Author: Amy Diaz

Amy Diaz is the executive editor and writes about movies and compiles the Kiddie Pool column. Reach her at adiaz@hippopress.com.

Kiddie Pool 22/04/21

Family fun for the weekend

For the littles

• The Nashua Public Library and the Greater Nashua Smart Start Coalition are holding an Early Childhood Fair on Saturday, April 23, from 10 a.m. to noon, at Greeley Park on Concord Street in Nashua. The day will include a performance by children’s musician Mr. Aaron, storytelling by Uncle Bobby, storytimes with Nashua area libraries and representatives from local agencies with resources for kids (such as Beaver Brook Association, NH Hunger Solutions, Constellations Behavioral Health Services, area libraries, Little Pilgrim School, UNH Cooperative Extension: Nutrition Connections and more), according to a press release. Contact the library at 603-589-4631 or kids@nashualibrary.org for more information.

A week of storytimes

• Bookery Manchester (844 Elm St. in downtown Manchester; bookerymht.com) has multiple storytimes in the upcoming week, starting with a reading of Lobstah Gahden: Speaking Out Against Pollution with a Wicked Awesome Boston Accent! by Alli Brydon and illustrated by EG Keller on Saturday, April 23, at 11:30 a.m. This special Earth Day storytime will also include a recycled water bottle lobster craft. On Monday, April 25, at 10 a.m. the book will be Just Be Jelly and the craft will be a jellyfish. On Wednesday, April 27, the 10 a.m. storytime will feature Eddy the Manchester Police Department’s comfort pony. On Thursday, April 28, at 10 a.m., the story will be Ada and the Galaxies and the craft will be a galaxy jar. On Friday, April 29, at 10 a.m. the storytime will focus on Ralph Baer, the Manchester-based father of video games. And be sure to save the date for Saturday, April 30, which is Independent Bookstore Day.

See the show

• As of April 18, tickets are still available to Peppa Pig’s Adventure, a live show based on the popular cartoon, at the Capitol Center for the Arts (44 S. Main St. in Concord; ccanh.com) on Friday, April 22, at 6 p.m. Doors open at 5 p.m. Tickets cost $39 through $59; a $50 VIP add-on gets you a post-show photo experience.

And speaking of beloved characters: Dog Man: The Musical, based on the comics of George and Harold (in the books by Dav Pilkey), a live musical about the titular hero, will come to the Cap Center on Saturday, May 14, with shows at 1 and 3 p.m. Tickets cost $15 per person or you can get a family four-pack for $50.

Museum outing

Looking for an activity during April vacation? Here are the operating hours of area museums.

• The Currier Museum of Art (150 Ash St. in Manchester; currier.org) is open Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Fridays through Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. On Thursdays from 5 to 8 p.m., admission is free as part of the Art After Work programming, when the museum features live music, tours and more (Kevin Horan is slated to perform on Thursday, April 21, and Old Tom and the Lookouts is scheduled for April 28). Otherwise, admission costs $15 for adults, $13 for 65+, $10 for students and $5 for ages 13 to 17 (children under 13 get in free).

• The Aviation Museum of New Hampshire (27 Navigator Road in Londonderry; aviationmuseumofnh.org) is regularly open Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m. For vacation week, the museum will also be open Thursday, April 28, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission costs $10 for 13 and over and $5 for 65+, children ages 6 to 12 and active military and veterans. Children 5 and under get in free and the family maximum is $30.

• The Children’s Museum of New Hampshire (2 Washington St. in Dover; childrens-museum.org, 742-2002) is open Tuesdays through Sundays, with sessions from 9 a.m. to noon all six days as well as from 1 to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays. Admission costs $11 per person, $9 for 65+ (no charge for children under 1). (The museum has mask-required and mask-optional sessions; see the website for details.)

The museum will celebrate Earth Day — Friday, April 22 — with special craft activities, a scavenger hunt, a Science Friday project to make a mini window greenhouse (at 10 a.m. or 2 p.m.), a project to plant a flower to take home (at 11 a.m. or 3 p.m.) and more.

