Capsule Reviews of 2026 Oscar-Nominated Shorts

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I have now seen all fifteen short films up for Oscars in just under two weeks, and while nothing rises to the level of last year’s Incident, it’s a respectable group overall, especially in the Best Animated Short Film category. I’ve been logging them on Letterboxd as I go, but thought I would also post my thoughts here along with notes about streaming availability for anyone still trying to decide how many and which ones they want to see before the ceremony. The links below lead to my Letterboxd reviews. Without further ado:

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM

Butterfly: This understated motion painting life of French Olympic swimmer and Holocaust survivor Alfred Nakache is the odds-on favorite to win the Best Animated Short Film Oscar for good reason: it somehow condenses a feature-length Hollywood-style biopic into just 15 minutes without losing any emotional impact. I think I’ll still be rooting for challenger The Girl Who Cried Pearls for reasons of Canadian pride, but won’t be at all disappointed if the contest goes the other way. Available on YouTube.

Forevergreen: Comforting blend of children’s favorites old (The Giving Tree) and newer (Over the Hedge) with a nicely handcrafted look that’s going to make a bunch of kids curious about the taste of pine nuts. Available on YouTube.

The Girl Who Cried Pearls: One of two standouts from this year’s Best Animated Short Film Oscar nominees. The antique puppet animation style is less conventionally beautiful than the oil paint aesthetic of its chief competitor Butterfly, which is why it probably won’t take home the award, but gives the koan it ends with haunting weight. Three-quarters of our household (everyone except me) are Canadian citizens, so: National Film Board for the win! Available on YouTube.

Retirement Plan: This is what the immortal “choose life” monologue from Trainspotting would look like after a long bath in a bowl of milk to remove every last drop of cynicism. But with an Irish accent instead of a Scottish one. Available on YouTube.

The Three Sisters: Pretty tchotchke that captures the steady deliberateness of a lap swimmer better than any movie I’ve ever seen.

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM

All the Empty Rooms: The heavy favorite to win this year’s Best Documentary Short Oscar for reasons of “not a dry eye in the house,” which was certainly validated by the screening I attended! All the most powerful moments are from CBS television reporter Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp’s project to photograph the bedrooms of school shooting victims, though, and while the scenes about it answer the question “why?” they unhelpfully raise another: “to what end?” Available on Netflix.

Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud: Heartfelt treatment of an eminently deserving subject that gets tripped up by attempting to be too many films at the same time. The one that works best is where Craig Renaud tells the story of his brother Brent’s death while covering Russia’s invasion of Ukraine the way Brent would have wanted: with an unflinching look at what war did to his body. Craig is also determined to include enough of Brent’s original footage to make it HIS film too, though. And to show how many people Brent impacted. And pay tribute to all the other war reporters who have died in recent years plying their increasingly dangerous trade. It’s all too much for a 37-minute runtime. Available on HBO Max.

Children No More: “Were and Are Gone”: More effective overall as a critique of Israel’s war against Gaza by its own citizens than fellow Oscar nominee (for Best Live Action Short) Butcher’s Stain, but lacking any individual element as compelling as Omar Sameer’s performance. The scene in which protest planning is interrupted by air raid sirens came close, though.

The Devil Is Busy: Super-compressed depiction of a day in the life of the Feminist Center for Reproductive Liberation in Atlanta, Georgia. The film wisely opts for a profile of Head of Security Tracii over a more comprehensive portrait: she’s a woman of faith who worships a forgiving God in stark contrast to the protestors outside the facility whose primary tactics are shown to be trying to scare and shame each “guest” (her word) as they arrive for treatment. Less successful is its near-exclusive focus on abortion over the other healthcare services Feminist provides despite one of its doctors observing on camera that this is a major problem with the national discourse. Available on HBO Max.

Perfectly a Strangeness: Clever and visually striking wordless juxtaposition of a trio of donkeys with Chile’s La Silla Observatory, which may not be playing itself since in the film it appears to be an unmanned facility. Definitely the outlier among this year’s Best Documentary Short Oscar nominees and I think also my favorite. Available on HBO Max.

