Gary's Corner
Films this week 10/10/2025 to 10/16/2025
Gary’s Corner
by Gary Palmucci | 10th October 2025 | Gary's Corner
There will be a lot of ‘special activity’ around New Plaza Cinema’s screening schedule over the next three weekends, including shows on this Monday’s holiday, extra ones on the next three Thursday evenings, and theatre closings, for student events on October 17 and 24-25. Let’s get into it.
This weekend’s major addition – fresh from its boffo downtown premiere at IFC Center – is a new documentary from Haitian-born filmmaker Raoul Peck, Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5. In her Critic’s Pick review, the NY Times’ Manohla Dargis rhapsodizes on this
“…essayistic documentary from Raoul Peck that surveys its title subject’s life and work, using them as a lens to explore authoritarian power in the past and the present. Densely packed, the movie is a whirlwind of ideas and images, by turns heady, enlivening, disturbing and near-exhausting. It’s a work of visceral urgency from Peck, who’s best known for his 2017 documentary I Am Not Your Negro, about James Baldwin.”
Peck, whose other documentaries include portraits of such heroic figures as Patrice Lumumba and Ernest Cole, often takes an idiosyncratic approach to his subjects. As Dargis writes,
“Although Peck folds in many other details and milestones, the director isn’t solely interested in the usual biographical basics. Peck is undeniably intrigued by Orwell the man, but always in relation to the world that he harrowingly diagnosed.”
We needn’t belabor the point that both Orwell’s fiction and journalism are as prescient and timely as ever.
Orwell: 2 + 2 =5 will have four screenings over this holiday weekend.
My colleagues Max Alvarez and Dan Cahill will on Sunday host a screening of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1963 Contempt, the Nouvelle Vague master’s mesmerising, sunstruck potion of the pungent and the romantic. Its singular cast includes Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli, Jack Palance and legendary director Fritz Lang, with widescreen cinematography by the great Raoul Coutard.
Here at New Plaza Cinema we love to present classics shot in that “scope” format; in the past year we’ve presented – to name just a few- The Wild Bunch, Heaven’s Gate, East of Eden, The Hustler and High and Low. Great directors can use that expansive canvas to electrify both physical and emotional landscapes, and we’ll be presenting further vintage examples in the coming weeks.
Elsewhere on our program, these three films will have their ‘final screenings’ this weekend: Riefenstahl, The Blond Boy from the Casbah, and Monk in Pieces – the latter featuring a Q&A with director Billy Shebar and jazz artist Theo Bleckmann.
Holdovers include Roman Polanski’s An Officer and a Spy, Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire, and SHTTL, with three shows this weekend after its previous sell-outs, and its lead actor Moshe Lobel on hand for Q&A.
And, coming later this month:
- On Saturday, October 18 at 1215 pm, a special encore screening of Honoring Eric Bentley: A Centennial Tribute Concert, celebrating one of the most revered theatre critics, playwrights, editors and translators of the 20th century. Its producer, writer, and lead performer Karyn Levitt will join us for a Q&A along with CUNY professor Jerry Carlson and other special guests. On three consecutive Thursday evenings, October 16, 23 and 30, we’ll present screenings of several new releases (along with an abbreviated weekend schedule), which will include:
- Urchin – actor Harris Dickinson (Babygirl, Triangle of Sadness) makes a Cannes-acclaimed directorial debut with this hard-hitting UK drama
- Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost – direct from this year’s NY Film Festival, Ben Stiller’s very personal exploration of his family’s legacy
- Eleanor the Great – the beloved June Squibb, whose Thelma was a New Plaza hit, plays a ‘proudly troublesome’ starring role for debuting director Scarlett Johansson.
Films This Week 4/23/21
Hello everyone. It's Oscar weekend and we're continuing to headline our five nominated films: Another Round, Minari, The Father, Collective, and Aida, Quo Vadis? We've also added a French drama that, had there been a 2020 Cannes Film Festival, would've been in the Official Selection. In Slalom, a teenage ski prodigy must navigate the patriarchal world of this uber-competitve sport, including a predatory coach (Dardennes brothers' frequent leading man Jeremy Rennier). Indiewire critic David Ehrlich writes, "(Slalom) snaps across your face like a blast of cold mountain air...Shot with the kineticism of bodies in motion and the sensitivity of an early Celine Sciamma (Portrait of a Lady on Fire) film.” Some New Plaza members...
New Films 4/16/21
Hello everyone. With the 2021 Academy Awards ceremony just ten days away, we've managed to add two more nominees to this week's Virtual Cinema lineup. The Father showcases two Oscar winners -- Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman -- as a father and daughter struggling to deal with the parent's increasingly tenuous grip on reality and his daily circumstances. The film's six nominations include Best Picture, Director, Screenplay (helmer Florian Zeller co-adapting his own play, presented in 2016 on Broadway with Frank Langella) and nods for Hopkins and Colman. The NY Times' Jeannette Catsoulis wrote, "At once stupendously effective and profoundly upsetting...Zeller plays with perspective so cleverly that maintaining any kind of...
