What I’m Seeing This Week: My official selection is Maestro, which opens at Cinemapolis today, but I think we’re also going to take the girls to see It’s a Wonderful Life there on Sunday as part of the “Family Classics Picture Show” series. More information about this screening, which costs only $2 per person or $10 for a family or group, can be found here.
Also in Theaters: In 2002 a bunch of college friends and I piled into a car and headed north to attend the Toronto International Film Festival for one weekend. We prioritized a handful of new releases by directors we were already familiar with like Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine, but for the most part we just went by the descriptions in the program and created a schedule that allowed us to see as many movies as possible. And so it was that I found myself watching a man I had never heard of named Hayao Miyazaki introduce his latest film Spirited Away. The subsequent two hours remain one of the most magical and unexpected moviegoing experiences of my life, and the best compliment I can think to pay The Boy and the Heron, which is now playing at both Cinemapolis and the Regal Ithaca Mall, is to say that I believe I’d feel exactly the same way if *it* had been the film I had saw that day instead. The next best new film in local theaters that I’ve seen is The Holdovers, which ends its run at Cinemapolis on Sunday but continues at the Regal at least through the end of the week. Other holiday options include Die Hard, which continues at the Regal all next week; my most recent Drink & a Movie selection National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, which is there on Saturday; and The Polar Express, which is there on Sunday. Finally, two films open in Ithaca at the end of the week that I’ve heard nothing but good things about: Poor Things and The Iron Claw, which both arrive at Cinemapolis on Thursday. The latter starts a run at the Regal then as well.
Home Video: I’ve mentioned a few times recently that my family typically watches nothing but Christmas movies during the month of December, but we’ve actually done a pretty terrible job of it so far this year! We did all gather in the living room together for my December, 2022 Drink & a Movie selection Elf this past weekend, though, and I’m delighted to report that my oldest daughter is so interested in how films are made that she basically asked me to provide a commentary track focused on the practical effects used in the North Pole sequences, which is one of the cooler things that has happened in my life recently. We have it on DVD, but you can also stream it on Max with a subscription or rent it from pretty much any major platform. If you’re looking for anything but a holiday movie, the Shah Rukh Khan vehicle Jawan, which I enjoyed thoroughly when I saw it at the Regal in September, is now available on Netflix with a subscription.
Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here.
The Prodigal Cinephile 