And little makers may want to save the date now for a Fairy House and Gnome Home Spring Celebration in May. On Saturday, May 7, learn to make a fairy house at a child and adult workshop (the cost is $20 for one pair plus $5 per additional child). On Friday, May 13, bring a homemade fairy house or gnome home to drop off at the museum (or attend the museum to make one there) and then have them added to a display of fairy houses and gnome homes in Henry Law Park and the museum Play Patio. Kids can make houses on-site throughout the weekend, when the museum will host special performances and activities.

• Though normally closed on Mondays, the SEE Science Center (200 Bedford St. in Manchester; see-sciencecenter.org, 669-0400) will be open Monday, April 25, as well as Tuesdays through Fridays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Purchase reservations in advance via the website (masks are required for all visitors age 2 and up); admission costs $10 per person ages 3 and up.

• The McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center (2 Institute Drive in Concord; starhop.com, 271-7827) is open daily through Sunday, May 1, from 10:30 a.m. through 4 p.m. There will be four planetarium shows daily, according to the website, which recommends purchasing timed tickets in advance. Admission costs $11.50 for adults, $10.50 for students and seniors and $8.50 for kids ages 3 to 12 (admission is free for children 2 and under; masks required for visitors over the age of 2). Planetarium show tickets cost $5 per person (free for children 2 and under); see the website for the schedule of planetarium shows and for the mask requirements by day.

Ambulance (R)

Ambulance (R)

Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Bay slo-mo star in Ambulance, a two-hour-and-16-minute version of, like, a 9-1-1 episode.

Or 9-1-1: Lone Star. Or Station 19, which I’ve seen about 12 minutes of but I feel like I pretty much get the show — pretty people do rescues and somebody wears their hair down in a situation during which any normal lady would have secured her hair in at least a ponytail but probably a bun.

Which is to say, even though her very minimalist use of a hair claw clip is a plot point, I couldn’t help spending a lot of this movie thinking about how Los Angeles EMT Cam (Eiza González) really needed someone to give her two scrunchies and a handful of bobby pins if she’s going to be expected to get stuff done.

This movie spends unnecessary time setting up the backstories of Cam and her new partner Scott (Colin Woodell), young police officers Zach (Jackson White) and Mark (Cedric Sanders), police bank robbery division head Captain Monroe (Garret Dillahunt) and FBI bank robbery head Anson Clark (Keir O’Donnell). We see everyone mull around their day before they get to the figurative fireworks factory that is the bank robbery that sets off the action in this movie.

Brothers Will (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal) Sharp have a loving but friction-y relationship due to their upbringing and the father who drew them into a life of crime. Will got out, became a decorated Marine and has a wife and a young child. Danny is still engaged in shadiness, though he constantly claims he’s not like their violent father and robbing banks is his job, which he performs with professionalism and without hurting people.

Will’s wife, Amy (Moses Ingram), would like Will to have nothing to do with Danny but she’s also fighting an aggressive cancer and her only hope is a treatment that their insurance won’t cover. Will goes to Danny to ask for a loan to pay for the surgery but instead finds himself at that moment told to suit up to participate in a bank robbery. He reluctantly goes along with what is supposed to be a sure thing, all-set-up robbery with a huge payday.

Naturally, stuff goes wrong.

Zach, who showed up at the bank mainly to flirt with one of the tellers, is taken hostage. The truck meant to transport Danny’s crew post-robbery gets stuck near Mark, who then realizes what’s happened in the bank. The situation quickly becomes a shoot-out, with Mark joined in firing at the robbers by other police officers under the command of Captain Monroe who had been watching the bank and didn’t intervene at first because they wanted to catch the robbers after they left.

Eventually, Danny’s men are struck down, their means of escape is blocked and he and Will are stuck in a parking garage. They decide their only way out is to hijack the ambulance that’s come to rescue Zach, whom Will accidentally shot during a scuffle between Zach and Danny.

Will, Danny, Cam and the severely wounded Zach manage to get away from the scene but are soon being chased across Los Angeles as Cam tries to save Zach and Will and Danny try to figure a way out of their situation.

