Films This Week 9/03/21
by Gary Palmucci | 3rd September 2021 | Gary's Corner
Hello everyone. Our Virtual Cinema lineup is ‘status quo’ as we head into Labor Day and next week’s holidays. I’m still recommending in particular the documentaries Searching for Mr. Rugoff and What We Left Unfinished. There’s also a palpable sense of drama as we head into September and something we simply didn’t have in 2020 – a bona fide fall movie season with a slew of artistically ambitious pictures on the horizon. Here are four I am eagerly awaiting:
— The Card Counter (Sept 10) — venerable writer-director Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver), whose personal appearances with First Reformed were a highlight of New Plaza’s first weekend at NYIT in 2018, is back with another intense drama. Oscar Isaac portrays a haunted, obsessive poker player with a dark secret; Tiffany Haddish and Willem Dafoe head a worthy supporting cast.
— Cry Macho (Sept 17) — at 91, Clint Eastwood stars and directs in a project he’d been developing for decades, as a has-been rodeo star who travels to Mexico to return an estranged son to his father. Will this be an elegiac ‘swan song?’
—Titane (Oct 1) — Highly provocative Palme d’Or winner at this summer’s Cannes Film Festival from young French director Julia Ducournau, this is only the second female ‘Palme’ winner in the fest’s history. From an official synopsis: “After a little girl is severely injured in a car crash, a titanium plate is fitted in her head….” — need we say more?
—The French Dispatch (Oct 22) — Art house favorite Wes Anderson’s first live action film since ‘Grand Budapest Hotel’ features his usual all-star cast, set in the French foreign bureau of a fictional Kansas newspaper preparing its final issue.
Despite our anticipation for these and numerous other new titles, there’s also a sense of uncertainty and deep concern permeating the specialized movie business. Will audiences return to art houses in anywhere near the numbers these filmmakers and stars would have drawn in ‘normal’ times?
A few titles did respectable biz this summer — the Anthony Bourdain documentary, Summer of Soul (sadly, neither available as Virtual Cinema) — but little else beyond standard genre fare.
Has the domination of streaming over these past 18 months produced a subtle sea change in our moviegoing attitudes? I wouldn’t yet believe anyone who’s convinced they know the answers, but these coming months will yield lots of tell-tale hints.
As for myself, since March I’ve been to ten screenings at various NYC cinemas — a mix of new films and classics that has felt reinvigorating. If you haven’t yet returned, perhaps now is the time. As we can see, the real ‘curtain’ on this constrained movie year is about to rise….
Gary Palmucci, Film Curator
New Plaza Cinema