
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Showing Place Places
‘Excalibur’ (New Beverly, Nov. 3, 4)
Fantasy Tickets
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(Sunset Boulevard / Corbis via Getty Images)
If you take a peek at the recent documentary “Boorman and the Devil,” you’ll see filmmaker John Boorman at home, giving an interview, seated next to a shining sword, just in case the questions get a little invasive. That’s the blade from his voluptuous 1981 medieval fantasy, a sexy and ominous take on the Knights of the Round Table. “Excalibur” has just the right amount of spookiness and sublimity, sometimes bringing to mind the woodsy misadventures of Boorman’s “Deliverance.” Those mourning the dearly departed Patrick Stewart will be there for his smallish role as King Leodegrance, father of Guinevere. But the whole cast is superb, especially Nicol Williamson as an orotund Merlin.
“Excalibur” is playing Nov. 3, 4 at the New Beverly Cinema. Tickets here.
“Excalibur” is playing Nov. 3, 4 at the New Beverly Cinema. Tickets here.
‘Burning’ (Egyptian, Nov. 10, 16, 18)
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(Well Go USA)
Korea’s Lee Chang-dong is having a moment with his latest film, “Possible Love,” a movie that could expand his appeal to a wider American audience he’s never enjoyed. He exfoliates domestic life in an exquisite way, laying bare the frustrations of wives, husbands and lovers. “Burning,” Lee’s 2018 thriller, will always be the perfect doorway into his preoccupations. The movie may be about a serial killer, an unreadable Tom Ripley type who floats through Seoul’s luxury districts with scary ease. Steven Yeun makes him indelible. And if you get bitten by the Lee bug, the Egyptian is playing several of his films all November.
“Burning” is playing Nov. 10, 16 and 18 at the Egyptian Theatre. Tickets here.
“Burning” is playing Nov. 10, 16 and 18 at the Egyptian Theatre. Tickets here.
'Grace of My Heart' (Vidiots, Nov. 11)
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(Claudette Barius / Gramercy Pictures)
With a story based loosely on the life of singer and songwriter Carole King — one that follows a female songwriter across different eras of pop music to find her own personal voice — “Grace of My Heart” is both a fan letter and a deeply compassionate act of acknowledgment, depicting the struggle to becomes one’s authentic self. While it is fun to correlate characters to their real-life counterparts (like John Turturro’s faux Phil Spector or Matt Dillon’s imitation of Brian Wilson), it is Illeana Douglas’ earnest charm and wide-open vulnerability in the lead that power the film along. Vidiots will have a special 30th anniversary screening of the film with Douglas and director Allison Anders in person.
“Grace of My Heart” is playing Nov. 11 at Vidiots. Tickets here.
“Grace of My Heart” is playing Nov. 11 at Vidiots. Tickets here.
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‘Pretty in Pink’ (Vidiots, Nov. 14)
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(Laurel Moore / Paramount Pictures)
The teen classics of Generation X have come under fire — even by Molly Ringwald herself, admirably — for some of their retrograde politics. But there’s too much in this John Hughes-scripted teen drama that is achingly sincere and well-intentioned to dismiss. Harry Dean Stanton gives the performance of the movie (maybe his career) as a single dad trying to get it right, even though he’s out of his depths. He buys his daughter a pink dress for her prom, which he can’t afford, and the gesture breaks your heart. Vidiots is celebrating Stanton’s work throughout November, with nights devoted to “Repo Man” and “Paris, Texas,” but “Pretty in Pink” calls out the strongest, with its soundtrack that can still instill in a young person an excellent sense of musical taste.
“Pretty in Pink” is playing Nov. 14 at Vidiots. Tickets here.
“Pretty in Pink” is playing Nov. 14 at Vidiots. Tickets here.
'The Getaway' (Academy Museum, Nov. 18)
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(United Archives / Film Publicity Archive)
Sam Peckinpah directing a Walter Hill script from a Jim Thompson novel starring Steve McQueen is a kind of ’70s-movie man’s man heaven, and in that regard “The Getaway” does not disappoint, with its tale of a bank robbery gone wrong and a couple on the run. Yet while there is plenty of tough-guy action — McQueen blasts a cop car with a shotgun — there is also a raw, wounded vulnerability to the film that makes it even more startling and powerful. The Academy Museum will be showing the film on an archival 35mm print to be accompanied by a conversation between Hill and fellow screenwriter Larry Karaszewski. Hill is a terrific raconteur and one can only imagine the stories he has about notorious troublemakers McQueen and Peckinpah.
“The Getaway” is playing Nov. 18 at the Academy Museum. Tickets here.
“The Getaway” is playing Nov. 18 at the Academy Museum. Tickets here.
