What I’m Seeing This Week: I have been planning to revisit The Night of the Hunter for awhile, so there’s no way I’m going to miss a chance to see it on the big screen at Cinemapolis on Wednesday!
Also in Theaters: For all the reasons I mentioned last week, the best new movie now playing Ithaca that I’ve already seen remains Anora, which continues its run at Cinemapolis. I also enjoyed A Real Pain and Conclave, which are at Cinemapolis, and The Wild Robot, which is at the Regal Ithaca Mall. The big news this week is of course the wide release of Gladiator II and Wicked: Part I, including at Cinemapolis and the Regal locally, tonight and Moana 2 (Regal) on Tuesday. I’m planning to see all three, which probably means I’m waiting for Heretic (Cinemapolis) to hit the streaming video platforms. So it goes. Finally, your most interesting-looking special event and best bet for repertory fare (aside from Night of the Hunter, natch) is the “Science on Screen” presentation of Ratatouille at Cornell Cinema tonight which will include presentations on “food nostalgia” and a tasting inspired by the film.
Home Video: I saw Seconds for the first time last month and I confess that initially I found it to be a bit tedious. Upon revisiting it a couple of weeks later, though, its various mysteries (including a man in an airport and a deceptively ambiguous final image) engaged me much more. Now I find myself thinking about it over and over again in connection to films from the past year like I Saw the TV Glow, which it surely must be a conscious reference point for, and a slew of movies about mid-life crises (Hit Man) and things that look like them (A Real Pain, Between the Temples). I’m still not sold on it as a masterpiece, but it’s leaving the Criterion Channel at the end of the month and I definitely think it’s a text that all cinephiles should be familiar with, so check it out if you’re a subscriber!
Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts canbe found here.
What I’m Seeing This Week: I think I’m going to go with Here, which closes at Cinemapolis today but continues its run at the Regal Ithaca Mall at least through Thursday, but I might audible to A Real Pain at Cinemapolis.
Also in Theaters: The best new movie now playing Ithaca that I’ve already seen is Anora, which I described on Letterboxd as “a container for some of the year’s best performances (most notably, as you’ve heard, by Mikey Madison and Yura Borisov, who is like a Frank Borzage hero in the way he immediately knows the woman of his dreams when he sees her and keeps his eyes locked on her for the duration of the movie) further elevated by a handful of standout moments.” I also enjoyed Conclave, which is at both Cinemapolis and the Regal; The Wild Robot, which is just at the Regal; and Sing Sing, which is at Cornell Cinema tonight only. Other new films that I hope to see in theaters include Small Things Like These (Regal) and Heretic (Cinemapolis and the Regal). We might also take the whole family to seeRed One at the Regal as well because we’re suckers for Christmas movies and Dwayne Johnson. This week’s special events are highlighted by CatVideoFest 2024 at Cornell Cinema on Sunday. A portion of the ticket proceeds will be donated to the SPCA of Tompkins County. Last but by no means least, your best bets for repertory fare are two modern classics, The Fifth Elementand Brick. The former is at the Regal on Sunday and Wednesday, and the latter is at Cinemapolis on Wednesday.
Home Video:My Old Ass, which is now available on Prime Video, has a premise that I find irresistible: what if you could communicate with your past or future (I suspect whether you’re closer to 18 or 39 has a huge bearing on how exactly you experience this movie) self via cellphone and occasional in-person meetups? What advice would you give yourself, and would you take it? Given that it also stars Aubrey Plaza as the older version of protagonist Elliott, I went in expecting to enjoy myself; I was surprised and delighted to discover that it’s also quite moving. Other reasons to see it include Maisy Stella’s spirited performance as someone who very plausibly could grow up to be Plaza and beautiful Ontario lake country locations.
Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here.
What I’m Seeing This Week: I’m excited to finally see this year’s Palme d’Or winner Anora at Cinemapolis!
