Category: Ithaca Film Journal

What I’m Seeing This Week: I’m going with Highest 2 Lowest at Cinemapolis and Weapons either there or at the Regal Ithaca Mall.

Also in Theaters: My favorite new movie now playing Ithaca that I’ve already seen remains Sketch, which continues its run at the Regal. I also got a kick out of how much fun Together has with relationship cliches that are quite horrifying when literalized and enjoyed The Naked Gun, a throwback to the immature, laugh-a-minute staples of the sleepovers I attended as a child in the 80s and early 90s that they should totally release on VHS: I’d buy a copy! The former is at both Cinemapolis and the Regal, while the latter is just at the Regal. Other new releases I’m happy to endorse if they sound interesting to you include Eddington (Cinemapolis), Superman (Cinemapolis & the Regal), and The Fantastic Four: First Steps (Regal). It’s another quiet week on the special events and repertory fronts, but things will pick up soon when Cornell Cinema kicks off their Fall 2025 season, so get your All-Access pass today! At just $25 (for grad students) to $40 (general public), it’s the local arts scene’s absolute best value in the opinion of this cinephile. In the meantime, two short documentaries directed by Les Blank will screen at Cinemapolis on Wednesday as part of their “Food on Film” staff picks series: Yum, Yum, Yum! A Taste of Cajun and Creole Cooking and Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers.

Home Video: Movie Year 2025 has been just fine so far! I’ve definitely seen at least five Top Ten-worthy films, and that’s all you can really ask for at the halfway point. The highlight of the past six months for me has been the older fare I watched for the first time and absolutely loved, though. One recent example is The Tall Target, which is available on Watch TCM until September 5 and is representative of what is classically regarded as extremely fertile ground for new discoveries: movies by great directors that aren’t typically talked about as their best work. Here’s what I said about it on Letterboxd:

Made in 1951, Anthony Mann directs Dick Powell in a taut thriller that would have done Alfred Hitchcock proud as Detective John Kennedy, who’s trying to save President-elect Lincoln from assassination in 1861, but the film (most of which is set on a train) looks and sounds like something from the 1960s. Yet another example of how the canon is still at least a century or so away from being fully calibrated, because: !

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 audibled to She Rides Shotgun last week on Bilge Ebiri’s recommendation after I realized it was going to close at the Regal Ithaca Mall after just one week, so Together (which continues its run there and at Cinemapolis) remains first up on my list. I’m also planning to catch The Naked Gun at the Regal.

Also in Theaters: I want to see Weapons, which is opening at Cinemapolis and the Regal, before it closes as well. The best new movie now playing Ithaca that I’ve already seen is Sketch, which continues its run at the Regal. Here’s what I said about it on Letterboxd:

I can’t wait to watch this again with my kids, who are approximately the same ages as Amber (Bianca Belle) and Jack Wyatt (Kue Lawrence) and like them possessed of a wealth of kindness, prodigious artistic talent (that they didn’t get from their parents, by the way: genetics are weird), and disconcertingly advanced vocabularies–my seven-year-old actually even trotted out “that tracks!” the other day. Anyway, Sketch represents an even more successful attempt to create a modern classic for the offspring of us children of the 80s to grow up with than Movie Year 2025’s The Legend of Ochi, which to be clear I also liked! Content and form are better married here, though–it’s going to scare the girls without giving them nightmares, and if it isn’t exactly blazing new trails with its moral compass, well, neither is my parenting style.

I also enjoyed Eddington, which is at Cinemapolis; The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which is at the Regal; and Superman, which is at both. And She Rides Shotgun, which as Ebiri notes features terrific lead performances by Taron Egerton and Ana Sophia Heger and has one final showtime at the Regal at 11:05 this morning. There don’t appear to be any noteworthy special events this week, but your best bet for repertory fare is the delectable Big Night, which stars legendary trencherman Stanley Tucci and screens Cinemapolis on Wednesday as part of their “Food on Film” August staff picks series.

