Films this week 12/15 to 12/17/2023
by Gary Palmucci | 15th December 2023 | Gary's Corner
This abbreviated New Plaza Cinema weekend will offer the final screenings of music docs Joan Baez: I Am a Noise and The Stones and Brian Jones, as well as this diverse trio:
- Monster – The latest from Japanese master Hirokazu Kore-eda, whose 2018 Cannes Palme d’or winner Shoplifting was a New Plaza Cinema audience favorite. His new film centers on a single mother, her son, and a fight that one day breaks out at his school and devolves into mystery and irony. In her NY Times Critic’s PIck review, Natalia Winkelman wrote, “A master of family affairs, Kore-eda directs with a discerning but delicate style…accented by an aching score by the late Ryuichi Sakamoto, Monster is one of the finest films of the year…”
- Past Lives – It’s been on our screen for most of the past four months, and just this week won “debut film” awards from the LA and Boston Film Critics, some Golden Globe nominations, as well as a rhapsody from newly anointed NY Times film critic Alissa Wilkinson: “Once in a while, an understated stunner from a debut director (in this case, playwright Celine Song) arrives early in the year, grabs you by the heart and won’t let go…it’s brilliant and moving, an examination of destiny, chance, love and the invisible thread that binds one soul to the next.”
- Brief Encounter – This month’s classic film screening is another bittersweet romantic “grabber,” David Lean’s 1945 gem, scripted by Noel Coward and indelibly acted by Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, and Stenley Holloway. Max Alvarez and I will be there for some after-film discussion…tickets are selling fast for this one.
Next weekend we’ll be commencing two new releases from Sony Pictures Classics, from Germany and the UK, and much more to come in the New Year.I’ve mentioned these recently, but just in case you’ve missed it:
- Opening Dec 22 – Freud’s Last Session: Sigmund Freud (two time Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins) and C.S. Lewis (Matthew Goode) cross paths in what promises to be a fascinating debate of intellects and psyches.
- Opening Dec 25 – The Teachers’ Lounge, Germany’s submission for the Best International Film Oscar. Check out the intense trailer online.
And in January:
- Menus Plaisirs – Les Troisgros: Frederick Wiseman’s epic restaurant documentary, another NY Film Critics’ winner this week.
- Friday January 12 at 730 pm: our latest installment of NYC Filmmakers’ Short Films
- Many patrons have asked us for Ingmar Bergman classics, so: Sunday January 14 at 12:15 pm Smiles of a Summer Night / Sunday January 28 at 12:15 pm The Seventh Seal.
Gary Palmucci. Film CuratorNew Plaza Cinema