At the age of six, actress Onata Aprile is already a formidable talent, able to hold her own against an emotionally ferocious performance by Julianne Moore in What Maisie Knew, the story of a child caught between her selfish, narcissistic, warring parents. Adapted from a Henry James’ novel, but updated to contemporary New York City, six-year old Maisie (Aprile) must navigate a volatile psychological landscape to find a place where she can feel protected and safe.

Moore portrays her fading rock star mother, clinging to whatever remnants of fame still remain, even though it requires her to be almost continuously away from her daughter. Steve Coogan plays the child’s father, an art dealer who initially seems more sympathetic but proves equally self-centered and irresponsible. Both Susanna and Beale love their daughter but in an almost abstract way; certainly neither makes any effort to spend time with her. The job of caring for Maisie falls to Margo (Joanna Vanderham), the youngster’s compassionate, twenty-something, Scottish nanny, who makes the mistake of marrying Beale soon after his divorce from Susanna. In retaliation, Susanna impetuously marries Lincoln (Alexander Skarsgard) a handsome bartender/band hanger-on 20 years her junior.

Awarded joint custody, both parents all but abandon Maisie, leaving her in the care of Margo and, increasingly, the ill-prepared Lincoln, who unexpectedly rises to the occasion, growing in maturity before our very eyes. Like the novel, the film is told from Maisie’s perspective. Without ever losing her childlike purity or naturalness, she progresses from innocence to understanding to a place of wisdom that guarantees a measure of safety and happiness, while also allowing her to love and forgive her dysfunctional parents.

A lifelong bachelor, with no children of his own, James possessed a remarkable ability to get inside the minds of the young –- and, as in the case of Maisie, very young –- characters who populate many of his stories. And he couldn’t have found a better interpreter for his singular insight than Aprile who, in her feature film debut, commands the screen with ever-watchful eyes, a knowing stillness and an almost preternatural emotional intelligence that helps Maisie traverse the explosive minefield that is her parents’ disintegrating marriage.

The five lead actors are uniformly excellent. The always-accomplished Moore doesn’t shrink from presenting Susanna as the monstrously neglectful mother she is. Because we see her through Maisie’s eyes, however, we also detect a vulnerability that keeps her from becoming a totally hateful character. Skarsgard gives a surprisingly touching and utterly convincing performance as a young man drifting aimlessly through life, whose basic decency compels him to assume unsought responsibilities — and becomes a better human being because of it.

But it is Aprile, with those eyes that change imperceptibly yet speak volumes, who walks away with this film. Kudos also to directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel (the duo that made the excellent 2001 film The Deep End) for providing an environment in which Aprile could shine, and who keep the film from slipping into melodrama — an accomplishment that must be shared with screenwriters Nancy Doyne and Carroll Cartwright, who adapted the Henry James novel.

Also worth noting this week is the documentary Valentino’s Ghost, from writer/director Michael Singhwhich examines “the politics of images” –- specifically, how changing depictions of Arabs and Islam in films, television and the press color and reflect American perceptions and are even used to influence — or, perhaps more accurately, endorse — our government’s national and international policies in the Middle East. The Arab as smoldering heartthrob — most notably Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik silent films –- soon gave way to the Arab as barbarian and threat when Western economic and political interests in the region shifted with our growing thirst for oil. Valentino’s Ghost proves both informative and highly entertaining.

Please make sure you receive an email confirmation from Brown Paper Tickets after your purchase. If you DO NOT receive an email confirmation, your purchase DID NOT go through. Please call BPT at 800-838-3006 or email support@brownpapertickets.com.

Tickets $25. Students with valid student ID, $15. At the Saban Theater, 8440 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, 90211. Convenient parking in nearby lots.

With Director Judd Apatow.

Comedy freaks have known and loved Marc Maron for years. But it’s his podcast, WTF, that has completely transformed the world of comedy and comedians. He has interviewed just about every comedian alive, and perhaps some that aren’t or weren’t. What makes the interviews so spectacular is that while he gives his guests airtime to explore their ideas and orientation, it’s really Marc Maron who comes across the most: he’s dystopic, cranky, hilarious, moving, and unnervingly fun.