Also in Theaters: There aren’t any new movies now playing Ithaca which I truly adored, but as I mentioned last week I won’t be rooting *against* The Wild Robot, which is at the Regal Ithaca Mall, or Conclave, which is both there and at Cinemapolis, when they’re inevitably nominated for some of this year’s Oscars. If I wasn’t out of town, I’d be seeing Sugarcane at Cornell Cinema tonight, which is screening as part of a double feature with Cornell professor Jeffrey Palmer’s Ghosts. Other films I’m hoping to see in local theaters before they close include Here and Heretic, which are both at both Cinemapolis and the Regal, and Small Things Like These, which is at the Regal. Noteworthy special events include free screenings of Butterfly in the Sky at Cinemapolis on Tuesday and Oedipus Rex at Cornell Cinema on Wednesday. It’s a good week for repertory fare, with Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and The Matrix screening at Cornell Cinema tomorrow, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial there on Sunday, and In a Lonely Place at Cinemapolis on Wednesday.
Home Video:I Saw the TV Glow has been streaming on Max for awhile now and I finally got around to rewatching it the other day. I’m pretty sure that it’s still my favorite film of Movie Year 2024. As I wrote on Letterboxd:
The key scene for me is the one in which Owen (Justice Smith) rewatches his favorite television show The Pink Opaque as an adult and it’s *completely different* from how he remembers it. Which: I don’t think we can write this off as “you can’t go home again” because, 1) he has ostensibly seen it a million times, and 2) we’ve seen clips from the show, too, and this isn’t the same program! The one we’ve caught glimpses of is a mash-up of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Adventures of Pete and Pete which veers on some seriously dark territory; the one Owen returns to is basically just a riff on the latter’s classic “What We Did on Our Summer Vacation” episode pitched at an even younger audience. Clues to what’s actually going on here are provided in the form of the games at the arcade Owen works at based on characters from the more grown-up version of TPO, which we could interpret as merchandizing, except that the lack of branding and fact that the show was cancelled decades earlier suggest that a more likely explanation may be that he invented the “complicated mythology” as a way of repressing what all those Saturday night sleepovers with Brigette Lundy-Paine’s Maddy were *really* about. This would presumably also explain how this supposed super fan somehow fails to comment on the fact that at one point he finds himself actually in the show’s Double Lunch hangout spot.
I suspect that by writing all of this out I’m exposing myself to a possible response of “well, duh, you dummy,” but what I find compelling is the way director Jane Schoenbrun presents it. Owen knows all of this, but he is unable to act. Like Arthur Hamilton/Tony Wilson (John Randolph/Rock Hudson) in Seconds, he sees the necessity for transformation, but remains tragically convinced that this is something he needs someone else to do *to* him. That film ends with the sound of a drill announcing that it’s too late for its hero; this one holds out the possibility that “there is still time.” It’s also quite a bit more sympathetic to both the mainstream and “counter” cultures it depicts, but that comparison might be a good place to start a deep dive.
P.S. I’m still a member of team “‘Claw Machine’ for this year’s Best Original Song Oscar”!
Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here.
I had so much fun creating a double feature for last year’s October Drink & a Movie post that it was an easy decision to do it again. This time I’m celebrating the film I’ve long thought of as my favorite B movie, The Leopard Man, and the one which recently stole that crown, House of Usher. Here’s a picture of my Warner Archive Collection DVD copy of the former:
And here’s a picture of my MGM “Midnite Movies” DVD edition of the latter:
The Leopard Man is also currently streaming on Watch TCM until November 19 and is available for rental and purchase on a variety of platforms, while House of Usher can be rented and purchase on Apple TV+.
