Films this week 03/28/2025 to 04/3/2025
by Gary Palmucci | 28th March 2025 | Gary's Corner
Here at New Plaza Cinema we have numerous ‘unsung heroes’ who work behind the scenes on our many special programs, occasionally appearing in person to introduce or discuss the work. Veteran independent filmmaker and newsfilm cameraman Michael Jacobsohn is the man behind our bi-monthly NYC Filmmakers Short Film Showcase, marking its second anniversary this Friday night. His tireless curation has allowed many local artists to see their films with an audience, and on a theatre screen for the first time. As always, this weekend’s program has sold out, but a few cancellations may be available at show time.
For the past few years Michael has also been working on a new feature documentary of his own, The Cornelia Street Cafe in Exile, a rueful history of the Greenwich Village landmark – forced to close after 41 years, in 2019 – and its owner Robin Hirsch. We’re pleased to offer its NY theatrical premiere with two screenings next weekend, and many special guests in attendance.
This Friday and Saturday we’ll be captivated by visiting West Coast film historian and author Steven C. Smith, a regular guest on our classic film webcasts and author of A Heart at Fire’s Center, the definitive biography of Hollywood composer Bernard Herrmann. Renowned for his classic suspense scores for Alfred Hitchcock, Herrmann also did rapturous work for many other auteurs, two of which we’ll be presenting: Joseph L. Mankiewicz’ The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Nicholas Ray’s On Dangerous Ground. Steven will introduce and host an after-discussion at both films, which are rarely screened in theatres.
Herrmann was a fascinating character, often remote and irascible; he once declined an offer from Martin Scorsese with “I don’t do pictures about taxi drivers!” Fortunately Marty persuaded him, and we hope to screen their legendary collaboraton later this year.
Also this weekend:
- A new documentary, Janis Ian: Breaking Silence, chronicling the transporting and turbulent life story of a remarkable singer-songwriter, now in the fifth decade of her inspiring career. Janis herself and the film’s director Varda Bar-Kar will be joining us for Q&As after our matinee screenings on March 29 and 30.
- The Oscar-winning No Other Land continues its run, with multiple screenings, as will the Italian crowd pleaser There’s Still Tomorrow and Pedro Almodovar’s The Room Next Door, with its heart-rending turns from Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore.
- Also, our monthly first-Friday screenings of films on social justice issues will next week feature ace documentarian Sam Pollard’s MLK/FBI, chronicling FBI monarch J. Edgar Hoover’s obsessive mid-60s efforts to denigrate Martin Luther King, via wiretaps and other ruthless forms of surveillance. In his prescient, 2021 Critic’s Pick review, the NY Times’ A. O. Scott wrote:
“….
it’s an exemplary historical documentary — unafraid of moral judgment but also attentive to the fine grain of ambiguity that clings to the facts. It doesn’t force the preoccupations of the present onto the past, but rather invites you to think about how what happened then might help explain where we are now. The story took place a long time ago, but it isn’t finished.”
Next Friday, April 4 is the anniversary of Dr. King’s 1968 assassination.