He comes to Writers Bloc to talk about his ups and downs in the world of comedy—and in his life. Attempting Normal is Marc Maron’s journey to his perch at the top of the world—as one of the most pre-eminent voices in the field, and as a guy who has finally fulfilled a lifelong goal of getting his own TV show. His new IFC show, Maron, debuts on Friday, May 3, at 10:00 pm and we get to weigh in with him at Writers Bloc just a few weeks after his dream come true comes to life.

From Amazon: Marc Maron was a parent-scarred, angst-filled, drug-dabbling, love-starved comedian who dreamed of a simple life: a wife, a home, a sitcom to call his own. But instead he woke up one day to find himself fired from his radio job, surrounded by feral cats, and emotionally and financially annihilated by a divorce from a woman he thought he loved. He tried to heal his broken heart through whatever means he could find—minor-league hoarding, Viagra addiction, accidental racial profiling, cat fancying, flying airplanes with his mind—but nothing seemed to work. It was only when he was stripped down to nothing that he found his way back.

Attempting Normal is Marc Maron’s journey through the wilderness of his own mind, a collection of explosively, painfully, addictively funny stories that add up to a moving tale of hope and hopelessness, of failing, flailing, and finding a way. From standup to television to his outrageously popular podcast, WTF with Marc Maron, Marc has always been a genuine original, a disarmingly honest, intensely smart, brutally open comic who finds wisdom in the strangest places. This is his story of the winding, potholed road from madness and obsession and failure to something like normal, the thrillingly comic journey of a sympathetic f***up who’s trying really hard to do better without making a bigger mess. Most of us will relate.

Judd Apatow is a director/screenwriter/producer behind TV shows like The Ben Stiller Show and Freaks and Geeks and the films The 40 Year Old Virgin and Bridesmaids.

Tickets $25. Students with valid student ID, $15. At the Saban Theater, 8440 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, 90211. Convenient parking in nearby lots.

Please make sure you receive an email confirmation from Brown Paper Tickets after your purchase. If you DO NOT receive an email confirmation, your purchase DID NOT go through. Please call BPT at 800-838-3006 or email support@brownpapertickets.com.

New Roads School’s Ann and Jerry Moss Theater
3131 Olympic Blvd. Santa Monica, CA 90404

Mark Bittman is one of our favorite food writers because he makes cooking great meals just so easy. He presents us with recipes that look great, sound great and smell great straight from the pages of his New York Times Magazine pieces, or from his numerous books. His recipes are straightforward, and feature ingredients that we already have. They are perfect because he tells us to use them as guidelines—no strict measurements required. Remember recipes we received with bewilderment from grandmothers who advised “a little” of this, or “a pinch” of that? He frees us from the tyranny of the measuring spoon and assures us that there are so many variations on a good theme, so we can’t possibly go wrong. In our family, we have Mark Bittman to thank for countless great standards that take no time to prepare, use accessible ingredients, and taste simply terrific. He encourages experimentation, but doesn’t require it when we’re lazy or feeling tied to tradition.

In his new book, VB6: Eat Vegan Before 6 to Lose Weight and Restore Your Health For Good, Bittman explains how he managed to lose an enormous amount of weight, stave off medication, and forgo none of his favorite foods.  He is a professional food writer, after all—and collateral damage of being a national professional food writer is loving the stuff that can kill you.  He gives up nothing, and give us an enormous helping of guidance, ideas and of course easy recipes along the way.

Evan Kleiman gives us great ideas every week too.  You hear her on KCRW’s Good Food on Saturday mornings as she walks us through what’s fresh at the moment, and hands us ideas by the pound for fruits and vegetables, and anything that strikes her. A true adherent of simplicity in cooking, she opened the restaurant Angeli in 1984, and many credit her with creating the popular rustic Italian food trend that specializes in fresh and light ingredients. Evan’s activism in agro-ecology and food policy is not hindered at all by her devotion to pie.

The event will take place at New Roads School’s Ann and Jerry Moss Theater: a brand new, state of the art theatre located on the New Roads campus in Santa Monica, 3131 Olympic Blvd. Santa Monica, CA 90404.

Limited parking is available in the New Roads parking lot, located between Olympic Blvd. and Nebraska; limited street parking is also available. Please make sure to read signs carefully as much of the nearby areas are restricted.