Films This Week 4/09/21
Hello everyone. We're continuing this week with our three Oscar nominees while still hoping to add one or two others next Friday as well as a few other venerable holdovers. Last Saturday night I headed back to another movie house after that rather unusual experience of seeing Tenet in 70mm in the cavernous (and near empty) Village East. This time it was Minari at the handsomely refurbished Nitehawk Cinema on Prospect Park West in, per one neighborhood wag, "the People's Republic of Park Slope." I had last been in this theatre some eighteen months ago, to see Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story flawlessly projected in 35mm. This time there appeared to be about 30 patrons in the roughly 300-seat house and a different vibe from...
Films This Week 4/02/31
Hello everyone. As we move forward into a second year of Virtual Cinema "exhibition" our highlights remain the trio of multiple Oscar nominees — Minari (our top ticket seller this past year), Another Round, and Collective. Also, this week will be the final one for M.C. Escher: Journey to Infinity from Zeitgeist Films. Regardless of the pace of progress, the full reopening of New York's arthouse cinemas ultimately takes, it's clear from the recent comments of two of our colleagues — friendly competitors — MOMA and Film at Lincoln Center, that a Virtual Cinema option will remain in place even when their screens are back at full capacity. We expect that New Plaza will follow a similar path, as well as keeping our increasingly...
Films This Week 3/26/21
Hello everyone. With our three multiple Oscar nominees, Minari, Another Round, and Collective, still attracting plenty of attention, we're adding one new documentary this week. Francesco is a portrait of Pope Francis and his seemingly non-stop recent travels to every troubled corner of the globe. Director Evgeny Afineevsky was a 2016 Oscar nominee for his Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom. While this is a more straightforward portrait of the current pontiff than the feature film The Two Popes or Wim Wenders' doc A Man of His Word, it contains at least one indisputably historic moment showing on screen for the first time Pope Francis' 2019 public endorsement of same-sex unions, as well as his relentless focus on other...
Films This Week 3/19/21
Hello everyone. This week's Oscar nominations announcement finds us with three "anointed" films on our virtual schedule, all multiple nominees. Minari surpassed nearly everyone's expectations with six nods, including best picture, director, actor, supporting actress, original screenplay and score. Collective from Romania matched the landmark feat of Honeyland (one of New Plaza's most popular "theatrical" films) scoring nominations in both the international film and documentary feature categories. And the Danish dark comedy Another Round scored the most unexpected nomination of all — best director for veteran Thomas Vinterberg as well as best international film. Many New Plaza viewers may recall Vinterberg's acclaimed 1998 The...
New Films 3/12/21
Hello everyone. We’re adding two new documentaries this week. In Still Life in Łódź, filmmaker Sławomir Grunberg (Emmy winner for his work on PBS’ P.O.V.) chronicles — via a mix of historical footage, animation and modern day reminiscence — how a single painting was a symbol of both the wrenching tragedy and subsequent regeneration of a Polish city that was a center of Jewish life for three decades. Please scroll down for a special event on Sunday, March 14 that is open to all ticket holders. Many viewers will recall the recent, charming Turkish doc Kedi about street cats in Istanbul...now that teeming city’s itinerant dogs have their day in Stray, a Critics’ Pick by the NY Times’ Jeannette Catsoulis: “As simple as its title...
New Films 3/05/21
Hello everyone. In response to Minari's Golden Globe win for "Best Foreign Language Film" and director Lee Isaac Chung's poignant acceptance speech, distributor A24 is giving us yet another chance to catch the movie this weekend, with multiple showtimes being offered Friday-Sunday. We're also adding two documentaries this week. In The People Vs. Agent Orange, filmmakers Alan Adelson and Kate Taverna make a compelling case for the tragic legacy, and ongoing use-and-abuse, of the notorious chemical introduced during the Vietnam War, and still haunting lives and landscapes across the globe. Coincidentally, Jane Fonda also made a rousing appearance on the Sunday night "Golden Globes." Distributor Kino Repertory and restoration...
New Films 02/26/21
Hello everyone. In response to popular demand, distributor A24 Films — a long time friend of New Plaza Cinema — has extended the run of Oscar contender Minari through this weekend. Here's a final chance to see this moving drama in a special engagement, part of whose proceeds will benefit New Plaza. As reported last week, today we're adding one more title from the Oscar short list, Denmark's Another Round starring Mads Mikkelsen, chosen in the "best international film" category. Director Thomas Vinterburg's films such as The Celebration and The Hunt have won major prizes at Cannes. In his latest, per the NY Times' reviewer "four Danish men, all schoolteachers, embark on a pseudoscientific quest: to see if drinking daily will...
Have a question or comment for Gary?
You can reach him at films@newplazacinema.org