Category: Ithaca Film Journal

In Theaters: This is the final week before Ithaca goes back to being a two movie theater town when Cornell Cinema closes up shop until the students return in August, but all the stuff I’m most interested in is at Cinemapolis and the Regal Ithaca Mall anyway. I’m definitely going to try to see director David Lowery’s latest Mother Mary and I Swear at the former, and if I add a third movie it will be Michael at the latter despite bad reviews because it will be fun if I decide everyone else is wrong!

My favorite holdover is The Christophers, which continues its run at Cinemapolis. Here’s what I said about it on Letterboxd last week:

In which Michaela Coel’s artist Lori Butler lays out a dinner’s worth of takeout containers with the same careful attention she would devote to organizing a palette. I appreciated the use of glitter in the Christophers III series more for having seen Noah Davis’s 2004 (1) at the Philadelphia Museum of Art yesterday. Refreshingly alive to the many different ways a work of art can impact someone: in most movies “it changed my life!” is a boringly undynamic positive.

Movie of the moment The Drama remains there and at the Regal and is worth seeing as well if for no other reason than so that you can have an opinion on it. I’m also interested in My Father’s Shadow, which made my “Cannes 2025 Films That I Am Most Eager to See” list, but it isn’t a priority for me because it’s available on Mubi. Special events include a free screening of The Librarians, which unlike most movies about my profession I didn’t hate, at Cinemapolis on Saturday and four free events at Cornell Cinema: a “Science on Screen” presentation of A Birder’s Guide to Everything this evening, a “Sensory Ethnography” program featuring Leviathan and two shorts on Monday, a screening of Rosemead that evening, and a Kleber Mendonça Filho double feature of Pictures of Ghosts and The Secret Agent on Wednesday. Finally, other noteworthy repertory fare includes 35th anniversary screenings of The Silence of the Lambs at the Regal on Sunday and Wednesday and Eyes Wide Shut at Cinemapolis on Tuesday to kick off their new “Staff Picks: Erotic Thrillers” series.

Home Video Recommendation: I read an interesting Substack post by Will Manidis & Nabeel S. Qureshi called “Rented Virtue” a couple of months ago right around the time I saw The Testament of Ann Lee. It proposes that the Quaker sect’s spiritual prohibition on lying was directly responsible for the success in trade that gave them an outsized influence on the development of the British empire, and that there is no secular alternative to achieving this kind of result because irrational-seeming constraints imposed in the absence of God can’t ever reliably answer the question, “why maintain this when it is costly?” I thought of this just the other night while watching Barbary Coast on the Criterion Channel because Joel McCrea’s willingness to put poetry ahead of profit and his proselytizing influence on Miriam Hopkins seems to represent a rebuttal. If that doesn’t float your boat, the opening sequence is a classic Howard Hawks proceduralist depiction of a 19th century ship docking in San Francisco harbor, plus you’ve got both Walter Brennan wearing a fake (spoiler alert?) eyepatch and Edward G. Robinson donning an even danglier earring than the one he wore as a character note in Tiger Shark three years earlier. Barbary Coast will disappear from the Criterion Channel at the end of the month, but is also streaming on Prime Video with a subscription and Tubi, and copies of the Warner Archives Collection’s 2015 DVD release remain plentiful.

Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here. A running list of all of my “Home Video” recommendations can be found here.

What I’m Seeing This Week: I plan to close out the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival with the screening of Faust with live musical accompaniment by Cloud Chamber Orchestra on Saturday and The Blue Trail on Sunday. I’m also going to check out local production No Choice during its limited run at Cinemapolis that starts on Monday and am hoping to finally see The Drama there or at the Regal Ithaca Mall as well.

Also in Theaters: You have one last chance to see Alpha, my favorite film of Movie Year 2026 so far, at Cinemapolis this afternoon: don’t miss it! Special events include the Ithaca Short Film Festival at Cinemapolis on Wednesday and five free events at Cornell Cinema: a “Science on Screen” screening of A Good Year this evening, a screening of TCB: The Toni Cade Bambara School of Organizing followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Louis Massiah which also includes free popcorn tomorrow, Tongo Saa on Monday, Microhabitat on Tuesday, and Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire on Wednesday. The FLEFF screening of An Inconvenient Truth on Saturday afternoon is free as well. Finally, repertory highlights include a 3D presentation of House of Wax at Cornell Cinema on Saturday and Mad Max: Fury Road there later the same evening. If you want to make a day of it, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is playing the Regal, where you can also catch National Lampoon’s Vacation tomorrow and Caddyshack on Sunday.

