The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 31

THURSDAY, JULY 18, 2013 D3 LATIMES.COMCALENDAR movies os Angeles (Times SUSAN KING'S FLICK PICKS George Stevens' "Woman of the Year" New Beverly Cinema Los Angeles Saturday 3 and 7:30 p.m. $8 Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy star in this 1942 classic Andrei Tarkovsky's "Solaris" American Cinematheque's Egyptian Theatre Hollywood Friday 7:30 p.m. $11 Donatas Banionis stars in this 1972 sci-fi classic Josef von Sternberg's "The Salvation Hunters" Los Angeles County Museum of Art Bing Theater Friday 7:30 p.m. Georgia Hale stars in the restored 1925 silent Abraham Polonsky's "Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here" Cinefamily at Silent Movie Theatre Los Angeles Saturday 7 p.m. $15 Robert Redford and Robert Blake star in the 1969 western Paul Schrader's "Affliction" UCLA Film Television Archive Billy Wilder Theater Sunday 7 p.m.

$9 Nick Nolte and James Coburn star in the award-winning 1997 drama George Sidney's "Bathing Beauty" American Cinematheque's Aero Theater Santa Monica Friday 7:30 p.m. $11 Esther Williams stars in this 1944 Technicolor musical comedy movies Check the Movies Now blog for complete film listings. MOVIES NOW TruitvaleV social justice campaign By Chris Lee also unarmed. On Sunday, Erik Lomis, the studio's head of theatrical distribution, told The Times that the Weinstein Co. was not looking to cash in on the synergy between the two.

"It's not going to hurt us, but we're not saying, 'If you're upset about the Zimmerman case, go see Lomis said. The company's Insta-gram account, however, tells a different story. Accompanying an image from the film four young African American characters being detained by a white police officer a tagline reads: "Make a difference by engaging in meaningful discussions about how we treat one another and how we can overcome prejudice. IAM-FRUITVALESTATION." chris.leelatimes.com When it comes to marketing the film "Fruitvale Station," the Weinstein Co. is doing what it does best: riding the Zeitgeist.

The winner of the Sundance Film Festival's grand jury prize this year, "Fruit-vale Station" arrived in theaters in limited release last week just hours before George Zimmerman was acquitted on charges stemming from the shooting of unarmed African American teenager Trayvon Martin. The drama chronicles the last day in the life of Oscar Grant III, an African American Oakland resident who was shot and killed by a transit policeman who mistakenly reached for his gun instead of a Taser on New Year's Eve 2009. Grant was Menemsha Films CRITIC'S PICK NICHOLAS WINTON, with one of the children he rescued in the 1939 Czech Kindertransports. 'Family' man Decades ago, Nicholas Winton saved 669 Jewish kids from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, the focus of 'Nicky's Family' By Susan King Warner Bros. DIRECTOR Guillermo del Toro's filmmaking skills make this "creature feature" something special.

'Pacific Rim' Graeme Robertson Getty in lages "Pacific Rim" was not a big hit out of the starting gate last week, and perhaps that's understandable. Unless you are a fan of the branch of Japanese popular cinema, the story of ferocious creatures called Kaiju facing off against massive robots called Jaegers may not sound all that appealing. Yet underestimating filmmaker Guillermo del Toro and what he can do on screen is something done at your peril. He's so accomplished a creator of images, so adept at humanizingthe monstrous, so fearless an architect of awe, that the scenarios he throws himself into are invariably difficult to resist. "Pacific Rim" very much lives in comic book pulp science-fiction territory, but Del Toro's skill and attention to detail combine to make it a deeper movie experience.

Kenneth Turan added. "It's always a pleasure to see them." "It's wonderful," said his son. "Where most people are going into decline, he has parades of Kinder and their children visiting him. Neither Paddock nor Schlesinger ever wondered how they got to England in 1939. "We grew up, the war was over and went on with our lives," said Paddock.

"We were very grateful that Britain had taken us. You don't ask a lot of questions." The children learned of Winton's identity shortly after Grete found the scrapbook. Grete brought her husband's story to the attention of Elisabeth Maxwell, a Holocaust historian and wife of newspaper magnate Robert Maxwell, who published a piece about Winton in the Sunday Mirror in 1988. That led to an appearance on a BBC program called "That's Life," in which several of the children in the audience introduced themselves to Winton and thanked him for saving them. When Schlesinger learned of Winton's identity, "I went to see him, and that was the beginning of a long friendship." "It was really wonderful to learn who he was," echoed Paddock.

"My husband and I did a lot of back and forth to England to see my mother and sister. After I heard who he was, I phoned his wife on one of our trips and said could we just come for a cup of tea and thank Nicky. She said nobody comes for a few minutes. Since then, I have seen him quite often." It rankles Schlesinger that Winton often gets "treated as a one-trick pony" when it comes to his other accomplishments. "He's always been involved in charitable activities," said his son.

