Category: Ithaca Film Journal

What I’m Seeing This Week: My loving wife and I are finally going to see Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning at Cinemapolis or the Regal Ithaca Mall this weekend in celebration of her birthday! I’m also hoping to catch Ballerina at the Regal.

Also in Theaters: I’m excited that The Phoenician Scheme is finally opening at Cinemapolis and the Regal, but we’re saving this for our next date night. As I mentioned last week, our oldest has informed us that she’s going to make Lilo & Stitch, which continues its run at the Regal, her next Family (née Friday) Movie Night selection, and I’m determined not to miss Pavements, which opens at Cinemapolis tomorrow, so I’ve got those films in my near future as well. Sinners, which is still going strong at both Cinemapolis and the Regal, remains my favorite new movie that I’ve already seen for the fourth week in a row; I also enjoyed Friendship, which is at the same two theaters. Finally, your best bet on the special events/repertory front are the two screenings of Trainspotting at Cinemapolis on Tuesday as part of their “Trains, Trains, Trains” staff picks series

Home Video: I’m still working on tying all of my thoughts on this year’s unexpectedly divisive Nitrate Picture Show together into a blog post, but hope to have it up within the next few days. A big what-if involves La Ronde, which was apparently almost picked for the “Blind Date with Nitrate” slot that isn’t announced in advance. We’ll never know for sure whether or not that would have staved off the controversy now raging (stay tuned!) about the programming decision made instead, but I likely would have mentioned it here regardless because the restored version available on DVD from the Criterion Collection and streaming on the Criterion Channel appears to be a cut above most of the other features from this year’s festival available in those formats. It’s also an ethereally suave masterpiece of form which judging from the surprisingly low percentage of people I follow on Letterboxd who have logged it may be weirdly underseen–has director Max Ophüls fallen out of style? Anyway, it’s well worth a look if you haven’t watched it recently or ever!

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’ll be in Rochester for the Nitrate Picture Show today through Sunday, but am hoping to catch Bring Her Back at Cinemapolis or the Regal Ithaca Mall after I return. My loving wife and I are also still working on carving out time for a date night outing to Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning at one of those two theaters or the IMAX screen at the Regal Destiny USA in Syracuse, and my oldest daughter has informed us that her next Family (née Friday) Movie Night selection will be Lilo & Stitch at the Regal, so I’ve got those two films in my near future as well.

Also in Theaters: Sinners, which continues its runs at Cinemapolis and the Regal, is my top new movie recommendation for the third week in a row and fourth overall. I didn’t love any of the other first run fare that I’ve already seen, although the jury is still out on Friendship, the demented evil twin of one of my favorite American comedies of the past twenty years I Love You, Man which is also at both Cinemapolis and the Regal. That potentially just makes the screenings of The Lady Vanishes at Cinemapolis on Tuesday as part of their train-themed June “Staff Picks” series even more compelling, though! There doesn’t appear to be anything of note happening on the repertory and special events fronts otherwise.

Home Video: NPS’s opening night selection Becky Sharp is new to me, the first time in three visits that this has been the case, which is exciting! It has some big shoes to fill, though, because the last two were bangers. I called Black Narcissus “one of the most transportative films ever shot entirely in a studio” when I wrote about it last August for my Drink & a Movie series, and while there’s no way to recreate the experience of seeing on a “better than very good” (per intro speaker Graham Brown) legendary (it opened the influential 1992 Pacific Film Archive series The Primal Screen) nitrate print, the formal qualities I’m referring to shine through just fine on the Criterion Collection’s Blu-ray and DVD releases; you can also stream it via a number of other commercial platforms. Meanwhile, although I was on the fence when I logged it on Letterboxd last year, I’ve since decided that I would indeed include Intolerance on any all-time Top Ten list I might find myself compelled or moved to create. As I heard someone say on the way out of the Dryden Theatre, even after more than a century it still represents perhaps the most sophisticated use of intertwining narratives in film history, and the lavish Babylon sequences may never be surpassed for sheer monumental grandeur. As a public domain title it’s widely available, so do check it out if you’ve never seen it or if it has been awhile!

