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New Plaza Cinema is back on a full schedule this weekend. Our holdovers include Woody Allen’s Coup de Chance, Daniel Auteuil in Farewell Mr. Haffmann, James Norton in Nowhere Special, and Heaven Stood Still: The Incarnations of Willy DeVille, with director Larry Locke and special guests on hand for an after-discussion following Saturday’s 5 pm show — just a few tickets remain for that one.
Plus four new additions to the program:
- The Old Oak — In Ken Loach’s latest (and perhaps final) film, a mining village in socio-economic decline undergoes both turbulence and spasms of hope when a group of Syrian refugee families arrive, fleeing tragedies that make even the impoverished locals’ pale by comparison. In her Critic’s Pick NY Times review, Alissa Wilkinson wrote, “You’d know The Old Oak was directed by Ken Loach (from a screenplay by his long-running collaborator Paul Laverty) even if his name wasn’t in the credits. His late work is unmistakable, driven by fierce moral clarity and outrage on behalf of the people whom capitalism and Britain’s government, supposedly constructed for citizens’ benefit, have left behind.” My colleague (and Loach authority) Max Alvarez will join me for an after-screening discussion. Watch the trailer.
- Stay With Us — In this semi-autobiographical comedy, French-Jewish comedian Gad Elmaleh (featured in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris) returns to France after a period of success in America, announcing to his loving but overbearing parents that — after a long period of ambivalence towards his own Jewishness — he has officially decided to convert to Catholicism. Comic family chaos ensues and, eventually, heart-warming reconciliation. Check out the trailer online.
- Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg — As the mistress of both the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards and Brian Jones and “the model, actress and life force who embodied a certain image of ’60s freedom” per NY Times reviewer Ben Kenigsberg, Anita is the latest rockumentary subject from specialists Magnolia PIctures (Joan Baez, Brian Jones, The Wrecking Crew, et al). A rich array of interviews and archival footage paints a fresco of dissolution, family tragedies and ultimately, redemption, narrated by Scarlett Johansson from Anita’s unpublished memoir. See the trailer.
- Wicked LIttle Letters, a fabulous cast — Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Timothy Spall and Gemma Jones — gets caught up in a based-on-fact tale of a series of mysteriously obscene letters that start arriving in the English coastal town of LIttlehampton in 1920. Watch the trailer.
Several New Plaza Cinema patrons have inquired about Gus van Sant’s Milk, which we screened last weekend during CUNY’s LGBT festival. I found this film more moving — and relevant — than ever. We’ll be reprising it over the June 1-2 weekend to kick off Pride Month.
Over Memorial Day weekend we’ll feature personal appearances with these films:
- Veselka (director Michael Fiore)
- Kiss Me Kosher (star John Carroll Lynch)
- Make Me Famous (director Brian Vincent & producer Heather Spore)
And, to celebrate Orson Welles’ birthday this month, his masterful Chimes At Midnight next Sunday at 12:15 pm.
Advance tickets are on sale for all four, and our social media team will be buzzing… Check us out on Facebook, X/Twitter, and Instagram!
Gary Palmucci, Film Curator
New Plaza Cinema
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