JJuly 25-31, 2025

Hello, friends! 

We've arrived at the last full week before our new space on Grand Ave. opens and we officially become a 2-venue cinema. The installation of our new marquee, complete with snazzy cinema lights, has made especially clear that this years' long dream is finally a reality:

We have a whole slate of wonderful movies to share with you, starting August 2 at the Grand after the Open House party on August 1, and I'll have a bit to say about each of those next week, but for now, the movie magic faithfully continues at the Bay St. mothership with Superman extended for another week, a few more added screenings of The Last Class, and a brand new movie, one the very best of this year's Sundance Film Festival selections, Sorry, Baby. 

Starring and written and directed by Eva Victor, in a feature film directorial debut, Sorry, Baby tells the story of Agnes, an English literature professor fresh out of graduate school, who is grappling with the aftermath of a "bad thing," as she calls it, that happened to her, a past trauma that complicates her present and her sense of herself, even as she tries to figure out what it means to "be a grown-up" and carry on with life and with the career that she thought she wanted. 

The film moves beautifully backwards and forwards in time, showing us who Agnes is in the present while also showing us her past, who Agnes was before the "bad thing." What emerges is a beautifully nuanced, textured, and human portrait, a winsome, smart, often wryly funny person, who also happened to experience something extremely difficult.  For a film that deals with trauma, it is tonally light on its feet, intertwining humor with drama, taking the story seriously while leaving room for the ridiculous and the comic, inviting us as viewers on the messy journey of life where comedy and tragedy so often mingle.  

Eva Victor, as Agnes, is wonderful, and part of the joy of the film is simply spending time with her; with her best friend Lydie, played by the equally wonderful Naomi Ackie (Mickey 17, Blink Twice); and with a terrific supporting cast, including Lucas Hedges (Lady Bird, Manchester by the Sea) and John Carroll Lynch (Fargo), whose short scene is so beautifully written and acted, that the emotional punch of it will stick with me for a long time.  

 As Manohla Dargis put it in her review in the New York Times, Sorry, Baby is "the kind of independent movie that can seem like a gift" because of the brilliance of "its intimacy and naked truth-telling," and it is true that very few movies like it come along each year. It is a gift to be able to play it at the Pickford, and we'll be watching eagerly, too, to see what the extraordinary Eva Victor will do next.