Films this week 7/10/2026 to 7/16/2026
by Gary Palmucci | 10th July 2026 | Gary's Corner
Film and stage actress Brooke Adams beguiled us last year at a special screening of Terrence Malick’s 1978 masterwork, Days of Heaven. We’re very pleased to welcome her back this weekend to host another movie she made that same year, perhaps the most prescient take on a contemporary horror story that’s been remade in various permutations — Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
On its initial release, legendary New Yorker critic Pauline Kael rhapsodized over this version’s shades of dark comedy –her review was titled ‘Pods’– aptly set (at least by 20th century standards) in San Francisco.
She called it
“more sheer fun than any movie I’ve seen since Carrie and Jaws…screenwriter W. D. Richter supplies some of the funniest lines ever heard from the screen, and the director Philip Kaufman provides such confident professionalism that you sit back in the assurance that every spooky nuance you’re catching is just what was intended. “
A crackerjack cast including Donald Sutherland, Jeff Goldblum, Leonard Nimoy and Veronica Cartright gets caught up in the chilling mayhem; Kael wrote about Brooke Adams’ performance
“her character Elizabeth is smart and resilient, with a streak of loony humor. She spins her eyeballs, like the great (’30s movie comedian) Harry Ritz. The women in this movie are every bit as strong and sharp – and foolish – as the men, without any big point being made of it.”
Author and film historian Annette Insdorf, whose critical study of director Phil Kaufman (The Right Stuff, The Unbearable Lightness of Being) makes an eloquent case for him as one of America’s true ‘unsung hero’ directors, will introduce the screening.
Reading Lolita in Tehran, the 2003 bestselling memoir by Iranian-American author Azar Nafisi has been adapted into a new film by veteran Israeli director Eran Riklis, who will join us for a Q&A after Saturday afternoon’s screening. Ms. Nafisi’s chronicle of teaching world literature to Iranian students in the early decades of the Islamic revolution, from authors including Nabokov, Fitzgerald, James and Austen, to name just a few, remains as culturally and politically relevant as ever. Director Riklis has had a prolific, and perhaps underappreciated career including titles such as The Syrian Bride, Lemon Tree and The Human Resources Manager. This should be a fascinating after-discussion.
A third title joining this weekend’s New Plaza Cinema lineup is the documentary portrait Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World, direct from its recent downtown premiere. A Pulitzer Prize winning, best-selling American poet who drew lifelong inspiration from nature, particularly seascapes (including her decades-long residence in Provincetown MA, a familiar spot for many NPC-ers) and an Emerson-esque serenity in solitude, she has attracted successive generations of devoted readers.
And, last but not least, we’ll be encoring Ask E. Jean, following last weekend’s near-capacity screening on the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision. Enough said.
Next Saturday, July 18, actor/writer/director Matthew Shear, who’s been very generous with us in a series of detailed Q&As accompanying his sparkling debut Fantasy Life, will return for another following a 430 screening, moderated by my colleague Abbe Harris.