This movie is at its best when it’s not setting up these characters’ personalities and backstories and just literally cutting to the ambulance chase, all intercut scenes of car crashes and Cam doing battlefield triage. It’s not good but it’s engaging and watchable, sort of in the way you can sometimes eat a fast food fried chicken sandwich and know that you’re eating something “not good,” not even all that tasty, but also still find it momentarily satisfying. The attempts by the movie to make us care about certain characters also feel strangely uneven because it’s Gyllenhaal who is giving the most compelling performance (kind of a good-natured sociopath whom I enjoyed watching even if I didn’t really for a minute care about him) while Cam and Will are the people the movie wants us to empathize with. I found myself character-wise most interested in random police lady Dzaghig (Olivia Stambouliah) and her banter with Monroe, a character who feels like he’s given too big a helping of personality before he’s sort of shrugged off in the movie’s final third.

Despite all of this and the at least 35 unnecessary minutes of padding that help to push this movie past the two-hour mark, Ambulance wasn’t a bad watch. It keeps you right there with the in-the-second action, it has some plot fun with its cops and robbers pursuit and it makes very little sense if you stop to think about any element of it but it all works well enough as you’re watching the chase go from freeway to side street to paved river bed that you feel entertained enough to continue the ride. B-

Rated R for intense violence, bloody images (like, seriously bloody, in-moving-vehicle surgery-type bloody) and language throughout, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Michael Bay with a screenplay by Chris Fedak (based on a movie called Ambulancen), Ambulance is two hours and 16 minutes long and distributed by Universal Studios.

Featured photo: Ambulance.

Kiddie Pool 22/04/14

Family fun for the weekend

Easter fun

• Charmingfare Farm (774 High St. in Candia; visitthefarm.com, 483-5623) will host its Egg-Citing Egg Hunt this Saturday, April 16. Sign up for a time between 10 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. for a hunt for a dozen chocolate-filled eggs, a horse-drawn or tractor ride, a visit to the barn decorated specially for Easter, a visit with the animals (including spring baby animals) and a visit with the Easter Bunny, according to the website. Tickets cost $22 per person.

• New England Vendor Events is holding an Easter Family Fun Day on Saturday, April 16, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the VFW at 15 Bockes Road in Hudson. Tickets cost $1 (plus fees) to reserve a spot for a specific egg hunt time. The event will also have music, food, vendors and more. See eventbrite.com/e/4th-annual-easter-family-fun-day-in-hudson-tickets-248074586767.

• The Saturday, April 16, storytime at the Bookery Manchester (844 Elm St. in downtown Manchester; bookerymht.com) will feature the bookThe Easter Egg by Jan Brett. After the story, kids can participate in a craft making paper Easter eggs with tape and wet chalk.

• The Hudson Mall will host an Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday, April 16, with egg hunt times at 10 a.m., 11 a.m. and noon.

• On Saturday, April 16, Our Promise to Nicholas Foundation will hold an indoor maze to an egg hunt and the Easter Bunny at the NH Sportsplex (68 Technology Dr. in Bedford; ourpromisetonicholas.com) from 8:30 a.m. to noon. Hop along a bunny trail to play games, do a bunny craft and more and then head to the egg hunt field at a specific “egg hunt time” and take photos with the Easter Bunny (as well as other mascots and characters), according to the website. Tickets cost $8 per person; family tickets are also available through Friday, April 15, at 6 p.m. Tickets at the door cost $10 per person.

Chicks!

Kids can make Chicken Clucker crafts at Goffstown Hardware (5 Depot St in Goffstown; goffstownhardware.com) on Saturday, April 16, from 10 a.m. to noon. The event is free.

Movies for all

• Chunky’s Cinema Pub (707 Huse Road, Manchester; 151 Coliseum Ave., Nashua; 150 Bridge St., Pelham, chunkys.com) will hold a sensory-friendly screening of Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (PG) on Friday, April 14, at 4 p.m. At sensory-friendly screenings, the volume is down, the lights are up and moving around is allowed, according to the website. Tickets cost $5.99.

Trout for kids

• The Basil W. Woods Jr. Chapter of Trout Unlimited will sponsor a Youth Fishing Day at Merrill Park on Eastman Street in Concord on Saturday, April 16, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is free and kids under 16 years old can fish in a stocked trout pond with tackle and bait provided. The event will include refreshments, fly casting instruction and fly tying demonstrations, according to a press release.

