Films This Week 9/24/21
by Gary Palmucci | 24th September 2021 | Gary's Corner
We’re continuing for another week with our current Virtual Cinema lineup of seven features and documentaries from around the world. Meanwhile, an annual ritual of the New York film world kicks off tonight – the 59th New York Film Festival, returning to cinemas on the Upper West Side and around the city after last year’s nearly all-virtual edition.
The opening night screening is The Tragedy of Macbeth adapted and directed by Joel Coen – sans his longtime writing-directing partner and brother, Ethan – and starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand.
Over three decades ago I attended the 1990 opening night screening of the Coen brothers’ Miller’s Crossing – the dark (and darkly funny) gangster opus that I think still holds up as one of their best, in what has become one of the great, enduring American film bodies of work.
Although a ‘reviewers’ embargo’ is technically in effect for ‘Macbeth’ until after Friday’s premiere screenings, in their festival kickoff piece the NY Times’ Tony Scott and Manohla Dargis dropped some favorable hints about what they thought of it; it’s one of at least a dozen festival titles I’m eagerly looking forward to. There was also a line in their article I don’t ever recall reading in a NYFF preview: “Plenty of tickets are available…” Sell-out shows and stand-by lines have been the norm there for my whole adult life. But of course, we have clearly not yet returned to the ‘norm.’
Since NYC cinemas began reopening in March I’ve been to ten screenings of films both new and old; one of New Plaza’s board members reported yesterday that he and wife have attended thirty! But much more often than not, whenever I now ask anyone if they’ve returned to moviegoing, the answer is ‘no.’
The reasons vary: they’re still not comfortable venturing out, the comforts of home theatre have become too seductive, there’s nothing in release that feels worth seeing… And I start to wonder what it will take to lure them back to what still seems like the essential urban communal experience – sitting in a dark room full of strangers: laughing, groaning, gasping, sighing.
Will it be a strong fourth quarter of new films to finally capture our attention, to get us away from those 65-inch flatscreens, to lift our spirits? A worldwide industry is biting its nails to the quick, hoping for answers.
Gary Palmucci, Film Curator
New Plaza Cinema