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 Friendship, which opens at Cinemapolis tomorrow, and Holy Motors, which will screen there on Wednesday as part of their “Staff Picks” series. My loving wife and I are also planning a date night outing to Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning at Cinemapolis, the Regal Ithaca Mall, or possibly the IMAX screen at the Regal Destiny USA in Syracuse, but we’re not sure yet when.

Also in Theaters: Sinners is proving hard to knock off its perch as the best new movie now playing Ithaca that I’ve already seen, but maybe this is the week! It’s also pretty quiet on the repertory fare and special events fronts, aside of course from the screening of Holy Motors mentioned above.

Home Video: Speaking of my loving wife, she and I recently rewatched the first seven Mission: Impossible movies on Paramount+ in preparation for The Final Reckoning and I am happy to present the following definitive ranking from least to most essential:

7. Mission: Impossible III

With all due respect to Philip Seymour Hoffman, who plays the part he was given extremely well, this movie is too damn mean. But the fact that it’s last place on the list is precisely why I’m bother to compose it in the first place: these are some lofty heights for a nadir!

6. Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

The one where Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt is described as “the living manifestation of destiny” and “sometimes […] the only one capable of seeing the only way,” establishing him as a sort of demigod who, more than having a preternatural ability to understand and play the odds, can actually *manipulate* luck. Which, in the words of Simon Pegg’s Benji Dunn, “[takes] things too far.”

5. Mission: Impossible II

Only fifth on my list, but if it’s true that many people regard *this* as the series’ weakest link, then it may be underrated! The Ethan Hunt free-climbing Dead Horse Point opening credits sequence remains the best beginning to a M:I movie.

4. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning

We don’t have to call this “Part One” any more now that its sequel has a different name, right? Anyway, the golden light, hushed tones, high ceilings, and columns of the otherwise apparently extraneous DoorDash sequence near the beginning evoke a cathedral and mark black-clad Hunt as the Bishop of Bon Chance, which I hope represents the final evolution of his relationship to luck, but we’ll see! The Oriental Express sequence is also one of the franchise’s finest set pieces, and the Rome sequence contains its best car chase.

3. Mission: Impossible – Fallout

Although Hunt is still frequently bathed in light in director Christopher McQuarrie (M:I‘s first repeat helmer) follow-up to Rogue Nation, that film’s erroneously audacious suggestion that he may in fact be divine is thankfully withdrawn in favor of reconnecting with all its other predecessors, including the only two that I consider to be true must-sees:

2. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

The one where Hunt fully emerges as the Bob Montagné of the secret agent set: a legend in his own time trapped in a never ending game with rapidly escalating blinds and a growing family of followers to look after which forces him to chase longer and longer odds to keep up. The energy behind his unhinged smile in the movie that started it all (see below) is still there, but now all of it is channeled into his work, which includes keeping things light and making it look easy. Featuring my favorite combination of his teammates, two of the series’ best ancillary characters in Anil Kapoor’s Brij Nath and Léa Seydoux’s Sabine Moreau, and probably its most impressive stunt (climbing the Burj Khalifa), Ghost Protocol can make a legitimate claim to not just be number one on this list, but also an all-time great action movie. Of course, that label doesn’t really describe:

1. Mission: Impossible

I definitely remembered this as being as not quite of a piece with the films that followed it, but the big pleasant surprise of our rewatch project is that this is more similar to the way Friday Night Lights the movie is completely different from but equally enjoyable to Friday Night Lights the TV series than it is to the way season one of The Simpsons is a very rough draft for the seven seasons that followed before the show was tragically cancelled right in the middle of its prime. The Channel Tunnel sequence is also a masterpiece of cutting–but not bleeding–edge special effects, the exploding fish tank and the Langley break-in remain among the franchise’s two most memorable single moments, and there is a stick of green light/red light “chewing gum” enshrined in my personal movie prop hall of fame. Add it all up and you’ve got one of the most entertaining movies I’ve ever seen!

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 Secret Mall Apartment at Cinemapolis.