Save the date: for Peppa Pig

Peppa Pig’s Adventure, a live show based on the popular cartoon, will come to Capitol Center for the Arts (44 S. Main St. in Concord; ccanh.com) on Friday, April 22, at 6 p.m. Doors open at 5 p.m. Tickets cost $39 through $59; a $50 VIP add-on gets you a post-show photo experience.

Save the date: for mom

• The Educational Farm at Joppa Hill (174 Joppa Hill Road in Bedford; theeducationalfarm.org) is holding a Mom & Me Spring Hike on Saturday, May 7, with time slots at 9 a.m., 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. for a hike around the farm. The cost is $18 per family; go online to reserve a spot.

Save the date: for summer theater

Tickets are on sale now for the eight productions of the Children’s Summer Series at the Palace Theatre (80 Hanover St. in Manchester; palacetheatre.org, 668-5588) starting July 5 and running through Aug. 26. The series starts with the BJ Hickman Magic Show and wraps up with a presentation of Frozen Kids. The shows run Tuesdays though Fridays at 10 a.m. and Tuesdays through Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. The shows are younger audience-friendly. Tickets cost $10.

Morbius (PG-13)

Morbius (PG-13)

A genius scientist who is slowly dying from a genetic disorder accidentally turns himself into a vampire in the Marvel-comics-based Morbius, which feels like “what if Venom but thoroughly charmless.”

This is the Sony wing of the Marvel universe, not the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but, as end-credit scenes remind us, those universes are now in conversation with each other. Which is my way of saying stay for the end-credit scenes, I guess, if you’re into this enough to see it in a theater.

Renowned scientist Dr. Michael Morbius (Jared Leto) creates a serum from vampire bat DNA to combat a genetic disease that has left him and his lifelong best friend Lucien (Matt Smith), whom he affectionately calls Milo, weak, in constant pain and in daily need of blood transfusions. Using himself as a human trial, Michael does see physical improvements to his disease — suddenly becoming ripped seems to play a big part in gaining superpowers — but only after he has a little flip-out session where he drains the blood from all the crewmembers on the boat where he had been running his experiments. The only survivor from the boat is Michael’s longtime friend and professional partner Dr. Martine Bancroft (Adria Arjona).

Yes, she is a love interest; no, the characters don’t have any real chemistry. But then nobody really has any chemistry with anybody in this movie, so this isn’t just a case of another comic book movie not knowing how to do romance.

As the movie reassures us a couple of times, the guys on the boat were all jerky mercenary types, who cares about them. But then Good People start being exsanguinated and investigators, Agents Stroud (Tyrese Gibson) and Rodriguez (Al Madrigal), are on the hunt for Morbius, who is himself desperate to find out how to either reverse or control the more kill-y parts of his “cure.”

For Lucien, however, becoming a bloodthirsty vampire is a fair trade for getting abs and being able to walk without crutches. Since he has bankrolled Morbius’ experiments, he feels he’s owed some vampire juice and injects himself in spite of Morbius’ warnings because of course he does. Though Morbius doesn’t totally hate his new powers, he tends to think of his new state mostly as a curse that he is willing to die to lift. But he also realizes he is the only person who can control his old friend who plans to have way more “fun” with his superstrength and vampire qualities.

The movie also drags Jared Harris into this mess as an older mentor to both men, but kind of forgets to do anything useful with him. I feel like that approach to this one character sort of typifies the movie overall; this movie has the basics of its form (genius with a sad backstory, long simmer not-quite-romance, new Great Powers he has to learn to use with Great Responsibility, opponent who uses the same powers for the Wrong Reasons, etc.) but Morbius has absolutely no novelty or liveliness to it. This movie is filled with so much bat imagery and booming bass score you think you’re in some kind of knock-off Batman. But it isn’t actually dark, tonally, for as darkly lit as it is and how dark and moody it thinks it is. It also isn’t the bouncy MCU or the Deadpool-ish, er, Deadpool movies or the goofy but watchable mess that is Venom. It just flaps about, so much gasping cartoon fish on a dock — so, like, without even the pathos that would be involved if we believed it was a real live fish.

