Bedford Virtual Playhouse: Four new flicks

Bedford Virtual Playhouse: Four new flicks coming soon: Four new Magnolia Pictures’ flicks enter the Bedford Playhouse’s Streaming Library beginning with Shirley this weekend. Here’s what else is coming and what’s playing there now. Stream any of the movies in BPH’s virtual library  and BPH gets half of your rental fee. Magnolia Pictures’ is an independent film distributor of narrative movies and documentaries.

OPENING:

June 5: Shirley: Elizabeth Moss stars as Shirley Jackson the gothic write of The Haunting of Hill House and the short story The Lottery, in this “fictional” bio-pic based on the author’s life. The movie unfolds like a Jackson novel, telling a tale of a young couple who move in with the depressive and agoraphobic Jackson and her philandering husband at Bennington College and become fodder for her next gothic novel. The film was the winner of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize for Auteur Filmmaking. Sixty judges gave Shirley a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

June 12: Sometimes Almost Never: Alan (Bill Nighy) is a stylish tailor with moves as sharp as his suits. However, he’s spent years searching for his missing son Michael, who stormed out over a game of Scrabble and hasn’t been seen since. With a body to identify and his family torn apart, Alan must repair his relationship with his youngest son. Worst of all, he must solve the mystery of an online player who might just be Michael–and find the right words before it’s too late.

June 26: Ella: Just One of This Things: This documentary follows six decades of Ella Fitzgerald’s career that in 1934 began when she won a talent contest at Harlem’s Apollo Theatre at the age of 15. Within months she was a huge star. The movie features interview with Tony Bennett, Jamie Cullum, Laura Mvula, Johnny Mathis, Smokey Robinson, Cleo Laine, Andre Previn, Norma Miller, Patti Austin, Itzhak Perlman, Margo Jefferson, Will Friedwald and a rare interview with Ella’s son, Ray Brown Jr.

July 3: John Lewis: Good Trouble: Using interviews and rare archival footage, John Lewis: Good Trouble chronicles Lewis’ 60-plus years of social activism and legislative action on civil rights, voting rights, gun control, health-care reform and immigration. Using present-day interviews with Lewis, now 79 years old, Porter explores his childhood experiences, his inspiring family and his fateful meeting with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1957. In addition to her interviews with Lewis and his family, Porter’s primarily cinéma verité film also includes interviews with political leaders, Congressional colleagues, and other people who figure prominently in his life.

Still Playing

Lucky Grandma: Sasie Sealey’s dark comedy, Lucky Grandma, about a chain-smoking 80 year old woman from NYC’s Chinatown debuted at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival and received a 94% Critics Rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The story follows her auspicious reading at a fortune teller to her trip to a casino where she goes all in. Her fortunes turn when she gets caught up in a full-on gang war. Find out who’s the real bad-ass!

The Painter and the Thief: Desperate for answers about the theft of her 2 paintings, a Czech artist seeks out and befriends the career criminal who stole them. After inviting her thief to sit for a portrait, the two form an improbable relationship and an inextricable bond that will forever link these lonely souls. A Special Jury Award-winner for Creative Storytelling from the Sundance Institute, this 2020 documentary from Benjamin Ree received a 100% Critics Rating from 32 critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

Diana Kennedy: Nothing Fancy: Here’s one for foodies. This full length documentary of cookbook author and environmental activist Diana Kennedy, the very British master of Mexican cooking, explores her unconventional life in Michoacán mastering Mexican cuisine.

Military Wives: Peter Cattaneo (The Full Monty) directs Kristin Scott Thomas and Sharon Horgan in this uplifting story about a group of women who form a military wives choir while their husbands are serving in Afghanistan. The story, inspired by true events, takes them from their cloistered life on a military base to an international stage.

City Dreamers: Joseph Hillel’s documentary explores the careers of four female architects who have transformed the conventional wisdom about modern cities. The film follows their career paths from their early collaborations with Le Corbusier, Louis Kahn and Mies van der Roh to their peak of independent influence.

Crescendo: Academy-Award nominated director Dror Zahavi (Alexander Penn, Everything for my Father) directs this gripping drama about a world famous conductor who tries to create an Israeli/Palestinian youth orchestra. Only to be quickly drawn into a tempest of unsolvable problems. Spaceship Earth chronicles the controversial adventures of eight visionaries who in 1991 spent two years quarantined inside a self-engineered replica of Earth’s ecosystem called BIOSPHERE 2. The experiment was a worldwide phenomenon, chronicling daily existence in the face of life threatening ecological disaster and a growing criticism that it was nothing more than a cult. Up From The Streets, a multi-award-winning documentary that profiles New Orleans culture through the lens of music – from the drumming in Congo Square to the city’s contemporary music scene. Another documentary, The Booksellers takes viewers inside the fascinating world of obsessives, intellects, eccentrics and dreamers and their role in preserving history.

Check out the lineup here.

Friday Night Movies Curbside Concessions

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