What a marvellous variety of films there are at the ByTowne and the Mayfair in the first half of July! Films from cinematic masters—one of the best romantic dramas ever made, a Godard festival, a tribute to the Lumiere brothers, a historical/vampire thriller with the two lead roles played by the same actor, and the latest film from one of the most distinctive directors I can think of. And a cartoon treat for the kids! Plus many more films.
Let’s start with the 25th anniversary 4K restoration of an exquisite romantic drama—Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love. It’s Hong Kong in 1962. On the same day, two couples move into adjacent apartments. The encounters between Mr.Chow (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung Man-yuk) are formal and polite until they are shocked to discover that their spouses are having an affair. This gradually draws them closer.
As their delicate, frustrated romance proceeds, you’ll find yourself holding your breath. The beautifully evocative music on the soundtrack and the masterful cinematography by Christopher Doyle and Mark Lee Ping-bin add to the spellbinding effect of the film. This new restoration also features a previously unseen 9-minute short film by Wong Kar Wai.
The Mayfair has a Jean-Luc Godard Fest in July. The first is A Woman is A Woman, a witty commentary on male/female relationships. A stripper yearns to have a baby. According to her boyfriend, “You always want the impossible!”, so she pursues another man to make him jealous. The Chicago Tribune reviewer wrote that it “moves us now because it’s so playful and the players are so young.”
The second film is Contempt (Le Mepris), an altogether “heavier” film. A philistine American (Jack Palance) is producing a film adaptation of The Odyssey with director Fritz Lang, but fears an “artsy” style will lose him money at the box office. The producer brings in a French writer (Michel Piccoli) to “goose up” the script. But the writer’s wife (Bridgitte Bardot) accuses her husband of using her to manipulate the producer. Martin Scorsese said Contempt is “one of the most moving films of its era.”
As I wrote in the last Magic in the Dark, Sinners has made quite a splash this year. I was impressed by Michael B. Jordan as the twin brothers, Stack and Smoke. The 1932 Mississippi Delta, in all its poverty and racism, hits hard. Adding music and vampires into the mix, though… a truly audacious film! See it at the ByTowne.
Film historians often date the birth of the cinema to short films produced and screened by the French Lumière brothers. The brothers invented the cinematograph 130 years ago. Lumière, L’aventure continue shows us 100 Lumière films, all immaculately restored, and explores the history of the invention of cinema. As Wes Anderson has said, their work is “the true origin of all our cinematographic dreams.” At the ByTowne.
Speaking of distinctive director Wes Anderson, both cinemas are showing his latest feature, The Phoenician Scheme. It’s 1950, and one of the richest men in Europe, Zsa-zsa Korda, wants to build a massive network of canals, rail lines, etc., across a vast swath of the Middle East. Korda, whose business empire includes aviation and armaments, has nine sons and a daughter, a novice nun named Liesl.
But it’s she who Korda appoints as the sole heir to his estate. As Korda and Liesl embark on their travels to get the financing necessary for the Phoenician scheme, they become the target of government agents, scheming tycoons and foreign terrorists. The cast list is far too long for me to reproduce here; suffice to say, I believe it’s even longer than the cast list for Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel or Asteroid City.
I promised a cartoon treat for the kids — it’s the Mayfair’s Looney Tunes Festival, with Popeye bonus cartoons! The cartoons are from 1960 to 2020, so adults are sure to remember seeing some of them when they were kids. Join Bugs, the Road Runner, Sylvester and Tweety Bird, Daffy and, of course, Popeye for a rollicking good time.
What else do we have?
I’m looking forward to Familiar Touch, an under-the-radar film about Ruth, an 80-year-old woman who, due to her worsening memory loss, must move into an assisted living facility. It’s one she had selected previously for herself, though she doesn’t remember doing so. Among fellow memory care residents, she feels lost, certain that she doesn’t belong there. But she slowly begins to accept the warm support of two care workers and finds how, with touch, to feel right with herself. At the ByTowne.
As I wrote in my last two Magic in the Dark articles (1) (2), The Life of Chuck is based on a Stephen King story, with King at his most sentimental and uncynical, and it was the 2024 TIFF People’s Choice winner. At the Mayfair.
A Nice Indian Boy is back at the Mayfair. As I wrote previously (1) (2), it’s a rom-com with a neat twist: the “nice Indian boy” whom the uptight Naveen brings home to his traditional Indian parents is a white guy who was raised in an Indian family.
Materialists is directed by Celine Song, who also directed my favourite film of 2023, Past Lives. Unlike the latter, Materialists isn’t autobiographical, but about a professional New York City matchmaker torn between her imperfect ex and a perfect match for herself. At the ByTowne.
Super Happy Forever is a Japanese drama about the nature of happiness. Accompanied by his friend Miyata, Sano returns to Izu, a seaside resort in Japan, where he fell in love with his wife Nagi five years before. Sano and Nagi expected to be “super happy forever,” but this wasn’t how things turned out. Variety magazine says the film is “a delicate, unassuming but subtly complex love story in reverse.” At the ByTowne.
I’m taking some time off to enjoy summer, so the next Magic in the Dark will be in mid-August. But don’t let that deter you from heading to the ByTowne and the Mayfair to sample their many filmic offerings.
Dates, times, and tickets for the ByTowne are at www.bytowne.ca. You can also buy tickets at the box office. The ByTowne publishes its calendar several weeks in advance. Dates, times, and tickets for the Mayfair are at www.mayfairtheatre.ca. The Mayfair finalizes its upcoming films’ schedule weekly, which they post online and advertise via email. Both provide information about the films for future weeks. You can buy tickets via their weekly email and at the box office.
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