In Theaters: This week’s highlight is a pair of new releases opening at both Cinemapolis and the Regal Ithaca Mall: the not-as-controversial-as-expected (hat tip: Tyler Cowen) 2026 Palme d’Or winner Fjord and The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, which I’m even more excited for. I’m also intrigued by The Mongoose, but I’ll be managing a poll site all day Tuesday, which is when I usually go to the Regal, so it will have to wait. So will Wildwood, which remains at Cinemapolis and the Regal, because My Loving Wife and the girls haven’t finished reading the book it’s based on yet.
My favorite holdover is Wicker, which continues its run at the Regal. Here’s what I recently said about it on Letterboxd:
It is impossible for me not to read this as a parable about love in the age of sentient AI. I also want to watch it again (hence the rating, which is deliberately a 1/2 star high) to pay closer attention to how the sound design team found the sweet spot of just enough creaking-squeaking willow to satisfy but never so much that it’s distracting.
I also enjoyed You Can See Everything, which, although neither it nor Wicker makes an explicit statement on the topic, I feel takes basically the exact opposite view on everything coming out of Silicon Valley right now. It’s at both Cinemapolis and the Regal and probably will be for a while.
Special events include a free screening of Under the Shadow at Cornell Cinema on Tuesday, and three horror movies there which are free for Cornell students: The Craft and Scream tomorrow, and Carrie on Saturday. You can also see a 35mm print of Crash (the good one directed by David Cronenberg!) there tonight and on Sunday. Also on the repertory front, The Devils is still going strong at Cinemapolis, and you can see A Page of Madness at Cornell Cinema tonight, Halloween at the Regal tomorrow, and The Night of the Hunter at Cornell Cinema on Sunday.
Home Video Recommendation: Rose of Nevada remains one of my favorite movies of Movie Year 2026 after two viewings, and it’s a ghost story, so the week of Halloween is a perfect time to watch it on Mubi! Here’s what I said about it on Letterboxd after seeing it at Chicago’s awesome Music Box Theatre in June:
Rose of Nevada looks and sounds like a lo-fi The Fog, has at its heart a moral conundrum not dissimilar to the choice facing the loving fathers in Knock at the Cabin, and is evocative of Groundhog Day for reasons obvious (let’s do the time warp again!) and less so (the reckless truck driving sequence reminded me of unfilmed scenes where Phil Connors tries to get as far away from Punxsutawney as he can in 24 hours using a variety of means of transportation). This sort of thing is my bag, baby! But while I definitely see how it’s about community as director Mark Jenkins said in the Q&A with critic Isaac Feldberg that followed the 35mm screening at Chicago’s Music Box Theatre where I saw it, the movie works best for me when I think of George MacKay and Callum Turner’s leading men as representing a spectrum of exile/refugee experiences: how do you react when you can’t go home again?
Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here. A running list of all of my “Home Video” recommendations can be found here.
