Films This Week 7/09/21

by Gary Palmucci | 9th July 2021 | Gary's Corner

Hello everyone. We have no new additions this week to our virtual cinema lineup, but there are a couple in the works for next Friday.

Many of you have no doubt read various reports on the opening of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, delayed two months (after the 2020 edition was flat-out cancelled) by circumstances we know all too well. As someone who was very fortunate to attend a number of previous Cannes festivals, I’ve been canvassing the coverage and was particularly struck by a piece from a longtime journalist friend, Todd McCarthy, now patrolling the Promenade de la Croisette for the trade publication Deadline. His column, titled “It’s Covid, Jake,” (an immortal movie reference) can be read here in its entirety.

For those who aren’t inclined to read the entire report about the different vibes of a more sultry, mid-summer Cannes, this year missing many of its multi-national participants (China, South America, etc.), and requiring every 48 hours an awkward Covid “saliva test” for Americans and others, Todd’s remarks near the end stood out for me as emblematic of how many of us may one day — as he says, “hopefully… sooner rather than later” — also come to regard these times we’ve been living through:

“…the way these things often work, the hardy survivors often rationalize their adversity by coming to consider themselves part of a so-called survivors’ club, so that, years from now they can say, ‘Well, let me tell you how it was back in ’21.’ Hopefully that’s what it will come to, sooner rather than later.”

Gary Palmucci, Film Curator
New Plaza Cinema