What I’m Seeing This Week: Colman Domingo might be my favorite working American actor, so this is an easy choice: I am going with Sing Sing at Cinemapolis.
Also in Theaters: My favorite new film playing in Ithaca RIGHT NOW is Good One, but its final screening at Cinemapolis is today at 2pm–see it if you can! Starting tomorrow my top recommendation will once again be Between the Temples, which is also at Cinemapolis. I wrote about why last week. Other new films I enjoyed include Inside Out 2 and Twisters, which are at the Regal Ithaca Mall, and Love Lies Bleeding, which is at Cornell Cinema tomorrow night. There are more other movies I’m interested in playing Ithaca theaters than I’ll have time to see, with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (Cinemapolis and the Regal), Blink Twice (the Regal), and Dìdi (Cinemapolis) topping the list. All three screenings of My First Film, which opens at Cinemapolis tomorrow, will be introduced by director Zia Anger, who is an Ithaca College grad. There will be a free screening of the film Cornell Commits to Confronting Climate Change Activists at Cinemapolis tomorrow followed by a Q&A with local activists and members of the crew. Finally, your best bet for repertory fare is Eyes Wide Shut, which screens at Cornell Cinema on Saturday as part of their “Party Like It’s 1999” series. I still remember walking home alone at night along Route 30 after seeing it at the Wonderland 4 Cinema (RIP) when I was in high school, as on-edge as I ever had been in my entire life. I’d actually prioritize this ahead of any of the new movies I mention above, especially if you’ve never seen it on a big screen before.
Home Video: My favorite movies from the first half of Movie Year 2024 are starting to hit the streaming platforms, which means it’s time to start revisiting them. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, has actually been available on Mubi with a subscription for awhile, but I finally got around to watching it again the other night and it’s even better on a second viewing. I got so lost in its wildly inventive narrative mélange the first time, for instance, that I failed to appreciate the beautifully textured 16mm black & white photography of what I’m lazily going to call the “main” plot. It also has a wonderfully thought-provoking title. Who or what exactly should we temper our expectations about? Ourselves, because we’re too busy cultivating social media personae to ever stand up and do more than just rage against the falling of a 40 hour work week, safe roads, civil liberties, &c? Or are reports of the total subjugation of the proletariat greatly exaggerated so long as there are still people as smart and resourceful as protagonist Angela Raducanu (Ilinca Manolache) around? Neither interpretation is a perfect fit, but I favor an optimistic reading. It also features a killer soundtrack, which some kind soul compiled into a Spotify playlist. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World is now a lock for my top ten list for 2024, so: more to come!
Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here.
The Prodigal Cinephile 