Leto in Emo Jesus cosplay is just not a compelling character, not as a villain, not as a hero/dark hero/anti-hero whatever he’s supposed to be. Matt Smith is never not distractingly goofy. Arjona’s Martine doesn’t really get more personality depth than “girl character.”

Much like with Venom, Morbius and its canon are beyond the fringes of my Marvel knowledge and so I went in with zero expectations. But somehow it was still a letdown. C- I guess, but I could probably be convinced into D territory….

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, some frightening images and brief strong language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Daniel Espinosa with a screenplay by Matt Sazama & Burk Sharpless, Morbius is an hour and 44 minutes long and distributed by Columbia.

Featured photo: Morbius.

Kiddie Pool 22/04/07

Family fun for the weekend

Easter events

• The Educational Farm at Joppa Hill (174 Joppa Hill Road in Bedford; theeducationalfarm.org) is holding an Easter egg hunt on Saturday, April 9, with open slots at 11 a.m., noon and 1 p.m., as of April 4. For $20 per child, each child can collect 20 eggs, visit farm animals and meet the Easter Bunny, according to the website, where you reserve a time slot.

• The Easter Bunny will drop 1,500 chocolate eggs from a helicopter in the field just outside the Aviation Museum of New Hampshire (27 Navigator Road in Londonderry; nhahs.org) on Saturday, April 9, at 11 a.m., according to a press release. After the candy is dropped and the helicopter clears the area, kids ages 12 and under will be able to pick up some treats, the release said. The Easter Bunny will then hang out at the museum until 1 p.m. to meet kids and pose for photos, the release said.

Participating families should arrive by 10:30 a.m. and children participating in the candy drop will be put in three groups: age 6 and under, ages 7 to 9 and ages 10 to 12, the release said.

The museum is open Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and admission costs $10 for adults, $5 for children ages 6 to 12 and for seniors and military; children ages 5 and under get in free.

• Or go hunting for Easter eggs at the YMCA of Londonderry (206 Rockingham Road in Londonderry) on Saturday, April 9. The YMCA and Beacon Church co-host the event featuring eggs hidden across the YMCA property with hunts slotted for 11 a.m., 11:30 a.m., noon and 12:30 p.m., according to a YMCA social media post. The event is first come, first served for each time slot and will offer off-site parking at Londonderry Park and Ride off Exit 5 with shuttle service to the event, the post said. The day will also feature a petting zoo, snacks, a craft and more. There will be a separate toddler zone for egg hunts at each time slot, according to beaconnh.com. Next weekend, Saturday, April 16, the Londonderry Y will hold a Kid’s Night when kids can be dropped off from 5 to 8 p.m. The cost is $25 per child (ages 4 to 12; $15 for additional siblings) and includes a pizza dinner. See https://bit.ly/ygl-kids-nights; register by April 13.

• Charmingfare Farm (774 High St. in Candia; visitthefarm.com, 483-5623) will host its Egg-Citing Egg Hunt this Saturday, April 9, and Sunday, April 10, as well as next Saturday, April 16. Sign up for a time between 10 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. for a hunt for a dozen chocolate-filled eggs, a horse-drawn or tractor ride, a visit to the barn decorated specially for Easter, a visit with the animals (including spring baby animals) and a visit with the Easter Bunny, according to the website. Tickets cost $22 per person.

On stage

The Southern New Hampshire Youth Ballet presents Cinderellaat the Palace Theatre (80 Hanover St. in Manchester; palacetheatre.org, 668-5588) on Sunday, April 10, 1 to 4 p.m. The show is appropriate for all ages and runs about 75 minutes long (with a 10-minute intermission), according to the website. Tickets cost $25 for adults and $20 ages 12 and under.

Save the date: for more eggs

On Saturday, April 16, Our Promise to Nicholas Foundation will hold an indoor maze to an egg hunt and the Easter Bunny at the NH Sportsplex (68 Technology Dr. in Bedford; ourpromisetonicholas.com) from 8:30 a.m. to noon. Hop along a bunny trail to play games, do a bunny craft and more and then head to the egg hunt field at a specific “egg hunt time” and take photos with the Easter Bunny (as well as other mascots and characters), according to the website. Tickets cost $8 per person; family tickets are also available through Friday, April 15, at 6 p.m. Tickets at the door cost $10 per person.