Home Video: Rewatch season has begun! Here’s what I posted to Letterboxd after I saw Eephus, which is now available on Mubi with a subscription, for the first time at Cinemapolis in March:

Fictional chronicle of the last baseball game ever played on an unnamed Massachusetts (it was shot in Douglas) town’s Soldier Field which coyly hints at veering off into the mythology of W.P. Kinsella’s novel The Iowa Baseball Confederacy but wisely never does because it doesn’t need to: every hit, out, and other component part of a baseball game at any level is a “Glory Days” conflation of past, present, and future waiting to happen. Some stories that rattled through my head included: getting tossed out of a Little League game by my father the umpire for arguing a called third strike a tad too vociferously, keeping score for his church league softball team, and most recently running out onto my back porch like a madman and screaming into the Ithaca, NY night “Pete did it!” during Game 3 of last year’s NL Wild Card round. Fun apropos fact: the building I took most of my film studies classes in at the University of Pittsburgh was built on the spot of Forbes Field and you can stand on its home plate to this day! Humorous not because it’s a comedy, but because its characters are, and every bit as attuned to the fascinating things athletes do when no one is looking as Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait. First serious contender to top my Top Ten Movies of 2025 list.

After a second viewing I’m now thinking it might even be the single best film ever made about baseball, so yeah: this is one clubhouse leader that’s going to be hard to beat!

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: For reasons we’re beginning to question as exhaustion sets in, my loving wife and I recently decided to finally immerse ourselves in the Marvel Cinematic Universe we’d both previously skipped aside from a handful of titles each. Although we’re still a few films shy of caught up, we are nonetheless planning a date night outing to the Regal Ithaca Mall to see The Fantastic Four: First Steps. I’m also hoping to catch Sorry, Baby at Cinemapolis.

Also in Theaters: The Phoenician Scheme is enjoying one final day as my favorite new movie now playing Ithaca that I’ve already seen before it closes at Cinemapolis and passes that torch to Eddington, a beautifully-shot (by Darius Khondji) revisionist history of the United States during the pandemic if everyone really was as terrible as the people who disagreed with them on issues like masking said they were. It’s at both Cinemapolis and the Regal. I also enjoyed Superman, which is at the same two theaters. Finally, your best bet for repertory fare is In the Mood for Love, which continues its run at Cinemapolis.

Home Video: I would take Superman over the three Guardians of the Galaxy films James Gunn directed for Marvel in part because of what I called (to “coin a Norman phrase”) its “Superman-tricity” on Letterboxd:

The kryptonite (if you will) of many MCU movies is that the bad guy is portrayed as being COMPLETELY UNSTOPPABLE . . . until the plot requires them to be stopped by whomever our hero happens to be this month. Here Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luther has spent the better part of his life focused on the single-minded goal of defeating this one guy, so when he creates a “pocket universe” to imprison his enemy in, it bolsters his resume without straining credibility since we aren’t also being asked to believe that he’s the greatest threat to intelligent life as we know it since, you know, the last one.

It follows a very similar formula otherwise, though, and if you too need a break from superhero movies, you’d therefore be far better served by Out of the Fog, which I recently watched on the Criterion Channel after new Ithaca resident (!) Zach Campbell recommended it on X, and Rancho Notorious, which is available on HBO Max. The former is an atmospheric ode to the supporting actor featuring John Qualen, Thomas Mitchell, Leo Gorcey, and Eddie Albert among others that was alert to the symptoms of fascism in the American body politic as far back as 1941, but whose message is “the Lord helps those who help themselves”–no assistance from the “first Avenger” required! Meanwhile, while the latter’s protagonist Vern Haskel (Arthur Kennedy) is every bit as much “consumed by vengeance” as his counterparts in Captain America: Civil War and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, director Fritz Lang pointedly declines to provide any compelling evidence that either he or society is worse off when he chooses the path of “hate, murder, and revenge” as Ken Darby’s lyrics to the memorable opening credits song “Legend of Chuck-A-Luck” has it.

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 excited to see A Romance of the Air, which was shot and produced in Ithaca in 1918, at Cinemapolis on Saturday! This screening is free and will be accompanied by live music by Emmett Scott. I didn’t make it to Superman, which continues its run at Cinemapolis and the Regal Ithaca Mall, last week, so that’s next up on my list. I’m hoping to catch Eddington at one of those two theaters as well.

Also in Theaters: Congratulations to The Phoenician Scheme, which by extending its run at Cinemapolis has broken Sinners‘ Movie Year 2025 record of four consecutive weeks as my top-recommended new release in Ithaca theaters! I also enjoyed 28 Years Later, which closes at Cinemapolis today but remains at the Regal, and Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, which continues to hang on there as well. Special events highlights include a presentation of two in-progress documentaries called Eyes on Ukraine and Creative Resolve: Making Human Development and Social Progress at Cinemapolis on Monday that features a post-screening discussion with the filmmakers and a free screening of the film Plastic People there on Tuesday. Last but not least, there are TONS of great repertory options to choose from thanks in part to a weekend-long series called “Gathering at the Terror Vault” at Cinemapolis that includes (to single out two personal favorites) Event Horizon and Under the Skin. You can also see In the Mood for Love there all week, and the beloved children’s classic My Neighbor Totoro is at the Regal Saturday-Wednesday.