This month’s beverage pairing was admittedly inspired primarily by The Leopard Man‘s title, but although the Lion’s Tale would almost certainly be too spicy for the delicate palate of Vincent Price’s Roderick Usher (as Paul Clarke notes in The Cocktail Chronicles, where the recipe we use comes from, a little bit of St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram goes a long way), its bold pumpkin pie spice flavors make it a perfect match for the film he appears in and other scary season fare. Here’s how you make it:
Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
Clarke garnishes this drink with a lime wheel, which is probably what I would do if I was making it during the summer, but in the fall we typically serve it unadorned as pictured above. In addition to its name, I was drawn to the Lion’s Tale right now because I’ve been itching to make a bourbon drink before my bottle of Evan Williams Single Barrel, far and away the best you can get at its price point, runs out. Without too many other ingredients to compete with, this is a great showcase for it. If you’re using a less full-bodied whiskey, consider employing a 2:1 simple syrup to counter the pungency of the lime juice and allspice liqueur.
Both films featured in this post are about contagion, but neither involves a literal disease. In the case of The Leopard Man, it’s bad luck which is passed from character to character. The film begins with P.R. man Jerry Manning (Dennis O’Keefe) introducing his star client Kiki Walker (Jean Brooks) to his latest idea for drumming up publicity, a tame leopard:
At first Kiki isn’t impressed:
But then Manning explains that he envisioned Kiki making a grand entrance with the cat during the act of a rival performer named Clo-Clo (Margo):
Kiki and the leopard do cut a striking figure together:
And initially the stunt achieves its desired affect of getting everyone’s attention; however, Clo-Clo takes exception to having the spotlight stolen from her, and deliberately frightens the leopard with her castanets in what interestingly appears to be a point-of-view shot from the perspective of the cat:
It recoils, then lunges away into the night, but not before scratching the hand of a waiter:
Later that evening everyone is looking for the escaped leopard. A boy shines a flashlight on Clo-Clo’s legs:
She stamps and the light goes out, but the camera stays with her as she walks through the streets. A fortune teller friend Maria (Isabel Jewell) calls out, “take a card, Clo-Clo, see what the night holds for you.”
Her face tells us everything we need to know about the significance of the ace of spades she draws:
But she quickly recovers and flicks it away, calling “faker!” back over her shoulder:
Clo-Clo greets people as she passes them and the camera stays with her until suddenly it doesn’t. “Hello, chiquita,” she says to a girl in a window, and with that the narrative torch has been passed:
This is Teresa Delgado (Margaret Landry) and she is about to be sent on a nighttime errand to get cornmeal for the tortillas for her father’s dinner in a scene which lasts five full, harrowing minutes of screentime and ends with the unforgettable image of her blood seeping through the crack beneath her front door:
The film spends some time investing in exposition after Teresa’s funeral. A posse is formed to track down the animal that killed her. Maria reads Clo-Clo’s fortune again, but no matter how hard she tries to avoid it, the ace of spade keeps appearing. “What did they say before the bad card came up?” she asks. “You will meet a rich man and he will give you money,” Maria replies. Finally, Jerry introduces Kiki to a local museum curator named Galbraith (James Bell) who was on the posse with him. At dinner that night Galbraith gestures at a fountain with his pipe and says, “I’ve learned one thing about life. We’re a good deal like that ball dancing on the fountain. We know as little about the forces that move us and move the world around us as that empty ball does about the water that pushes it into the air, let’s it fall, and catches it again.”
The next scene picks Clo-Clo up again as she tries to sweet talk a flower seller into giving her a free rose. “My mistress, Señora Consuelo Contreras, does not have to beg for flowers. She won’t miss one,” says another customer (Fely Franquelli).
As was the case with Teresa Delgado, the camera stays with her, but this time only for awhile. Consuelo (Tula Parma), the girl she works for, actually turns out to be both our new subject and the next murder victim, and the moments just before her death feature another POV shot, we think showing a branch bending under the weight of the leopard that’s about to kill her:
Except that at the crime scene the next morning, Jerry offers a different theory: “it might not be a cat this time,” he suggests to a skeptical police chief (Ben Bard) and Galbraith.
