Films this week 04/18/2025 to 04/24/2025
by Gary Palmucci | 17th April 2025 | Gary's Corner, Uncategorized
This weekend’s New Plaza Cinema program is topped by three ‘sleeper’ hits that have been playing here to near-capacity audiences: The Penguin Lessons, starring Steve Coogan and Jonathan Pryce; the droll documentary Secret Mall Apartment (check our website this weekend for possible Q&As); and the wistful tribute The Cornelia Street Cafe in Exile.
The latter screening’s Q&A will feature filmmaker Michael Jacobsohn and veteran broadcast journalist Budd Mishkin, currently of 1010 WINS Radio. Mishkin has also graced the stage of the legendary Cornelia Street Cafe as a performer, captivating audiences with his renditions of songs by Russian tunesmith Bulat Okudzhava. Get your tickets online asap for this one.
To honor the upcoming Holocaust Remembrance Day (April 24), we’ll present on Sunday a superb new documentary, Here Lived, delving into the relatively unknown history of the hidden children in the Netherlands who evaded Nazi capture by their concealment in occupied territory. The screening will be presented by filmmaker Ulrika Citron , along with Museum of Jewish Heritage Board Member (and longtime New Plaza Cinema supporter) Nancy Fisher.
New French cinema talent will be on display this weekend in Holy Cow, the coming-of-age tale of a French Alps teenager who, when thrust into caring for his sister, forges a path in cheese-making. In her Critic’s Pick review, the NY Times’ Manohla Dargis observed: “If Holy Cow were a different, more sentimental movie, all this would land far too squarely on the nose. But writer-director Louise Courvoisier is more interested in human complexity than in generically packaged uplift, which makes the fact that this is her feature directing debut all the more impressive. (It won a special ‘youth prize’ at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.)” Additional holdovers this weekend include two 2025 Oscar winners: No Other Land (Best Documentary Feature) and I’m Still Here (Best International Feature), the entrancing Italian drama Vermiglio and instant American indie classic Eephus, about baseball and, as always, many other things….
A lot happening next weekend:
–Louise Lasser will join us for screenings of Woody Allen’s Bananas and a short film she stars in with Carole Shelley, Did You Know My Husband? This show is sold out but will have an encore on May 18; tickets will be on sale next week.
–Melissa Newman, daughter of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward will return to NPC for a screening of 1961’s Paris Blues, starring her charismatic parents , along with Sidney Poitier, Diahann Carroll and Louis Armstrong.
–One of our most popular documentaries, Four Winters, tracing the histories of the incredibly heroic Eastern European partisans of World War II, will be back for two shows on April 27, hosted by its indefatigable director Julia Mintz.