What I’m Seeing This Week: It’s another double movie week for me since 2024 Oscar nominee for Best Documentary Feature Film Four Daughters will close at Cinemapolis next Thursday and I don’t want to wait on Best Picture (among other categories) nominee The Zone of Interest, which opens there today as well, and risk a hard choice down the line.
Also in Theaters: I saw a preview for Mami Wata at Cornell Cinema last weekend and it looks interesting! Unfortunately, neither of the two screenings there tomorrow and on Saturday works with my schedule. Director Davy Chou will be at Cornell Cinema with his film Return to Seoul on Wednesday, but I can’t make it to that either. All of Us Strangers, which continues its run at Cinemapolis, is my favorite new film now playing locally. Additional 2024 Oscar nominees that you can see in Ithaca this week include the “Minus Color” version of Godzilla Minus One at Cinemapolis and the Regal Ithaca Mall today only; American Fiction and Poor Things at the same two theaters all week; the dubbed version of The Boy and the Heron just at Cinemapolis all week; and Anatomy of a Fall, Barbie, The Holdovers, Killers of the Flower Moon, Oppenheimer, Past Lives, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse at just the Regal all week. Last but definitely not least, A Thousand and One, which is at Cornell Cinema tomorrow, features the best film music I heard all year.
Home Video: I created a playlist of the four shorts up for Oscars on YouTube to make it easier to access them! All three Best Documentary Short Film nominees are good. Island in Between is a first-person essay film about a fascinating place I didn’t even know existed: the Taiwanese islands of Kinmen, which are located within sight of mainland China. It contains some terrific imagery like a rusted-out tank aiming at the setting sun. The Barber of Little Rock is an inspiring profile of a real-life George Bailey named Arlo Washington. Finally, The Last Repair Shop is an ambitious story about the interesting lives of the dedicated people who repair maintain the musical instruments freely given to students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. That one, which is co-directed by 2022’s winner in this category Ben Proudfoot (for The Queen of Basketball) and Kris Bowers, is probably my favorite so far (I haven’t seen Nai Nai & Wài Pó yet). Meanwhile, Knight of Fortune is thematically similar to fellow Best Live Action Short Film nominee The After, which is now available on Netflix, in that they’re both about grief, but the two films couldn’t be more different in tone. This one’s more my speed: director Lasse Lyskjær Noer has cited one of my favorite filmmakers Alexander Payne as an influence and I can totally see it.
Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here.
The Prodigal Cinephile 