Gary's Corner
Films this week 02/28/2025 to 03/6/2025
Gary’s Corner
by Gary Palmucci | 28th February 2025 | Gary's Corner
On this abbreviated New Plaza Cinema Oscar weekend, we’ll be saluting four nominees with ‘good luck’ screenings: Conclave (Best Picture, and seven other nominations), The Seed of the Sacred Fig (International Feature), A Real Pain (Supporting Actor and Original Screenplay) and No Other Land (Documentary Feature). The latter film sold out both screenings last weekend, so plan accordingly.
And, we’ll reprise the rueful comedy-drama Ex-Husbands with Griffin Dunne, James Norton, Richard Benjamin and Rosanna Arquette, which also played to packed houses.
Our other film on this weekend’s program is a singularly daft comedy and a highlight of last year’s Cannes Film Festival. Universal Language captivated the NY Times’ Manohla Dargis, who in her Critic’s Pick review wrote:
“Universal Language, directed by Matthew Rankin, is a gently funny, gently moving, slightly surrealist little comedy that’s aimed at two groups of people: Canadians, specifically but not exclusively those who know Winnipeg, and aficionados of Iranian cinema. Surely there’s overlap between the two circles in that Venn diagram, but I can’t imagine it’s all that substantial. Combining the two cultural specificities, though, makes for something fresh and weird and delightful to watch — even if, like me, you’re not an expert on either one.
Mr Rankin and his co-screenwriters came up with a world that is sort of a thought experiment: What if Tehran were Winnipeg? Or Winnipeg were Tehran? What if the landscapes were snowy, the Tim Hortons were teahouses and everyone spoke Persian?”
An enraptured cast of characters, from mischievous schoolchildren to deeply meditative seniors, wander through a wintry Canadian urbanscape (definitely NOT the 51st State), enacting a series of vignettes that comes to make its own wacky, endearing sense. I was reminded a bit of the wonderfully deadpan comedies of Finnish master Aki Kaurismaki. Check out online the trailer we’ve been running at the cinema, for further illustration…
Coming next weekend :
- Our monthly first-Friday screening series on social justice issues, both current and historical, continues with the 2012 documentary Free Angela Davis and All Political Prisoners, chronicling our still-active articulator of resistance and her passionate, fearless life’s work.
- There’s Still Tomorrow (C’e Ancora Domani) In this moving comedic drama set in postwar Rome, a working-class wife and mother strives for a better future. Winner of 6 Italian Academy Awards, and a hit at arthouses around the globe, we’ll be joining in its US theatrical premiere.
Films this week 12/23/22 – 1/2/2023
This holiday season New Plaza Cinema has been presented with an extraordinary opportunity, to both premiere an exceptional new film and in doing so, vividly summon up the memory of our venerated Lincoln Plaza Cinemas. The film is titled Living and starring the beloved Bill Nighy in an adaptation of the Kurosawa classic Ikiru, by Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro. Many of you may remember that 1952 original, about a repressed Tokyo bureaucrat who learns that he has only a few months left to live, and sets out to do so with a renewed, mournful exuberance. The story has been transposed to early 50s London and beautifully "inhabited" by Bill Nighy in a performance that's already won him Best Actor from the LA Film Critics...
Films this week 12/16 – 12/18/2022
This weekend New Plaza Cinema at Macaulay Honors College will be offering valedictory screenings of some of our most popular recent titles: Four Winters (with possible special guests to be announced) and Hallelujah - Leonard Cohen: A Journey, A Song. We'll also be reprising recent additions including the serpentine Korean romantic drama Decision to Leave (with a talk-back after Saturday's show by our resident expert on the film, house manager Andrew Lewis), the scorching Israeli documentary Tantura and the immortal Casablanca. Our newcomer will be one of 2022's most acclaimed documentaries, All That Breathes, the chronicle of three Indian wildlife rescuers who devote their lives to an unlikely species -- Delhi's black kites,...
Films this week 12/10 – 12/11/2022
As the holiday season seemingly hurtles toward us, New Plaza Cinema this weekend will be offering 'final screenings' of the Leonard Cohen documentary Hallelujah (with an encore Q&A by author Alan Light) and Peaceful, aka De son vivant (likewise, with oncologist Dr Gabriel Sara). Filmmaker Julia Mintz will also return for a Q&A on Sunday's screening of Four Winters, with its final presentations scheduled for next weekend. Three other new titles will join our lineup at Macaulay Honors College: Casablanca - What with our exuberant Talk Back last Sunday and last week's NY Times article about the just-opened Neue Galerie exhibit, we just couldn't resist doing a couple of shows of the Bogie-Bergman classic as its 80th...
