Vivian Ostrovsky’s half-hour compendium Ice/Sea is a celluloid aperitif for summertime, combining found footage of the world’s beaches with the director’s own archive of coastal material. Fun and free-associative, the movie ventures to Rio, Miami, Montpellier, the Dead and Black Seas, and elsewhere, keeping a visual diary of lumpy beach bods, boardwalk architecture, and celebrity sightings (Esther Williams, Elvis Presley in his Hawaiian incarnation). Ice/Sea also showcases a zoo’s worth of beachcombers: dogs, birds, a marauding tiger, and rounding out the first half of the title, smooching penguins. Enjoy those icebergs while they last!
Jessica Winter