‘Rebel Without a Cause’ at 70, plus the best movies in L.A.

Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.

Due to the ongoing Los Angeles wildfires, the announcement of this year’s Academy Awards nominations has already been pushed back twice. Now the announcement is set for Jan. 23. This set off a series of rumors that the awards ceremony itself — scheduled for March 2 — was somehow in danger of being canceled.

In a statement to The Times’ Mary McNamara, academy CEO Bill Kramer insisted that the show will go on as planned.

“This year’s ceremony will include special moments acknowledging those who fought so bravely against the wildfires,” the statement said. “We feel that we must go forward to support our film community and to use our global platform to bring attention to these critical moments in our history.

“The spirit of Los Angeles and our film community has always been one of resilience, and the Oscars represent not just a celebration of film, but the industry’s strength and unity in the face of adversity.”

McNamara noted how even the frivolity of something like the Oscars will take on a new sense of gravitas at such a fragile moment for the city.

“Though postponed and rescheduled several times in its 94-year history, the Oscars have never been canceled. Not during war or plague, not after assassination or the 9/11 attacks,” McNamara wrote. “To do so now would send a message diametrically opposed to the historic resiliency of both the city and the industry it represents. We must always celebrate the work that unites and defines us, makes us laugh, cry, think and aspire. Especially in the midst of tragedy.”

‘Rebel Without a Cause’ at 70

Rescheduled from last weekend, a 70th anniversary screening of “Rebel Without a Cause” in 35mm will now happen on Saturday afternoon at the Egyptian Theatre. Directed by Nicholas Ray from a screenplay by Stewart Stern and Irving Shulman, the film stars James Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo along with appearances by Dennis Hopper and Jim Backus. Released less than a month after Dean’s September 1955 death at age 24 in a car crash, the film solidified the actor as an eternal Hollywood icon.

“Rebel Without a Cause” combines emotional intensity and psychological acuity, especially in the character of Dean’s Jim Stark, a troubled teenager who has moved with his family to Los Angeles, where his parents hope he can get a fresh start. He soon falls in with Plato (Mineo) and Judy (Wood), and the three outcasts bond quickly. They soon find themselves caught between a teenage gang and the police, with life-altering consequences for all of them.

Thought the film didn’t invent the notion of the teenager, it took their problems seriously in a way few previously had. In his review from November 1955, Philip K. Scheuer lauded the film’s “mood that is hard to shake off afterward.” He added, “The picture is one of intermittent violence, senseless yet instinctive and sometimes sickening to witness, but at the same time revealing of a kind of sad innocence, a yearning toward ‘belonging’ that in one passage takes on an almost poetic quality.”

‘Selma’ after a decade

Andrew Holland, left, and David Oyelowo in “Selma,” which will be shown Saturday at the Academy Museum.

(Atsushi Nishijima / TNS)

On Saturday, the Academy Museum will host a 10th anniversary screening of “Selma” with filmmaker Ava DuVernay and actors David Oyelowo, Omar Dorsey, Stephan James, Niecy Nash-Betts, Wendell Pierce, Lorraine Toussaint and Andre Holland — plus actor and producer Oprah Winfrey — for a Q&A moderated by Elvis Mitchell. The film was nominated for best picture and won an Oscar for original song.

Oyelowo stars as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in powerhouse performance as the film tells the story of King’s work for voting rights that culminated in the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery.

In a review from the time the film was released, Kenneth Turan wrote, “ ‘Selma’ is a necessary film, even an essential one, with more than its share of memorable performances and vivid, compelling sequences. … If there is a temptation to canonize ‘Selma’ and brush aside its less successful elements, that’s not surprising given how good much of it is and the heroic nature of the story, not to mention the decades it’s taken for this history to reach the screen.”

In an interview at the time, DuVernay described her approach to King’s life: “I didn’t want to approach Dr. King as a cradle-to-grave story; that’s a big life. My guide was the truth and facts of what happened each day and how each great, difficult choice led to the next great, difficult choice.”

John Lewis, one of the leaders of the actual Selma march, wrote an op-ed for The Times in 2015 in which the then-Democratic representative of Georgia declared, “ ‘Selma’ does more than bring history to life, it enlightens our understanding of our lives today. It proves the efficacy of nonviolent action and civic engagement, especially when government seems unresponsive. With poignant grace, it demonstrates that Occupy, inconvenient protests and die-ins that disturb our daily routine reflect a legacy of resistance that led many to struggle and die for justice, not centuries ago, but in our lifetimes. It reminds us that the day could be approaching when that price will be required again.”

Points of interest

‘Waking Life’ in 35mm

The 2001 film “Waking Life,” which features animation overlaid on live-action footage, will show at the Academy Museum on Monday.

