In Theaters: Every year there’s at least one movie that everyone else absolutely loves which I merely like. It Was Just an Accident held this distinction last year, and in 2024 it was Hundreds of Beavers, both of which I found . . . fine. The new incumbent is shaping up to be Blue Heron, which reminded me of two recent films I really liked, Petite Maman and All of Us Strangers, but with all the magic schematized out of them. You should go see it at Cinemapolis anyway, though, because it has a 97% grade on Rotten Tomatoes, is averaging four stars from the people I follow on Letterboxd who have rated it, and will almost certainly end up in the top ten of the 2026 IndieWire Critics Poll, all of which means you’ll probably disagree with me, too. Leave me with a comment if you do and tell me what I’m underrating!
Obsession, which continues its runs at Cinemapolis and the Regal Ithaca Mall, is an exploration of the impossibility of ever actually getting what you wish for as an example of the Lovecraftian sublime that is much more on my wavelength. I also hear good things about holdovers Is God Is and The Sheep Detectives, but I’m going with new releases In the Grey and I Love Boosters. All four films are at the Regal, and Boosters opens at Cinemapolis tonight as well. We’re saving Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu, which probably doesn’t have anything new to say about endowment spending, for a family matinee outing to the Regal next weekend.
Special events include a free screening of The Warrior Tradition at Cinemapolis on Monday. Finally, the cream of a weak crop of repertory options is The Blues Brothers, which has a number of showtimes at the Regal on Monday.
Home Video Recommendation: Prismatic Ground, as its website says, “is an annual festival in New York City centered on experimental documentary and avant-garde film.” It started life in 2021 as a virtual event, but appears to have evolved into a first truly hybrid, then mostly in-person one which still retains a virtual component over the past five springs. Last year was the first time I remember hearing about it, and this year I almost remembered to check the festival website in time to catch some of the “wave ∞” films, but was a day or two late. Luckily for me, 31 selections from the first five editions are now available on the Criterion Channel with a subscription as part of their “Prismatic Ground Presents” collection, which I recently finished working my way through.
Genuinely boundary-pushing art is just as likely to irritate as it is to awe you, sometimes even within the same work. Hinkelten, for instance, was probably my least favorite movie of the lot, but it also opens with a starkly Arctic horizontal composition that I’d love to frame and hang on my wall so that I can stare at it without the distraction of gratingly slowed-down voiceover dialogue that I found nearly unbearable:
Other titles such as As If No Misfortune Had Occurred in the Night, which is meant to be “presented in black and white as a three-screen projection,” didn’t work for me because they seem to have lost a lot in translation from installation setups like this one to the small screen. Quite a few are worth mixing in with your feature film viewing, though! Here are five of my favorites:
5. Exterior Turbulence. This richly-textured (even in its interstitial white text-on-a-black-background title cards!) dream diary directed by Binghamton University professor Sofia Theodore-Pierce won Best in Show at the 2023 Ithaca Experimental Film Festival, an annual event that I’m now extremely embarrassed not to have made it to yet. Next year!
4. L’Éscale. I still get a big kick out of flying, and this movie’s deceptively simple window seat visuals tap into that same “surly bonds of earth” sense of wonder. It pairs them with voiceover dialogue describing a Kafkaesque stopover, though, foregrounding a different way international aviation is a miracle: successfully navigating past multiple interstitial spaces where you can be made to disappear without anyone knowing until they receive a ransom demand.
3. Yaangna Plays Itself. One of our local movie theaters recently introduced a well-intentioned but overlong and repetitive land acknowledgement which now precedes most of their screenings. This dynamic experiment in filmic terroir models a materialist approach to setting the celluloid record straight that I’d love to see them look at as inspiration for future efforts. Especially if they created a series, perhaps corresponding to the changing seasons, it would be much more engaging!
2. Tuktuit: Caribou. Astonishingly resourceful 16mm cinematic ouroboros created with developers and emulsion made from the same lichen and fleshed-down caribou depicted in the movie. Which is also beautiful and mysterious in a way that reminded me of Movie Year 2025 favorite 7 Walks with Mark Brown! If I was organizing a screening of Nuisance Bear, I’d want this to play before it.
1. Ma’loul Celebrates Its Destruction. The oldest film here, a 2024 wave ∞ online exclusive from 1984, is at its best in classroom scenes that suggest intonation as an antidote to Orwellian doublespeak. It also uses speeded-up archival footage to a similarly understated subversive effect and features a juxtaposition of a mural aide de mémoire against travelogue footage from a visit to a place that doesn’t exist anymore which certainly anticipates and maybe even directly inspired a number of other works in this collection.
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 