The second half of the film chronicles his efforts to prove his hunch correct. Clo-Clo receives $100 from the wealthy benefactor Maria saw in her future, but the death card is still after her and the scene after it appears one final time is her last.
Everyone thinks she’s the leopard’s third victim except Jerry, who correctly interprets signs that Clo-Clo put lipstick on right before she was killed as evidence that her murderer was a man. When the skinned, week-old carcass of the cat is found shortly afterward in a canyon that Galbraith searched by himself earlier, he finally has a suspect. Kiki and Consuelo’s boyfriend Raoul (Richard Martin) help him successfully set a trap. Galbraith escapes, though, and flees into a procession that commemorates the slaughter of a peaceful village of Native Americans by Spanish conquistadores, which per J.P. Telotte links his crimes to that tragedy “to suggest a continuum of such inexplicable human horrors”:
Jerry and Raoul quickly apprehend him and extract an explanation of sorts as they drag him away: “I didn’t want to kill, but I had to.”
Speaking specifically about Consuelo he continues, “I looked down. In the darkness I saw her white face. The eyes full of fear. Fear! That was it. The little frail body, the soft skin. And then, she screamed.” Suddenly a shot rings out and Galbraith falls dead, shot by Raoul. As Telotte notes, this is a superficially classic resolution: “The publicity agent-detective has played his hunch and unraveled a murder mystery; the killer has confessed and is killed in retribution.” Except that this isn’t how the movie ends. The final images are instead of Jerry and Kiki walking away as Robles informs Raoul that he will have to stand trial for Galbraith’s death in the background:
The parting reminder that Raoul must be punished because “he too bears that murderous potential, a dark and unpredictable possibility that society, for its own preservation, has to repress” leaves us “with a sense that there is no real ending yet in sight, certainly no true consolation here for the victims’ families, and no satisfying feeling that things have at least been ‘made right,’ just a disturbing residue from these terrible events.” Chris Fujiwara, writing in his monograph about director Jacques Tourneur, suggests that The Leopard Man‘s disturbing effect derives from the fact that the doom which circulates from character to character represents “a debt that no one owes and that is owed to no one but that nonetheless insists on being paid.” There is no such doubt about who must pay the bills in House of Usher, at least not in the mind of the last male heir of the titular family. He lives in a mansion which we encounter at the beginning of the film as Mark Damon’s Philip Winthrop rides up to it through a desolate landscape that director Roger Corman explains in his autobiography How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime he opportunistically shot following a forest fire:
He is admitted inside by a servant named Bristol (Harry Ellerbe), who cryptically asks him to remove his boots in a high-angle shot which almost seems like it’s from the house’s perspective:
We learn why in the next scene. Roderick, who is none too pleased by Philip’s presence, is afflicted with hypersensitive hearing: “sounds of any exaggerated degree cut into my brain like knives,” he explains.
Roderick orders Philip to leave, but Philip informs him that he isn’t going anywhere without his fiancée Madeline (Myrna Fahey). She is supposedly bedridden, but appears in the room moments later:
And that’s basically the film’s entire plot! Roderick reluctantly agrees to let Philip stay and leads Madeline back to bed. While they’re gone coals jump out of the fireplace and singe Philip’s pants:
That evening the house trembles, and looking out the window Philip spies a crack running its entire length:
One his way down to dinner a few minutes later, a chandelier falls from the ceiling and misses him by mere inches:
The next morning Philip visits the kitchen and says he wants to take Madeline’s breakfast to her. A cauldron of gruel, which per Bristol “is the most she’s ever eaten in the morning,” edges ever closer to Philip while they talk, but luckily Bristol notices before it burns him:
Up in Madeline’s room Philip tries to persuade her to leave with him. “Perhaps you’ll feel differently after you’ve seen,” she says, and takes him downstairs to the family crypt. She shows him the coffins of her great-grandparents, grandparents, parents . . . and an empty one labeled “Madeline Usher.”