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM

Butcher’s Stain: Overstretched and full of “liberals eat their own” stereotypes, but Omar Sameer’s simmering lead turn is far and away the best performance in the Best Live Action Short Film Oscar nominee field.

A Friend of Dorothy: A bit white elephant-y and oh-so-British, but redeemed by Movie Year 2025’s best spit take and excellent sound design. Available on YouTube.

Jane Austen’s Period Drama: Feels like one of those SNL sketches that My Loving Wife makes me watch on her phone: genuinely funny, but probably twice as long as it needs to be. Available on YouTube.

The Singers: The cream of this year’s crop of Best Live Action Short Film Oscar nominees, boasting superior cinematography and a much better sense of when to stop than the rest. And, crucially, great music! Available on Netflix.

Two People Exchanging Saliva: Judges of short film competitions have a lamentable tendency to automatically assume whichever film looks the most like a feature must be the best. I believe Two People Exchanging Saliva, an exercise in world-building-on-a-budget, is the favorite to win this year’s Live Action Short Film Oscar. If it does, case in point. Available on YouTube.

Ithaca Film Journal: 2/26/26

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What I’m Seeing This Week: I’m finally diving into this year’s Oscar-nominated shorts with the Best Live Action and Animated Short programs at Cornell Cinema tomorrow and Saturday respectively. They and the Best Documentary Short nominees are also at Cinemapolis all week, as is Pillion, which I’m hoping to catch as well.

Also in Theaters: I’m hearing good things about EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, which opens at the Regal Ithaca Mall today and Cinemapolis tomorrow, so hopefully it will run awhile: three trips to the movies is my limit this week! The best new release on Ithaca big screens that I’ve already seen is probably Send Help, which continues its run at the same two venues.

As if all the Oscar-nominated shorts weren’t enough, the Ithaca Experimental Film Festival is also happening this week with three programs at Cinemapolis and Cornell Cinema on Friday and Saturday. Other special events include three free events at Cornell Cinema: the screening of Onlookers this evening will be followed by a conversation with filmmaker Kimi Takesue, Waste Land is there on Tuesday, and the screening of ¿Are We There Yet? -A Compassionate Exploration of Contemporary Migration on Wednesday will be followed by a conversation with filmmaker Thomas Hoebbel. Finally, noteworthy repertory options include The Godfather Part II at Cornell Cinema on Saturday, Yi Yi there on Sunday, plus Pulp Fiction at the Regal on Tuesday and Breathless at Cinemapolis on Wednesday.

Home Video Recommendation: There’s also a bit of a rediscovery effect that corresponds to the Criterion Collection’s 2020 Blu-ray/DVD release, but responses to Dance, Girl, Dance seem to fall in two general camps: either it’s amateurish and uneven or a groundbreaking masterpiece by and for women. But why not both? Here’s what I said on Letterboxd:

A great example of what I call an “art gallery movie”: you judge it by the quality of the handful of standout scenes that it’s known for, not the white paint on the walls surrounding them. It’s like The Jazz Singer with feminism instead of sync sound!

How else do you reconcile extreme silliness like Maria Ouspenskaya’s Madame Basilova being killed by rear projection:

Medium long shot of Maria Ouspenskaya flailing wildly in front of a close-up of a car

Co-existing in the same film as the impassioned, male gaze-shattering speech by Maureen O’Hara that deserves to be just as familiar to movie montage afficionados as Peter Finch’s “mad as hell” tirade from Network?

Close-up of Maureen O'Hara looking defiant

Dance, Girl, Dance leaves the Criterion Channel on Saturday, and while it has come and gone from this platform before, now’s a fine time to spend some time with it in between binging on the shorts in local theaters!

Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here. A running list of all of my “Home Video” recommendations can be found here.

You Know the Escape

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Redbelt‘s first image doesn’t appear until more than a minute into an open credits sequence that, as director David Mamet explains in the commentary track included on Sony Pictures’ 2008 DVD release, was inspired by an early silent version of King Lear.

Title card that reads "Redbelt" in a striking red-tinted all caps sans serif font

It’s a close-up of three marbles, two white and one black, resting on the concave bottom of an upturned metal cup:

Close-up of three marbles resting in the concave bottom of an upturned tin cup

As we cut back and forth to additional title cards, a story slowly emerges in stroboscopic increments. A hand places the marbles in the cup and holds it aloft. Another reaches up and takes one.

