What I’m Seeing This Week: I’ll be in San Diego for the American Library Association’s annual conference until Tuesday. I always try to make space on my schedule for a visit to a local arthouse theater, and although it feels a bit odd to travel to the whole other end of the country to watch a movie directed by someone (Erica Tremblay) who lives in Ithaca, the most appealing option playing at the Digital Gym Cinema while I’m there is Fancy Dance, and I’m just gonna roll with it. I also intend to see The Cinema Within at the conference itself when it screens as part of the Now Showing @ ALA Film Program.
Also in Theaters: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga holds on to the title of Best New Movie in Ithaca That I’ve Already Seen for one more week, but it’s down to one screening per day at the Regal Ithaca Mall, so its reign is probably coming to an end. Inside Out 2, which is there as well, unsurprisingly doesn’t live up to its predecessor, but none the less makes for a good time out with the whole family. The reviews for Janet Planet, which opens at Cinemapolis today, are absolutely glowing, so that’s the new release I’m most looking forward to seeing; as a devotee of Top Chef I’m instinctively wary of “trios,” but I’m hoping to catch director Yorgos Lanthimos’s latest Kinds of Kindness there before it closes as well. This may mean I’m waiting for The Bikeriders (Cinemapolis and the Regal), Ghostlight (just Cinemapolis), and Thelma (ditto) to arrive on a streaming video platform, but they’re all on my list as well. On the repertory front your best bet is definitely 2001: A Space Odyssey, which kicks off a “Staff Picks” series at Cinemapolis on Wednesday. You can also see the imaginative 2018 animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse at the Regal on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Home Video: I’m apprehensive about Jury Prize recipient Emilia Pérez based on what I’ve heard about it, but I’m going to close out my series on 2024 Cannes award winners with director Jacques Audiard anyway because his 2005 film The Beat That My Heart Skipped, a brilliant riff on writer-director James Toback’s Fingers, was one of my very favorites of that movie year. It doesn’t appear to be available on any streaming video platforms, but you can pick up a DVD copy on Amazon for barely more than the price of a rental like I just did upon realizing that it wasn’t already part of my physical media collection. Audiard is probably best known for his follow-up effort A Prophet, which is available for rental from Apple TV+ and Prime Video. Finally, his three most recent films are all available to stream for free with subscriptions or on ad-supported platforms. In reverse order: Paris, 13th District is on Hulu; The Sisters Brothers is on Tubi; and Dheepan is on The Criterion Channel.
Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here.
The Prodigal Cinephile 