In Theaters: I will be in Rome, New York tomorrow until Sunday to attend Capitolfest 23, my very first time at this event–stay tuned for a “dispatch” blog post in a couple/few weeks! I’m going to Canada for a couple of days after that, but am hoping to catch The End of Oak Street at the Regal Ithaca Mall after I return. My Loving Wife is a big Matthew McConaughey fan and we’re planning a date night outing to see The Rivals of Amziah King at Cinemapolis as well, but ideally we’ll have the luxury of waiting until next week.
The Odyssey, which continues its run at both theaters, remains my favorite holdover for a third week in a row. I also enjoyed I Want Your Sex (Cinemapolis), Spider-Man: Brand New Day (Cinemapolis & Regal), and Toy Story 5 (Regal). Finally, your special events/repertory highlight is definitely the two screenings of Mulholland Drive at Cinemapolis on Tuesday because all David Lynch fans should experience it on the big screen at least once.
Home Video Recommendation: I recently caught up with Bellissima after missing it at this year’s Nitrate Picture Show (which I only attended for one day) and it’s great! I marked my Letterboxd movie diary entry for it as “contains spoilers,” but those don’t start until the second paragraph. Here’s the first:
Reminds me of French Cancan, except here the film director Alessandro Blasetti (playing himself) is helpless in the face of humanity as a force of nature–not just the stage mothers shouting “mine is bellissima!” which Pauline Kael says inspired it, but also his braying colleagues–instead of able to harness it. Except, of course, that the true analog for Jean Gabin’s Henri Danglard is Anna Magnani’s streetwise I-will-survivor Maddalena Cecconi.
Read the rest after you see it, then drop me a line in the comments if you can think of a more misleading DVD cover than this one for the Entertainment One release I recently bought on Amazon, which gives no hint whatsoever that the film is a lively comedy:
Bellissima is also available for rental on Prime Video.
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 