Close-up of hands placing the marbles in the cup
Low-angle close-up of the cup being held aloft
Continuation of the previous shot: a hand reaches into the cup

There’s a close-up of a fighter’s face, then a rack focus as he holds up his marble. It’s the black one:

Close-up of a fighter's face in focus in the left side of the frame as another fighter's face occupies the right out of focus
Continuation of the previous shot: the focus has shifted to the black marble that the fighter has held up in the foreground in front of his face

A wheel spins:

Close-up of a card with a diagram of a body divided into six sections, a key, and a flickable arrow on a wheel

There’s a cut to one final credit:

David Mamet's "written and directed by" credit

And the action begins in earnest with our hero Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor) saying, “tie him up.”

Close-up of Mike Terry in a white gi, occupying the right half of the frame

He’s the owner of a dojo, and what we’ve been watching is his signature training method. “Who imposes the terms of the battle will impose the terms of the peace,” he explains, drawing out the final word. “You think he has a handicap?” he asks his other students, referring to the one who drew the black marble. “No! The other guy has a handicap if he cannot control himself. You control yourself, you control him.” Then: “take him to court.” And thus begins the film’s first fight.

Medium close-up of Officer Joe being "taken to court" with his hounds bound by another fighter (Matt Cable)

The man being “taken to court” is Officer Joe Collins (Max Martini) of the LAPD and his hands are bound because this is what it means to draw the black marble: you are given a handicap based on which number the wheel lands on, in this case six, which corresponds to the fighter’s hands. “Good!” Mike says as Officer Joe turns the situation to his advantage with a takedown.

Long shot of Officer Joe executing a takedown as another instructor named Snowflake watches from the back of the dojo

“That’s it–the fight’s over. Finish it here,” Mike continues. Joe finds himself on his back seconds later, though:

Close-up of Officer Joe, who is now pinned by his opponent

“Okay! Improve the position!” Mike shouts at him. He breaks free, but it isn’t long before he’s even worse off than before, pinned to the wall in a chokehold:

Close-up of Officer Joe centered in the frame, his back to the wall, with the other fighter's arm choking him into submission

I’m writing about Redbelt because the mantra-like words that come out of Mike’s mouth next mean more to me than any other movie dialogue I’ve ever heard. “Breathe. Breathe. Breathe,” he says as we cut to a close-up of him. “You know the escape.”

Close-up of Mike speaking toward the left side of the frame from the right

“You know the escape!” he repeats. “Breathe. Breathe. There’s always an escape.” We cut to a reaction shot of another student (Tino Struckmann) looking up at his teacher:

Medium close-up of a student looking up at Mike, whose legs are just barely visible in the far right edge of the frame

Then back to Mike as he repeats, “you know the escape. You know the escape. Breathe! There’s always an escape.”

Close-up of Mike which is compositionally similar to the last one, but he's much more animated now

But as we cut back to Officer Joe he grunts “passing out” and Mike taps the other fighter on the shoulder to end the fight. “Great class!” he says, smiling at his assistant Snowflake (Jose Pablo Cantillo), to whom he also nods ever so slightly:

Close-up of Mike looking at Snowflake, who is out of focus with his back to the camera, in the right half of the frame

As Officer Joe begins to walk away, Mike tells him to stick around. “You don’t fight your way clear?” he asks. “There is no situation you cannot escape from,” he reiterates firmly. “You know the escape. You know the escape. Show it to me.”

Long shot of Joe throwing Mike in the center of the frame as Snowflake looks on from the left

“Good!” Mike cries from flat on his back when he does. “You know the escape, you just got tired. What’s the lesson?” he asks. “Don’t get tired,” Officer Joe says sheepishly. “Let the other guy get tired,” Mike responds, thumping his student on the chest.