Suddenly, as they talk a coffin tumbles down nearly on top of them:
“I think you still do not understand,” Roderick tells Philip in the aftermath of this incident, “and I think it’s time that you did.” They repair to the balcony, where Roderick explains that the land around the house once was fertile, which is depicted through an effectively haunting camera effect:
Then they go back inside for my favorite scene, a history of the Usher line accompanied by close-ups of each family member’s anachronistically modern portraits and a list of their crimes. Anthony Usher was a “thief, usurer, merchant of flesh” and Bernard Usher was a “swindler, forger, jewel thief, drug addict.”
Francis Usher was a “professional assassin,” while Vivian Usher was a “blackmailer, harlot, murderess. She died in a madhouse.” Finally, Captain David Usher is identified as a “smuggler, slave trader, mass murderer.”
At the conclusion of the tour, Roderick shares the thesis which governs his life:
This house is centuries old. It was brought here from England. And with it every evil rooted in its stones. Evil is not just a word. It is reality. Like any living thing it can be created and was created by these people. The history of the Ushers is a history of savage degradations. First in England, and then in New England. And always in this house. Always in this house. Born of evil which feels, it is no illusion. For hundreds of years, foul thoughts and foul deeds have been committed within its walls. The house itself is evil now.
In an interview with Lawrence French, Corman suggests that the fictional painters of these portraits (which in real life were created by artist Burt Schoenberg) “may have been picking up the distortion from the evil in the minds of the people he was painting.” This would be another example of transmissibility, but I like My Loving Wife’s explanation that they are a creation of the house better, especially since it reinforces the claim Corman makes in How I Made a Hundred Movies that in this film “the house is the monster.” Consider this exchange between Roderick and an incredulous Philip from the same scene:
RODERICK: Mr. Winthrop, do you think those coals jumping from the fire onto you were an accident? Do you think that chandelier falling was an accident? Do you think that falling casket was an accident?
PHILIP: Are you trying to tell me that the house made those things happen?
RODERICK: Yes.
Philip is unconvinced, though, and shouts at Roderick, “I’ll tell you what’s evil in this house, sir: you!” He finally persuades Madeline to leave with him, but she dies before they can depart. Or so Philip thinks. We catch on before he does that all is not as it seems thanks to the twitch of a finger as she lies in her casket:
Philip doesn’t notice, but Roderick sure does, and he reacts exactly like you’d expect someone who just realized their beloved sister is actually alive to:
The next morning over coffee, Bristol accidentally lets it slip that Madeline was prone to catalepsies. Philip now suspects that they buried her alive, but when he breaks open her casket, it’s empty:
Things escalate quickly from here. Roderick won’t tell Philip where he has hidden Madeline’s body and Bristol doesn’t know. After a day of fruitless searching, Philip collapses into a tormented surrealist nightmare sequence featuring multiple generations of evil Ushers that ends with Madeline screaming:
Upon awakening, he confronts Roderick again, who in the course of their conversation reveals that he is tortured by the sounds of Madeline moving even now. As he describes her “scratching at the lid with bloody fingernails, staring, screaming, wild with fury, the strength in her,” we cut to her bloody fingers emerging from beneath the lid of her coffin:
With a presidential election looming, the political dimensions of these two films fairly leap off the screen, and viewed as a double feature, I think they do have a cogent message. It’s not enough to just remember our nation’s twin original sins of genocide and slavery like the participants in the ceremony which concludes The Leopard Man, but as demonstrated by House of Usher, guilt absolutely can be taken to nihilistic and pathological extremes. What unites them even more directly is their compactness: with runtimes of 66 and 79 minutes respectively, these are two of the most brilliantly concise films you’re ever going to see. Which, come to think of it, is another thing they have in common with a Lion’s Tale–after all, it’s basically just a whiskey sour with extra zip. So here’s to good ingredients and technique and letting them speak for themselves!