New Hampshire Jewish Film Festival Edition

The New Hampshire Jewish Film Festival kicks off Thursday, March 31, and runs through Sunday, April 10, with 16 films in all — 11 features, five shorts and four in-person screenings. Most of the movies also will be available virtually, either during the festival itself or during a bonus week, April 11 through April 24.

Tickets start at $12 for individual screenings or you can buy packages for screenings of all movies, virtual only ($118) or in-person and virtual ($130 for one person, $180 for two). See nhjewishfilmfestival.com for details and check out Meghan Siegler’s story on page 10 of the March 24 (last week’s) issue of the Hippo (which you can find at hippopress.com).

Thanks to the organizers, I got advance screenings to a few of the films.

The festival kicks off with an in-person screening of The Automat at the Rex Theatre (23 Amherst St. in Manchester) on Thursday, March 31, at 7 p.m. with a post-film discussion with director Lisa Hurwitz and collector/restorer Steve Stollman. If you can’t make it to that screening, you can also watch the movie during the virtual screening bonus week.

Either way, this movie, like the coffee it so lovingly describes, is well worth the price. This is an absolute charmer of a documentary about the Horn & Hardart chain of automats, which dominated the New York and Philadelphia restaurant scene in the early and mid 20th century. Put a nickel in a slot and open the compartment to reveal the pie or sandwich or creamed spinach you’d been craving, and another nickel gets you coffee so good that Mel Brooks sings a song about it over the documentary’s closing credits. Brooks appears throughout the documentary along with Carl Reiner and Elliott Gould explaining the place of this democratizing but also stylish eatery in their youth and young adulthood. (Descriptions of the restaurants’ gleaming floors, brass fixtures and high ceilings reminded me of discussions of similar era movie palaces and suggest a real luxury-for-all approach to design in public spaces — in case anybody is looking for a senior thesis.) Also appearing here are Wilson Goode, former mayor of Philadelphia, as well as Colin Powell and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, discussing both the food (there’s a lot of pie talk, be prepared to get hungry) and the social vibe created by a space where a business exec, a member of New York’s booming (in the 1920s) female workforce and a blue-collar worker would share a table and where recent immigrants to New York could feel welcome.

You also get the business side of the restaurant — how it rose and the forces that led to its fall. It’s a delightful story told with great fondness and humor.

I had the great good fortune of watching Fiddler’s Journey to the Big Screen at the start of Oscar weekend and it was a perfect way to kick off a weekend of thinking about the art and craft of movies. This documentary (which will be available during the bonus week) offers a great examination of all parts of the movie-making process as it looks at how the successful Broadway musical was translated into the 1971 movie. The songs and the way director Norman Jewison wanted to block a scene influenced the production design, just as the casting of the actresses and finding their comfortable key influenced the way John Williams brought the music of the stage musical to the screen. How do you recreate the look of a turn-of-the-20th-century shtetl in Ukraine some 60-plus years later, after wars and during the Cold War? Jewison discusses finding an Anatevka-like village in the former Yugoslavia.

Jeff Goldblum narrates this documentary, which features interviews with the three actresses who played the older daughters, Topol (the actor who played Tevye), and members of the film crew as well as people, like critic Kenneth Turan, talking about the story and the movie from a cultural-relevance perspective.

The shorts program features five films and you can purchase 48-hour access to the five-film block at any time from March 31 to April 10. The films are Ganef, Beefies, The Shabbos Goy, Mazel Tov Cocktail and The Tattooed Torah and they are a diverse mix in terms of style, tone and theme.

The Tattooed Torah presents as an animated storybook, with the screen panning across pictures but with people popped out from the background to give depth and blinking eyes and other small animated details that add a liveliness to the scenes. Ed Asner narrates the story of a boy and a beloved Torah in Czechoslovakia before and during World War II. The story is based on a book of the same name written by Marvell Ginsburg and illustrated by Martin Lemelman.