Home Video Recommendation: I watched India Song for the first time a few months ago and I doubt a day has gone by since when I didn’t find myself whistle its titular theme at least once! Here’s what I said about on Letterboxd after my second viewing in February:

In the same way that I’m no longer capable of hearing the Beatles song “For No One” without thinking about James Joyce’s short story The Dead, now that I’ve convinced myself of the affinities between this film and John Cale’s “Paris 1919,” I’m probably doomed to forever think of it as an “adaptation.” But maybe the hypnotic brilliance of Carlos D’Alessio’s score is enough to guarantee something more like a two-way street? This month’s selection for the two-person film club I’m in with my buddy Scott is also a weirdly perfect follow-up to the last couple, featuring as it does interiors with a green-red color scheme that matches the two-strip Technicolor tones of Mystery of the Wax Museum and a similarly estranged relationship between sound and image as Blue.

It is now streaming on the Criterion Channel and is also available on Blu-ray and DVD from the Criterion Collection in a two-film box set with Baxter, Vera Baxter.

Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here. A running list of all of my “Home Video” recommendations can be found here.

What I’m Seeing This Week: I am hoping to catch six movies at the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival before next Thursday! Nuisance Bear tomorrow, Mare’s Nest on Saturday, A Life Illuminated and Seeds on Sunday, Our Land on Tuesday, and Northern Lights on Wednesday. I’m also interested in The Drama, which opens at Cinemapolis and the Regal Ithaca Mall today, but it will have to wait.

Also in Theaters: Alpha is terrific and I’m just a bit puzzled by its tepid reception at Cannes last year, although as a movie that needs space to breathe I can see how it might not have played well in a compressed festival context. Anyway, Cinemapolis has added an extra week to its run, which: good on you, Cinemapolis! Here’s what I wrote about this one on Letterboxd last week:

The best film about the AIDS epidemic since Witnesses. Here the feeling of Armageddon is completely literalized into the setting, but not exclusively: the maybe-real-maybe-figurative-maybe-both sandstorms raging outside are also inside the infected. Reminiscent of one of my Movie Year 2023 favorites All of Us Strangers in its dual (dream?) timelines and the way it deals with families and grief. What’s new is the decision to ground the story in the perspective of child first too young to understand, then too old not to, and the depiction of victims as beautiful monuments to the failure of science and society to save them.

One FLEFF selection *not* listed in the previous section is Best Documentary Feature Oscar winner Mr. Nobody Against Putin, which I’ve already seen. It’s good! Drop me a line if you have any thoughts on the Harry Potter references because I’m planning to write about them (and the ones in My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow) in June.

Special events include free screenings of Republic of Amnesia and Possible Landscapes followed by filmmaker Q&As at Cornell Cinema on Tuesday and Wednesday. Finally, noteworthy repertory options include Blazing Saddles, National Lampoon’s Animal House, and Airplane! at the Regal as part of their “LOL” series tomorrow, Saturday, and Wednesday respectively. The Killer plays there on Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday as well.

Home Video Recommendation: I’m happy to report that current Cornell University faculty, staff, and students can now view 7 Walks with Mark Brown, my favorite film from last year’s FLEFF, on our in-house Library MediaSpace platform! Here’s what I said about it when I included it on my Movie Year 2025 top ten (percent) list:

The titular paleobotanist who guides a filmmaking crew through the Pays de Caux region to “collect” primeval plants for a cinematic herbarium could be this blog’s patron saint, and the 16mm second half of its diptych comprises some of the most satisfying long shots I’ve ever seen.

It’s also available on Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome and can be streamed for a rental or purchase fee on Vimeo.

Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here. A running list of all of my “Home Video” recommendations can be found here.

What I’m Seeing This Week: The Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival, one of the highlights of Ithaca’s movie calendar, starts tomorrow! Read my interview with Co-Directors Andrew Utterson and Michael Richardson, then join me at Cinemapolis for the opening night screenings of Clash of Wolves (which will be accompanied by live music by Li’l Anne and Hot Cayenne) and Silent Friend. I’m also planning to see The Love That Remains and The Falling Sky at FLEFF on Saturday and Sunday respectively, plus I’m chaperoning a matinee outing to the Regal Ithaca Mall for Hoppers this weekend and hoping to catch Alpha at Cinemapolis later in the week.