Medium close-up of Mike with his back to the camera, thumping Joe on the chest

Sean Axmaker called Redbelt “a complete redefinition of the kind of film that Jean-Claude Van Damme cranked out in the eighties” when it was released on DVD in 2008, connecting it to Bloodsport, a favorite from my youth. Writing for Slant Magazine the same year, Nick Schager compared it to a formative text from my college years, Le Samouraï, all of which is to acknowledge that writer-director David Mamet and company are tilling fertile ground for me personally. That’s hardly a guarantee of success, though, and while some moments–like the explanation of the purpose of the handicaps (“you never know when you may be disabled”) shoehorned into the screenplay later–undeniably register as more silly than serious:

Close-up of a besuited Mike holding up a black rock that looks like one of the marbles used in his training method from the left half of the frame as his wife Sondra (Alice Braga) smiles at him from the right

Redbelt earns the ending it ultimately rewards Mike with because we recognize in no uncertain terms that it isn’t a “happy” one. As Axmaker notes, he isn’t just a last bastion of nobility standing strong against a corrupt society, “he is also an idealist with little concern for taking care of himself and his family, financially speaking, in a material world.” His wife Sondra, the woman smiling at him in the image above, cannot perhaps be forgiven for betraying him, but it’s easy to see why she wouldn’t want to continue supporting him at the expense of her own business. More importantly, there’s one person who isn’t watching when Mike’s mentor, “the Professor” João Moro (Dan Inosanto), presents him with the eponymous red belt in the film’s final scene: Officer Joe, who committed suicide 35 minutes of screen time earlier to avoid bringing dishonor on the academy.

Close-up of Mike, bloodied and set off from a midnight black background in the left third of the frame
The Professor holds the red belt of the film's title up against his forehead against the same black background in the right third of the frame
Continuation of the previous shot: the Professor holds the belt out to Mike, who remains offscreen

As Mamet explains in the DVD commentary track, the journey Mike’s on isn’t one toward vindication so much as fully understanding the stakes he’s been playing all along:

What it hid, in him, is the idea of “I don’t want to leave the academy. In the academy, I control everything. I get to know who fights who, whatever I say, my word is law.” It’s really easy to be pure in the academy. But when you get into the wider world where people are making up their own rules, it’s much, much harder to be pure. And what happens to him, Mike Terry, is he gets out into the wider world and he kind of falls off the wagon and he decides to quit. So he’s got to teach himself the lesson he’s trying to teach others, which is never give up.

The methods Mike learned from the Professor and has spent his life passing on to others really do work: there is always an escape. If you know you have a good plan, just breathe. Breathe. Improve the position. You know the escape! But also–and this is the hard part–never forget that your road will end someday no matter what you do because there’s one opponent who never gets tired: Father Time.

Ithaca Film Journal: 2/19/26

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What I’m Seeing This Week: More than half the films on my “Movie Year 2025 Cram List” that I haven’t yet seen are playing on local big screens this week! I’m actually going to save the Oscar-nominated shorts programs for later this month when they come to Cornell Cinema, but I’m excited to see My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow there on Sunday and Sound of Falling at Cinemapolis before it closes next Thursday. I’m also hoping to finally check out Dracula at the Regal Ithaca Mall.

Also in Theaters: The new stuff is definitely the star of the show, but if you’re playing catch up Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, which continues its run at Cinemapolis, is very funny and I won’t be surprised one bit if it turns out to be the best-edited film I see all year. I also enjoyed Hamnet, which opened there nearly three months ago, and Send Help, which remains at both Cinemapolis and the Regal.

Special events include a bevy of free screenings at both Cinemapolis and Cornell Cinema. To begin with the former, you can see The Navigator accompanied by local pianist Emmett Scott there on Sunday, Lafayette: A Hero’s Return on Monday, and three shorts by local filmmakers Daniil Lazuka & Logan Perzi on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Cornell alums Frank Dawson and Abby Ginzberg will present their film Agents of Change at Cornell Cinema this evening, and their screenings of Where Are You Taking Me? on Tuesday, 95 and 6 to Go on Wednesday (note: this event will take place in the Film Forum at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts), and Onlookers on Thursday will all be followed by conversations with filmmaker Kime Takesue. Finally, noteworthy repertory options include screenings of The Godfather at Cornell Cinema tomorrow and Saturday, All That Heaven Allows there on Saturday, and Eyes Wide Shut at the Regal on Wednesday.

