Films this week 11/8 to 11/14/2024
by Gary Palmucci | 8th November 2024 | Gary's Corner
A dizzying concurrence of early awards season nominees, personal appearances and streaming dates have contributed to a ten-film holiday weekend lineup at New Plaza Cinema.
The Gotham Awards, handed out right after Thanksgiving, are the one of the first stops on the crowded accolades calendar. Several committees composed of many of our best film critics choose nominees for best picture, acting performances, international films and documentaries within a certain budget range.
We’re featuring three of them this weekend : The Substance (Demi Moore, Best Actor), the surprise – and often jaw-droppingly outrageous- box office hit about an actress’ “body exchange” experiment that goes viscerally wrong: A Different Man (Best PIcture, Best Supporting Actor, Adam Pearson) a very different portrait of conflicted body image : and our long-running British drama The Outrun (Saoirse Ronan, Best Actor).
Occasionally I’ll hear from cinemas around the country that are having a longer run with a film that passed through NYC fairly quickly; a recent example is Lee, starring Kate Winslet as the renowned World War II photographer Lee Miller: we’re giving it a shot this Veterans’ Day weekend. A remarkable cast – Alexander Skarsgard, Marion Cotillard, Andrea Riseborough – populates this portrait of a young American, commissioned by British Vogue, who captured some of the most indelible images of that war. The director is a camera legend in her own right – cinematographer Ellen Kuras.
Earlier this year San Francisco filmmaker Judy Irving visited us to present her classic doc The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. This weekend we’ll be premiering her latest, Cold Refuge, as described by Judy in her press book: “Cold Refuge is about the physical, psychological and spiritual aspects of full immersion in the natural world: how, though it may seem counter-intuitive swimming in cold water helps mitigate some of life’s most serious challenges. Most people think it’s completely nuts to jump into cold water with sharks and sea lions who could kill you. But these adverse conditions in San Francisco Bay are nothing compared to the adversities some of the swimmers in Cold Refuge face in their own lives….”
Joining us at both screenings will be members of the Coney Island / Brighton Beach Open Water Swimmers Club.
We’ll also be joining – for one special screening – the downtown premiere of another unique American indie, Hippo, courtesy of executive producers David Gordon Green and Danny McBride. This very dark comedy of two strangely troubled brothers, shot in exquisite black and white, will feature
an after-screening Q&A with director Mark H. Rapaport and stars Kimball Farley & Jesse Pimentel.
Encoring this weekend :
- Oliver Sacks: His Own Life – Sacks’ long time partner Billy Hayes (check out his moving tribute to Oliver in the Oct 19 NY Times) will visit us after Saturday afternoon’s screening.
- Heaven Stood Still: The Incarnations of Willy DeVille– back after a few months’ hiatus, along with fllmmaker Larry Locke
- Veselka: The Rainbow on the Corner at the Center of the World – director MIchael Fiore will host this screening (with some possible Academy members present) along with various Veselka personnel.
And looking ahead to next weekend :
- The World According to Allee Willis, on the songwriter of the Friends theme and other immortal tunes.
- Mike Nichols’ 1988 classic Working Girl, with an intro and Q&A from author and NYC historian Keith Tallon ; and the first of a duo of November film noir screenings, Angel Face, Otto Preminger’s 1952 chiller with Robert Mitchum and Jean Simmons.
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Gary Palmucci
Film Curator