Also in Theaters: Sinners, which continues its run at Cinemapolis and the Regal Ithaca Mall, holds on to the title of Best New Movie Now Playing Ithaca That I’ve Already Seen for another week. I’m not super excited about the other first-run fare populating local screens, but there are a couple of decent repertory options even without Cornell Cinema (which is on summer break) chipping in. Most notably, Kiki’s Delivery Service, which might be my favorite film directed by Hayao Miyazaki, plays the Regal Saturday through Wednesday, and director Joe Wright’s lively 2005 Pride & Prejudice adaptation starring Keira Knightly in her first Oscar-nominated role is at Cinemapolis all week. You can also see Superbad there on Wednesday. Finally, special events highlights include a free “Family Classics Picture Show” screening of Snoopy Come Home and one showing only of the new documentary There Is Another Way at Cinemapolis on Sunday.

Home Video: I wasn’t planning to go in this direction with my write-up until just the other day, but the titular protagonist from week’s home video recommendation Wanda makes for an interesting contrast with Lewis Pullman’s Bob from Thunderbolts*, which is now playing Cinemapolis and the Regal. He is part of a long cinematic lineage of attractive, otherwise strong characters rendered vulnerable by a mental (usually) or physical trait who our hearts go out to when they’re exploited by others for selfish and often villainous purposes. The most prominent example is probably Giulietta Masina’s Gelsomina in La Strada, who likewise cries out for a protector who sees her as more than a mere tool. I’m wary of moments like the one in the Thunderbolts* where Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova attempts to literally rescue Bob from himself with a loving embrace, though, because they flatter us too much: Yelena isn’t treating him like a human therapy dog, she’s saving the world! As written, directed, and played by Barbara Loden, Wanda defies this tendency: Michael Higgins’s Mr. Dennis attempts to use her, but she’s such a frustrating non-entity that he can’t. Which is precisely what makes the movie she appears in memorably challenging. You can no more take care of her than you can a tumbleweed, and it would be equally unfulfilling to support her without expecting anything in return because there’s no evidence that she’d do anything worthwhile with this freedom, which I believe is the point of the opening sequence that reminds me of Pull My Daisy. And so you’re left with a puzzle in extreme long shot, a white-clad woman making her way from nowhere to nowhere through dirty dark side of the moon mountains of anthracite who you can’t just abandon with a clear conscience, but who you’ll also never have the pleasure of “saving.” Wanda is now streaming on the Criterion Channel with a subscription and is also available on Blu-Ray and DVD from the Criterion Collection where everything is 30% off through May 26. Highest possible recommendation!

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 Surfer and Thunderbolts*, both of which are at both Cinemapolis and the Regal Ithaca Mall. My oldest daughter has chosen A Minecraft Movie for our next Family (née Friday) Movie Night, so we’re all going to see that at the Regal as well.

Also in Theaters: The best new film playing Ithaca RIGHT NOW that I’ve already see is The Shrouds, but after its final screening at Cinemapolis tonight, Sinners (which continues its run there and at the Regal) will reclaim this coveted title. In addition to everything listed above, I also hope to see Secret Mall Apartment before it closes at Cinemapolis. There don’t appear to be any compelling special events this week, but on the repertory front my May, 2024 Drink & a Movie selection Stalker is playing Cinemapolis on Wednesday as part of their latest “Staff Picks” series. I caught the 4k restoration they’re showing on the big screen at Kingston, Ontario’s The Screening Room last April and can assure you that you definitely don’t want to miss it!

Home Video: In my recent Drink & a Movie post about Masculine Feminine, I quote Penelope Gilliatt as calling it “the picture that best captures what it was like to be an undergraduate in the sixties.” This inspired me to finally revisit Funny Ha Ha, which current Cornell University faculty, staff, and students have access to through Kanopy via a license paid for by the Library and which can be streamed as a rental via a variety of commercial platforms as well, for the first time in twenty years. Here’s what I said about it on Letterboxd afterward:

When I saw Funny Ha Ha for the first time in 2005 I would have been less than a year into my first full-time job after graduation and still a couple away from enrolling in a master’s program and it hit me like a bolt of lightning because I finally got to experience something for myself that I had read other people describe: the shock of recognizing myself onscreen. Which even then I felt just a bit sheepish about; after all, American movies have always been chock full of white middle class young people. But they’d never before looked exactly like my friends, unglamorous yet always dressed in the perfect killer thrift store find t-shirt. They’d never before sounded just like us, smart but inarticulate and begging the god(s) we didn’t so much not believe in as rarely think about to please not let us be misunderstood. They’d never before drifted listlessly through the Kuiper Belt of planetoid hangouts that didn’t quite rise to the level of parties orbiting some other college town, helping themself the requisite meager offering of bottom shelf bottles en route to another hookup and maybe a deeper connection and eventually an actual adult life in an entirely different place. Because, to go back to Gilliat, Funny Ha Ha is the picture that best describes what it was like to be recently *not* an undergraduate in the mid-2000s but, like Kate Dollenmayer’s Marnie, not quite as far along the road to things like a career and a long-term relationship as your peers, many of whom were beginning to leave, leaving you behind.