Home Video Recommendation: Last week in this space I mentioned Downhill Racer, the single greatest depiction of hurtling down a mountainside ever captured on celluloid. This week I’m going with the first of two James Bond movies to star my favorite 007 Timothy Dalton, The Living Daylights, which deserves an honorable mention in the non-Olympics category. I am, of course, referring to the scene in which he navigates a cello over the Austrian border:

Medium long shot of Bond using the Stradivarius owned by Maryam d'Abo's Kara Milovy to steer its case, which they are using as a sled

This flight of fancy aside, The Living Daylights is noteworthy for anticipating the Daniel Craig era’s efforts to reimagine Bond as a flesh-and-blood secret agent who has to actually work to stay one step ahead of his adversaries. Both this film and its follow-up License to Kill also feature excellent editing in this scene and others such as the latter’s airplane opening which I’m sure is what inspired Letterboxd user Michael Bokan to describe it as “Tom Cruise’s favorite Bond,” an amusing sentiment that I endorse! These two titles and the other 23 in the “Eon Series” plus Never Say Never Again are all now available on Netflix with a subscription.

Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here. A running list of all of my “Home Video” recommendations can be found here.

Ithaca Film Journal: 2/12/26

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What I’m Seeing This Week: I’m going with Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie at Cinemapolis and Scarlet at the Regal Ithaca Mall. Other new movies at the Regal that I’d ideally like to see before they close include Crime 101; Dracula; Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die; and Wuthering Heights, which is also at Cinemapolis. There’s no way I can get to all of them, though, and it’s going to be next week before I catch any.

Also in Theaters: You have one last chance to see Magellan, my favorite new film now playing Ithaca, on the big screen at Cinemapolis today at 5pm! Here’s what I recently said about it on Letterboxd:

Just as the 28 Years Later trilogy may well turn out to be the closest thing we ever get to a movie adaptation of one of my favorite science fiction novels, this film is a beautiful cinematic rendition of the best idea from another, Orson Scott Card’s Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus. That book postulates that if just one or two things had gone differently, we could easily be living in a world where Mesoamericans “discovered” and subjugated Europe instead of vice versa; in Magellan, a trick played on Gael García Bernal’s titular conquistador by Ronnie Lazaro’s Raja Humabon and a late shot of the former in a metal carapace looking like nothing so much as a crab ready for the boil establish that this film’s civilizations were also on much more even terms than Western history books typically like to acknowledge. Another way I could have gone with this was “Dead Man with boats instead of trains.”

No Other Choice, which continues its run at Cinemapolis, will almost certainly make my Movie Year 2025 top ten list as well, and I also enjoyed Hamnet and Send Help, both of which are at both Cinemapolis and the Regal.

Special events highlights include a free screening of The Outrun at Cornell Cinema tonight which also includes free popcorn, a free “Family Classics Picture Show” presentation of A Night at the Opera at Cinemapolis on Sunday, and a free screening of Memories of Love Returned at Cornell Cinema on Wednesday featuring an appearance by director Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine. Finally, noteworthy repertory options include a “Galentine’s Day” double feature of All That Heaven Allows and Letter from an Unknown Woman at Cornell Cinema tomorrow, screenings of Hollywood classics Casablanca and Roman Holiday at the Regal on Saturday and Sunday respectively, and 40th anniversary presentations of Pretty in Pink there Saturday-Monday.

Home Video Recommendation: The New York Times recently published a helpful explainer on why, as two-time gold medalist Ted Ligety puts it, “ski racing is a sport where the favorites often don’t win.” It’s a great compliment to the realism of my second-ever “Drink & a Movie” selection Downhill Racer that the film is a great illustration of a number of its main points. As I said four years ago while the Beijing Games were in full swing, it’s also a great movie to watch right now when many of us are glued to NBC’s Olympics coverage because “Downhill Racer‘s subject isn’t just skiing or sports in general, but rather how sport is mediated through television.” That said, for as modern and ahead of its time as it appears in some ways, recent reporting by The Athletic *does* indicate that unlike Robert Redford’s Dave Chappellet, today’s American athletes probably know what a bidet is:

Medium shot in a bathroom of Chappelett in the background looking at a bidet in the foreground

Downhill Racer is now streaming on Prime Video with a subscription and is also available on Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection.

Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here. A running list of all of my “Home Video” recommendations can be found here.

Ithaca Film Journal: 2/5/26

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What I’m Seeing This Week: I am absolutely thrilled that Cinemapolis is bringing Magellan to Ithaca tomorrow! It clocked in at ninth on my “Cannes 2025 Films That I Am Most Eager to See” list and was the highest-ranked title that I didn’t think would ever open here, so even though they only expect to have it for one week, that’s more than I expected. Best International Film Oscar nominee The Voice of Hind Rajab begins a limited engagement there tomorrow as well. As a Luc Besson loyalist, I intend to eventually see Dracula at the Regal Ithaca Mall, too, but probably not until next week.

Also in Theaters: As was the case last week, you can currently see three films likely to make my Movie Year 2025 top ten list on the big screen locally. The mix is slightly different, though: Marty Supreme remains at the Regal and No Other Choice (which repeats as my TOP recommendation) continues its run at Cinemapolis, as does Arco, which as I recently noted on Letterboxd “features one of the most surprising and convincing, and thus extremely moving, depictions of an authentic gesture of love by a robot capable of genuine emotions toward its human ward that I’ve ever encountered in a movie.” Meanwhile, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, which is down to one screening per day at the Regal, is my first favorite film of Movie Year 2026, and I also enjoyed Hamnet and Send Help, which both continue their respective runs at both Cinemapolis and the Regal.

Special events highlights include a bevy of free events at Cornell Cinema starting tomorrow with a screening of The Conversation, which Cornell professor Dr. Karen Levy will use as the basis for a discussion on “the social and ethical aspects of data-intensive technologies.” A four-part film series called “Exploring Ethnographic Filmmaking” then begins on Monday with a “Scientific Cinema” program featuring Four Families, Trance and Dance in Bali, and Groh Groh (Rehearsal for Rangda). Cornell professor Michell Chresfield will introduce the documentary In My Blood It Runs on Tuesday. Last but not least, a filmmaker Q&A will follow a screening of Rule Breakers on Wednesday. Finally, noteworthy repertory options include screenings of Total Recall, Letter from an Unknown Woman, and Ran at Cornell Cinema tonight, Saturday, and Sunday respectively, and Lost in Translation at the Regal on Monday.

Home Video Recommendation: My Loving Wife’s last Family (née Friday) Movie Night selection was The Cutting Edge, a childhood VHS staple for both of us. Although stylistically very much a product of the early ’90s, it held up way better than I expected and the girls liked it, too, although they were both frustrated by the fact that it ends with a kiss before we learn what scores Moira Kelly’s Kate Moseley and D.B. Sweeney’s Doug Dorsey received for their climactic pairs figure skating long program at the 1992 Winter Olympics:

I don’t remember this bothering *me* when I was a kid, but there’s a lot of fuss about an empty medal case, so I get it. Except! Here’s one thing that definitely did not ever occur to me before: the Albertville Games were the last ones held before the IOC split the Winter and Summer Olympics into separate four-year cycles, so this is the exact moment in history where it’s maximally plausible that Terry O’Quinn’s overbearing father Jack Moseley would be perfectly satisfied with a high score that set his daughter up to be one of the favorites at the Lillehammer Games just two years down the road! Anyway, The Cutting Edge is easy to find on DVD and is also available for rental and purchase on a variety of streaming video platforms.

Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here. A running list of all of my “Home Video” recommendations can be found here.

Juxtaposition #14

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From The Tale of Silyan:

Close-up of Jana Coneva rubbing her eyes as a tear slowly streams down her face
Close-up of the smartphone that Jana is talking to her daughter Ana on
Long shot of Jana and her husband Nikola looking sadly at each other on their couch

From “Cold at Night” by the Mountain Goats:

On the third day, you said you felt sick
I could hear the clock tick
Well, the first thing you learn is that there’s always a clock ticking somewhere
(The first thing you learn is that there’s always a clock ticking somewhere)
And the next thing you learn is how cold it can get at night

Previous “Juxtaposition” posts can be found here.

