Lincoln Plaza Cinemas

Gerald A. DeLuca on August 9, 2004 at 8:25 am

Yes, I too was surprised this wasn’t listed, and so I listed it. It is one of New York’s most ESSENTIAL cinemas for informed and caring film-goers…along with Film Forum and the Walter Reade Theatre, and a few others. I too have seen many great programs here, and I am not from New York, but I have been to the place many times indeed in the last quarter-century. How about Gianni Amelio’s “Stolen Children,” and “Lamerica” for starters? The revivals of Satyajit Ray’s masterpieces in pristine new prints were highlights. Seeing “Pather Panchali” again here in that series was an overwhelming experience.

Many worthwhile films play here besides those that have great popular appeal even among foreign and independent film buffs. The shattering Iranian “A Time for Drunken Horses” is one such movie. In the late 1980s the Taviani Brothers' “Kaos” opened on two screens but didn’t draw the audiences to support that decision. Yet it remains a masterpiece of the modern Italian cinema.

In the initial weeks of Michael Moore’s acclaimed “Fahrenheit 9/11” it was almost impossible to get near the theatre, depite the fact that the movie was playing on at least three of the screens.

Most of the foreign films that open here play for the first time in the United States, are reviewed, and go on to other cities. Its performance at the Lincoln Plaza often determines a film’s success elsewhere.

A “cinema treasure” means to me not just an architectural wonder, glorious surroundings, or a huge screen. Sure, we all respond to those things and it anguishes us to see them perish, often through wanton destruction. But let it be known that a “cinema treasure” can be a small plain place like this that “merely” shows fantastic movies. There is nothing mere about the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas.