Only months after the Lumiere brothers dazzled Paris high society with their tiny, magical moving pictures, cinema arrived in the Croatian capital of Zagreb on October 3, 1896. Over a century later, the Croatian film industry has persevered, triumphing over myriad political, societal and financial hurdles. Deeply rooted in the country’s national literature, Croatian films typically reflect Central European attitudes about artistic expression.

Some of the newest wave of Croatian talent get a Southern California showcase next weekend at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. Friday, May 16 sees the U.S. premiere of director Kristijan Milic’s anti-war drama The Living and the Dead, based on the bestselling novel by Josef Mlakic; Saturday, May 17 features a contemporary double feature of Drazen Zarkovic’s Tressette: A Story of an Island and Hrvoje Hribar’s wonderfully titled What Is a Man Without a Mustache?, neither of which is available on DVD. The Aero Theatre
is located at 1328 Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. Tickets for these movies, as well as other special events, are available through Fandango, but for 24-hour recorded
information on directions and the Aero’s upcoming schedule,
phone (323) 466-FILM.

One of the early summer’s more hotly anticipated mainstream flicks (and rightly so I can say, having seen it), director Jon Favreau’s Iron Man screens at the Aero Theatre on Thursday night, May 1, at 7:30 p.m., to be followed by a Q&A and discussion with Favreau. The movie, centering around a dissolute industrialist, the brilliant, sardonic Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), who builds a heavily weaponized suit of armor and becomes a superhero after a near-death incident, will release nationwide on May 2, from Paramount; Jeff Bridges, Terrence Howard and Gwyneth Paltrow also star.

The Aero Theatre
is located at 1328 Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. While tickets for most events are available through Fandango, $20 tickets for this special screening will be available at the theatre only, with proceeds going to a special Aero Building Fund. For 24-hour recorded
information on directions and the Aero’s upcoming schedule,
phone (323) 466-FILM. To visit Iron Man‘s official web site, click here.

Director Adam Rifkin will appear in person at the Aero Theatre on Thursday, April 24, for a between-films Q&A and discussion of a double feature consisting of 1991’s The Dark Backward and 1999’s Detroit Rock City, starring Edward Furlong. Rumor has it that Dark Backward costar Bill Paxton will be joining Rifkin as well.

The Aero Theatre
is located at 1328 Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. Tickets for these movies, as well as other special events, are available through Fandango, but for 24-hour recorded
information on directions and the Aero’s upcoming schedule,
phone (323) 466-FILM.

French filmmaker Claude Lelouch — a true renaissance man of cinema who’s worked as an actor, writer, director, cinematographer and editor in documentaries, shorts and narrative features — will appear in person at the Aero Theatre on the evening of Sunday, April 20 for a discussion of his work between a double feature of two of his movies. A sneak preview of Lelouch’s latest film, Roman de Gare, starring Dominique Pinon and Fanny Ardent as an unlikely pair caught up in a high-stakes game, will be followed by a screening of 1966’s Oscar-winning love story A Man and a Woman, presented in association with COLCOA, starring Anouk Aimee and Jean-Louis Trintignant. A moderated Q&A with Lelouch will occur between films. The Aero Theatre
is located at 1328 Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. Tickets for these movies, as well as other special events, are available through Fandango, but for 24-hour recorded
information on directions and the Aero’s upcoming schedule,
phone (323) 466-FILM.

He pioneered a staccato style that would become highly imitated, but playwright, screenwriter and director David Mamet is still one of the more distinctive voices in American independent film — one that will be celebrated at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica in the coming weeks. A sneak preview of Mamet’s newest film, Redbelt, will be held on Thursday, April 17 at 7:30 p.m., followed by an in-person discussion with the director. Friday, April 18 will feature a double feature of 1992’s Glengarry Glen Ross, starring Jack Lemmon, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris, Kevin Spacey and Alec Baldwin, and 1996’s American Buffalo, starring Dustin Hoffman, Dennis Franz and Sean Nelson. Double features of The Spanish Prisoner and Heist (Saturday, April 19) and House of Games and Homicide (Wednesday, April 23) will also be screened.

The Aero Theatre
is located at 1328 Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. Tickets for these movies, as well as other special events, are available through Fandango, but for 24-hour recorded
information on directions and the Aero’s upcoming schedule,
phone (323) 466-FILM.

