In Theaters: I audibled away from The History of Concrete last week, so seeing it at Cinemapolis remains my top priority. I’m also planning to catch NAZA there, and Primetime there or at the Regal Ithaca Mall.
My favorite holdover is the much-maligned (but also, in other corners, passionately defended) Digger, which continues its run at the same two theaters and which, for reasons I can’t explain without risking “spoilers,” dovetails perfectly with the blog post I’m currently writing about the 28 Years Later movies, Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s novel A Canticle for Leibowitz, this Substack post by Cass Sunstein, and personal responsibility in an age of perpetual political crisis. I look forward to revisiting the film after I finish getting my thoughts in order, so: stay tuned! I also enjoyed Filipiñana, which is at Cinemapolis on Sunday.
Additional new releases that I’m interested in, but don’t currently have time for, include the documentary Barbara Forever, which plays Cornell Cinema tonight; Verity, which continues its run at the Regal; and The Social Reckoning, which is opening there and at Cinemapolis.
Special events include three more free Cine con Cultura screenings at Cinemapolis and Ithaca College. Finally, repertory highlights include Terminator 2: Judgment Day at Cornell Cinema tonight, Stalker there tomorrow, The Thing at the Regal on Monday, and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari at Cinemapolis on Wednesday.
Home Video Recommendation: Longtime readers know that one of my passions is identifying movies that would make for killer double features, and the other day I came up with a great one after finally watching West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty! As I said on Letterboxd:
This would make an excellent double feature with Quatermass and the Pit, which features an excavated (space) ship that reawakens modern London’s latent hive mind. Here director Med Hondo builds a slaver in an abandoned French factory to remind us that our base instincts are responsible for much of the wealth Western Europe enjoys to this day. I love how you can see his colonizer characters’ breath in many scenes, which literalizes how they’re full of hot air.
West Indies is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel with a subscription and is also available on Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection, and Quatermass is available on Blu-ray from Shout! Factory.
Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here. A running list of all of my “Home Video” recommendations can be found here.
