Join 18th & Grand and FanMail Cinema Club in a special event screening and the Santa Ana Premiere of 18th & Grand: The Olympic Auditorium Story. The documentary delves into the history and cultural significance of an infamous downtown Los Angeles arena through first-hand accounts from attendees and stars of the Olympic’s ring, rink, and stage!

The Olympic was a hub of outrageous entertainment for generations, where heroes and villains often came from the neighborhoods of the city. 18th & Grand was the closing film for Slamdance, lauded in Hyperallergic and Film Threat, and the inspiration for a major museum exhibition at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes. 

Told through the distinctive voices of wrestlers, boxers, punks and skaters, 18th & Grand: The Olympic Auditorium Story remembers a lost, and more interesting L.A. Featuring John Doe (X), Julio César Chávez, Carlos Palomino, Mando Guerrero, The Destroyer, Gene LeBell, Roddy Piper and more!

Enjoy a post-film Q&A, meet World Champion boxer Carlos Palomino and shop from themed-vendors, including Keely’s Cake Studio, VideoHero VHS, facepainting from La Rainbow Fiesta, and take photos in our boxing-themed photo-op.

Q&A to follow the film including World Champion Boxer Carlos Palomino, Boxing Historian Gene Aguilera, family of luchador Mando “Superstar” Lopez!

Moderated by LA Times Columnist and Reporter Gustavo Arellano!

Doors: 1:00PM

Vending: 1:00PM-6:00PM

Film: 2:00PM

Q&A: Right after the film!

This program is a venue rental engagement. The views and opinions expressed in this program do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of The Frida Cinema or its staff. 

Four vignettes, each set in different decades from the 1950s through the 1980s, deal with protagonists at different stages of life between childhood and young adulthood. This is In Our Time, an anthology film from 1982, directed by Edward Yang, Ko I-chen, Jim Tao, and Chang Yi. 

Often seen as a starting point for Taiwan’s great art house wave of the 1980s and marking a shift toward more realistic and socially grounded filmmaking, this landmark anthology is rarely seen, on the big screen or not. Focused on small emotional moments like family life, school, work, and the quiet anxieties of growing up, it’s this exact type of naturalism became a defining trait of the movement that followed and established the career directors who later defined the entirety of new-age Asian cinema.

The Dolphin Hotel invites you to stay in any of its stunning rooms. Except one.

Remember when PG-13 movies were actually scary? Play It By Fear (@playitbyfear.33) continues their Sunday Scaries series with a descent into one of the most unsettling hotel rooms in horror: 1408, based on a story by Stephen King!

A skeptical paranormal writer who debunks hauntings for a living books a stay in the infamous Room 1408 of New York’s Dolphin Hotel, determined to prove the legends false. But once inside, he finds himself trapped in a shifting psychological nightmare where the room itself seems to know his fears…and how to use them. 

A stripped-down, actor-driven chiller, 1408 stands out for turning a single location into a relentless mind game, proving that sometimes the scariest places aren’t abandoned houses or dark woods, but a room you can’t ever check out of. 

Our second Volunteer Of The Month takes a dark detour courtesy of Maggie, who has chosen Crimson Peak, Guillermo del Toro’s 2015 gothic romance.

The film follows Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska), an aspiring writer haunted by the ghostly warning to “Beware of Crimson Peak.” After a whirlwind romance, she marries the enigmatic Sir Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) and moves to his decaying ancestral mansion, Allerdale Hall, alongside his mysterious sister, Lady Lucille (Jessica Chastain). As Edith unravels the sinister history of the Sharpe family and the house itself, she discovers dark truths lurking beneath its beautiful, crumbling facade.

Combining haunting performances and atmosphere dripping with suspense, Crimson Peak is a masterful blend of romance and horror that pays homage to the classic gothic storytelling that its maker grew up obsessed with.

Before you die, you see…

The Ring (2002) is our next Sunday Scaries movie, presented by Play It By Fear (@playitbyfear.33)!

Director Gore Verbinski’s chilling American reimagining of a Japanese nightmare follows  a journalist (Naomi Watts) who investigates a mysterious videotape linked to a string of sudden deaths. As she races to uncover the tape’s origins, the line between urban legend and supernatural curse begins to dissolve.

Rain-soaked and deeply unnerving, The Ring helped redefine studio horror for the 2000s, continuing this month’s theme of when PG-13 movies were actually scary!