I can confidently recommend this film to almost anyone as the rootstock of mumblecore, a historical record of the brief time when cellphones coexisted alongside answering machines, and a rebuttal to the “No Girls Allowed” sign outside Jean-Luc Godard’s Children of Marx clubhouse. You probably aren’t going to be gobsmacked by the scene in which Andrew Bujalski’s Mitchell impulsively drops a beer off a balcony unless you once did the same thing with an empty bottle of champagne for the same silly reasons, though.

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 still haven’t made it to The Legend of Ochi, so seeing it at Cinemapolis or the Regal Ithaca Mall is my top priority. I’m also hoping to catch The Surfer at one of those two theaters before it closes, but I’m going to take a gamble that it will stick around for more than a week and see La Haine at Cinemapolis on Wednesday instead.

Also in Theaters: I’m still processing The Shrouds, a typically visionary outing by director David Cronenberg which maybe didn’t come together in the final reel the way I was expecting it to? But that may well have been the entire point, and it definitely is my favorite new movie now playing Ithaca that I’ve already seen. Sinners isn’t that far behind, though. Both films are at Cinemapolis and the latter is at the Regal as well. I also enjoyed Drop and One to One: John & Yoko, which continue their runs at the Regal and Cinemapolis respectively. Thunderbolts* doesn’t really seem like my cup of tea, but it’s garnering positive reviews, so I probably will see it at Cinemapolis or the Regal eventually. This week’s special events are highlighted by Cornell Cinema‘s traditional end-of-semester “mystery screening” tonight and a presentation of the “vegan horror” movie A44, which was shot in upstate New York, at Cinemapolis on Saturday followed by a Q&A with cash members. Finally, your best bet for repertory fare is Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which is at the Regal on Sunday and Wednesday.

Home Video: I went on a Toots & the Maytals listening binge after the MUBI Podcast featured The Harder They Come as part of their “Needle on the Record” season a couple of years ago, but somehow never got around to watching the film itself until just the other day. Here’s what I said about it on Letterboxd:

Sun sparkling on the water straight out of Black Narcissus and one of the great movie soundtracks of all time. It isn’t just a *container* for great music, though: it’s a mischievously subversive acknowledgement that these songs are dangerous which works because director Perry Henzell & co. also successfully argue that suppressing them would be an even bigger mistake. Jimmy Cliff’s Ivan, who at his heart is apolitical, is a much bigger threat as a one-hit wonder revolutionary martyr than as a popular entertainer, because Lord help the establishment if someone comes along later and groks the FULL power of the lyric “they know not what they’ve done.”

You can stream The Harder They Come on Peacock with ads, but I sprang for the Criterion Collection Blu-ray, which is out of print but still readily available through Amazon and other retailers.

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 finally see The Shrouds, which opens at Cinemapolis today! I’ll probably try to catch The Legend of Ochi there or at the Regal Ithaca Mall as well.

Also in Theaters: The best new movie now playing Ithaca that I’ve already seen is the blues-drenched People’s History of Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles Sinners, which meets both of Fritz Lang’s requirements for widescreen cinematography (snakes and funerals . . . check and check!) and continues its run at Cinemapolis and the Regal. I also enjoyed Drop, which is down to one showing per day at the Regal, and One to One: John & Yoko, which remains at Cinemapolis. This week’s special events are highlighted by a bevy of free screenings, many of which feature panel discussions and Q&A sessions: The Brutalist and Machines in Flames at Cornell Cinema tonight, Beyond the Straight and Narrow at Cinemapolis tonight, Human Again and National Velvet at Cinemapolis on Sunday, Deaf President Now! at Cornell Cinema on Monday, and Fancy Dance there on Tuesday. Finally, Anora now counts as “repertory fare,” so the screening at Cornell Cinema on Wednesday is my top recommendation in that department.