Also in Theaters: My top new movie recommendation remains Sirât, which continues its run at Cinemapolis. Additional special events include a free screening of Remaining Native at Cornell Cinema this evening followed by a Q&A with director Paige Bethmann. Noteworthy repertory options include Bigger Than Life and Mad Max: Fury Road at Cornell Cinema tomorrow, No Country for Old Men at the Regal on Sunday, and On the Waterfront there on Monday. Finally, since you may be wondering, I have seen Project Hail Mary, which continues its runs at both Cinemapolis and the Regal, and it’s fine.

Home Video Recommendation: An early highlight of Movie Year 2026 was the program of experimental shorts by late Binghamton University professor Tomonari Nishikawa at Cornell Cinema last week which was introduced by his wife Miki and filmmaker colleague Sofia Theodore-Pierce. All seven films we saw were terrific and collectively created a beautiful progression. The clear highlight for me, though, was Light, Noise, Smoke, and Light, Noise, Smoke, which like the other six is available on Vimeo. Here’s what I said about it on Letterboxd after the screening:

For a long time I misremembered Kenneth Anger’s Eaux d’artifice as being about fireworks for some reason instead of fountains. *This* is something like the film that existed in my mind all those years, which I think explains the intense feeling of déjà vu I experienced while watching it. Friend Brian Darr, who saw it many months before I did, notes in his Letterboxd review that “creating an optical soundtrack out of the explosive patterns” was one ingenious way Nishikawa found to make fireworks footage interesting; this is also the first time I can remember ever paying as much attention to the smoke they generate as their light, and the introduction of a trip-to-the half moon created a host of other associations for me. A stunner.

Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here. A running list of all of my “Home Video” recommendations can be found here.

What I’m Seeing This Week: There are a ton of great events to choose from, but I think I’m *most* excited to finally catch up with Wings, the first movie ever to win an Academy Award for Best Picture, at the Regal Ithaca Mall on Monday! I also intend to be in the audience for at least 1/3 of the free “The Anti-Films of Guy Debord” screenings at Cinemapolis Friday-Sunday, and I’m hoping to make it to Project Hail Mary there or at the Regal as well. Finally, if my oldest daughter’s basketball tournament ends on time, there’s a program of six works by the late experimental filmmaker and Binghamton University professor Tomonari Nishikawa at Cornell Cinema on Sunday that I don’t want to miss which features 16mm prints of four of them: Apollo, 45 7 Broadway, Amusement Ride, and Ten Mornings Ten Evenings and One Horizon.

Also in Theaters: Sirât, which continues its run at Cinemapolis, clocked in at sixth on my Movie Year 2025 Top “Ten” list, so that’s my highest new movie recommendation. I haven’t yet seen Hoppers because I’m planning to take the girls *next* weekend, but I hear good things! It’s at the Regal. Special events include a free screening of Seeds at Cornell Cinema that features free concessions and a Zoom Q&A with director Brittany Shyne this evening and a free screening of Madrid, Ext. followed by a conversation with filmmaker Juan Cavestany on Wednesday. You can also see Mário and 2001: A Space Odyssey there gratis on Monday and Tuesday respectively, and there’s a free “Family Classics Picture Show” screening of The Adventures of Robin Hood at Cinemapolis on Sunday. Finally, additional repertory highlights include A Woman is a Woman at Cornell Cinema tomorrow, Imitation of Life there on Saturday, and Rififi at Cinemapolis on Tuesday.

Home Video Recommendation: Speaking of Best Picture Oscar winners, the most recent film to join this club, One Battle After Another, is streaming on HBO Max with a subscription and available for rental or purchase on a number of other platforms. As the only nominee to make my aforementioned Top Ten (Percent) list, I was glad to see it win! Here’s the blurb from that post:

Contains many of my favorite individual sights and sounds of the year, including the climactic car chase over hills that, because I saw it for the first time five days after watching Patriot Games, will always remind me of waves and Jonny Greenwood’s pitch-perfect use of Shepard Tone in the theme he wrote for Teyana Taylor’s Perfidia Beverly Hills.

Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here. A running list of all of my “Home Video” recommendations can be found here.

What I’m Seeing This Week: I didn’t make it to Pillion at Cinemapolis last week, so that remains first up on my list. I’m also hoping to catch EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert there or at the Regal Ithaca Mall and will eventually take the girls to see Hoppers at the Regal as well.