April seems to be film festival month here in Los Angeles. Both the French film festival COLCOA and the Indian Film Festival just ended. The Israel Film Festival is still going on and the Turner Classics Movie Festival is being held over the weekend. One of this writer’s favorite “B-movies,” 1952’s The Narrow Margin, a thriller starring a sassy Marie Windsor and a stoic Charles McGraw, will screen at the Egyptian Theatre on Friday (April 26th) at 12noon. Saturday brings Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal at 6:15pm, also at The Egyptian, with an unforgettable performance by Max Von Sydow. On a lighter note is Alfred Hitchcock’s wonderfully engaging The Lady Vanishes, a minor film to many but a real gem. Other offerings include the hilarious Libeled Lady, the rarely seen The Swimmer (starring Burt Lancaster) and one of the most influential movies of the 1970’s, Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde. More information can be found at www.tcm.com/festival. Information about the Israel Film Festival, which continues through May 2nd and presents a number of engrossing features and documentaries, can be found at www.israelfilmfestival.com (that’s Israel, not Israeli).

Opening last week but still playing at area theatres is the French film In the House, a devilishly engaging, deliciously subversive little thriller from director Francois Ozon. Starring Fabrice Luchini and Kristen Scott Thomas, In the House recently played at COLCOA. Many of the films that screened at that festival will be receiving U.S. releases. Stay tuned….

At The Sanctuary at Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, 300 N. Clark Drive, Beverly Hills 90211. Street parking and nearby lots are available.

Tickets, $20 each.

Saul Bellow, one of the 20^th century’s great American writers, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976. He won the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Award three times. Saul Bellow was a most lauded writer. He was, of course, also a Jewish American writer, a distinction that beats through his novels from the first to the last—from the first page of his first novel, Dangling Man, to the last page of his final novel, Ravelstein.

Bellow was the author of such great novels as The Adventures of Augie March, Herzog the Rain King, Dangling Man, Seize the Day, Humboldt’s Gift and many others, but it was Mr. Sammler’s Planet, according to his son Gregory Bellow, that illuminated his feelings of Jewishness. Greg Bellow says that The Six Day War of 1967 transformed his father, and Mr. Sammler’s Planet, which was published in 1969, is the revelation of his father’s transformation. The Six Day War fundamentally altered Saul Bellow—as a father, as a Jew, as a thinker and as a novelist. The Six Day War triggered a fear of a second Holocaust—the fear of the possible destruction of Israel—and it was through his self-initiated stint as a journalist (for Newsday) in Israel during the Six Day War that turned a once soft-spoken egalitarian into an authoritarian conservative.

Greg Bellow’s memoir, Saul Bellow’s Heart, makes Saul Bellow come alive to us because Greg takes us into the home, into Saul’s heart, his multitude of marriages, and his most amazing and thrilling mind. Greg incorporates personal references in Saul Bellow’s novels into the story of his being a son of such an acclaimed father whose life he divides into “Young Saul,” and “Old Saul,”—Old Saul appearing as he’s awarded the Nobel Prize. Greg is the oldest of Saul’s children, and he writes with tenderness and honesty as he recounts his own development, alongside Saul’s literary progress.

In conversation with David Wolpe, Rabbi of Sinai Temple. David Wolpe is a Renaissance Man who delights in intellectual engagement. A most dynamic thinker, Rabbi Wolpe has been named by Newsweek as the most influential rabbi in America, and the Jerusalem Post ranks him one of the 50 most influential rabbis in the world. His understanding of arts and culture might only be surpassed by his enjoyment and appreciation of literature, history and scholarship—both Jewish, non-Jewish and secular.

If you haven’t read any Bellow yet, you will love it and want to read his oeuvre. If you’ve read several of Bellow’s novels, you’ll find this a most enriching read.

At The Sanctuary at Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, 300 N. Clark Drive, Beverly Hills 90211. Street parking and nearby lots are available.

Tickets, $20 each.

SOLD OUT

At the Writers Guild Theater, 135 South Doheny Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90211.

NOTICE: Maria Shriver will not be able to participate in Monday night’s Writer’s Bloc conversation with Sheryl Sandberg due to an unexpected scheduling conflict that has taken her out of the country. Michael Lynton, CEO of Sony Entertainment Inc., will now join Sheryl on-stage.