Home Video: I recently reviewed the beer documentary Bottle Conditioned for the publication Educational Media Reviews Online, which is primarily aimed at academic librarians. To give you an idea of what this means, I recommended it as “an obvious fit for collections serving culinary arts programs and related fields like brewing and food science.” This particular title, which follows three groups of brewers and blenders that work with the lambic style native to Belgium’s Zenne Valley through a period of growth, will also appeal to any craft beer lover who likes to think about what they drink, though, especially those who have access to the bottles from 3 Fonteinen and Cantillon featured in the movie. I’m actually not sure whether or not that describes people in Ithaca, but I happened to be attending a conference in Philadelphia while working on this and my friend Anthony took my loving wife and me to an establishment called Monk’s Café with an extensive selection, and everything we tried was delicious. Anyway, current Cornell University faculty, staff, and students have access to Bottle Conditioned through the platform Docuseek via a license paid for by the Library and home video options for everyone else can be found on the film’s website.

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: My loving wife and I are going to take advantage of the fact that the girls will be at Camp Grandma and see F1: The Movie at either Cinemapolis or the Regal Ithaca Mall.

Also in Theaters: The Phoenician Scheme, which is still going strong at Cinemapolis, makes it three weeks in a row as my favorite new release now playing Ithaca, threatening Sinners‘ Movie Year 2025 record of four. Ballerina, which continues its run at the Regal, is right behind it, and I also enjoyed Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning and 28 Years Later, which is rich in ideas but predictably can’t quite live up to its epic trailer, one of the best I’ve ever seen. The latter is at both Cinemapolis and the Regal, and the former is just at the Regal. Finally, your best bets for repertory fare are This Is Spinal Tap and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which play the Regal Saturday-Monday and Tuesday-Wednesday respectively.

Home Video: I was originally hoping to publish my penultimate “bonus” Drink & a Movie post tomorrow, but am going to take advantage of the fact that I’m not at all on pace to do so to double dip. You see, I just happen to be writing about the greatest *Third* of July film of all time, the silent/sound hybrid Lonesome, which is available on DVD/Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection. The beautiful restoration is based on a nitrate print from the Eastman Museum collection which the Dryden Theatre screened in 2015. The film itself is about as close as a major Hollywood studio (Universal) ever came to making a feature-length experimental film and also sets a gold standard for depictions of urban alienation that for my money won’t be matched until Tsai Ming-Liang comes along more than a half a century later. It’s also only 69 minutes long, so you don’t even have to choose between it and Independence Day or whatever else your go-to is for this particular holiday weekend!

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: We will be out of town until Tuesday, but I’m going to try to catch 28 Years Later at Cinemapolis or the Regal Ithaca Mall after we return. I definitely want to see F1: The Movie at one of those theaters before it closes, too, but it probably isn’t going to happen before next Thursday.

Also in Theaters: The Phoenician Scheme, which continues its run at both Cinemapolis and the Regal, remains the best new movie on Ithaca screens that I’ve already seen for the second week in a row. I also enjoyed Ballerina and Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, which are both still playing the Regal. This week’s special events headliner is a screening of the cult classic The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert preceded by a drag performance by Tilia Cordata and other local performers at Cinemapolis on Sunday, while your best bets for repertory fare are the 30th anniversary screenings of Clueless at the Regal on Sunday and Monday. Which, wow that makes me feel old! Finally, I should maybe also mention that there are a ton of family-friendly options in local theaters right now, including Elio (Regal), How to Train Your Dragon (Cinemapolis & Regal), Lilo & Stitch (Regal), and two screenings of The Wild Robot at the Regal on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Home Video: Canyon Passage was one of the films I was most looking forward to seeing at this year’s Nitrate Picture Show because I didn’t know that Jacques Tourneur, director of my October Drink & a Movie selection The Leopard Man, made Technicolor westerns. As anyone who read the dispatch from that event I published here last week and/or the Letterboxd review I posted right after the screening no doubt gathered, it didn’t disappoint! While it unfortunately doesn’t appear to be streaming anywhere at present, I’m happy to report that the Blu-ray copy available from Kino Lorber looks great and is well worth the price of $16.59 + shipping.

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 going with The Life of Chuck at Cinemapolis and I think Prime Minister as well at its one and only screening there on Wednesday at 6pm. I definitely intend to see 28 Years Later either there or at the Regal Ithaca Mall before it closes, too, but probably not this week.

