Films this week 5/1/2026 to 5/7/2026
by Gary Palmucci | 1st May 2026 | Gary's Corner
We’ll be continuing our ‘partial schedule’ of screenings during the next three weekends of CUNY commencement-related events; on Saturday night, a new film from Steven Soderbergh – enthusiastically recommended by three of my New Plaza Cinema colleagues – that prematurely ‘got the hook’ from one of our local multiplexes.
In her Critic’s Pick’s review (well worth reading in its entirety) the NY Times’ Alissa Wilkinson calls The Christophers
“…a sparkling, funny, wise movie about two painters (Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel), both of whom consider themselves failures. Soderbergh rarely writes his own movies, but nearly every movie he makes is about how money manipulates all aspects of our lives: relationships, sports, technology, mental health, body image, even sex. And now, with The Christophers, he dips into that most human of all matters: art.”
Reprising this weekend:
- Yes – our final screening of fearless Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid’s epic howl of love, rage and — yes! — patriotism in the wake of 10/7/23.
- Calle Malaga – Carmen Maura is unforgettable in this autumnal drama which might also be called ‘twilight in Tangiers.
- Billy Preston: That’s the Way God Planned It – our audience at last weekend’s first screening was visibly shaken – and wowed – by Billy’s tragi-glorious life story. Remarkable archival footage and interviews; we’ll be doing two shows this weekend.
- Fantasy Life – Its writer/ director/ star Matthew Shear has been incredibly generous with his time (and moved by the upper west side-centric responses from our audiences); he’ll be back for another Q&A on Sunday evening.
Coming up on Sunday, May 10:
- The Breaking Point (1950)- one of John Garfield’s final and most searing performances, directed by Michael Curtiz from Hemingway’s novel To Have and Have Not. His daughter Julie Garfield, a longtime friend of New Plaza Cinema, will join us for an after-discussion.
- The Day Iceland Stood Still – an encore screening of this ‘sleeper’ documentary which sold out our first screening in March (and is selling briskly again), chronicling a luminous, mid-70s day in that unique nation’s feminist history.