What I’m Seeing This Week: I’m excited to see A Romance of the Air, which was shot and produced in Ithaca in 1918, at Cinemapolis on Saturday! This screening is free and will be accompanied by live music by Emmett Scott. I didn’t make it to Superman, which continues its run at Cinemapolis and the Regal Ithaca Mall, last week, so that’s next up on my list. I’m hoping to catch Eddington at one of those two theaters as well.
Also in Theaters: Congratulations to The Phoenician Scheme, which by extending its run at Cinemapolis has broken Sinners‘ Movie Year 2025 record of four consecutive weeks as my top-recommended new release in Ithaca theaters! I also enjoyed 28 Years Later, which closes at Cinemapolis today but remains at the Regal, and Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, which continues to hang on there as well. Special events highlights include a presentation of two in-progress documentaries called Eyes on Ukraine and Creative Resolve: Making Human Development and Social Progress at Cinemapolis on Monday that features a post-screening discussion with the filmmakers and a free screening of the film Plastic People there on Tuesday. Last but not least, there are TONS of great repertory options to choose from thanks in part to a weekend-long series called “Gathering at the Terror Vault” at Cinemapolis that includes (to single out two personal favorites) Event Horizon and Under the Skin. You can also see In the Mood for Love there all week, and the beloved children’s classic My Neighbor Totoro is at the Regal Saturday-Wednesday.
Home Video: I recently reviewed the beer documentary Bottle Conditioned for the publication Educational Media Reviews Online, which is primarily aimed at academic librarians. To give you an idea of what this means, I recommended it as “an obvious fit for collections serving culinary arts programs and related fields like brewing and food science.” This particular title, which follows three groups of brewers and blenders that work with the lambic style native to Belgium’s Zenne Valley through a period of growth, will also appeal to any craft beer lover who likes to think about what they drink, though, especially those who have access to the bottles from 3 Fonteinen and Cantillon featured in the movie. I’m actually not sure whether or not that describes people in Ithaca, but I happened to be attending a conference in Philadelphia while working on this and my friend Anthony took my loving wife and me to an establishment called Monk’s Café with an extensive selection, and everything we tried was delicious. Anyway, current Cornell University faculty, staff, and students have access to Bottle Conditioned through the platform Docuseek via a license paid for by the Library and home video options for everyone else can be found on the film’s website.
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 