Cheers!
All original photographs in this post are by Marion Penning, aka My Loving Wife.Links to all of the entries in this series can be found here.
What I’m Seeing This Week: I think I’m going to try to check out The Apprentice (which is at Cinemapolis) before the election on Tuesday as intended even though I’ve already voted.
Also in Theaters: The best new movie now playing Ithaca that I’ve already seen is either The Wild Robot, which is at the Regal Ithaca Mall, or Conclave, which is both there and at Cinemapolis. I’m expecting both of them to be among this year’s Oscar nominees, and I won’t be mad if they win a few. Of the films I haven’t yet seen, the one I’m most interested in is Here (which is at both Cinemapolis and the Regal), although I’m annoyed that it shares a title with one of my favorite movies of the year. Your best bets for repertory fare are Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, which is at Cornell Cinema on Sunday; Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb and Sunset Boulevard, which are there tomorrow; and John Wick, which is at the Regal on Sunday and Wednesday. Unless you have kids who haven’t yet experienced Labyrinth, that is, in which case your top priority should be taking them to see it at Cornell Cinema on Sunday!
Home Video: In the Drink & a Movie post I’m going to publish later today, I will refer to The Leopard Man as “the film I’ve long thought of as my favorite B movie” and House of Usher as “the one which recently stole that crown.” This is all true! But between you and me, that’s only because I forgot how good I Walked with a Zombie, one of my acquisitions during the most recent Criterion Channel flash sale, is. Its brisk 69-minute runtime is filled with enough atmosphere to fill six seasons of a television series, and it also includes the following exchange of dialogues which I consider to be the final word on the pros and cons of the tiki movement:
BETSY CONNELL: I don’t know about zombies, doctor. Just what is a zombie?
DR. MAXWELL: A ghost. A living dead. It’s also a drink.
BETSY CONNELL: Yes. I tried one once. But, there wasn’t anything dead about it.
It also contains one of the best uses of a troubadour (played by Sir Lancelot) I’d ever seen prior to this movie year’s La Chimera. There truly isn’t any other movie quite like it, and you can watch it on Watch TCM until November 3, so what are you waiting for?
Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here.
Home Video: My favorite horror movie of Movie Year 2023 was When Evil Lurks, which is now available on Hulu with a subscription. I recently revisited it after La Ciénaga, which I talked about in this space a few weeks ago, reminded me of it. Two scenes in particular really stuck with me, one involving a little girl and her pet dog and another featuring a boy and his grandmother’s necklace. Like the film as a whole, each is predictably less surprising on a second viewing, but even more disturbing, I think because director-writer Demián Rugna and company have indulged in just the right amount of world building: everything which transpires has a logic too it, but we never dwell on the details. Ezequiel Rodríguez’s Pedro’s doomed efforts to do right by people he no longer has any credibility with is also frustratingly relatable.
Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here.
What I’m Seeing This Week: I’ll be glued to my television watching the Mets play the Dodgers tonight and tomorrow, engaging in various seasonal festivities (e.g. my kids are throwing a Halloween party) this weekend, then traveling for work next week, so I’m taking the week off from theatrical screenings.
Also in Theaters: My favorite new movie now playing Ithaca remains Megalopolis, which continues its run at the Regal Ithaca Mall. I also enjoyed The Wild Robot, which is also at the Regal, and My Old Ass, which is at Cinemapolis. Films I’m hoping to see on the big screen before they close include Rumours (Cinemapolis), The Outrun (Cinemapolis), The Substance (Cinemapolis and the Regal), and maybe even Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (the Regal) if it sticks long enough. I’m also very intrigued by Pepe, which screens at Cornell Cinema on Sunday, but its showtime is incompatible with my schedule. This week’s noteworthy special events include a free screening of the film Machuca at Cornell Cinema tonight featuring a “talkback” session with screenwriter Roberto Brodsky, a “Family Classics Picture Show” screening of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein at Cinemapolis on Sunday (tickets = $2 apiece or $10 for groups of five or more), and the free premiere of a new documentary by Ithaca-based filmmaker Thomas Hoebbel called ¿Are We There Yet?: A Compassionate Exploration of Contemporary Immigration at Cinemapolis on Wednesday. Your best bets for repertory fare are Sunset Boulevard and Nostalghia, which are at Cornell Cinema tomorrow and on Saturday respectively. Two of my kids’ favorite Halloween movies, Hocus Pocus and The Nightmare Before Christmas, are also at the Regal all week.
