What I’m Seeing This Week: I’m excited to finally see The Shrouds, which opens at Cinemapolis today! I’ll probably try to catch The Legend of Ochi there or at the Regal Ithaca Mall as well.
Also in Theaters: The best new movie now playing Ithaca that I’ve already seen is the blues-drenched People’s History of Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles Sinners, which meets both of Fritz Lang’s requirements for widescreen cinematography (snakes and funerals . . . check and check!) and continues its run at Cinemapolis and the Regal. I also enjoyed Drop, which is down to one showing per day at the Regal, and One to One: John & Yoko, which remains at Cinemapolis. This week’s special events are highlighted by a bevy of free screenings, many of which feature panel discussions and Q&A sessions: The Brutalist and Machines in Flames at Cornell Cinema tonight, Beyond the Straight and Narrow at Cinemapolis tonight, Human Again and National Velvet at Cinemapolis on Sunday, Deaf President Now! at Cornell Cinema on Monday, and Fancy Dance there on Tuesday. Finally, Anora now counts as “repertory fare,” so the screening at Cornell Cinema on Wednesday is my top recommendation in that department.
Home Video: An old and new favorite that I mentioned on this blog in the past year are both among the films leaving the Criterion Channel at the end of the month. The Palm Beach Story, my “Drink & a Movie” selection for last April, begins with an all-time great opening credits sequence, ends with an impressively advanced special effect for its era, and features maybe my single favorite movie prop ever, he notebook in which Rudy Vallee’s J.D. Hackensacker III writes down all of his expenses, in between. Of more recent vintage, About Dry Grasses came in eighth on the top ten list I published in March. I don’t actually say much about it there, but as I noted on Letterboxd after my first viewing, Deniz Celiloglu’s Samet is one of 2024’s most compelling unlikeable protagonists, and as I added after a second one the subjective sound design that puts the viewer in his headspace right from the start is also interesting.
Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here. A running list of all of my “Home Video” recommendations can be found here.
The Prodigal Cinephile 