Films 5/05 – 5/08/22
by Gary Palmucci | 5th May 2022 | Gary's Corner
This weekend at New Plaza Cinema @ the West End Theatre we’re adding Kenneth Branagh’s Oscar winning Belfast (Best Original Screenplay) to our ongoing runs of The Automat, Drive My Car and The Wobblies, as well as three new releases and a 1960s British reissue.
Anaïs in Love – I strongly recommend perusing in the NY Times Manohla Dargis’ heartfelt tribute to this French romance with a first-rate cast. Its young title character — a contrarian in both her emotions and life choices — falls into an affair with a publisher, then in love with his charismatic wife, an author (the radiant Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi). Dargis notes, “Anaïs is, in other words, a 21st century human being who, in finding herself on her own stubborn, singular, unquiet terms, has ditched the usual script about men, women, pleasure and desire…”
The Tale of King Crab – In another NYT-endorsed curio from two young Italian filmmakers, a late 19th century scion of a well-to-do family is exiled to a remote South American coast and picaresque adventures, as critic Glenn Kenny writes, “…aided, perhaps improbably to some, by – yes – a king crab. (There are) echoes of the best work of Werner Herzog…movie makers worth keeping an eye on.”
Fiddler’s Journey to the Big Screen – The recent 50th anniversary of the movie version of Fiddler on the Roof is both gleefully and reverently recounted by its self-described “goy” director Norman Jewison, and a host of cast and music department members .
Bronco Bullfrog – In a recent special NY Times article, critic and film historian J. Hoberman hailed this “belated example of British ‘kitchen sink’ realism that arrived in 1969 before the wave of disaffected youth films by Mike Leigh and Alan Parker….A cast of non-actors recruited from the streets of London’s depressed East End enact a story that might have been their own.” It was originally released in the US a few months after Fiddler on the Roof by New Yorker Films, the distribution arm of Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, whose eclectic mix of international cinema New Plaza Cinema seeks to emulate, and celebrate.
COMING NEXT WEEK – A special screening of Al Pacino’s first starring role, the classic Panic in Needle Park, hosted by NYT film critic Jason Bailey, as well as two recent Jewish-themed documentary features: Irmi and Jonathan Agassi Saved My Life, the latter about an Israeli global porn star…
Gary Palmucci, FIlm Curator
New Plaza Cinema