Gary's Corner

Thanks to everyone who turned up — often in inclement weather — to support our opening weekend at New Plaza Cinema’s new venue, Macaulay Honors College on 35 W 67 St.  

On this Indigenous Peoples’ Day holiday weekend we’ll be continuing with screenings of last weekend’s movies, as well as presenting the exclusive US premiere of a new Israeli drama Plan A, from brother-directors Doron and Yoav Paz. Based on actual events, this film dramatizes an astounding piece of Holocaust history: a post-war plot by a small group of Jewish survivors (including August Diehl of Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds)  to poison Nuremberg’s water supply or, as another character puts it: “An eye for an eye. Six million for six million.” 

We’re grateful to distributor Menemsha Films for offering Plan A to us ahead of any streaming availability.  

We’ll also be offering encore screenings of:

• The Good Boss, last weekend’s most popular film, chronicling a week in the life of a beleaguered Spanish factory owner, beautifully embodied by Javier Bardem and an ensemble cast.
• 1982, our “sleeper hit,” whose Lebanese director Oualid Mouaness joined us last weekend for a moving, deeply personal Q&A in a near-sold out house.
• Hold Me Tight, Luxembourg’s Vicky Krieps (Daniel-Day Lewis’ wife in Phantom Thread) held us spellbound in a vertiginous, time-hopping narrative of a family’s dissolution, from quicksilver French actor-turning-director Mathieu Amalric.
• Along with additional shows of three one-of-a-kind, awards-contending documentaries: Fire of Love, Taming the Garden and Three Minutes – A Lengthening.  

And coming next weekend, Dead for a Dollar, per the NY Times’ Tony Scott’s Critic’s Pick: “Director Walter Hill’s lean, mean western (with Christoph Waltz, Willem Dafoe and Rachel Brosnahan) is a master class in the craft of the B movie… also a reminder that Hill – who at 80 has had a career including cult classics (The Warriors, The Long Riders) and smash hits (48 HRS) – is a master in his own right, whose artistry has often been overlooked and undervalued.”  

More on that in next week’s letter…

Gary Palmucci, Film Curator
New Plaza Cinema