Films this week 9/13 to 9/15/2024
by Gary Palmucci | 11th September 2024 | Gary's Corner
Regular readers of this column know that I frequently quote favorable NY Times reviews to ‘plug’ whatever we’re showing in a given week, since New Plaza Cinema denizens seem to know the Times and its critics better than any others. (Plus, for me, NYT scribe Manohla Dargis is a longtime acquaintance.) This week, however, we’re making use of two more of America’s better working film critics: New York Magazine’s Bilge Ebiri and Ty Burr, formerly of the Boston Globe, now covering the celluloid waterfront for various web services.
Many of you may know Spanish filmmaker Victor Erice, whose 1973 Spirit of the Beehive is one of that nation’s indelible classics. Sadly, he’s worked infrequently in the past half-century – I recall seeing his last feature, El Sol de Membrillo at Cannes 1992, and working to try to bring it to the US – the Lincoln Plaza Cinema was ready to open it – but somehow the business end of things, as sometimes happens in our field, never got worked out. Happily, Erice returned to Cannes last year with a new film, Close Your Eyes: it got US distribution this time, and we’re bringing it uptown this weekend.
Here’s an excerpt from Bilge Ebiri’s rhapsodic review:
“Legendary director Victor Erice’s fourth feature is a stirring tale about memory, identity, and friendship, and it feels deeply, almost alarmingly personal. The film follows a retired director as he searches for his actor and best friend who walked off the set of a movie decades ago and was never seen again. It’s clear that Erice sees a lot of himself in both of these characters, each of whom has withdrawn from the world for different reasons. The film winds up as an exploration of cinema as memory…. The final section of the picture asks, in mesmerizing and unbearably touching fashion, what really makes a life?
Is it memory and identity, the cumulative power of all our experiences, the knowledge of our friends and family? Or is it simply the ability to be happy and present? Erice suggests that it is in others’ gazes that we know ourselves. That’s something a filmmaker understands. And it’s something that a filmmaker who hasn’t been able to make a film for decades really understands.”
And here’s Ty Burr, reporting from last year’s Toronto Film Festival on The Critic, just now going into release, showcasing the beloved Ian McKellen as an Addison De Witt-inspired (with a few darker turns) critic:
“Good, dark fun from director Anand Tucker (Girl with a Pearl Earring), with Ian McKellen playing a fearsome old dragon of a drama critic in 1930s London, Gemma Arterton as an actress receiving the sting of his lash, Mark Strong (Prime Suspect) as a titled newspaper baron, and a series of feints, deceptions and increasingly nasty doings that lead the plot to the edge of tragedy and then beyond. With a script by Patrick Marber (Closer; the not-dissimilar Notes on a Scandal), Romola Garai (Suffragette) and Lesley Manville in support, and one of Sir Ian’s juiciest roles since 1998’s Gods and Monsters in 1998, it’s a class act all around.”
Back for an encore this weekend is the wild-and-wooly Hundreds of Beavers, one the great grassroots success stories of 2024 indie film releasing, with over a half million in theatrical box office – no mean feat these days. Mike Wesolowski, who plays a horse (yes) in this raucous comedy, and is also appropriately billed as ‘gag man’– a credit not used since silent cinema days–will join us for Saturday’s 5 pm screening.
My colleague Max Alvarez will host Sunday afternoon’s screening of Ingmar Bergman’s 1958 The Magician . Our monthly classics series continues in October with epic American Westerns : Sam Peckinpah’s 1969 The Wild Bunch and Michael Cimino’s 1980 Heaven’s Gate, with special guests at both shows.
And don’t forget our bi-monthly NYC Filmmakers Short Film Showcase on Sept 27 – always a sell-out. We’ll also be paying tribute next weekend to a great American actress, Gena Rowlands, with screening of her husband John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence.