[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ specialty=”on” admin_label=”Post Layout” _builder_version=”4.16″ collapsed=”off” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”3_4″ specialty_columns=”3″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_row_inner _builder_version=”4.16″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” locked=”off” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column_inner saved_specialty_column_type=”3_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Gary’s Corner original text 5\/11 \u2013 5\/13\/2023″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ link_text_color=”#0c71c3″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” transform_scale_linked=”off” transform_translate_linked=”off” hover_enabled=”0″ locked=”off” global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n
Two additions to this weekend’s New<\/span> Plaza<\/span> Cinema<\/span> program (we’ll be closed on Friday for a special CUNY event) are “Critic’s Picks”\u00a0from the estimable Manohla Dargis, currently the NY Times’<\/em> sole Chief Film Critic while the search for A.O. Scott’s replacement continues.<\/p>\n Based on an acclaimed 2016 Italian novel by Paolo Cognetti, The Eight Mountains<\/em><\/strong> chronicles the decades-long friendship of\u00a0two\u00a0young men who first meet when one’s parents, as Dargis writes, “rent an apartment in the Aosta Valley, a shockingly beautiful\u00a0swathe of the Italian Alps that borders both France and Switzerland…you are immediately plunged into the region’s splendors and mysteries, its densely sheltering foliage, enigmatically abandoned corners and dramatic, seemingly limitless vistas.”<\/p>\n For both boys, their friendship proves a soul-sustaining connection…the Belgian writer-directors Felix van Groeningen (Oscar-nominated The Broken Circle Breakdown<\/em><\/strong>) and Charlotte Vandermeersch keep the characters — and the movie<\/span>– immersed in beauty as the children grow up, drift apart and reunite as adults.”<\/p>\n French director Rebecca Zlotowski’s\u00a0recent\u00a0feature An Easy Girl <\/em><\/strong>has been a Netflix staple for several years.\u00a0Her new<\/span> film Other People’s Children<\/em><\/strong> follows Rachel, a confident Parisian teacher whose ease with work, family and openness to new<\/span> love affairs seem to give her life an almost-fairy tale dimension.<\/p>\n Although, as Manohla notes, “Zlotowski makes it\u00a0clear that Rachel isn’t waiting for a man either to complete her or deliver her into a happily ever after,” she soon meets Ali (the magnetic Roschdy Zem).Their relationship quickly deepens, as does her rapport with his 4-year-old daughter, and the passage of time also mingles life’s inevitably rueful complexities, seen with the filmmaker’s unsentimental clarity.<\/p>\n Bernardo Bertolucci’s masterful The Conformist <\/strong><\/em>has long been a New<\/span> Plaza<\/span> Cinema<\/span> staple — at benefit screenings, on our Classic Film Talk Back…we couldn’t resist adding a recent 4K picture and sound upgrade to our schedule, with a bit of “added value”: Max Alvarez has prepped a 12-minute interview with cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, adapted from his 2022 Zoom visit with Max, Dan Cahill and I, to introduce Sunday’s showing.<\/p>\n Later that afternoon we’ll be presenting the local theatrical premiere of a US-Israeli indie drama, You Will Not Play Wagner<\/strong><\/em>, based on a play by the late Victor Gordon and set in NY, Lenox MA, and Tel Aviv, about the struggle to reconcile\u00a0a young musical prodigy’s desire to conduct a Wagner piece for his “final presentation,”\u00a0in Israel, no less.<\/p>\n