Gary's Corner
Films this week 03/14/2025 to 03/20/2025
Gary’s Corner
by Gary Palmucci | 14th March 2025 | Gary's Corner
This will be our last New Plaza Cinema weekend of ‘limited operation’ for a couple of months – we’re closed on Saturday for some annual CUNY student events. Since so many patrons were turned away from last weekend’s sold out shows of Oscar-winner No Other Land and There’s Still Tomorrow, our Friday and Sunday schedules will consist solely of those two titles, each with three screenings apiece.
Last weekend’s full house was mesmerized from the opening scene of our ‘sneak preview’ of There’s Still Tomorrow. In her Critic’s Pick review, the NY Times’ Beatrice Loayza wrote:
“There’s Still Tomorrow is set in Rome after World War II, but it unfolds with timeless verve and romanticism. It’s the directorial debut of the Italian singer and comedian Paola Cortellesi, who also stars. This feminist dramedy tells a story about domestic abuse — echoing still-timely concerns about violence against women and toxic masculinity in Italy — in captivating, unexpected ways.”
Coming later this month:
- on March 21 and 23, another chance to catch Pedro Almodovar’s first English-language feature The Room Next Door, with its incomparable stars Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore
- on March 22, a unique free screening of Martin Scorsese’s epic documentary No Direction Home – Bob Dylan (check our website for special ticketing details); later that day, one of our ‘residency’ docs, Heaven Stood Still-The Incarnations of Willy DeVille will return, with filmmaker Larry Locke and some ‘live’ musical guests; and capping off that Saturday, an ‘anniversary’ screening of the one-of-a-kind Hundreds of Beavers, hosted by its gagman and propmaster Mike Wesolowski
- opening March 28, a new documentary, Janis ian: Breaking Silence, chronicling the transporting songbook and turbulent life story of the remarkable singer-songwriter, now in the fifth decade of her inspiring career
- on March 28-29 we’ll be joined by West Coast film historian and author Steven C. Smith, a regular guest on our classic film webcasts and author of A Heart at Fire’s Center, the definitive biography of Hollywood composer Bernard Herrmann.
Renowned for his classic suspense scores for Alfred Hitchcock, Herrmann also did rapturous work for many other auteurs, two of which we’ll be presenting: Joseph L. Mankiewicz’ The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Nicholas Ray’s On Dangerous Ground.
Films this week 5/11 – 5/13/23
Two additions to this weekend's New Plaza Cinema program (we'll be closed on Friday for a special CUNY event) are "Critic's Picks" from the estimable Manohla Dargis, currently the NY Times' sole Chief Film Critic while the search for A.O. Scott's replacement continues. Based on an acclaimed 2016 Italian novel by Paolo Cognetti, The Eight Mountains chronicles the decades-long friendship of two young men who first meet when one's parents, as Dargis writes, "rent an apartment in the Aosta Valley, a shockingly beautiful swathe of the Italian Alps that borders both France and Switzerland...you are immediately plunged into the region's splendors and mysteries, its densely sheltering foliage, enigmatically abandoned corners and...
Films this week 5/05 – 5/07/2023
A busy weekend for New Plaza Cinema at Macaulay Honors College...although we advertised last weekend the "final screening" for Turn Every Page, I realized that Saturday April 29th will be Robert Gottlieb's 92nd birthday. Given the warm outpouring of affection for the film and its subjects from that screening, we'll be doing an irresistible "encore" (the last one!) at 12:15 on Saturday. Our two additions to this weekend's schedule will feature very special appearances. Swedish director Lasse Hallström became internationally renowned for his many ABBA videos, and Oscar-nominated for his breakthrough feature My LIfe As a Dog, as well as The Cider House Rules, along with other outstanding work in What's Eating Gilbert...
Films this week 4/28 – 4/30/2023
A busy weekend for New Plaza Cinema at Macaulay Honors College...although we advertised last weekend the "final screening" for Turn Every Page, I realized that Saturday April 29th will be Robert Gottlieb's 92nd birthday. Given the warm outpouring of affection for the film and its subjects from that screening, we'll be doing an irresistible "encore" (the last one!) at 12:15 on Saturday. Our two additions to this weekend's schedule will feature very special appearances. Swedish director Lasse Hallström became internationally renowned for his many ABBA videos, and Oscar-nominated for his breakthrough feature My LIfe As a Dog, as well as The Cider House Rules, along with other outstanding work in What's Eating Gilbert...