'Trouble in Paradise' (UCLA, Nov. 18)
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(Criterion)
If it’s possible for a film to be the equivalent of the elegant fizz of sipping champagne, this 1932 comedy may be it, among the most purely pleasurable of the era. A fine example of both the witty, racy fun of pre-Code movies and the famed ephemeral touch of director Ernst Lubitsch, the film follows a pair of high-class con artists (Miriam Hopkins, Herbert Marshall) who set their sights on a wealthy widow (Kay Francis) only to encounter an increasing series of obstacles — romantic, logistic and otherwise. The UCLA Film & Television Archive was involved in restoring the film and will screen an archival 35mm print preceded by a conversation on the work of acclaimed costume designer Travis Banton between historian Howard Gutner and professor Deborah Nadoolman Landis.
“Trouble in Paradise” is playing Nov. 18 at UCLA’s Billy Wilder Theater. Tickets here.
“Trouble in Paradise” is playing Nov. 18 at UCLA’s Billy Wilder Theater. Tickets here.
'Carrie' (Academy Museum, Nov. 19)
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(United Artists)
Even with Halloween behind us come November, there’s always time for more horror movies. Regardless of how one feels about the current streaming series adaptation, Brian De Palma’s 1976 version of Stephen King’s “Carrie” is a bona-fide classic of the genre. A shy teenage girl (Sissy Spacek), bullied at school and tormented at home by her deeply religious mother (Piper Laurie), develops telekinetic powers and wreaks havoc on absolutely everyone, culminating in the mass destruction of the most disastrous prom ever. The story holds up as an allegory for adolescence and emerging female strength, with De Palma’s sense of style giving it a lasting charge. To celebrate the film’s 50th anniversary, the Academy Museum will have a 4K screening with an appearance by Spacek, who earned her first Oscar nomination for the role.
“Carrie” is playing Nov. 19 at the Academy Museum. Tickets here.
“Carrie” is playing Nov. 19 at the Academy Museum. Tickets here.
‘Fellini’s Casanova’ (Los Feliz 3, Nov. 23)
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(United Archives / Film Publicity Archive)
Criterion’s Fellini box set is a thing of beauty, an education in the work of one of the most modernizing voices in all of cinema. If you watched all 14 of its features, you would undoubtedly become a better person, both more compassionate and wryer about life’s vicious circles. But inexplicably, it does not include the director’s frequently hilarious 1976 psychodrama, starring Donald Sutherland in a vulnerable, self-excoriating turn as the infamous Venetian who would rather be known as a man of letters than a strutting cock. He fails in this regard. This is why whenever the movie plays locally — on a 35mm print — it’s our duty to tell you as much. This screening is presented by Cinematic Void.
“Fellini’s Casanova” is playing Nov. 23 at Los Feliz 3. Tickets here.
“Fellini’s Casanova” is playing Nov. 23 at Los Feliz 3. Tickets here.
'The Last Waltz' (Vidiots, Nov. 24)
Documentary Tickets
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(United Artists / MGM)
On Thanksgiving Day in 1976, the group known as the Band gave what was billed as a farewell concert in San Francisco. Playing their own songs like “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” and “Up On Cripple Creek,” they also backed the likes of Muddy Waters, Neil Diamond, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan and got no less than Martin Scorsese to film the proceedings with a dynamic verve. The opening title card reading “This Film Should Be Played Loud!” should definitely be followed, but besides being an incredible concert film (one that also makes a great meal-prep soundtrack), there is also a throughline to the behind-the-scenes interviews and on-stage interactions about friendship, found family and getting through tough times together that elevates the film to a true spirit-of-the-holiday classic.
“The Last Waltz” is playing Nov. 24 at Vidiots. Tickets here.
“The Last Waltz” is playing Nov. 24 at Vidiots. Tickets here.
‘Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood’ (Academy Museum, Nov. 29)
Comedy-Drama Tickets
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(Sony Pictures Releasing)
Brad Pitt returns to his Oscar-winning role in the forthcoming “The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth” (in theaters Nov. 25), so you could call this homework. But the joys of experiencing the first film on a newly struck 70mm print in the city’s biggest venue are sufficient enough to stand on their own. Might this movie be, pound for pound, Quentin Tarantino’s finest work? Increasingly, that’s less a piece of provocation and more a somewhat obvious claim. Writing freely and breaking from history, he revises the end of the 1960s in a town he loves unapologetically. These are his best performances, especially Leonardo DiCaprio’s weepy Rick Dalton, deep in a midlife crisis and shooting his way out.
“Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” is playing Nov. 29 at the Academy Museum. Tickets here.
“Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” is playing Nov. 29 at the Academy Museum. Tickets here.
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