What I’m Seeing This Week: I’m excited to finally see The Secret Agent, which I ranked second on my “Cannes 2025 Films That I Am Most Eager to See” list six months ago, at Cinemapolis! I’m also going to try to catch Avatar: Fire and Ash at the Regal Ithaca Mall.
Also in Theaters: Peter Hujar’s Day has one more screening before it closes at Cinemapolis this afternoon and is well worth 76 minutes at your time. I enjoyed Hamnet and Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, which remain there at least through the end of the week, too. We probably aren’t going to make it to Wicked: For Good (Cinemapolis and the Regal) or Zootopia 2 (Regal) before the end of the year, but they’re on my list as well, and I’m also hearing good things about The Housemaid (Regal). This week’s special events highlight is definitely the free screening of It’s a Wonderful Life at Cinemapolis on Sunday. Finally, on the repertory front, you can catch both my December 2023 and 2024 Drink & a Movie selections National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and Elf at the Regal tomorrow and on Wednesday respectively. Those are probably *my* three favorite Christmas movies at all time, but if you’re a Christmas in Connecticut or A Christmas Story partisan, they play the Regal tonight and Saturday respectively as well.
Home Video Recommendation: Highest 2 Lowest currently only ranks 59th on the aggregator website criticstop10.com’s “Best Movies of 2025” list, but I’d put it ahead of all save one (Eephus) of the 33 films ahead of it that I’ve seen so far. Here’s what I said on Letterboxd in August after my first viewing at Cinemapolis:
When I made High and Low a “home video” recommendation on ye olde blog a couple months ago, I mentioned that “I definitely do see the appeal of turning director Akira Kurosawa’s literal and figurative wide-angle lens on today’s America.” This turns out to be one of the notes that director Spike Lee DOESN’T play, though. From his own songbook, a multi-character racist rant is also lacking because after all these years we no longer need anyone to break the fourth wall to know what they’re thinking. Howard Drossin’s lush original score and Matthew Libatique’s camerawork in the scenes it accompanies scream leather-bound books and rich mahogany and create a wonderful contrast with the grittiness of the world outside Denzel Washington’s David King’s penthouse apartment. Looking forward to watching this one again!
I revisited it on Apple TV the other day and am happy to report that it holds up just fine! Of course, between this and Blue Moon, which is likely to also end up on my own top ten list when I publish it in March, I now feel like I need to find 140 minutes to rewatch Oklahoma! before it leaves Watch TCM on January 8. I guess I know what my next Family (née Friday) Movie Night selection will be!
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 