Gary's Corner

We have two additions to New Plaza Cinema’s program this weekend.

Even for those of us who aren’t Yankee fans, the career of catcher Yogi Berra-15 times an All-Star, 3 MVP awards, 10 World Series rings – has an irresistible appeal.   The “lively, engaging and moving” (NY Times) new documentary It Ain’t Over chronicles his phenomenal baseball skills and exemplary life (including D-Day service) along with, as the Times’ Glenn Kenny wrote in his Critic’s PIck review, “the inevitable trotting out of his folksy malapropisms known as Yogi-isms….the best of them, when you really turn them over, are as profound as Zen koans: ‘If you can’t imitate him, don’t copy him.’  Only an original like Berra could come up with that.”

Our monthly Big Screen Classics series focuses in June on one of early Hollywood’s legendary pairings – director Josef von Sternberg and incandescent star Marlene Dietrich.  They made seven films together from 1930-35 – the most famous is ‘The Blue Angel,’ but each one is a marvel of complex cinematography, staging and iconic-star virtuosity.

We’re offering a special treat at 10:30 on Sunday morning – Max Alvarez will deliver a ‘live’ multi-media lecture (his first in our Macaulay Honors College cinema) on “The Mesmerizing Films of Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich.”  This is a 75 minute lecture followed by Q&A.  A separate-admission screening of their 1930 Morocco will follow at 12:15, with Q&A and discussion afterwards.

On Sunday June 18, we’ll screen their dizzily entertaining Shanghai Express.  These films are rarely shown theatrically, and we’re grateful to Universal Studios for making them available to us  – don’t miss this opportunity!

Also this weekend:  following its sold out shows last weekend, three more screenings of Close to Vermeer,  a final one for Bill Nighy in Living (for our patrons who lamented they were away last weekend!) as well as The Eight Mountains, Other People’s Children, Monica and the new Nuremberg Trials documentary Filmmakers for the Prosecution.

Coming soon:  Paul Schrader’s Master Gardener and the recent Jewish Film Festival favorite Persian Lessons.