The Dryden will screen Avalon (Barry Levinson, U.S. 1990, 128 min., 35mm) as part of the L'chaim: Celebrating Jewish Life series.

A Jewish immigrant family settles in the Avalon neighborhood of Baltimore. By the 1940s and 1950s, the tight-knit family is slowly unraveling, as each new generation embraces an American way of life, including moving to the suburbs instead of remaining with the extended family. Television plays a central symbolic role in the family's assimilation and reveals the fracturing of the family in small yet poignant moments: television replaces mealtime conversation, and two cousins of the younger generation create TV commercials for their burgeoning business using Americanized names. Avalon is the third in a semi-autobiographical tetralogy of "Baltimore films" (along with Diner, 1982; Tin Men, 1987; and Liberty Heights, 1999) by director Barry Levinson, who won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay for Avalon.

[source: George Eastman Museum calendar, 2019-Jan-28]