It’s been a heck of a year for Josh Brolin, no doubt. In addition to his superlative work in No Country for Old Men, American Gangster and the Planet Terror portion of Grindhouse, he also presumably gets to make out with wife Diane Lane. Now comes word, from the organizers of HollyShorts, that his short film X will have its Hollywood premiere as the official opening film at the fourth annual festival.

HollyShorts takes place August 7-10, at the Egyptian Theatre, with weekend screenings at Laemmle’s Sunset 5. “We are delighted to kick off this year’s HollyShorts with the Hollywood premiere of Josh Brolin’s short film X, in conjunction with the American Cinematheque,” said festival co-organizer/director Daniel Sol. “HollyShorts has grown rapidly and as this year’s festival expands to four days, we will highlight the best and brightest short films and music videos from around the world.”

HollyShorts’ opening night will also feature a lineup of several additional highly acclaimed short film projects from around the world, filmmaker Q&A’s and a star-studded reception. The full schedule of films for the HollyShorts opening night event will be announced in late June (the festival is still currently accepting submissions), and the American Cinematheque will begin selling tickets to the event in early July. For submission specifics and other information, click here.

For those in Los Angeles, the Egyptian Theatre hosts a 10th anniversary screening of the Coen brothers’ inimitable The Big Lebowski on March 29, at 7:30 p.m. One imagines there will be people attending in bathrobes, for what it’s worth. Heck, who knows… Tara Reid may even show up and make an offer. The historic
Egyptian Theatre is located at 6712
Hollywood Boulevard,
between Highland
and Las Palmas,
in Hollywood.
Tickets for all events are available through Fandango, but for 24-hour recorded information on screenings,
directions and other matters, phone (323) 466-FILM, or visit the Cinematheque’s eponymous
Web site by clicking here.

Shadows and trenchcoats get their day this April. For those in the SoCal area, the Egyptian Theatre’s 10th annual festival of film noir unfolds, with a bounty of rarities, not-yet-released-on-DVD gems and restored prints, hosted by the Eddie Muller and Alan K. Rode of the Film Noir Foundation. Dozens of titles, starring almost all the Hollywood luminaries of yesteryear, screen in all sorts of double-feature combinations from April 3 to 24. An opening night Lizbeth Scott two-fer, in the form of Desert Fury and Dead Reckoning, both from 1947, kicks things off, and continues throughout the month with a rare print of Delmer Daves’ The Red House, new 35mm prints of Jules Dassin’s Night and the City and Michael Gordon’s Woman in Hiding, and many more films, classic and undiscovered alike.

The historic
Egyptian Theatre is located at 6712
Hollywood Boulevard,
between Highland
and Las Palmas,
in Hollywood.
Tickets for all events are available through Fandango, but for 24-hour recorded information on screenings,
directions and other matters, phone (323) 466-FILM, or visit the Cinematheque’s eponymous
Web site by clicking here.

He gained around 60 pounds for the role, so you know it’s not something he undertook lightly. Now Jared Leto will step out and make a few bi-coastal, in-person appearances for Chapter 27, the long-delayed Mark David Chapman flick whose release through Peace Arch Entertainment is finally just around the bend (March 28 in New York, April 4 in Los Angeles). Based on crime journalist Jack Jones’ book Let Me Take You Down: Inside the Mind of Mark David Chapman, the movie, costarring a pre-rehab Lindsay Lohan, takes its title from the notion that Chapman was trying, through his actions, to author his own concluding chapter to J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, which features 26 chapters. In New York City, at the Angelika, Leto will appear at two evening shows apiece on March 28 and 29, at 8:00 p.m. and 10:20 p.m. The following weekend, in Los Angeles, Leto will appear at the 7:30 p.m. and 9:50 p.m. shows at the Nuart, on April 4 and 5.

