What I’m Seeing This Week: I think I’m going to try to check out The Apprentice (which is at Cinemapolis) before the election on Tuesday as intended even though I’ve already voted.
Also in Theaters: The best new movie now playing Ithaca that I’ve already seen is either The Wild Robot, which is at the Regal Ithaca Mall, or Conclave, which is both there and at Cinemapolis. I’m expecting both of them to be among this year’s Oscar nominees, and I won’t be mad if they win a few. Of the films I haven’t yet seen, the one I’m most interested in is Here (which is at both Cinemapolis and the Regal), although I’m annoyed that it shares a title with one of my favorite movies of the year. Your best bets for repertory fare are Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, which is at Cornell Cinema on Sunday; Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb and Sunset Boulevard, which are there tomorrow; and John Wick, which is at the Regal on Sunday and Wednesday. Unless you have kids who haven’t yet experienced Labyrinth, that is, in which case your top priority should be taking them to see it at Cornell Cinema on Sunday!
Home Video: In the Drink & a Movie post I’m going to publish later today, I will refer to The Leopard Man as “the film I’ve long thought of as my favorite B movie” and House of Usher as “the one which recently stole that crown.” This is all true! But between you and me, that’s only because I forgot how good I Walked with a Zombie, one of my acquisitions during the most recent Criterion Channel flash sale, is. Its brisk 69-minute runtime is filled with enough atmosphere to fill six seasons of a television series, and it also includes the following exchange of dialogues which I consider to be the final word on the pros and cons of the tiki movement:
BETSY CONNELL: I don’t know about zombies, doctor. Just what is a zombie?
DR. MAXWELL: A ghost. A living dead. It’s also a drink.
BETSY CONNELL: Yes. I tried one once. But, there wasn’t anything dead about it.
It also contains one of the best uses of a troubadour (played by Sir Lancelot) I’d ever seen prior to this movie year’s La Chimera. There truly isn’t any other movie quite like it, and you can watch it on Watch TCM until November 3, so what are you waiting for?
Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here.
The Prodigal Cinephile 