Films this week 12/5/2025 to 12/11/2025
by Gary Palmucci | 5th December 2025 | Gary's Corner
The biggest news from New Plaza Cinema today is that our beleaguered elevator, out of service last weekend, is now repaired and fully back in action.
And looking ahead, we’ll be on a ‘partial’ screening schedule this weekend and next (closed Friday, December 12), but starting December 19, a full schedule all the way through January 4. I’ll have some initial details on our holiday programs next week….
Friday night’s screening of the new documentary Fatherless No More is now sold out, and just a handful of tickets remain for Sunday’s show of our long-running Shttl (hosted by lead actor Moshe Lobel), so proceed accordingly. Blue Moon and the Gallic Auction continue to hold over: Rebel With a Clause director Brandt Johnson and star Ellen Jovin will hold comma-court with their inspiring, often-hilarious film on Sunday evening. They’ll also be back for an encore on December 20.
Saturday night’s classic film screening of Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby, starring Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes and Ruth Gordon promises to be very special. Last summer I attended a downtown revival house screening of an early sixties British thriller, Burn Witch Burn, with a Q&A hosted by a delightfully articulate film historian, Payton McCarty-Simas. Her new book That Very Witch: Fear, Feminism and the American Witch Film chronicles, per its author, “how the cinematic witch’s evolution across decades reflects major shifts in how feminism is perceived politically and interpreted (counter-) culturally in America. From Mia Farrow to the Moral Majority, from the Satanic Panic to Riot Grrrl, from #MeToo to the 2024 election, the witch can be found at the heart of the zeitgeist. What can we learn from her presence?”
Polanski’s master class in Dakota demonology should provide plenty of fodder for our discussion, moderated by Ms. McCarty-Simas.
And, coming soon:
- Saturday, December 13 at 1215 pm – The Nutcracker at Wethersfield, a unique production of this holiday
- classic. Check our website for a full description; tickets are also going fast on this one.
- Sunday , December 14 at 7 pm – Macunaima – this bawdy, irreverent classic from Brazil’s 1960’s Cinema Novo movement will be co-presented by our friends at Latin American Film Center, along with the live ‘art fair’ they’ve offered at previous screenings.
- Saturday , December 20 at 745 pm – Hundreds of Beavers (Special Christmas Edition), the closest thing to a New Plaza Cinema cult movie: uproarious, surreal, nonstop. Special guests to be announced – bring the family!
- Sunday, December 21 at 1215 pm – Odds Against Tomorrow – Harry Belafonte, Robert Ryan and Gloria Grahame star in director Robert Wise’s hard-bitten, end-of-its-era noir about a heist that goes dangerously awry. Filmed on upper west side and other NYC and upstate locations, with an after-talk by our own film historians, Max Alvarez and Dan Cahill.