Films this week 9/20 to 9/22/2024
by Gary Palmucci | 18th September 2024 | Gary's Corner
New York City filmmaker Ric Burns has over three decades compiled an impressive body of documentary work on American history and culture, including a collaboration with his brother Ken on the classic series The Civil War.
In 2015 Ric began shooting a series of interviews with the renowned neurologist Oliver Sacks, shortly after Sacks learned that he had a terminal illness. For over eighty hours, surrounded by family, friends and notebooks from over six decades of his thinking and writing about the brain, he spoke about his personal life and work, his abiding sense of wonder at the natural world and man’s place within it. Among many other interviewees were Jonathan Miller, Temple Grandin, Paul Theroux and Kate Edgar. The film, titled Oliver Sacks: HIs Own Life was completed in 2019 and debuted at various prestigious festivals, but due to the many disruptions of the Covid era, never got an intended cinema release.
New Plaza Cinema is very pleased to present the New York theatrical premiere of Oliver Sacks: His Own Life. Ric Burns will be joining us to present the film along with some special supplementary material, and of course for a Q&A afterwards. Later this fall he’ll be back for another special presentation that several patrons have occasionally asked us about : an episode of his own now-classic series – New York: A Documentary Film. We will screen the exhilarating, climactic Episode 7 – The City and the World, chronicling the second half of the twentieth century.
After the very successful tribute earlier this month to Alain Delon, our spotlight moves to Gena Rowlands, commemorating her incandescent career with her husband John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence, in a recent restoration by the UCLA Film & TV Archive. The distributor is a relatively new company we’ve looked forward to working with – AGFA, the American Genre Film Archive. You’ve gotta love that moniker.
Also this weekend, a 10th anniversary reissue, in a 4K restoration of the Sundance Grand Prize winner Whiplash, featuring ‘breakout’ work by star Miles Teller and Supporting Actor Oscar winner J.K. Simmons, along with director Damien Chazelle (La La Land).
Holdovers include Spanish director Victor Erice’s sublime Close Your Eyes, Ian McKellen’s tour de force in The Critic, Ralph Arlyck’s I LIke It Here and the raucous, one-of-a-kind Hundreds of Beavers, with another visit from some cast-and-crew members.
The next few weeks will be packed:
- Sept 27: the latest installment of Short Films by NYC Filmmakers, always a sellout; a very diverse pair of Jewish-themed dramas, as the holidays approach – Between the Temples with Jason Schwartzman and Carol Kane, and The Goldman Case.
- Opening Oct 4: direct from its Telluride Film Festival premiere where star Saorise Ronan received a special tribute, The Outrun, based on the acclaimed memoir by Scottish journalist Amy Liptrot.
- A very special one-time screening on Friday Oct 4 of Following Harry, a deeply personal (and of course, inspirational) portrait of Harry Belafonte by documentarian Susanne Rostock. Tickets will go very fast for this one.
- More classics, with special guests, throughout October: Sam Peckipah’s The Wild Bunch (Oct 6); Tomas Gutierrez Alea’s Memories of Underdevelopment (Oct 13); Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate (Oct 20).