Gary's Corner

Hello everyone. Our three new additions to this week's Virtual Cinema lineup have achieved an unusual distinction — each one received a "Critic's Pick" in today's NY Times. Here's our cinematic "hat trick": Some Kind of Heaven - Variety's Dennis Harvey wrote from last year's Sundance Film Festival, "Those nostalgic for the fond portraits of eccentric Americana in Errol Morris’ early work — and pretty much everyone else — will be delighted.... a peek at life in The Villages, an increasingly vast Central Florida retirement community where those who can afford it spend their twilight years 'being on vacation every day.' This highly entertaining documentary captures the near-surrealism of a prefab senior playground, while also...

Hello everyone. We're adding two new documentaries and one "reprise" to this week's Virtual Cinema lineup, as follows: The Reason I Jump - A Sundance 2020 Audience Award winner, from an acclaimed book by Naoki Higashida (written when the autistic, non-speaking boy was 13), transposes the youth's eloquent inner dialogue onto portraits of five autistic people on four continents. It is "...an effort to find a cinematic analogue...The portraits are moving and informative..." writes Ben Kenigsberg in the NY Times. Beautiful Something Left Behind - This 2020 South by Southwest Festival top prize winner portrays in poignant detail a New Jersey facility called Good Grief, specializing in treating very young children who've lost a...

Several decades ago the esteemed Italian director Marco Bellochio made a film titled “Salto nel Vuoto,” or “Leap Into the Void.” If the transition to 2021 after this incredible year feels to many of us like a similarly vertiginous leap, here at New Plaza Cinema we also feel fortunate that — with your invaluable enthusiasm and support — we've been able to at least figuratively “keep the lights on.” Even before the pandemic changed everything, our year had started calamitously when the beloved NYIT cinema was destroyed in a January flood. You, our loyal audience flocked to a benefit screening at Symphony Space, stirred by “Cinema Paradiso” and the late Ennio Morricone's soaring themes, and the Museum of Art and Design quickly...

Hello everyone. This week, we're adding three more documentaries to our lineup, including one "encore" that has been the subject of recent critical attention in the NY Times.  Some of our viewers have asked us, "Why so many documentaries and so few new feature films?"    The short answer is that it's a function of independent film distribution during this extraordinary time, with major market cinemas still mostly closed and many "A" titles being held back into early 2021 when a belated award season kicks into gear and more key theaters (might be) open. I will address this situation further in an upcoming Gary's Corner.   In the meantime, here are the films:  City Hall - An extraordinary front page article in the NYT this week...

Forty years ago last month… two ambitious American movies opened in New York that have made an indelible imprint on moviegoers around the world. We’re still thinking and sometimes arguing about them, they’re still being screened in revival theaters, tweaked and upgraded on digital formats. The films are Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull and Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate. I was there on the opening night of both films – two screenings I’ll never forget in an amazing week. Perhaps some of you were, too. Both films had been keenly anticipated all year by avid moviegoers due to their directors and casts, each had gone over schedule, over budget, and their final soundtracks and film prints completed only within a day or two of the...