Women and power. Women in leadership. No one has talked about these subjects in such an accessible and conversational way as Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer of Facebook. Talk about shooting right through any glass ceiling.  She’s young, beautiful, brilliant and one of the most powerful women in business–anywhere in the world. Women in business with ambition and talent face obstacles that we think about every day: our children, our marriages, our families. It’s not about having it all–or doing it all. It’s more complicated and involves the support of business and of family. It’s more complicated because it involves embracing challenge and going for goals. And everyone benefits. Sandberg argues that a new women’s movement is afoot.

Sandberg’s new book is Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead.

Michael Lynton is the CEO of Sony Entertainment Inc. He oversees Sony’s global entertainment business, including Sony Music Entertainment, Sony/ATV Music Publishing and Sony Pictures Entertainment.  He is also Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment and manages the studio’s overall global operations, which include motion picture, television and digital content production and distribution, home entertainment acquisition and distribution, and so much more.  Under his leadership, Sony Pictures Entertainment has released many great films, including, among many others, The Social Network.

SOLD OUT

On Thursday, February 28, 2013 at 8pm join KCRW, Writers Bloc, and The Hollywood Reporter for an evening of conversation with Kim Masters and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, screenwriter and playwright Lawrence Wright. Kim Masters, KCRW’s host of The Business, will sit down with Wright to discuss his latest book, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief. At New Roads School’s Ann and Jerry Moss Theater, 3131 Olympic Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90404.

This will be a candid conversation about the inner workings of Scientology, its charismatic founder L. Ron Hubbard, and why so many in Hollywood are drawn to the church. To gain understanding and insight Wright conducted extensive interviews with former Church leaders, some of whom have just now been speaking publicly for the first time.

The conversation will be followed by a Q&A and book signing.

The evening will take place at New Roads School’s Ann and Jerry Moss Theater: a brand new, state of the art theatre located on the New Roads campus in Santa Monica, 3131 Olympic Blvd. Santa Monica, CA 90404.

Limited parking is available in the New Roads parking lot, located between Olympic Blvd. and Nebraska; limited street parking is also available. Please make sure to read signs carefully as much of the nearby areas are restricted.

ABOUT UPCLOSE

KCRW’s UpClose event series features KCRW on-air personalities in lively and compelling conversations with some of the leading figures in film, art, politics, literature and pop-culture. Created in 2010, each UpClose event takes place before a live audience.

ABOUT LAWRENCE WRIGHT

Lawrence Wright is an author, screenwriter, playwright, and a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. His history of al-Qaeda, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Knopf, 2006) was published to immediate and widespread acclaim, spending eight weeks on The New York Times bestseller list and being translated into twenty-five languages. It was nominated for multiple awards, awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, and was pronounced “one of the 100 best nonfiction books ever written” by Time Magazine. Wright is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He also serves as the keyboard player in the Austin-based blues band, Who Do.

ABOUT KIM MASTERS

Kim Masters is Editor-at-Large of the The Hollywood Reporter and host of KCRW’s The Business – the show that brings you the who, how and what of the entertainment industry. In 2012, The Business won the Gracie Award for Outstanding Talk Show in the Entertainment/Information category for Public Radio. In 2011, Masters won Entertainment Journalist of the Year from the L.A. Press Club for her work on The Business and The Hollywood Reporter. Kim Masters is the author of The Keys to the Kingdom: The Rise of Michael Eisner and the Fall of Everybody Else and co-author, with Nancy Griffin, of Hit & Run: How Jon Peters and Peter Guber Took Sony for a Ride in Hollywood.

ABOUT KCRW

KCRW 89.9FM is an NPR affiliate serving Southern California and licensed to Santa Monica College. The public radio station represents cutting edge radio at its best, presenting an eclectic mix of independent music, news, talk and arts programming. KCRW’s programming is internationally renowned and available worldwide at KCRW.com. KCRW offers an all-music channel, Eclectic24, an all news channel and on-air simulcast. Podcasts and archives of our locally-produced programs and live band performances are available on our website, as well as on our smartphone apps for the iPhone, Android and Blackberry.

