Outdoor movies are back at the newly saved Elizabeth Street Garden beginning tomorrow
Following a years-long tug-of-war between developers, city officials and a fiercely loyal fan base (including names like De Niro and Patti Smith), the beloved Nolita green space has officially been spared from redevelopment. The city pulled plans for a senior housing complex on the site, opting instead for alternate affordable housing sites across Lower Manhattan. That means one thing: The garden lives on and it's ready to roll film.
Beginning Wednesday, July 9, free outdoor movies will once again light up the sculpture-filled sanctuary at 8 p.m. sharp, with blankets, popcorn and street-style charm highly encouraged. And no, there's no ticketing system—it's first come, first spread-out.
This summer's lineup blends whimsy, classics, and cult hits, starting with The Secret World of Arrietty and wrapping August 20 with Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums. Other gems include John Waters' Hairspray (1988), the noir staple Laura (1944) and of course, Dazed and Confused, which kicked things off on June 25. (If you missed that one, well, alright alright alright.)
But that's not all ESG has up its sleeve. Movie nights are part of a broader slate of free programming designed to turn midweek slumps and sleepy Sundays into moments of downtown magic. Saturday morning yoga, Sunday tai chi and literary-leaning poetry hours with McNally Jackson staff are also on the calendar, proving the garden is as much a cultural venue as a leafy escape.
For longtime fans, this summer feels extra sweet. The 20,000-square-foot lot has roots stretching back nearly 200 years, first as a public school, then evolving into a rare patch of tranquility in a city where open space is a luxury. With just 0.07 acres of green space per 1,000 residents in Soho and Little Italy, preserving the garden was about survival just as much as it was about statues and sunflowers.
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Daily Record
a day ago
- Daily Record
Bring Her Back isn't outright scary, it's a painful slow burn
Horror fans in the UK have had a long wait for the Philippou brothers' latest film UK horror enthusiasts have been eagerly awaiting the release of the Philippou brothers' latest cinematic offering. The directorial duo first made their mark with 2023's Talk To Me, a film that successfully translated the high-energy production style of their wildly popular RackaRacka YouTube channel to the big screen. It was a match made in heaven. Talk To Me was snappy, ultra-violent and absolutely terrifying, and widely considered one of the best modern horror films out there. Naturally, expectations were set high for their newest film Bring Her Back, which premiered in UK cinemas today (July 26). Despite being written concurrently with their debut film and set within the same grim universe, this film takes a very different approach. While Talk To Me delivered smart, large-scale scares and eerie moments that had viewers clutching their light switches at night, Bring Her Back left what its predecessor did best at the front door and instead mastered something else: creeping dread. Without revealing too much, the plot centres around partially-sighted young girl Piper (Sora Wong) and her brother Andy (Billy Barratt), who are placed into foster care following their father's death, reports the Daily Star. Their foster mother Laura (Sally Hawkins) is fun, cool and slightly eccentric. She also keeps her other child Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips) confined to a room and has drawn a large white circle around her entire property which she regularly maintains. There's no prizes for guessing that something is amiss with Laura, and the situation at home begins to unravel rather dramatically, all unfolding with impeccable pacing. It never lags or feels sluggish; instead, it engulfs you completely until you suddenly realise your bum has gone numb in the cinema seat and the snacks are all gone. For me, it didn't deliver the same impact as Talk To Me, but that was never its intention. Bring Her Back isn't a sequel (we're still eagerly awaiting that), but a film that prioritises adolescent struggles, betrayal and family drama over outright terror. Oh, and some truly disgusting lingering visuals too. Let's be clear, Bring Her Back is a horror film, but primarily it's a film about grief and the monsters it can unleash within us. Holding a mirror up at the audience is an effective tool, even more so when it reflects our darkest parts.
Metro
2 days ago
- Metro
I physically recoiled at acclaimed horror's most stomach-churning scene
Disturbing new film Bring Her Back contains one of the most intensely grotesque and terrifying scenes I've ever seen – one that made me physically recoil – but the movie is more than just harrowing thrills. This A24 supernatural horror has had UK fans patiently waiting nearly two months longer than our US and Australian counterparts to witness its grisliness, which reportedly left some fainting in cinemas. Not only are there several truly hideous scenes in the movie, built up to by its looming sense of foreboding, but it leaps straight in with grainy footage from a cult showing people being tortured and hanged. I've now warned you what kind of film it's going to be from the very beginning, but this second feature from Australian sibling filmmakers Danny and Michael Philippou (Talk to Me) goes beyond simply wince-inducing. It's also a poignant tale about the devastation of grief and boasts two-time Oscar-nominee Sally Hawkins as its stunningly effective secret weapon. Not that anyone would expect anything less than excellence from Hawkins at this stage, but she triumphs here as an exquisitely off-balance and creepy presence, elevating the distressing – if sometimes slightly thin – material. Bring Her Back opens with the trauma of step-siblings Andy (Billy Barratt) and Piper (Sora Wong) finding their father dead in the shower, which leads them to be placed in the care of eccentric former counsellor Laura (Hawkins). To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Laura is cheerful to an almost manic degree, welcoming the pair into her cluttered home up in the hills, where she's also fostering a young mute boy, Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips). Immediately smitten with Piper, who reminds her of her late daughter Cathy (Mischa Heywood) – who was blind and tragically drowned in the home's swimming pool – Laura is surprisingly brusque with the troubled Oliver as well as Andy, who she immediately begins to undermine with unnerving behaviour. This is all managed with icky cheeriness from Hawkins as Laura, who expertly masks her character's subtly nefarious motives with Laura's kooky disposition and professional experience handling displaced kids. But she's not the scariest presence in the film: that honour belongs to Phillips' deeply troubled Oliver, who eats flies, bangs on windows – and much worse. It's him at the centre of Bring Her Back's most stomach-churning scenes, including the worst, which may well have you gagging or at least groaning in disgust and fright as the audience in my screening did. I won't spoil the exact nature of what it entails (unless you want to know, then click here), but suffice it to say it's good old-fashioned body horror and a classic fear realised that many have nightmares about – and that's without the genuinely distressing cracking and splintering sound effects that accompany the blood onscreen. I'll never forget it. The movie's sound design by Emma Bortignon is particularly impressive, thunderous in parts and quietly foreboding in others, constantly ratcheting up the unease. It also pairs well with Cornel Wilczek's score – sometimes jangling and disorienting – to emphasise the audio overwhelm someone with compromised vision like Piper can experience. Director: Danny and Michael Philippou Writer: Danny Philippou and Bill Hinzman Cast: Sally Hawkins, Billy Barratt, Sora Wong, Jonah Wren Phillips, Sally-Anne Upton, Stephen Phillips, Mischa Heywood Age rating: 18 Runtime: 1hr 44 Release date: July 26, 2025 Bring Her Back's performances all around are knock-out, from Hawkins and Phillips providing the fear factor to Barratt and newcomer Wong giving the film its heart. But although it pushes further into depraved places than I expected and enjoys a fair amount of impact from that alone, the beats of the story can be a little slow and overly simplified; this goes as far as the film's title itself. As can be the case with horror movies, the revelations end up paling a little in comparison with the thrills of the journey to get there. You can guess what's behind the locked door of the shed, and the basis of the film's set-up is a little rushed and unsubstantiated, which left me feeling slightly deflated. 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3 days ago
- Daily Mirror
Autumn clothing sales have started– Mirror's shopping team finds on-sale buys from coats to boots
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