Home Video: An old and new favorite that I mentioned on this blog in the past year are both among the films leaving the Criterion Channel at the end of the month. The Palm Beach Story, my “Drink & a Movie” selection for last April, begins with an all-time great opening credits sequence, ends with an impressively advanced special effect for its era, and features maybe my single favorite movie prop ever, he notebook in which Rudy Vallee’s J.D. Hackensacker III writes down all of his expenses, in between. Of more recent vintage, About Dry Grasses came in eighth on the top ten list I published in March. I don’t actually say much about it there, but as I noted on Letterboxd after my first viewing, Deniz Celiloglu’s Samet is one of 2024’s most compelling unlikeable protagonists, and as I added after a second one the subjective sound design that puts the viewer in his headspace right from the start is also interesting.

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 One to One: John and Yoko, which opens at Cinemapolis today, and Sinners, which also begins a theatrical run today there at and at the Regal Ithaca Mall.

Also in Theaters: I’d be prioritizing The Ugly Stepsister, which I heard intriguing things about out of Sundance, but it’s only playing the Regal and I’m without a car while the rest of the family spends spring break in Canada. Hopefully it will run for more than a week! The best new movie now playing Ithaca that I’ve already seen is Drop, an extended metaphor for what it must feel like to re-enter the dating pool as a single parent in 2025, which continues its run at the Regal. I hesitate to say I “enjoyed” the brutal and intense Iraq War film Warfare, which is there and at Cinemapolis, but it’s definitely worth seeing if you have opinions about that conflict or any other one. Noteworthy special events include free screenings of Santo vs. the Vampire Women, The Dybbuk, and Remembering Gene Wilder at Cornell Cinema on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday respectively, and of The Empty Chair at Cinemapolis on Wednesday. Finally, your best bets for repertory fare are the screenings of Vengeance Is Mine, Parasite, and Star Wars: A New Hope at Cornell Cinema tonight, on Saturday, and on Sunday respectively. A New Hope might actually be the movie I’ve seen in theaters more times than any other, now that I think of it, and if you’re of my generation (X or Y depending on how you count) you really owe yourself the pleasure if you’ve never had it.

Home Video: I watched the biopic Better Man on Paramount+ (which I get for free through Spectrum) as part of my tantalizingly close to successful campaign to see very film nominated for one of this year’s Oscars (I caught 48/49) even though I honestly somehow didn’t know subject Robbie Williams as anything other than the fella who covered “Beyond the Sea” for the end credits of Finding Nemo and enjoyed it enough to go back and listen to everything he ever recorded on Spotify. I revisited it the other day and I’m happy to report that when you’re actually familiar with the songs, the way they’re presented in the film makes them even more interesting, especially the Baz Luhrmann-esque staging of “She’s the One,” acoustic retelling of the origins of “Something Beautiful,” and revisionist history of “Rock DJ” as a Take That track that Williams was actually permitted to write lyrics for. I still can’t (and probably never will be) recreate the experience longtime fans presumably had of seeing a familiar *face* in their lives replaced by that of a CGI chimpanzee, but even this works for me as speculation about where the trail blazed by last year’s documentary The Remarkable Life of Ibelin might lead in the future.

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 happy to report that I am finally going to make it to the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival! The screening I’m targeting is the one of 7 Walks with Mark Brown at Cinemapolis on Sunday. I’m also hoping to catch Warfare there or at the Regal Ithaca Mall and Drop at the Regal.