Also in Theaters: With just ten days to go before the Oscars, lots of nominated films are returning to local big screens. Cinemapolis will welcome Sinners back tomorrow, One Battle After Another on Saturday, and The Secret Agent on Sunday. Regal is also getting in on the fun with Sinners tomorrow, Hamnet on Saturday, Sentimental Value on Monday, The Secret Agent on Tuesday, Bugonia on Wednesday, and daily screenings of three movies throughout the week: Avatar: Fire and Ash, Marty Supreme, and Zootopia 2. You can also catch the Best Documentary Short nominees at Cornell Cinema on Sunday and all fifteen short film nominees at Cinemapolis throughout the week. I’ve seen the lot of them and posted a compilation of my Letterboxd reviews on Tuesday.

There are a number of interesting special events at Cornell Cinema this week starting with a free screening of Us tomorrow which also features free popcorn and a discussion with composer Michael Abels about his score. They will then host free screenings of two ethnographic films, No Archive Can Restore You and Petit à Petit, on Monday and the 2nd Annual Women’s Adventure Film Tour on Tuesday. Finally, repertory highlights include the “Final Cut” version of Blade Runner at Cornell Cinema tonight, Top Gun there on Saturday, and Dog Day Afternoon at Cinemapolis on Tuesday.

Home Video Recommendation: I usually let myself include up to 10% of the total number of eligible films on my top “ten” list, hence the scare quotes. This year that could theoretically mean 18, and right now I only have 16 penciled in, so they’re all looking pretty good to stay put. One that *definitely* will is The Tale of Silyan, which is now available on Disney+ with a subscription. Here’s what I said on Letterboxd after revisiting it last month:

I evoked the holy name of Hayao Miyazaki the last time I watched this one, but another way you could go with it is “a fairy tale cut from the cloth of Wang Bing’s Youth trilogy’s narrative and tonal negative space.” Noting for posterity for my own logistical purposes that the end credits begin with the all-caps disclaimer “THERE WAS NO AI USED IN THE MAKING OF THIS FILM” because I think I might end up pairing it with No Other Choice on my Movie Year 2025 top ten list. Which: T minus 21 days until it locks!

Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here. A running list of all of my “Home Video” recommendations can be found here.

What I’m Seeing This Week: I’m finally diving into this year’s Oscar-nominated shorts with the Best Live Action and Animated Short programs at Cornell Cinema tomorrow and Saturday respectively. They and the Best Documentary Short nominees are also at Cinemapolis all week, as is Pillion, which I’m hoping to catch as well.

Also in Theaters: I’m hearing good things about EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, which opens at the Regal Ithaca Mall today and Cinemapolis tomorrow, so hopefully it will run awhile: three trips to the movies is my limit this week! The best new release on Ithaca big screens that I’ve already seen is probably Send Help, which continues its run at the same two venues.

As if all the Oscar-nominated shorts weren’t enough, the Ithaca Experimental Film Festival is also happening this week with three programs at Cinemapolis and Cornell Cinema on Friday and Saturday. Other special events include three free events at Cornell Cinema: the screening of Onlookers this evening will be followed by a conversation with filmmaker Kimi Takesue, Waste Land is there on Tuesday, and the screening of ¿Are We There Yet? -A Compassionate Exploration of Contemporary Migration on Wednesday will be followed by a conversation with filmmaker Thomas Hoebbel. Finally, noteworthy repertory options include The Godfather Part II at Cornell Cinema on Saturday, Yi Yi there on Sunday, plus Pulp Fiction at the Regal on Tuesday and Breathless at Cinemapolis on Wednesday.

Home Video Recommendation: There’s also a bit of a rediscovery effect that corresponds to the Criterion Collection’s 2020 Blu-ray/DVD release, but responses to Dance, Girl, Dance seem to fall in two general camps: either it’s amateurish and uneven or a groundbreaking masterpiece by and for women. But why not both? Here’s what I said on Letterboxd:

A great example of what I call an “art gallery movie”: you judge it by the quality of the handful of standout scenes that it’s known for, not the white paint on the walls surrounding them. It’s like The Jazz Singer with feminism instead of sync sound!

How else do you reconcile extreme silliness like Maria Ouspenskaya’s Madame Basilova being killed by rear projection:

Co-existing in the same film as the impassioned, male gaze-shattering speech by Maureen O’Hara that deserves to be just as familiar to movie montage afficionados as Peter Finch’s “mad as hell” tirade from Network?

Dance, Girl, Dance leaves the Criterion Channel on Saturday, and while it has come and gone from this platform before, now’s a fine time to spend some time with it in between binging on the shorts in local theaters!

Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here. A running list of all of my “Home Video” recommendations can be found here.