Films 6/09 – 6/12/2022
by Gary Palmucci | 9th June 2022 | Gary's Corner
This weekend’s New Plaza Cinema at West End Theatre program features a special event we’ve been “teasing” for some time now in our pre-show announcements: A pair of back-to-back, separate admission screenings of the 1961 and 2021 adaptations of West Side Story.
This is a unique opportunity to experience — for the first or umpteenth time — Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’ groundbreaking adaptation of the legendary Broadway smash, winner of ten Oscars including Best Picture. And, to catch up with (or perhaps re-evaluate) Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner’s kinetic update with its own Oscar winner, supporting actress Ariana DeBose. Our theatre’s 10 x 22 foot screen and five stereo speakers will be shown off in all their enveloping glory on Saturday and Sunday afternoon, and we’ll reverse the screening order on each day, for those who’d like to compare…
On a completely different “note,” the documentary Fanny: The Right to Rock chronicles the seminal early 70s all-girl rock ensemble Fanny, several of whose original members recently reunited for a new album and who both perform and reminisce with — as the NY Times’ reviewer noted, “the humor and ease of women who have survived a lifetime of setbacks and strife.”
A very different but also luminous female artistry is on display in Petite Maman, that of French filmmaker Celine Sciamma whose Portrait of a Lady on Fire wowed us back in early 2020. In this modern day once-upon-a-time tale, the meeting of two young girls in a rural enclave becomes for each, a transformative event. In her NY Times “Critic’s Pick” review, Manohla Dargis rhapsodizes,
“…it is a story about family ties, childhood reveries and unanswerable questions. It’s also a story about finding someone who, like the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle — the piece you knew existed but just needed you to find it — completes the picture. Put differently, it is a story about love.”
Petite Maman has been beguiling audiences around the city this spring. Now it’s New Plaza viewers’ turn.
Continuing this weekend: The Duke, the Iranian Hit the Road, Jazz Fest, The Last Laugh, and of course The Automat, with another Q&A from our voluble dear friend and neighbor, director Lisa Hurwitz.
And coming next week — Robert Eggers’ The Northman, another courageous Iranian drama, A Man of Integrity, and a modern classic from Turkish master, Nuri Bilge Ceylan.
Gary Palmucci, Film Curator
New Plaza Cinema