As with that movie, Masel Tov Cocktail slips bits of history into its tale about a teenager named Dima (Alexander Wertmann), a post-Cold War Jewish-Russian immigrant to Germany. He wrestles with his frustration, all teenage righteousness and humor, over the way Germans — the prejudiced and the well-meaning — pull him into their views of World War II and what their ancestors did (or, as some claim, definitely weren’t a part of). The short is the fourth directing credit (all shorts) for directors Arkadij Khaet and Mickey Paatzsch, according to IMDb, and it has that entertaining, scrappy indie film energy.

Ganefwill be familiar to viewers of the 2021 Manhattan Short Film Festival. It’s a tight drama about the residual effects of trauma that features Sophie McShera (best known as Daisy from Downton Abbey) playing Lynn, the housekeeper to the Hirth family, who live in an upper-class house in England. Mrs. Hirth (Lydia Wilson) tells her young daughter Ruthie (Izabella Dzeiwanska) that people can’t take what they don’t know you have — a lesson she learned as a child in Frankfurt, Germany. It’s a smartly told story that clocks in at about 14 minutes.

Beefies is a charming tale about Josh (Adam Lebowitz-Lockard), a man trying to figure out the recipe to his late mother’s “beefies” dish. (Lebowitz-Lockard wrote and directed Beefies; on the website he describes the dish as his own mother’s “sort of beef stew/stroganoff dish of meat and veggies” which he hasn’t been able to reverse engineer since she died.). In Beefies, Josh finds clues in his mother’s papers but realizes that to get answers he’ll have to call Mark (Goran Ivanovski), the brother he’s been estranged from. The movie is a sweet family tale that gets bonus points for the rare good use of pandemic as story point.

The Shabbos Goy is my favorite of the pack. This movie stars Milana Vayntrub, perhaps still best known as the lady from the AT&T commercials. As the movie poster explains, the titular person is a non-Jewish person who performs certain tasks that religious law prohibits a Jewish person from doing on the Sabbath or, more succinctly, “a human loophole.” During a gathering with her family and her future in-laws, Hannah (Vayntrub) is desperate to keep her engagement on track but won’t break the Sabbath by turning off her, er, personal device when it is accidentally activated. She runs out to find a non-Jewish person to help her, leading her to Davian (Devere Rogers), who first tries to ignore her when she crazily tries to wave him down. The movie is written and directed by Talia Osteen, who has a director credit on the Hulu movie Sex Appeal (also a fun trailer) and it is executive produced by Paul Feig.

Oscar wrap-up

If there’s one thing you’ll remember from last Sunday’s Oscars, it’s that you need to watch CODA.

OK, one other thing.

Truly, though, if you have “meh-ed” at Oscar nominees — which isn’t an unfair response in 2021 when the movies never fully felt back — hopefully CODA’s wins will entice you to check it out. It won for best picture, best adapted screenplay and best supporting actor for Troy Kotsur, who co-starred with Marlee Matlin as the deaf parents of a hearing teen (Emilia Jones) in this truly heartwarming movie. It’s on Apple TV+.

Another winner worth seeking out is Summer of Soul (… Or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), the documentary that won Questlove an Oscar (which you may have missed while Googling “Chris Rock Will Smith was it a bit?”). That excellent documentary about the multi-concertHarlem Cultural Festival is on Hulu and Disney+ and is available for rent or purchase (and you can also purchase the very excellent soundtrack).

Another winner that might have gotten lost in the evening’s proceedings for a different reason (it was one of the awards cut from the broadcast and then deep-faked back in, as writer Chris V. Feil described in a tweet) was The Queen of Basketball, the winning documentary short, which is available on nytimes.com. It’s a charming profile of Lucy Harris, a star college (and Olympic) basketball player in the 1970s who was drafted by, but never played for, the New Orleans Jazz.

Then feel free to shut the book on the whole messy 2021 in the Oscar-verse, with its category strife, its lack of real surprises among the winners (though my swing-for-the-fences guesses led to my still only correctly predicting a little more than half the winners) and all-over-the-place ceremony even before the infamous slap. Or, at least, shut the book after one more watch of the beautifully staged Beyonce opener and the uneven but lively at least “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” remix.

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