Ithaca Film Journal: 1/29/26

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What I’m Seeing This Week: I’m looking forward to the screening of Orwell 2+2=5 at Cornell Cinema this evening and am also planning to catch Best Animated Feature Film Oscar nominee Arco at Cinemapolis, and Send Help either there or at the Regal Ithaca Mall.

Also in Theaters: You can currently see three films likely to make my Movie Year 2025 top ten list on the big screen locally! I’ve already written about No Other Choice, which continues its run at Cinemapolis, and Marty Supreme, which is there and at the Regal. I was also impressed by The Testament of Ann Lee, a visually and sonically inventive big swing anchored by a powerful lead performance by Amanda Seyfried that succeeds in translating the appeal of the Shaker movement her title character founded into contemporary terms–just switch celibacy out for polyamory and either veganism or temperance and their Niskayuna settlement starts to look like an 18th-century precursor to hippie communes and Silicon Valley. It’s at Cinemapolis, where you have two final chances to see my first favorite film of Movie Year 2026 as well, the surprisingly contemplative follow-up to this week’s home video recommendation (see below) 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, which is also at the Regal. Noteworthy special events include part two of the Ithaca Underground Music Video Festival at Cinemapolis tonight and free screenings of the films Wisdom of Happiness on Sunday at Cinemapolis and Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat on Monday at Cornell Cinema. Finally, a solid week for repertory fare is highlighted by screenings of Total Recall at Cornell Cinema on Saturday, The Godfather Part II at the Regal on Saturday, and Groundhog Day at the Regal on Monday. The Lego Movie, which recently inspired me to post some musings on film criticism, is there in 3D tomorrow through Wednesday, too.

Home Video Recommendation: Here’s what I said on Letterboxd after I saw 28 Years Later at the Regal in July:

Don’t wanna be a post-zombie apocalypse quarantine British idiot. Curious to see where the Sympathy for the Infected plotline goes. Is this as close as anyone has come yet to making a movie version of A Canticle for Leibowitz?

Sentence #1 was originally intended as a jokey reference to Green Day’s “punk rock opera” American Idiot, but The Bone Temple actually does develop Jack O’Connell’s character into something very much like a evil St. Jimmy and his battle with Ralph Fiennes’ orange-skinned anti-Trump Dr. Ian Kelson for the soul of Alfie Williams’ Spike more or less follows the contours of the album’s plot. But while 28 Years Later arguably shares some of the same flaws that Robert Christgau pointed out two decades ago, “there’s no economics, no race, hardly any compassion” reads more as an inventory of facts than a critique when it’s referring to a story that begins with the end of the world. Which: this trilogy definitely *is* shaping up to be as close to an adaptation of Walter M. Miller Jr.’s classic sci fi novel A Canticle for Liebowitz, one of my favorites, that we may ever get! The first installment also features a terrific score by Young Fathers that like Fiennes’ performance should have been nominated for an Oscar and a number of unforgettably gorgeous-harrowing scenes like a race across a partially-submerged causeway under the aurora borealis. It is now streaming on Netflix and is also available on both Blu-ray and DVD from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here. A running list of all of my “Home Video” recommendations can be found here.

Film Criticism Musings Inspired by The Lego Movie

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Close-up of Will Ferrell's The Main Upstairs holding a bottle of Krazy Glue which is in focus and he's slightly out of focus behind in a frame within a frame created by one of his Lego creations

The Lego Movie obviously exists to sell Legos, specifically sets based on high-value licensed IP like Batman and Lord of the Rings. This may not be such a noble goal, but as a parent I appreciate the pitch it uses. If my kids want to play with Gandalf but don’t have a Gandalf toy, they’ll make one out of whatever materials at hand, even if it takes all day. Which is awesome! But they’ll happily level up if you *give* them a Gandalf toy and spend that same amount of time creating a balrog or Saruman to fight him or turning their bedroom into a replica of the Shire. You might believe one of these two forms of creativity is superior to the other, but *I* don’t and I agree that one of the cool things about a Lego set is that it accommodates both: you can build what’s pictured on the box, or you can turn the minifigures that come with it loose in an entirely different world.