Also in Theaters: My favorite movie now playing Ithaca is The Phoenician Scheme, which continues its run at both Cinemapolis and the Regal. It actually reminds me a bit of its neighbor at the latter Ballerina, my top recommendation last week, in part because it opens with a bit of graphic violence of the sort that I associate more with the World of John Wick than the oeuvre of director Wes Anderson. Its protagonist Zsa-zsa Korda (Benicio Del Toro) is also sort of Baba Yaga of mid-20th century industrialism: undefeated, but not indestructible, as demonstrated by the visibly increasing wear and tear on his body, only he’s trying to stay *in* the game, not get out of it. But the main connection is that the plot of each film is secondary–to imaginative action set pieces in the case of Ballerina, and to the painstakingly-chosen pieces of art and other objects that comprise the set dressing of The Phoenician Scheme. Both could well wind up on my year-end Top Ten list. I also enjoyed Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, which is at the Regal, and Friendship, which is at Cinemapolis. This week’s special events highlights include free screenings of the documentaries It’s All Right To Be Woman and Remembering Roe: Then & Now at Cinemapolis tonight and Monday evening respectively. Finally, your best bet for repertory fare is 2017 Best Picture Oscar winner Moonlight, which plays Cinemapolis on Sunday.

Home Video: The premiere of the latest Spike Lee joint Highest 2 Lowest at the Cannes Film Festival last month reminded me that it has been too long since I last watched High and Low, the 1963 movie it’s based on. Luckily the latter streaming on the Criterion Channel, and if you haven’t checked it out recently or ever you really should, because it’s a true monument to the fundamental allure of cinema. A riveting police procedural can also be a meticulous dissection of society and vice versa–you don’t need to choose between art and entertainment, the very best films are always both! I definitely do see the appeal of turning director Akira Kurosawa’s literal and figurative wide-angle lens on today’s America, but it’s one hell of a hard act to try and follow. Highest 2 Lowest has a release date of August 22, so we will see soon enough for ourselves if the gamble was worth it!

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 tons of movies I want to see in local theaters right now! I’m definitely hoping to catch Pavements before it closes at Cinemapolis today and The Phoenician Scheme and maybe Materialists there or the Regal Ithaca Mall later in the week as well.

Also in Theaters: In addition to the titles above, I’m also intrigued by The Life of Chuck, which opens at the Regal today and Cinemapolis tomorrow. Sticking just to stuff I’ve already seen, my favorite among the first-run fare is Ballerina, a spinoff contemporaneous with the events of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum that impressed me with colorful, imaginative action sequences that aren’t merely ornamental, but also perform the load-bearing function of advancing character development. I also enjoyed Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, a satisfying farewell to a favorite franchise which makes up for a surfeit of self-aggrandizing fluff with an underwater set piece and bi-plane stunt that can stand toe-to-toe with anything in the previous seven films, and the entertaining dark bromance comedy Friendship, which continue their runs at the Regal and Cinemapolis respectively. Fun repertory options include Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, which you can see for free at Cinemapolis on Sunday as they close out this season of their “Family Classics Picture Show,” and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which plays the Regal on Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday. Finally, special events highlights include a screening of Marcella at Cinemapolis on Monday followed by a Q&A with director Peter Miller and one of Lost Nation there on Wednesday followed by a Q&A with writer/director Jay Craven and musical score producers Judy Hyman and Jeff Claus.

Home Video: I’m still working on my dispatch from this year’s Nitrate Picture Show. In the meantime, I noticed that Land of the Pharaohs, which as a lover of costume drams and procedurals has always been a favorite of mine, is streaming on Watch TCM until June 29. Upon revisiting it I realized that Jack Hawkins’s Pharaoh Khufu is pretty much exactly who Jorge Salcedo’s José Moran from NPS 2025 selection Hardly a Criminal wants to be–each is even described by a close associate in terms of a virtually identical story about a time when they were greedy in their youth! As such it isn’t a surprise that Moran similarly is so consumed by fears of losing the money he is finally able to accumulate during the course of the movie that he is unable to ever enjoy it. Pharaohs is also basically the perfect CinemaScope movie as famously defined by Fritz Lang in Contempt since it’s essentially a slow build epic funeral for snakes rendered as Orientalist poetry. If none of that sounds like your cup of tea, watch the first few minutes anyway and drink in the site of columns of thousands of real-life human extras receding into the distance: this is one case where it is completely accurate to observe that they really don’t make ’em like they used to!

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