Also in Theaters: Had I but world enough, and time, other FLEFF events I’d want to attend include the screenings at Cinemapolis of Sleep with Your Eyes Open tonight and The End of St. Petersburg (which includes live musical accompaniment by local legends Cloud Chamber Orchestra) on Saturday, and the live performance using 19th-century optical devices called “Elliott and Schlemowitz’s Magic Lantern Show” there on Sunday. My favorite new movie now playing Ithaca that I’ve already seen is The Woman in the Yard, a well-crafted chilling psychological horror film about my greatest fear as a parent which continues its run at the Regal, but maybe only for one more week (it’s down to one showing per day). I also enjoyed Black Bag, which closes at Cinemapolis tonight, and A Working Man, which continues its run at the Regal. Noteworthy special events include free screenings of last year’s Best International Feature Film Oscar winner I’m Still Here at Cornell Cinema on Monday and Matter of Mind: My Alzheimer’s at Cinemapolis on Wednesday and free “sensory-friendly” screenings of the PBS children’s television program Carl the Collector at the Tompkins County Public Library on Wednesday. Finally, your best bets for repertory fare are the 4k restorations of North by Northwest and my November “Drink & a Movie” selection The Searchers at Cornell Cinema tomorrow and Sunday respectively as part of their “VistaVision!” series.

Home Video: I’ve been meaning to check out Wooden Crosses on the Criterion Channel ever since Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell (RIP) referred to it as a “masterpiece unknown to most modern viewers” in their “The ten best films of … 1932” blog post a few years ago and I finally got around to it the other day. Here’s what I posted to Letterboxd after my second viewing:

As a committed pacifist war films aren’t my favorite genre. It is the shame of our species that we’re still fighting each other at this point in our development, and there isn’t much else to say about the matter. Wooden Crosses is largely exempt from this argument, though, because of when it was made and because it isn’t so much anti-WAR as it is anti-war PROPAGANDA. While it has elements that are maybe more appropriate to the silent era like a double exposed dual parade of living and dead soldiers, it’s very smart about sound and neither of its most crucial scenes would work as well or even at all without it. First Corporal Breval (Charles Vanel), far from leaving his comrades with lofty sentiments or pearls of wisdom as he expires instead instructs them to make sure everyone knows what a slut his wife is. Then Gilbert Demachy (Pierre Blanchar) is denied a hero’s death and succumbs to a gutshot wound after an entire day spent whimpering pathetically in no man’s land as he waits for nightfall and the promise of stretcher bearers who never arrive. The point is clear: there is nothing ennobling about their “sacrifice.” Their stories were simply cut short and wasted, leaving behind a lifetime of unfinished business. Wooden Crosses is also justly famous for the documentary-style combat footage that is the reason 20th Century-Fox studio head Darryl Zanuck bought the North American rights to it (so that the footage could be reused in The Road to Glory), the maddeningly incessant sound of artillery is again the reason this is *effective*. I would even go so far as to say that it compares well to some scenes from Band of Brothers, which is impressive considering it preceded that work by nearly 70 years.

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 currently out of town at a library conference, but I’m hoping to catch a few films at the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival while I’m away. I’ll write them up in a dispatch blog post if I’m successful, so stay tuned! I’m also going to try to see The Woman in the Yard, which I’m hearing good things about from people I trust, at the Regal Ithaca Mall after I return.

Also in Theaters: If I was in Ithaca this week, I’d be prioritizing the Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival, specifically the screenings at Cinemapolis of Snow Leopard on Friday; Sleep with Your Eyes Open on Saturday; and Little, Big, and Far on Tuesday. The best new movies now playing local theaters that I’ve already seen are the enjoyable genre exercises Black Bag (spy film), which continues its runs at both Cinemapolis and the Regal, and A Working Man (Jason Statham), which is at just the Regal. This week’s special events are highlighted by free screenings of the movies Improper Conduct and The Accelerator at Cornell Cinema on Monday and Tuesday respectively. Finally, your best bet for repertory fare is Princess Mononoke, which is at the Regal all week.

Home Video: I’ve been digging the fact that there have been many pre-Code movies with ~60 minute runtimes featured on Watch TCM lately because they’re the perfect thing to watch when, say, we miraculously get the kids settled on Thursday night with about an hour to spare before Top Chef comes on. My favorite recent discovery is the 1933 film Female, which starts where Movie Year 2024’s Babygirl ends: with a girlboss CEO exiling an employee she has slept with to a faraway branch office. A lot of people seem to be hung up on the messaging of the climax, but the preponderance of available evidence suggests to me that whatever they say to each other in the final scene, Ruth Chatterton’s Alison Drake is much more comfortable in the board room than George Brent’s engineer Jim Thorne is ever likely to be. Anyway, the film also features delightfully profligate back projection and some outrageous wipes, so be sure to check it out before it disappears from the platform on April 9!

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