Home Video: I talked about the “Directed by David Cronenberg” collection on the Criterion Channel in this space last week. Anyone who checked it out likely noticed that they’re also currently featuring a bunch of great films about witches, including my October, 2022 Drink & a Movie selection Suspiria. If you’ve already seen that one and are looking for something else to watch, try The Love Witch, which is a fun, subversive update of B-movie tropes that features outstandingly garish colors, including a magnificent purple house that is one of my all-time favorite movie locations! It’s also available on Mubi.
Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here.
Also in Theaters: I opted for “Mets magic” over the movies last week, so my top new film recommendations remain Megalopolis and The Wild Robot, both of which are at the Regal Ithaca Mall. There are a whopping *three* movies playing at Cornell Cinema that I would have gone to this week were they playing at different times: Pepe, which screens tonight at 7pm; Wings, which is there tomorrow at 6pm; and the screening of L’Inferno at Cornell’s Sage Chapel next Wednesday accompanied by a live score by Montopolis. So it goes! Other new films I’m still hoping to see on the big screen include Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, My Old Ass and The Substance, all of which are at both Cinemapolis and the Regal (although Beetlejuice Beetlejuice closes at Cinemapolis today). Finally, in addition to the Cornell Cinema titles mentioned above, your best bets for repertory fare are Carrie, which is at Cinemapolis on Tuesday, and The Nightmare Before Christmas, which opens at the Regal tomorrow.
Home Video: October is a month when many cinephiles’ fancy frighteningly turn to thoughts of the horror genre. Meanwhile, our family is heading north this weekend to celebrate our first Thanksgiving of the year with My Loving Wife’s family in Ontario. This makes the “Directed by David Cronenberg” collection now available on the Criterion Channel a doubly seasonally appropriate selection! The Fly, which is probably the Canadian auteur’s most famous work, is only available until 10/31, so you may want to start there. If you somehow only have time for one movie, though, I’d go with Rabid, which features an utterly terrifying depiction of Montreal under martial law during what is for all intents an purposes a zombie apocalypse and a lead performance by Marilyn Chambers that will reward your patience in the final reel when we suddenly find her wrestling with an impossible dilemma far beyond anything her male counterparts have been presented with. The Brood and Scanners are also well worth a look, but the early semi-silent featurettes Stereo and Crimes of the Future are for completists and superfans only.
Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here.
What I’m Seeing This Week: It is officially the time of year when I can’t possibly keep up with all the movies I want to see before they leave theaters, especially for as long as the Mets’ World Series hopes remain alive! I think I’m going to go with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice at either Cinemapolis or the Regal Ithaca Mall while the original Beetlejuice, which My Loving Wife and I watched on Max just the other day, remains fresh in my mind.