(Jennifer Drummond / Fox Searchlight Pictures)

As part of a series on depictions of dreams in the movies, the Academy Museum will show Richard Linklater’s 2001 film “Waking Life” in 35mm on Monday. Created with an innovative technique of animation overlaid on live-action footage, the film follows an unnamed protagonist (Wiley Wiggins, who also starred in Linklater’s “Dazed and Confused”) as he wanders from one conversation or encounter to another: a hazy free-association of philosophical ideas. Among those he encounters on his journey are Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy playing their characters from the “Before” films, filmmaker Steven Soderbergh and many others.

In an interview when the film was coming out, Linklater lightly bemoaned the fact that even though it was being released by the studio subsidiary then known as Fox Searchlight, such a willfully weird movie was still going to have to battle it out at the box office.

“It kills me that ‘Waking Life,’ which to me is very otherworldly and timeless, is going to be out there in the world duking it out with whatever else opens that weekend,” Linklater said. “It’s nice to have people with a little bit of muscle, just a little bit, who can put an ad campaign together and get a film out there.”

‘Muriel’s Wedding’ in 35mm

Daniel Lapaine and Toni Collette as a married couple in “Muriel’s Wedding” (1994), which will screen Wednesday at Vidiots.

(Miramax Films)

On Wednesday, Vidiots will play P.J. Hogan’s 1994 film “Muriel’s Wedding” in 35mm from a print on loan from the Library of Congress. The film helped launch both Toni Collette and Rachel Griffiths to broader stardom, and even played a role in the cultural revival of ABBA.

Collette plays Muriel, who escapes from her hopeless life via her devoted fandom to the Swedish supergroup. She moves from her small Australian town of Porpoise Spit to the city of Sydney, where she gets a job at a video store, a new roommate (Griffiths) and a new lease on life.

Reviewing the film at the time, Kenneth Turan wrote, “Wickedly mocking but empathetic, able to laugh at its characters while paying attention to their sorrows, this subversive comedy about self-esteem resists the notion that films have to timidly remain within tidy genre rules.”

Comparing the film to other then-recent Australian exports such as “Strictly Ballroom” and “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,” Turan noted of “Muriel,” “Made with energy, raucous good humor and noticeable wit, its ability to recognize the poignancy in its situations makes it special even in that uninhibited group.”

In other news

David Lynch dies at 78

Director David Lynch, photographed in Los Angeles in 2012.

(Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

On Thursday came the shocking news that David Lynch, director of “Eraserhead,” “The Elephant Man,” “Blue Velvet,” “Wild at Heart,” “Inland Emipire” and more, had died at age 78.

In a 1986 interview for “Blue Velvet,” Lynch described the film in a way that might also explain larger portions of his work, saying, “This film is a trip into darkness and back out again. There are things lurking in the world and within us that we have to deal with. You can evade them for a while, for a long time maybe, but if you face them and name them, they start losing their power. Once you name the enemy, you can deal with it a lot better.”

In her appreciation of Lynch’s work, Times film critic Amy Nicholson wrote, “Once I was old enough to have some sense of what it means to become a parent, it’s where I learned to see Lynch not as a genius, nor a prankster or a guru, but as a human being. ‘Eraserhead’ allowed him to express the shameful fears about parenthood that he couldn’t say aloud. When Sherilyn Fenn told him on the set of ‘Twin Peaks’ that she wanted to have a kid, he said, “Go take a look at ‘Eraserhead’ first.”

Kyle MacLachlan in the 1986 movie “Blue Velvet.”

(De Laurentis Entertainment)

Glenn Whipp wrote about his own experiences in interviewing Lynch, noting, “Whenever I spoke with him, he was unfailingly polite, the embodiment of a Boy Scout upbringing that he’d sometimes embrace, maybe to mess with people, maybe not.”

I created a roundup of reactions to his death, including heartfelt tributes from collaborators Kyle MacLachlan and Naomi Watts, as well as relative acolytes including Harmony Korine, Jane Schoenbrun and Richard Kelly.

MacLachlan made his debut in Lynch’s “Dune” and also appeared in “Blue Velvet” and “Twin Peaks.” As MacLachlan put it, “He clearly saw something in me that even I didn’t recognize. I owe my entire career, and life really, to his vision. What I saw in him was an enigmatic and intuitive man with a creative ocean bursting forth inside of him. He was in touch with something the rest of us wish we could get to.”

In a Lynchian coincidence, the American Cinmeatheque already had a screening of Lynch’s final feature film, 2006’s “Inland Empire” starring Laura Dern, scheduled for the Egyptian this Saturday. Then on Jan. 25, the theater will show 1990’s “Wild at Heart” starring Dern and Nicolas Cage, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. Expect many more Lynch screenings in the days and weeks ahead.