New Films 1/15/21

by Gary Palmucci | 15th January 2021 | Gary's Corner

Hello everyone. Our three new additions to this week’s Virtual Cinema lineup have achieved an unusual distinction — each one received a “Critic’s Pick” in today’s NY Times. Here’s our cinematic “hat trick”:

Some Kind of Heaven – Variety’s Dennis Harvey wrote from last year’s Sundance Film Festival, “Those nostalgic for the fond portraits of eccentric Americana in Errol Morris’ early work — and pretty much everyone else — will be delighted…. a peek at life in The Villages, an increasingly vast Central Florida retirement community where those who can afford it spend their twilight years ‘being on vacation every day.’ This highly entertaining documentary captures the near-surrealism of a prefab senior playground, while also finding some poignant human interest in focusing on a few personalities for whom the concept isn’t quite working.”

Acasa, My Home – In another Sundance 2020 documentary standout, a sprawling Romanian family living off the land in an abandoned reservoir on the outskirts of Bucharest finds their life, part pastoral, part anarchy, threatened by the government’s decision to turn the area into a protected nature park. The NY Times’ A.O. Scott reports “Acasa is full of ideas because it contains so much life. It’s both intimate and analytical, a sensitive portrait of real people undergoing enormous change and a meditation on what that change might mean.”

My Little Sister – This drama is Switzerland’s submission for Best International Film in this year’s Oscars. (Check out on Wikipedia their distinguished list over the past half century, including two winners.) The riveting German actress Nina Hoss, whom you may know from the films Barbara and Phoenix, and her recurring role on Homeland, stars as a bereft Berlin playwright drawn turbulently closer to her terminally ill, thespian twin brother. Marthe Keller co-stars in a spikily unsentimental portrait that the NYT’s Jeanette Catsoulis praised today for its “…discreet directing style that allows the actors to shine, (the film) offers neither false uplift nor dreary realism.”

Enjoy!

Gary Palmucci, Film Curator
New Plaza Cinema