Most films come with the equivalents of box art and instructions and it’s silly to pretend otherwise. Cast and director interviews, posters, press notes, and previews all tell us how we’re meant to read the work, as do aspects of the text itself like dialogue, production design, and shot selection. To say that a movie appears or (even worse) claims to be doing one thing but is in fact doing another is to shoulder the burden of proof. If you don’t show your work, you can’t expect people to take you seriously. But in the same way that you can always take a set of Legos and make something else with it, so too do viewers reserve the right to do what they please with whatever they watch. It isn’t CRITICISM, though, unless you account for all the pieces supplied by the film, its context, and its creators.

So: yes to this horror movie is more entertaining if you think of it as a comedy–as long as you explain why and ideally what it means! This is the same as arguing that you can make what’s on the box if you want, but what’s on the box is super lame and you can use the pieces that come in it to make this other really cool thing instead. Absolutely yes to spackling a crack in narrative logic. And potentially yes as well to suggesting that Happy Gilmore 2 is a Rosetta Stone for understanding the mindset of American conservatives even if you disagree with the politics of the piece and its writer, provided it has explanatory value. But no, no, no to both stridently insisting on a One True Interpretation and completely ignoring the intent of the authors, even if we don’t need to treat their word as gospel. Criticism isn’t about either following a manual or just pretending you got what you really wanted for Christmas: it’s about putting whatever actually was under the tree through its paces and maybe pushing the envelope a bit.

Previous posts about film criticism can be found here. 

Ithaca Film Journal: 1/22/26

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What I’m Seeing This Week: Cornell Cinema is starting off their spring lineup with a bang and I’m exited to see the new 35mm print of 8½ that they’re screening on Friday and Sunday! I’m planning to catch The Testament of Ann Lee at Cinemapolis as well. Finally, while I’m also eager to see Orwell: 2+2=5, which plays Cornell Cinema on Saturday, I’m going to wait until it returns next Thursday.

Also in Theaters: With the unveiling of this year’s Oscar nominees later this morning, four contenders for my Movie Year 2025 list are now playing Ithaca: No Other Choice continues its run at Cinemapolis, One Battle After Another and Sinners have returned to the Regal Ithaca Mall, and Marty Supreme is at both. You can’t go wrong with any of them, but my *top* recommendation is No Other Choice, one of the most thoughtful and darkly hilarious takes on the A.I. revolution we’re living through I’ve seen to date. Meanwhile, Movie Year 2026 is off to a good start with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, part two of a mashup-up between Green Day’s album American Idiot and Walter M. Miller Jr.’s novel A Canticle for Liebowitz that I’m beginning to think MIGHT just be a pop culture near-masterpiece–ask me again after I’ve gotten a chance to rewatch the first 28 Years Later film! I also enjoyed Father Mother Sister Brother, which continues its run at Cinemapolis; ’70s throwback Dead Man’s Wire, which you can see at the Regal; and Hamnet, which is at both. I should probably also mention that It Was Just an Accident is playing Cornell Cinema tonight because I seem to be an outlier in not thinking it is one of the best movies of the year (even though I do agree that it’s an important work and that its very existence represents a monumental achievement considering the circumstances under which it was made and current events). This week’s special events highlight is the return of the Ithaca Underground Music Video Festival to Cinemapolis on Wednesday. Finally, noteworthy repertory options include the etymologically essential Gaslight at Cornell Cinema this evening, The Matrix at the Regal on Sunday, and the “final cut” version of Blade Runner there on Wednesday.

Home Video Recommendation: I often spend much of the last two weeks of each month watching films that are about to disappear from the Criterion Channel. Of the titles that expire on January 31, the clear cream of the crop is The Plot Against Harry. Here’s how I recently described it on Letterboxd:

Beautifully observed dispatch from the amorphous, arbitrary borderlands between disreputable and respected in Jewish New York City at the turn of the 1970s with a central message as relevant today as it was fifty-five years ago: don’t keep your boudoir photos in a ground-level drawer in the living room if you have kids!

Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here. A running list of all of my “Home Video” recommendations can be found here.