Films this week 11/15 to 11/21/2024
by Gary Palmucci | 14th November 2024 | Uncategorized
This weekend’s eclectic New Plaza Cinema lineup features a pair of very special classic film screenings. On Friday at 8 pm, NYC historian Keith Taillon- check out his website keithyorkcity.com -will join us to introduce Mike Nichols’ multi-Oscar-nominated, quintessentially 80s comedy Working Girl, starring Melanie Griffith, Sigourney Weaver and Harrison Ford. Keith will also participate in a Q&A with my colleague Abbe Harris. Tickets are going fast for this one.
November has for several years also been ‘film noir-vembre’ at New Plaza Cinema- this month we’re showcasing director Otto Preminger’s expert, diamond-hard early 50s work in the genre: this Sunday at 1215, Robert Mitchum and Jean Simmons in Angel Face,and next weekend in that same time slot, Dana Andrews – a frequent Preminger leading man – in Where the Sidewalk Ends.
This is a rare chance to catch all three of these films in theatrical screenings, courtesy of Warner Bros and Disney.
British filmmaker Andrea Arnold has built an impressive body of work (Fish Tank, American Honey) focused on the struggles of young working class people and their families. Her latest movie, Bird debuted in the Main Competition at the Cannes Film Festival, as have many of her films, and follows the struggles of Bailey, a young girl searching for stability in a rough-and-tumble corner of the UK county Kent.
She is ‘under the influence’ of two men, her erratic father (Barry Keoghan, so electric in Banshees of Inisherin) and a mysterious drifter (Franz Rogowski, showcased this past year at NPC in Disco Boy and Passages).
Keoghan and Rogowski happen to be two of the most magnetic young actors in today’s cinema. The NY Times’ Alissa Wilkinson had this to say in her review:
“There’s a wealth of lovely performances in “Bird,” including by Nykiya Adams as Bailey, who holds the film together by slowly taking on tenderness as it progresses. But the two poles of the movie are Rogowski and Keoghan, who radiate precisely opposite energies. Where Rogowski is delicate, hopping and perching like a ballet dancer, Keoghan moves like a particularly athletic bear cub, though he dances in a few scenes with both comedy and grace.”
We’re also joining the NYC premiere of a new documentary, The World According to Allee Willis, about a little-known songwriter – and fascinatingly feisty character – who happens to have co-authored classics like the theme song from Friends, and numerous collaborations with Earth, Wind and Fire, including the immortal ‘September,’ featured so memorably in that Oscar-nominated, animated film Robot Dreams which we played here last summer.
Our holdovers include Saoirse Ronan in The Outrun, Oliver Sacks: His Own Life, Oscar-winners Kate Winslet and Marion Cotillard in Lee,
and the fearless Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley and Dennis Quaid in The Substance.
And arriving in the coming weeks: director Steve McQueen’s WW 2 epic Blitz, making it a Saoirse Ronan ‘two-fer,’ the acclaimed documentary Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, and our December classic film tribute to Audrey Hepburn: Two For the Road and Charade.