What I’m Seeing This Week: Memories of Underdevelopment is the eleventh-greatest film I’ve never seen according to the 2022 Sight and Sound Critics Poll, so the free screening at Cornell Cinema on Monday is my top priority! I’m also going to try to catch The Long Walk at the Regal Ithaca Mall.
Also in Theaters: Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, which opens at the Regal today and Cinemapolis tomorrow, would probably be listed above, only I promised my loving wife I’d save it for a future date night. The best new movie in local theaters that I’ve already seen is Familiar Touch, which screens at Cornell Cinema on Sunday evening. I don’t want to say much about it because I strongly suspect that at least the first scene plays better the less you know, but to pique your interest I will note here (as I did on Letterboxd) that it’s “a great food movie in the same way Spanglish is which also deals well with sensuality and desire in late adulthood + features terrific sound design, a pretty incredible lead performance by Kathleen Chalfant, and H. Jon Benjamin.” Other first-run fare I enjoyed include Caught Stealing and Weapons, which continue their respective runs at both Cinemapolis and the Regal, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which is playing just the Regal. This week’s special events highlight is the opening of the third annual Reproductive Rights Film Festival, which features three free screenings at Cinemapolis on Saturday and Sunday. Finally, we are once again blessed with great repertory options at all three Ithaca venues, including screenings of Jaws and The Thing at Cinemapolis and the Regal respectively tonight, The Thin Man at Cornell Cinema on Saturday, Sunset Boulevard at the Regal on Monday, and a free presentation of a new 4k restoration of The Draughtman’s Contract at Cornell Cinema on Tuesday.
Home Video: Love Me Tonight is a wildly creative pre-Code musical directed by Rouben Mamoulian that features music by Rodgers and Hart, “male gaze”-defying beefcake shots of Maurice Chevalier, some of the best music-of-the-streets and catchy-song-catching-on montages of this or any other era, and perhaps the single funniest use of slow motion in moving picture history. And clothes by Edith Head, whom Turner Classic Movies is celebrating this month, including a riding habit that is identified in the diegesis as representing the height of fashion, which strikes me as a particularly daunting challenge for a costume designer. Anyway, this film is a shoo-in for any Best of the 1930s list I might ever find myself moved to make, so check it out on Watch TCM before it leaves next Wednesday!
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 