What I’m Seeing This Week: I’m going with Secret Mall Apartment at Cinemapolis.
Also in Theaters: Sinners, which continues its run at Cinemapolis and the Regal Ithaca Mall, holds on to the title of Best New Movie Now Playing Ithaca That I’ve Already Seen for another week. I’m not super excited about the other first-run fare populating local screens, but there are a couple of decent repertory options even without Cornell Cinema (which is on summer break) chipping in. Most notably, Kiki’s Delivery Service, which might be my favorite film directed by Hayao Miyazaki, plays the Regal Saturday through Wednesday, and director Joe Wright’s lively 2005 Pride & Prejudice adaptation starring Keira Knightly in her first Oscar-nominated role is at Cinemapolis all week. You can also see Superbad there on Wednesday. Finally, special events highlights include a free “Family Classics Picture Show” screening of Snoopy Come Home and one showing only of the new documentary There Is Another Way at Cinemapolis on Sunday.
Home Video: I wasn’t planning to go in this direction with my write-up until just the other day, but the titular protagonist from week’s home video recommendation Wanda makes for an interesting contrast with Lewis Pullman’s Bob from Thunderbolts*, which is now playing Cinemapolis and the Regal. He is part of a long cinematic lineage of attractive, otherwise strong characters rendered vulnerable by a mental (usually) or physical trait who our hearts go out to when they’re exploited by others for selfish and often villainous purposes. The most prominent example is probably Giulietta Masina’s Gelsomina in La Strada, who likewise cries out for a protector who sees her as more than a mere tool. I’m wary of moments like the one in the Thunderbolts* where Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova attempts to literally rescue Bob from himself with a loving embrace, though, because they flatter us too much: Yelena isn’t treating him like a human therapy dog, she’s saving the world! As written, directed, and played by Barbara Loden, Wanda defies this tendency: Michael Higgins’s Mr. Dennis attempts to use her, but she’s such a frustrating non-entity that he can’t. Which is precisely what makes the movie she appears in memorably challenging. You can no more take care of her than you can a tumbleweed, and it would be equally unfulfilling to support her without expecting anything in return because there’s no evidence that she’d do anything worthwhile with this freedom, which I believe is the point of the opening sequence that reminds me of Pull My Daisy. And so you’re left with a puzzle in extreme long shot, a white-clad woman making her way from nowhere to nowhere through dirty dark side of the moon mountains of anthracite who you can’t just abandon with a clear conscience, but who you’ll also never have the pleasure of “saving.” Wanda is now streaming on the Criterion Channel with a subscription and is also available on Blu-Ray and DVD from the Criterion Collection where everything is 30% off through May 26. Highest possible recommendation!
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 