Films this week 12/02 – to – 12/02/2022
This will be an abbreviated weekend for New Plaza Cinema — Friday screenings only — at Macaulay Honors College due to some previously scheduled student holiday events. We will be reprising last month's most popular titles, Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen - A Journey, A Song and the definitive WW2 Partisans documentary Four Winters, including a Q&A with filmmaker Julia Mintz and Holocaust survivor Eva Haller. Both of those films will continue on the weekend of December 10-11 with featured Q&As, as well as a final appearance by Dr Gabriel Sara with the French drama Peaceful (De son vivant). We'll also be packing the next two weekends with a variety of 2022's most provocative features and docs, plus one beloved classic. Some of...
Films this week 11/25 – 11/27/2022
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Last weekend was our best, attendance-wise, since New Plaza Cinema planted its flag at Macaulay Honors College two months ago. The energy and enthusiasm of six Q&As and multiple sold-out shows was palpable, and we really appreciate your support. Two of last weekend's most popular speakers will both return on Saturday, December 10: author Alan Light with Hallelujah- Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song and Dr. Gabriel Sara with Peaceful (De Son Vivant). Please consult our website that week for precise showtimes. While continuing this weekend with our engagements of Hallelujah, the hypnotically mysterious Memoria and the definitive WW2 Jewish Partisans documentary Four Winters from filmmaker...
Films this week 11/18 – 11/20/2022
Another weekend, another jam-packed collection of films and personal appearances from New Plaza Cinema at Macaulay Honors College. Screenings on Saturday will feature return visitors Dr. Gabriel Sara with Peaceful (De Son Vivant), Oscar-campaigning filmmakers Julia Mintz (Four Winters) and Lisa Hurwitz (The Automat), as well as author and Rolling Stone music critic Alan Light to discuss Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song. Alan's book The Holy or the Broken - Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley and the Unholy Ascent of Hallelujah was a key inspiration for this documentary, one of the few to gross over $1 million in cinemas this year. It reveals the tortured, years-long genesis of Cohen's indelible anthem and how it has...
Films this week 11/11 – 11/13/2022
Thanks to our loyal patrons (and many new ones) who delivered New Plaza Cinema's first SOLD OUT show last weekend in our new venue at Macaulay Honors College. Michael Imperioli joined filmmaker Julia Mintz following a screening of her riveting documentary Four Winters to discuss its genesis and ever-relevant issues. We've invited Michael to return in the coming weeks to screen a film of his choosing -- stay tuned. This weekend we'll be offering another rich assortment of films with some very special guests, including the NY premiere of a new documentary Black Notebooks: Ronit from actor/director Shlomi Elkabetz. If you caught the remarkable Israeli mini-series Our Boys (still streaming on HBO Max) you may remember the...
Films this week 11/04 – 11/05/2022
Due to our (very) close proximity to the NYC Marathon's finish line, New Plaza Cinema at Macaulay Honors College will be closed on Sunday, November 6. But our reprise screenings this weekend of the inspiring documentary Four Winters will feature a pair of special guests -- On Friday November 4th filmmaker Julia Mintz will be joined for an after-film discussion with Eva Haller, a Hungarian-American philanthropist, Holocaust survivor and activist. And on Saturday November 5th, Julia will welcome actor/screenwriter Michael Imperioli (The Sopranos, GoodFellas, Summer of Sam) for another discussion of her documentary and its indelible subjects. The Good House with Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Kline will also screen again on Saturday...
Films this week 10/29 – 10/30/2022
Last weekend's surging attendance at New Plaza Cinema's Macaulay Honors College screening room was very encouraging — a trio of enthusiastic Q&As after screenings of The Automat and Four Winters, with both documentaries' directors continuing post-show conversations in the hallway and on our ground floor, has us very excited for the upcoming holiday moviegoing and awards season. This weekend we'll be closed on Friday due to some previously scheduled student Halloween events, but on a full Saturday-Sunday schedule with reprise screenings of The Automat, Four Winters, and The Good House, with its award-worthy Sigourney Weaver performance. Please consult newplazacinema.org for possible late-breaking Q&As at each of...
Have a question or comment for Gary?
You can reach him at films@newplazacinema.org