Gary's Corner

Gary’s Corner

by Gary Palmucci | 23rd May 2025 | Gary's Corner

About a year ago Brandt Johnson and Ellen Jovin, a husband and wife filmmaking team, walked into New Plaza Cinema to describe a project they’d been working on for several years that was nearing completion. It was called Rebel With a Clause, chronicling their journey around the U.S. – eventually covering all 50 states – speaking from a roadside ‘grammar table’ to a very diverse group of Americans about their feelings on proper punctuation, spelling, adjectives, adverbs, Oxford commas, subjective clauses…and that’s just a small sampling. The responses ranged from rhapsodic to rueful, frustrated to grateful, and always revelatory about everyday citizens’ fascination with this subject.

Eventually Brandt and Ellen brought the completed film to us to screen in hopes that we would premiere it – they live just a few blocks away. Any concerns I might’ve had as to whether the subject could sustain a 90-minute feature were put to rest after about a quarter-hour, and we immediately offered them a one-week, Memorial Day weekend engagement. Shortly after that, the NY Times reported on their very successful first preview screening at a downtown theatre (Insert NY Times article we used last week: HERE) and our audiences started asking us about ‘the grammar movie.’

We’ll be offering three or four daily shows from May 22-28; Brent and Ellen are scheduled to appear for Q&As at all shows except those on May 28. This movie has had the largest advance ticket sales of any to date at New Plaza Cinema – we advise you to plan accordingly, and order online.

Our other ‘special appearance’ screening this weekend will feature Dr. Deborah Geis, author of the new book ‘Culinary Cinema: Appetite, Narrative and Community in Contemporary Film.’ Per its publisher’s overview, her book “offers a new approach to the evolving genre of culinary films that center on the acts of eating and cooking…” Friday night we’ll be screening the beloved 1996 Big Night, featuring Stanley Tucci (who co-directed with Campbell Scott), Tony Shalhoub and New Plaza Cinema booster (and Conclave Oscar nominee) Isabella Rossellini. “The book focuses,” her publisher’s notes continue, “on tropes including the ‘big dinner’ as it connects to intercultural communities, the self-destructive perfection of the obsessive chef, and the craft of cooking in relation to aging and mortality.”

I have met Dr. Geis -a professor at DePauw University – several times over the years; she’s a witty and engaging speaker and, as I learned in our survey of the ‘food film’ genre to select Big Night, a true expert on the subject. Please note our early 4 pm start time, which will feature both an introduction and Q&A after the film.

Also interspersed with our screenings of Rebel With a Clause on May 24-27 will be some of our most popular current holdovers – the voluble documentaries Drop Dead City and Secret Mall Apartment, Italy’s 2024 Oscar submission Vermiglio and French auteur Francois Ozon’s When Fall is Coming.

Here’s a round up of some other New Plaza coming attractions :

• May 30 – Bad Shabbos -our premiere weekend of a raucous NYC Jewish family comedy featuring Kyra Sedgwick, David Paymer and Method Man, with special guests from the film at all shows.
• Our Sunday afternoon classics will return on June 8 and 22 – this month’s motif: 1950s icons James Dean (East of Eden) and Montgomery Clift (A Place in the Sun).
• June 14 – a second encore of Woody Allen’s Bananas hosted by its co-star Louise Lasser, along with the 2018 short film Did You Know My Husband?, written by Susan Charlotte and directed by Antony Marsellis
• June 22 – Make Me Famous – the downtown ’80s art scene doc celebrates the second year of its New Plaza Cinema residency, with some special guests.
• June 27 – A Photographic Memory – An intimate, genre bending portrait of the late journalist/photographer Sheila Turner Seed, constructed by her daughter Rachel, and hailed by the NYT’s Alissa Wilkinson as “Reaching far beyond personal narrative, blooming into a moving meditation on memory, interpretation and the nature of photography itself.” Filmmaker will be present.

Gary Palmucci
Film Curator