Also in Theaters: The best new movie now playing Ithaca that I’ve already seen is Megalopolis, director Francis Ford Coppola’s idea of a Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney “let’s put on a show!” film filtered through the lens of Ayn Rand as interpreted by Cecil B. DeMille. It continues its run at the Regal this week. My family was collectively a *bit* disappointed by The Wild Robot, which is also at the Regal, but it’s nonetheless one of the best kid-friendly movies of the year. I’m not free at 5pm on Sunday, but if I was I’d be going to see Brazil’s official selection for the 2024 Academy Awards Pictures of Ghosts at Cornell Cinema. Other new films I’d love to see on the big screen include A Different Man (Cinemapolis), My Old Ass (Cinemapolis and the Regal), The Substance (Cinemapolis and the Regal). Noteworthy special events include a screening of Angela Davis: A World of Greater Freedom followed by a conversation with director Manthia Diawara and Cornell professor Salah M. Hassan at Cornell Cinema tonight and a free screening of The Settlers at Cinemapolis on Sunday. Finally, your best bets for repertory fare are definitely the screenings of Notorious and Nostalghia at Cornell Cinema on Saturday and the screening of Possession at Cinemapolis in Tuesday, but I’d remiss if I didn’t also call out the screening of The Mummy at Cornell Cinema tomorrow since it’s the movie that briefly made me want to become a filmmaker. Because I thought it was terrible and could do better, to be sure, but I revisited it for the first time since I was in high school a couple of years ago and it’s actually quite fun if you don’t take it seriously.
Home Video: While watching La Ciénaga on the Criterion Channel recently, I kept thinking of the following lyrics from the Los Campesinos! song “Feast of Tongues” off their recent album All Hell:
When the black cloud comes, if one flame flickers We will feast on the tongues of the last bootlickers To the tune of the National Anthem Of a country that didn’t survive In a language I’d learned and forgotten I’ll stay home, keep the garden alive
The opening shots, including the zombie-like shuffling of drunk, overweight bourgeoisie sunbathers and the vaporous font of the credits, establish it as a ghost story, a reading confirmed by the ending which evinces the same attitude toward religion as las year’s When Evil Lurks: as David Oubiña wrote in an essay for the Criterion Collection DVD release, “Martel has created her own version of a world without God.” The sound design in both of these scenes and (as, Oubiña and many others have noted, all throughout the film) is brilliant, including clinking ice cubes at the beginning which sound like Jacob Marley rattling his chains and a cleverly-deployed dial tone at the end in the role of a flatlining heartbeat monitor. Lucrecia Martel remains one of my most glaring cinematic blind spots, but at least now I know why!
Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts canbe found here.
Also in Theaters: You’ve got one last chance to see Sing Sing, my top new movie recommendation, at Cinemapolis today. This screening will be followed by a talkback session featuring actors andfacilitators from Phoenix Players Theatre Group and ReEntry Theatre Program. Other new releases I hope to catch before they close include Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and The Substance, both of which are at both Cinemapolis and the Regal. I’m not able to attend, but there’s a free screening of the very well-reviewed new documentary Sugarcane at Cinemapolis on Sunday. Another new documentary, Film is Dead. Long Live Film!, plays Cornell Cinema on Saturday. There are free screenings of the films Clara Sola and La Pecera at Cinemapolis on Saturday and Sunday respectively as part of the Cine Con Cultura Latin American Film Festival. On the repertory front the highlights are once again Seven Samurai and Whiplash, which continue their runs at Cinemapolis, but additional great options include Howl’s Moving Castle, which is at the Regal all week, and Notorious, which is at Cornell Cinema tomorrow.
Home Video: Raphaël Nieuwjaer, a critic for the legendary French publication Cahiers du Cinéma, recently called Ricky Stanicky “almost […] a masterpiece.” I can’t go quite this far myself, but watching it was gratifyingly like running into a bosom companion from my youth for the first time in decades and discovering that they somehow haven’t changed a bit. Peter Farrelly’s films are to other Hollywood comedies as Sammy Cohen is to the other characters in the Strawbs’ song “How Everyone but Sam Was a Hypocrite,” so this is perhaps not a friend you’d take just anywhere, but anyone who can see past the vulgar exterior to the heart of gold within is A-OK in my book! Be sure to stay through the end credits for the mock mashup of William H. Macy’s Summerhayes. Ricky Stanicky is now streaming on Prime Video.
Previous “Ithaca Film Journal” posts can be found here.
The Prodigal Cinephile 