Whether it’s back to school, an early jump into fall, or another day at the office, September is at least one thing: another great month for movies.
I was wrong in my last Magic in the Dark article! You have two more chances to see Past Lives, the film I praised in my last four articles. I unreservedly recommend it: Past Lives is the best new film I’ve seen so far this year. Catch it at the ByTowne.
I was doubly wrong! Wes Anderson fans have four more chances to see Asteroid City, which I also recommended in my last Magic in the Dark article.
Umberto Eco was a true Renaissance man. His wide ranging interests were reflected in his enormous library. The documentary Umberto Eco: A Library of the World helps us get to know him. It’s the kind of film to see multiple times, just so you can savour a particularly wise or witty quote. It’s back at the ByTowne.
I’m delighted that the ByTowne has programmed the new British film Scrapper, which won the Grand Jury Prize for the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. It’s a comedy/drama in the realm of last year’s Aftersun. It’s about Georgie, a plucky 12-year old girl who lives alone—her mother has recently died and Social Services hasn’t cottoned on to the fact. Georgie is shocked when her feckless dad turns up.
Both the Mayfair and the ByTowne are making lemonade from the lemons the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike has handed them. Both cinemas have programmed a dandy lineup of older films.
I’ll start with tributes to the recently deceased director William Friedkin. He’s most famous for The Exorcist and The French Connection. One of his later films—To Live and Die in L.A.—is at the ByTowne (and soon to be at the Mayfair). It didn’t make much of a splash when first released in 1985, but it’s now recognized as one of Friedkin’s finer films. The film tells the story of the lengths to which two Secret Service agents will go to nab a dangerous counterfeiter—played with vicious intensity by Willem Dafoe. The wrong-way car chase is particularly thrilling.
Speaking of thrilling, the other film that both the Mayfair and the ByTowne are showing as a tribute to Friedkin is Sorcerer, his 1977 adaptation of a 1950 French novel by Georges Arnaud. It’s a nail-biting tale about four down-and-out men who wash up in a squalid South American village. To make the money needed to escape this hellhole, they sign on to transport a cargo of aged dynamite that’s so unstable it’s “sweating” nitroglycerin.
I’m particularly looking forward to seeing the original 1953 film that was based on Arnaud’s novel, The Wages of Fear. Directed by France’s master of suspense Henri-Georges Clouzot, and starring Yves Montand, it has the same plot plus a Metacritic “must see” rating. As the reviewer David Thompson wrote in The Guardian, “when Henri-Georges Clout took on a genre, it generally led to a classic … and The Wages of Fear has no superior in the field of action-suspense.” At the Mayfair.
Friedkin claimed that Sorcerer wasn’t a remake of The Wages of Fear. See both films and decide for yourself.
There’s a wonderful tribute to one of Canada’s major music stars, Robbie Robertson, at the ByTowne: Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz, the film version of The Band’s final concert. It’s purported to be one of the best—perhaps the best—concert films ever made. The musicians who joined The Band onstage read like a who’s who of the 1970s rock, soul and folk scenes—Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters, Neil Diamond, Ringo Starr, Mavis Staples, Van Morrison, Emmylou Harris, Dr. John, Bob Dylan and, of course, Ronnie Hawkins.
In honour of its 100th Anniversary, Warner Bros is releasing new restorations of some favourite classics. Two of these—Howard Hawks’ western Rio Bravo and Stephen Spielberg’s The Goonies—are playing at the Mayfair. Rio Bravo’s big star is John Wayne, and it’s a Metacritic “must see.” You’ll want to bring the tweens and teens to see the classic fantasy The Goonies.
The ByTowne also has something for kids (and kids-at-heart) in their Klassic Kids series: Back to the Future. Another Metacritic “must see” film with Michael J. Fox in his iconic role as Marty McFly, the teenager whose “mad scientist” friend Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) transforms a DeLorean sports car into a time machine that whisks Marty back to the 1950s. His goal is to make sure his teenage parents meet and fall in love, even though his mother develops a mad crush for Marty.
For the fans of Broadway musicals, the ByTowne’s Sunday Afternoon Classics features Barbra Streisand in William Wyler’s Funny Girl (another Metacritic “must see”). Streisand shines as the Ziegfeld comedienne, Fanny Brice.
And finally, there’s a treat for all ByTowne members: a members-only screening of Legally Blonde. Reese Witherspoon is perfect as the California blonde sorority girl who chases after her ex-boyfriend all the way to Harvard Law School, then surpasses all expectations.
Happy viewing!
Dates, times and tickets can be found on the ByTowne and the Mayfair websites.
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