The American Cinematheque at the Aero Theatre presents a sneak preview of the new film Priceless, starring Audrey Tautou (Amélie, The Da Vinci Code), as part of a special double-dip of her work on Wednesday, March 19 at 7:30 p.m. A fresh re-imagining of Breakfast at Tiffany’s from director Pierre Salvadori, French import Priceless stars Gad Elmaleh as Jean, a shy young bartender who is mistaken for a millionaire by a beautiful, scheming opportunist named Irene (Tautou). When Irene discovers his true identity, she abandons him, only to find that a love-struck Jean has no intention of letting her get away. Jean’s comical attempts to gain her affections gradually evolve into setting himself up as a gigolo at a luxury hotel, until Irene finally starts to warm to her persistent, persuasive suitor. Following Priceless, at 9:30 p.m., is a special screening of Tautou’s breakthrough international hit Amélie, from filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

The Aero Theatre
is located at 1328 Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. Tickets for these movies, as well as other special events, are available through Fandango, but for 24-hour recorded
information on directions and the Aero’s upcoming schedule,
phone (323) 466-FILM.

Missing a movie in its first theatrical run usually means consignment to one’s Netflix queue, or that messy, scrawled list on the side of the refrigerator of DVDs to eventually rent, but for those in the Los Angeles area the American Cinematheque at the Aero Theatre presents a special double-feature of two kingly works from last year on Sunday, March 16 at 7:30 p.m., as part of its screening series of underrated 2007 flicks. Kicking things off is The King of California, a canted coming-of-age tale, starring Evan Rachel Wood and Michael Douglas, in which a young girl takes in her grizzled father, fresh out of a mental institution, and gets caught up in his improbable quest for buried treasure. Second on the bill is The King of Kong, a fascinating and very funny documentary about the very strange and insular world of classic video game playing, and a back-and-forth quest for the world record of Donkey Kong.

The Aero Theatre
is located at 1328 Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. Tickets for these movies, as well as other special events, are available through Fandango, but for 24-hour recorded
information on directions and the Aero’s upcoming schedule,
phone (323) 466-FILM.

The American Cinematheque at the Aero Theatre presents another installment in their ongoing screening series of former Los Angeles Times critic Kevin Thomas’ favorite films, hosting Best Picture Oscar winner The Best Years of Our Lives on Wednesday, March 12, at 7:30 p.m. Even more relevant in these war-torn times, the 1946 epic centers on three World War II veterans who return home and struggle with the physical and emotional demands of adjusting to civilian life. Juggling multiple storylines and social issues, Academy Award-winning director William Wyler and Citizen Kane cinematographer Gregg Toland give the drama a visual weight to match its dramatic heft. Harold Russell, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, Fredric March and Teresa Wright star.

The Aero Theatre
is located at 1328 Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. Tickets for the film, as well as other special events, are available through Fandango, but for 24-hour recorded
information on directions and the Aero’s upcoming schedule,
phone (323) 466-FILM.

The American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre presents a limited engagement of all of this past year’s Oscar-nominated and Oscar-winning live action and animated shorts, in two separate programs, March 6 through 13. The winners for Best Live Action Short Film, France’s The Mozart of Pickpockets, and the winner for Best Animated Short Film, the UK/Poland co-production Peter & The Wolf, screen alongside acclaimed nominees from Canada, Russia, Denmark, Italy, the United Kingdom, Poland, Belgium and France. The engagement kicks off on March 6 with both programs in the 616-seat Lloyd E. Rigler Theatre; on all other dates, the programs will take place in the 83-seat Spielberg Theatre. The live action shorts will screen at 7:30 p.m. each night, followed by a 10 p.m. program of animated shorts. The historic
Egyptian Theatre is located at 6712
Hollywood Boulevard,
between Highland
and Las Palmas,
in Hollywood.
Tickets for all scheduled screenings are available through Fandango, but for 24-hour recorded information on tickets,
directions and more, phone (323) 466-FILM or visit the Cinematheque’s eponymous
Web site by clicking here.

I previously mentioned a Russ Meyer triple-feature here in Los Angeles earlier in the month, and more of Meyer’s trademark buxom mayhem unspools with a screening tonight, at 10:30 p.m. at the Silent Movie Theatre, of 1975’s freewheeling, referential Supervixens. In a career defined by careening excess, this may be Meyer’s most hyperactive film, boasting as it does over 1500 camera
setups. Meyer’s Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!, meanwhile, screens next Friday, February 29, at the same time. For more information, click here.

