Films this week 1/05 to 1/07/2024
by Gary Palmucci | 4th January 2024 | Gary's Corner
New Plaza Cinema patrons — including many first-time visitors — flocked to our holiday week “doubleheader” from Sony Classics in numbers nearly as large as last year’s Bill Nighy-starrer Living.Freud’s Last Session started strong (Anthony Hopkins turned 86 on New Year’s Eve!), but by last weekend the German Oscar submission The Teachers’ Lounge — with its riveting young star Leonie Benesch — was breaking out with a series of sellout shows. We’ll have five screenings of The Teachers’ Lounge this weekend to accommodate anticipated demand, plus more of Freud’s Last Session. We’re also very pleased to present a Saturday afternoon screening of master documentarian Frederick Wiseman’s epic new work, Menus-Plaisirs: Les Troisgros, already a 2023 “Best Doc” winner from the New York, Boston and Los Angeles Film Critics’ groups. Some of you may recall Wiseman’s previous, panoramic City Hall, which appeared on our pandemic-era virtual cinema platform. He’s now taken his camera across the Atlantic. In her Critic’s Pick review (and ten-best-list salute) the NY Times’ Manohla Dargis proclaimed: “Wiseman’s transporting documentary centers on a dynasty of French chefs who live and work in a pastoral region in central France named Ouches, some 65 miles west of Lyon, where the paterfamilias oversees a team that with love, ingenuity, choreography, sublime technique and a regard for the larger world create one astonishment after another for the delight and delectation of others — much like the genius behind the camera.”Their restaurant has held three Michelin stars for over half a century — in four rhapsodic hours, we’ll find out how and why. This actually isn’t the longest film we’ve ever screened at New Plaza Cinema (remember The Sorrow and the Pity?), but at the filmmaker’s request there will be no intermission, so please plan accordingly…David Lean’s 1945 classic Brief Encounter will have an encore showing on Sunday afternoon. Last month’s Q&A after the sold-out screening was one of the most scintillating we’ve ever done, so Max Alvarez and I will be back to host another. Finally, here are some highlights to look forward to in the coming weeks:
- Friday, January 12 — The latest installment of NYC Filmmakers’ Short Films — this program always sells
- Sundays Jan 14 & 28 – Ingmar Bergman classics: Smiles of a Summer Night and The Seventh Seal
- January 12-15 & 19-21 — a two weekend survey of Oscar- Shortlisted Documentaries and International Features, titles tba
- January 21 — Make Me Famous is back for another encore, with special guests
- Opening January 26 — The Polish Oscar submission, The Peasants, an historical drama from the makers of the animated classic Loving Vincent
- Opening February 16 — the newly restored 2001 French classic Amelie returns to the big screen
- March 29 — Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ, with Scorsese biographer Mary Pat Kelly (a consultant on the film) hosting an after-discussion
- May 11 — In association with CUNY, a daylong festival of LGBT classics, including The Celluloid Closet, Paris Is Burning, Milk, and Todd Haynes’ Carol
Gary Palmucci. Film CuratorNew Plaza Cinema