Films this week 4/17/2026 to 4/23/26
by Gary Palmucci | 17th April 2026 | Gary's Corner
The highlight of this weekend’s New Plaza Cinema lineup is a rare screening of French director Bertrand Tavernier’s 1986 Round Midnight, featuring jazz legend Dexter Gordon -in an Oscar-nominated performance- as a saxophonist struggling with addiction in 1950s Paris. Tavernier partly based his screenplay on the experiences of American jazz masters Lester Young (tenor sax) and Bud Powell (piano), as well as casting real life musical greats as Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and John McLaughlin.
Rutgers University professor, jazz historian and all-around friend of New Plaza Cinema, Wayne Winborne, who provided us with an encyclopedic walk-through of the Sammy Davis Jr drama A Man Called Adam a few weeks ago, will be back to both introduce and lead an after-film discussion.
Round Midnight will be the first of a new, every-other-Sunday series of classics programmed by my colleagues Max Alvarez and Dan Cahill; a schedule of the first half dozen should be online by month’s end.
Filmmakers appearing with their work this weekend include:
- Fantasy Life – Director/writer/ lead actor Matthew Shear will join us Friday evening for a screening of his sharp-edged, upper west side-centric rom-com, co-starring Amanda Peet, Judd Hirsch , Alessandro Nivola and Bob Balaban.
- Still a Revolutionary:Albert Einstein – filmmaker Julia Newman will present her 2020 documentary which, using rare archival footage, correspondence and recent interviews, makes the case that Einstein’s example of social and political activism is as important today as are his groundbreaking scientific theories.
- The Unfixxing – writer-director Nicole Betancourt chronicles her path from illness to healing, and from climate despair to environmental awakening. Our first Earth Day weekend screening quickly sold out, but we were able to add a Sunday evening encore.
Other films reprising this weekend include:
- the convulsive Israeli epic YES;
- A Magnificent Life, from Triplets of Belleville animator Sylvain Chomet;
- Carmen Maura, incandescent in Calle Malaga;
- captivating Cannes-winner The President’s Cake;
- and, nearing the end of its long run, SHTTL with Q&A from lead actor Moshe Lobel.