Director John Ford made an astonishing 50-plus films at 20th Century Fox, and it’s one of his earliest works, 1924’s The Iron Horse, that kicks off a special retrospective of his work at the Egpytian Theatre February 7 through 10, playing as part of the 85th anniversary series of films that originally premiered at the legendary Hollywood venue. Boasting several screenings with new 35mm prints, as well as the rare, pre-release version of My Darling Clementine, the series includes Young Mr. Lincoln, Prisoner of Shark Island, The Grapes of Wrath and Ford’s first color film, Drums Along the Mohawk, among several others. While the retrospective proper ends on February 10, a special screening of 1952’s The Quiet Man will be held on Valentine’s Day at 7:30 p.m.

The
Egyptian Theatre is located at 6712 Hollywood Boulevard, between Highland and Las
Palmas, in Hollywood. Tickets for all screenings are available through Fandango, but for 24-hour recorded
information on directions, show times and the theater’s upcoming schedule,
phone (323) 466-FILM, or visit
the Cinematheque’s eponymous Web site by clicking here.

Tomorrow night, February 1, those in the Southern California area can enjoy a triple-D triple feature at Cinefamily’s Silent Movie Theatre, when three Russ Meyer flicks screen.

Kicking things off is 1970’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, penned by Roger Ebert (above left). Next up is Up!, a maniacal film featuring a perverse Hitler look-alike, many elephantine prosthetic penii, a moonlit chainsaw fight and Meyer’s last great muse, Kitten Natividad — featured as a kind of crazed Greek Chorus, shaking her moneymakers, hanging from trees and spouting imagist poetry paraphrased from H.D. Hilda Doolittle. More Kitten action follows, with 1979’s Beneath the Valley of the Supervixens, a film whose experimental excess makes all of Meyer’s previous work look as straight-laced and staid as a British comedy of manners. For more information, click here.

The awards circuit attention being justly heaped on Julie Christie for her performance in Sarah Polley’s Away From Her is the driving force behind a special one-night double feature tribute to the actress on Sunday, February 3 at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. Swinging ’60s London model drama Darling kicks things off at 7:30 p.m., followed by 1975’s Shampoo, co-starring Christie, Warren Beatty, Goldie Hawn, Lee Grant and, in her first big screen role, Carrie Fisher. The Aero Theatre
is located at 1328 Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. Tickets for both films, as well as other events, are available through Fandango, but for 24-hour recorded
information on directions and the Aero’s upcoming schedule,
phone (323) 466-FILM.

Let the nut-jobs congregate and metaphorically jerk one another off on Thursday, January 31, at 7:30 p.m., when the American Cinematheque at the Aero Theatre presents the Los
Angeles premiere of The Reflecting Pool. Filmmaker Jarek Kupsc’s movie, you see, is being billed as “the first
narrative feature film to challenge the official story of the events of September 11, 2001.”

The story centers around Alex Prokop (JK Baltazar), a successful Russian-American journalist,
and Paul Cooper (Joseph Culp), a driven researcher whose daughter died on Sept. 11. Together, Alex and Paul travel to New York City and Washington
D.C., where they uncover suppressed
information about the attacks and their aftermath. As Paul introduces Alex to key eye-witnesses, the face of the “official story” begins to
crumble. A discussion with writer-director Kupsc and
actor-producer Joseph Culp will follow the film, purportedly “drawn from established sources and based on verifiable facts,” and almost certainly be more fascinating than the movie itself.

The Aero Theatre
is located at 1328 Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. Tickets for both The Reflecting Pool and all films and events are available through Fandango; for 24-hour recorded
information on directions and the Aero’s upcoming schedule,
meanwhile, phone (323) 466-FILM.

Few filmmakers have provided as many laughs per minute as Mel Brooks, who as a writer, director, producer and actor has been responsible for some
of the silver screen’s all-time greatest comedies, including The Producers, Young Frankenstein and High
Anxiety. Trading equally in slapstick, verbal wit and social satire, his
work is marked by an unusual combination of vulgarity and sweetness, as well as
a willingness to do anything for a laugh.

To this end, the American Cinematheque at the Aero Theatre will
host a special one-week retrospective, January 23 through 30, with several in-person
appearances by Brooks. In addition to the above-mentioned films, other
favorites like The Twelve Chairs, Silent Movie and History of the World Part I will also screen. The Aero Theatre
is located at 1328 Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. Tickets for all the Brooks films, as well as other events, are available through Fandango, but for 24-hour recorded
information on directions and the Aero’s upcoming schedule,
phone (323) 466-FILM.