Films this week 4/21 – 4/23/2023
One of New Plaza Cinema’s many "unsung heroes" is independent filmmaker Michael Jacobsohn, who has shot and edited the two NPC staffer promos many of you have so far seen here on screen -- with more to come. Michael has also curated for us a program of short films by NYC filmmakers that we will premiere at 7:30 on Friday night. Many of the filmmakers will be present for an after-screening Q&A, and we hope this will be the first of a series of presentations of new, home-grown, nascent talent. Just a few tickets remain! Two additions to this weekend’s program: Carmen -- Acclaimed choreographer (and husband of Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman) Benjamin Millepied makes his film directing debut with what Indiewire's David...
Films this week 4/14 – 4/16/2023
We were very encouraged by the audience response to two new additions to last week's schedule: the Dardenne Brothers' riveting Tori and Lokita and the French-Cambodian drama Return to Seoul, both highlights of the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. Each film will have additional screenings this weekend. New Plaza's survey -- both in our Talk Backs and in the cinema -- of the fascinating movie year 1973 continues with a very rare theatrical screening of perhaps the best Harold PInter film adaptation: The Homecoming. In his roundup of that year's best films, the NY Times' venerable Vincent Canby wrote, "...the American Film Theatre's screen version of PInter's play, directed by Peter Hall, proves that Pinter, even when he writes for...
Films this week 4/07 – 4/09/2023
This year's Cannes Film Festival is about a month away, and the first "Official Selection" titles will be announced next week. In the meantime, many of last year's highlights are still making their way to American screens, and New Plaza Cinema is adding a pair of them to this week's lineup. The Belgian filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have in the past quarter-century built a formidable body of work, with such modern neo-realist classics as La Promesse, Rosetta, L'Enfant, and The Kid with a Bike. In her NY Times Critic's Pick review, Manohla Dargis rhapsodizes about their latest, which covers familiar territory: "...like most of their films, it is a suspense thriller about moral conscience, one that takes place in and...
Films this week 3/31 – 4/02/2023
First things first... Due to some special student events this weekend on Friday and Saturday evening at Macaulay Honors College, we may be re-routing some of our regular audience "traffic flow," and strongly recommend early online ticket purchase for those screenings. Here at New Plaza Cinema we have since Christmas week been basking in our audiences’ love for Living, Turn Every Page, The Quiet Girl, and RRR…but all things, even in show biz, must come to an end so if you haven’t yet seen each one of these in a roomful of Upper West Side movie lovers, don’t delay! Other highlights this weekend: Francois Truffaut’s 1973 moviemaking-echoes-life classic Day For Night has been in Warners Brothers’ library for a full half century,...
Films this week 3/24 – 3/26/2023
With a new baseball season on the horizon, you might say that New Plaza Cinema is swinging for the fences this weekend, starting with Sunday afternoon's screening of Marcel Ophuls' epic 1969 documentary The Sorrow and the Pity. The New Yorker's Richard Brody has eloquently called it: "One of the few movies that can rightly be said to have changed the course of history...(Ophuls) reconstructs the history of the Second World War as experienced in France, from the German invasion through the liberation, with an emphasis on daily life under the Occupation...by way of extensive interviews, which he films with a wide-ranging set of participants including French resistance fighters, collaborators with the Nazis, unrepentant former...
Films this week 3/17 – 3/19/2023
So the six-month "awards season" has finally come to an end. Whatever one may think of Sunday's night's big winners, the no muss-no fuss Oscar ceremony had its share of memorable acceptance speeches, along with glimpses of our beloved Bill Nighy (though we couldn't discern if that was Anna Wintour to his left or right) and as expected, the rousing performance and Best Original Song win for 'Naatu Naatu' from RRR. We'll be reprising that kinetic Indian epic (in its original Telegu-language version with English subtitles) on Sunday afternoon, along with continuing audience favorites The Quiet Girl, Turn Every Page, and Living (now a New Plaza Cinema exclusive). And please note these two very special weekend screenings: On...
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You can reach him at films@newplazacinema.org