The summer before college, bright-yet-irreverent Elliott comes face-to-face with her older self during a mushroom trip. The encounter spurs a funny and heartfelt journey of self-discovery and first love as Elliott prepares to leave her childhood home. Writer-director Megan Park’s tender, surprising sophomore feature cleverly uses its high-concept premise of a visit from one’s future self to launch a refreshing, nuanced exploration of the uncertainties of young romance and coming of age. My Old Ass is a sweet teenage love story, a lively contemporary comedy, and a quirky riff on time-travel films all in one. Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza have a terrific unlikely chemistry, as the sass and self-assuredness of the young Elliott, as played by Stella, blends and overlaps with Plaza’s sardonic humor as a more mature Elliott. The care and affection shown in the film’s depiction of Elliott’s rural hometown in her last days before taking off for adulthood visually highlights her emotional journey, evoking a nostalgia for days that haven’t even ended yet.—HZ
In Meshal Aljaser’s exhilaratingly madcap thriller, a young woman stranded in the Arabian desert races to be home before curfew under the threat of extreme punishment from her scary strict father.
八公(Forest 饰)是一条谜一样的犬,因为没有人知道它从哪里来。教授帕克(理查·基尔 Richard Gere 饰)在小镇的火车站拣到一只走失的小狗,冥冥中似乎注定小狗和帕克教授有着某种缘分,帕克一抱起这只小狗就再也放不下来,最终,帕克对小狗八公的疼爱感化了起初极力反对养狗的妻子卡特(琼·艾伦 Joan Allen 饰)。八公在帕克的呵护下慢慢长大,帕克上班时八公会一直把他送到车站,下班时八公也会早早便爬在车站等候,八公的忠诚让小镇的人家对它更加疼爱。有一天,八公在帕克要上班时表现异常,居然玩起了以往