ABOUT WRITERS BLOC

Writers Bloc Presents is a nonprofit literary series now in its 17th season. Writers Bloc brings to Los Angeles their favorite writers, artists and social critics who have made a significant impact on our cultural landscape to hear them talk about their ideas with other writers, artists and personalities.

ABOUT THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

The Hollywood Reporter is the definitive interpretive voice of the entertainment industry. Informing, engaging and empowering content is delivered across a multimedia platform that includes: a weekly magazine, bi-monthly special reports, quarterly glossies, a Website, a daily news PDF, iPad app and events. The Hollywood Reporter is read by the most powerful people in the entertainment industry and the most influential consumers who follow it – those who shape desire, set trends and ultimately drive culture – providing an unmatched level of access and influence.

TICKETS

SOLD OUT
Tickets go on sale Monday, January 28, 2013 @ 10am.
$20 (general admission, seated)
Tickets are limited & available on a first-come, first-served basis.

CONTACT US

Please email events@kcrw.org or contact KCRW Membership at 310-314-4635 between the hours of 10am & 5pm, Monday – Friday.

SOLD OUT

At the Saban Theater. 8440 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills. $25, Ticket only or $42, Ticket with 1st edition pre-signed copy of Al Gore’s The Future. All tickets include a required historical preservation fee.

No one opened our eyes, ears, hearts and minds to climate change and its perils more effectively than Al Gore. He made it his mission as Vice President, for two terms. Thanks to him, the words “climate change” really became part of our daily vocabulary. He didn’t invent the term, he just made sure that we know what it means, and that we understand its powers. We are proud to present Al Gore for a rare public appearance in Los Angeles, and his only one here for the publication of his new book, The Future. Mr. Gore gives us much more to think about besides climate change– from cybersecurity to digitally connected cows.

In the years since Al Gore left public office, he has made a movie, won a Nobel Prize, and won an Academy Award. He has traipsed all over the globe talking about the changes we must make in order to maintain civilization– not just from an environmental standpoint, but from economic, medical, strategic, military, and humanistic perspectives as well.  Mr. Gore is an indefatigable intellectual, a real visionary about global power, about the human component of economic shifts, and how they impact the balance of power in developing countries and dominant nations. He is a visionary about technology, and its implications for medicine, for agriculture and life sciences.

In his new book, The Future,  Gore identifies his six drivers of global change—including: globalization — relationship between labor, consumer markets, and outsourcing; the digital revolution; military/political/economic power shifts; consumption increase/resource decrease; biotechnology, genomic, life science, medical developments; and radical ecosystem disruption. Sounds complex, and it is. But don’t despair, we’re not dead yet, and Gore makes it clear that we’ve got some time and great tools to transform our consciousness – and our decline— to maintain civilization. While Al Gore talks cold hard truth, he presents us with provocative and facts, including:

• Federal officials believe cybersecurity to be more important to national security than terrorism;
• More than 5 of the 7 billion people on earth now have access to mobile phones
• Digitally connected cows in Switzerland now alert their owners via text when ready to breed
• By 2016, Foxconn, the Chinese manufacturer of Apple devices will replace 1 million workers with robots
• China is on the verge of running labs in which newborn physical traits can be chosen
• In 2012, the Japanese bought more adult diapers than baby diapers
  
• U.S. drone pilots, despite being thousands of miles away from their targets, experience PTSD at the same rates as fighter pilots
  

In conversation with Madeleine Brand. Madeleine is the co-host of KCET’s SoCal Connected and was host of The Madeleine Brand Show on KPCC. 

At the Saban Theater. 8440 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills. $25, Ticket only or $42, Ticket with 1st edition pre-signed copy of Al Gore’s The Future. All tickets include a required historical preservation fee.

Writers Bloc is honored and delighted to announce that KCET/LINK TV will air our recent event featuring Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Eva Longoria. The program will be broadcast on KCET on Tuesday, February 4, 2013 at 8:00pm. More information can be found here.

LINK TV will air it on Tuesday, February 5 at 5:30pm PST/8:30pm EST and on Friday, February 8 at 8:30pm PST/11:30pm EST. We suggest that you record the program on February 4 and join us at the Judy Collins/Stephen Stills program so you can enjoy both!

We extend our thanks to Justice Sotomayor, to Eva Longoria, and to KCET/ LINK TV for such a wonderful show.