What I’m Seeing This Week: I audibled to My First Film last Friday to catch one of the screenings at Cinemapolis introduced by director Zia Anger, which means Sing Sing (also at Cinemapolis) is still next up for me. I’m super excited to see Seven Samurai there as well since I think it’s literally been decades since I last watched it, so I’m going to try to make this a two movie week.
Also in Theaters: My First Choice is my top recommendation this week. It is instantly my favorite movie about/set in Ithaca–I especially appreciate the way it connects to our surprisingly rich cinema heritage through the inclusion of clips and reuse of locations from If Women Only Knew, which was shot here more than a century ago–and also contains one of the boldest and original filmic depiction of abortion I’ve ever seen. I also enjoyed Between the Temples, which remains at Cinemapolis, and two movies that continue their impressively long runs at the Regal Ithaca Mall: Inside Out 2 and Twisters. New movies I haven’t yet seen but want to include Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (Cinemapolis and the Regal) and Dìdi (Cinemapolis); I’d love to catch Blink Twice (Regal) before it closes as well, but it’s already down to one showtime per day, so this probably isn’t in the cards. There’s a free screening of the documentary Divisible at Cinemapolis tonight followed by a panel discussion which includes director, producer, and cinematographer Lizzy Barrett. In addition to Seven Samurai, the other standouts in a great week for repertory fare include The Godfather and The Shining, which are at Cinemapolis tomorrow and Saturday respectively as part of the Ithaca is Books festival; Roman Holiday, which is at Cornell Cinema on Saturday; and Blazing Saddles, which is at the Regal on Sunday and Wednesday.
Home Video: One of the highlights of the 2023 Nitrate Picture Show was a film I had never even heard of before despite the fact that it is directed (Fritz Lang), shot (Charles Lang), and scored (Kurt Weill) by a trio of legends, You and Me. The scenes that made the biggest impression on me after my first viewing were the ones in which Sylvia Sidney’s Helen Roberts performs calculations on a blackboard to “prove” that crime doesn’t pay, which reminded me of Hippolyte Girardot’s mathematics in A Christmas Tale, and the tour of late-30s New York City ethnic restaurants that she and new husband (George Raft) embark upon in lieu of a honeymoon. This time it was the expressionistic prison break flashback sequence that stuck out as the most obvious example of its genius. Anyway, the film is now available on the Criterion Channel as part of their “Rebels at the Typewriter: Women Screenwriters of the 1930s” collection and you should definitely watch it!
Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here.
The Prodigal Cinephile 