Gary's Corner

Good news this week for both art house theatres and moviegoers - Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch opened last weekend to 'smash' box office in its first engagements around the country, including over $100,000 at just one theatre, the Angelika in downtown Manhattan.  It's a very hopeful sign that older specialized audiences are ready to come back to cinemas if the picture is 'right,'  and that Anderson, despite some mixed reviews,  remains the 'golden boy' of his generation of American movie makers. As there are no Virtual Cinema additions this week, it might be a good moment to highlight some of the 'heroes' of New Plaza Cinema' whose previous films played - sometimes to full houses - at our late, lamented NYIT cinema, and...

Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa (no relation to the great Akira) has over the past two decades built a body of work- gradually becoming better known in the US-  to rival that of his Japanese contemporary Hirokazu Kore-eda, whose Shoplifters is a New Plaza favorite. Kurosawa latest, Wife of a Spy is this week’s addition to our Virtual Cinema lineup.  Set in 1940 Japan, as the nation’s military aspirations were on the verge of explosive expansion, this tale of a wife gradually drawn into her spouse’s investigation of Japanese atrocities in Manchuria and elsewhere manages to strike a unique balance between wartime suspense and a transformative love story. In his recent Critic’s Pick review, the NY Times’ Glenn Kenny writes: “Wife of a...

We're very happy to add to this week's Virtual Cinema lineup the documentary In Balanchine's Classroom,  direct from its downtown cinema premiere engagement.   The legendary Russian choreographer who arrived in America in 1933 (via Paris' Ballets Russes) taught and provided lifelong inspiration to thousands of dancers, some of whom are interviewed here by filmmaker Connie Hochman, herself once a student at his School of American Ballet. As one interviewee explains, "When Balanchine came to America there was no real ballet training...he not only started a company,  he changed the whole look of ballet.” A NY Times Critic's Pick review last month proclaimed,  "In mathematics, there was Newton;  in psychology, Freud; and in...

We're keeping our current selection of Virtual Cinema intact for one final week; next Friday an acclaimed documentary set in the dance world will be joining the lineup, and possibly others.    Meanwhile, this weekend many eyes will be focused on whether James Bond can again save the world - perhaps this time, also the 'world' of movie theatres - as the 25th 007 installment No Time To Die opens nationwide.   Its big UK opening and advance ticket sales here point to Daniel Craig's swan song doing very well and continuing the gradual arc of commercial cinema returning to pre-pandemic levels.  But a cloud continues to hang over our little corner of the movie universe, not helped by comments like this one in the leading trade...

We’re continuing our current lineup of Virtual Cinema for one more week, with some new titles due later this month. ‘The Sopranos’ prequel film The Many Saints of Newark finally arrives in theatres this weekend - though few in my ‘hood seem to be playing it, perhaps due to its simultaneous availability on HBO Max. Reviews are mixed (Indiewire described it in part as “‘Sopranos’ fan service” and the NY Times’ Manohla Dargis was wholly unsympathetic); the track record of feature films that try to emulate successful TV shows is spotty at best. But another recent NYT article about the series’ newfound popularity among younger viewers reminded me how seldom I’m able to resist, whenever I’m trolling YouTube, sampling a vintage...

We're continuing for another week with our current Virtual Cinema lineup of seven features and documentaries from around the world.  Meanwhile, an annual ritual of the New York film world kicks off tonight - the 59th New York Film Festival, returning to cinemas on the Upper West Side and around the city after last year's nearly all-virtual edition. The opening night screening is The Tragedy of Macbeth adapted and directed by Joel Coen - sans his longtime writing-directing partner and brother, Ethan - and starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand. Over three decades ago I attended the 1990 opening night screening of the Coen brothers' Miller's Crossing - the dark (and darkly funny) gangster opus that I think still holds...

Tuesday night outside the Richard Rodgers Theatre, celebrating the return of 'Hamilton' -- along with 'Lion King' and 'Wicked' -- to Broadway after an 18-month absence. The theatres were once again packed, as was another Broadway show I attended last month. The joy and electricity is palpable. The recent documentary On Broadway serendipitously joins our Virtual Cinema lineup this week following its downtown theatrical premiere. In a NY Times 'Critic's Pick' reviewer Maya Phillips enthused, " 'On Broadway' sure knows how to work a theater-lover's heart...[and] provides a fascinating textbook chronology.... The story of these theatres' resilience and resurrection throughout the pandemic is already there in this film's account of...

Hello everyone. Every shot in the trailer for the Romanian crime melodrama Dogs — this week’s addition to our Virtual Cinema lineup (see below) — suggests a young filmmaker with a gifted compositional ‘eye.’ Veteran Variety critic Peter Debruge writes, “An austere, yet technically accomplished cross between the Coen brothers’ ‘Blood Simple’ and Cannes sensation ‘Once Upon a Time in Anatolia’ — one that Romanian cinema devotees might call ‘Police, Noun’ — Mirică’s debut feature belongs to a tradition of cynical, almost nihilistic crime thrillers in which a relatively petty motive can leave dozens lying in pools of their own blood. Though we experience the film through the eyes of a naïve outsider, Roman (Dragoș Bucur), who...

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...