"If you look at any bios, it's about him rescuing the children," said Schlesinger. "That is just one thing he did. This guy has been altruistic all of his life." susan.kinglatimes.com After visiting Prague in late 1938, a young British stockbroker named Nicholas Winton had an "intuition" about the fate of Jews in Czechoslovakia now that the country had come under Nazi occupation. So he began his own Kinderiranspori organization to rescue at risk Jewish children and send them to safety in England. Before the outbreak of World War II in Europe on Sept.

1, 1939, this British Oskar Schindler was able to organize seven rail-sea transports bringing 669 youngsters to host families in Great Britain. Winton never discussed his heroic accomplishments with his wife and children. Then in 1987, his wife, Grete, found a scrapbook from 1939 in their attic with the children's photos, a list of their names and letters from parents to the children and other documents. "Nicky's Family," a new documentary by Matej Minac, based on the filmmaker's 2002 international Emmy-winning documentary "The Power of Good Nicholas Winton," chronicles Winton's Herculean efforts through dramatic reenactments, vintage photos and interviews with Winton and the various children he saved, including CBC news correspondent Joe Schlesinger, who narrates the film, and Eva Paddock, a former schoolteacher who lives in Cambridge, with her husband. Schlesinger, 85, was sent to live with relatives in England during the war.

"I should say that they weren't exactly enthused about having me," he said. "They sent me to a Czech refugee school in Shropshire and in Wales." After the war, he learned his parents had perished in Auschwitz. Paddock was just 3 when she and her older sister got the last train out of Prague. They were sent to live in the British countryside with a foster family, the Radcliffes. "We called them WINTON was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his work.

Mummy and Daddy Radcliffe the rest of our lives," she said. Unlike the parents of the majority of the children, Paddock's not only survived but they also both escaped and came to England in 1940, where they were reunited with their children. "We lived near the Radcliffes," she said. Among the other children Winton saved were the late film director Karel Reisz Lord Alfred Dubs, a minister in the Cabinet of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair; and Vera Gissing, author of "Pearls of Childhood." The 104-year-old Winton, who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his work, recently broke his hip but still lives at home and gets around with a walker. Schlesinger joked that he recently asked Winton on the phone how he was feeling and he told him, 'I'm fine from the neck "He has more of a social life than I do," said his son, Nick.

In an email interview, the elder Winton said he didn't talk about his accomplishments because "there were more important things going on than to dwell in the past." "He is very forward-looking," said his son. "In the U.K., I'm visited by many of the Kinder and their family, children and grandchildren," the elder Winton THIS WEEKEND These are the films opening this weekend: Blackfish A documentary exploring the consequences of keeping orcas in captivity, with a focus on the troubled whale Tilikum, which has been involved in the deaths of three people. Born to Royalty A documentary exploring how heirs to the throne of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth are prepared for the role of monarch. Broken An 11-year-old girl is drawn into her neighbors' unfolding melodrama after witnessing a violent attack. The Conjuring Two renowned paranormal investigators are enlisted to help a family terrorized by a dark presence in a secluded farmhouse.

Dealin' With Idiots A famous comedian acquaints himself with the colorful parents and coaches of his child's baseball team in an attempt to find inspiration for his next movie. Evidence Two detectives try to piece together what happened at the scene of a brutal massacre using a number of recording devices found at the crime scene. Girl Most Likely After her career and relationship hit the skids, a flailing New York playwright is forced to move back home to New Jersey with her eccentric family while she puts her life back together. Nicky's Family A documentary about Nicholas Winton, a young Englishman who organized the rescue of 669 Jewish Czech and Slovak children just before the outbreak of World War II. Only God Forgives When his brother is murdered, an expat gangster who runs a Thai boxing club in Bangkok is obliged by his crime lord mother to settle the score.

Our Nixon This all-archival documentary about Richard Nixon's presidency features footage by three top White House aides that was seized by the FBI during the Watergate scandal and filed away for nearly 40 years. Red 2 A retired black-ops CIA agent reunites with his elderly team of elite operatives on a global quest to track down a missing portable nuclear device. R.I.P.D. A pair of undead cops are dispatched by the Rest in Peace Department to protect the world from supernatural threats. The Rooftop A goodhearted young man making do as a rent collector for the meets and falls for the girl of his dreams.

Storm Surfers 3D A documentary following surfers Tom Carroll and Ross Clarke-Jones and surf forecaster Ben Matson as they chase giant storms across the Pacific Ocean in search of giant waves. Terms and Conditions May Apply A documentary exploring the erosion of personal privacy in the digital age and how corporations and government agencies exploit information voluntarily given up by users. Ways to Live Forever A 12-year-old boy with leukemia copes with his illness and tries to accomplish a series of goals he's set for himself. Menemsha Films ENGLAND-BOUND children wave goodbye in a scene reenacted for the documentary "Nicky's Family.".