There’s a cornucopia of films at the ByTowne and the Mayfair in the first half of June. First, films from the vault…
Great news at the ByTowne! Their Hayao Miyazaki film series is continuing into July! Why should you see as many Hayao Miyazaki animated films as possible? The Boy and the Heron won the 2023 Best Animated Feature Oscar. Cannes just awarded Studio Ghibli an honorary Palme d’Or, which is the most prestigious award at the festival and usually awarded to the director of each year’s winning film. Although this film is a Metacritic “must see” with a score of 91, critics and audiences agree that his earlier film Spirited Away is even better. It garnered a Metacritic score of 96 and screened at the ByTowne in both subtitled and dubbed versions in early June. Spirited Away is a truly magical experience, well worth seeing repeated times.
Two films feature one of Miyazaki’s lifelong passions—designing and flying beautiful airplanes. Porco Rosso started as a 45-minute in-flight film for Japan Airlines, but grew into a feature-length film. It’s notable for its gorgeous setting on the Italian Adriatic coast in the 1920s. A dashing flying ace has mysteriously been turned into a pig (he says, “all middle-aged men are pigs”)—hence his name “Porco.” He’s still a magnificent aviator for hire. When he angers some sky pirates, they hire an egotistical American aviator to get rid of him. Porco triumphs with the help of a teenage girl who designs planes, and a sultry singer. This film has some of the best aerial scenes in any animated movie, seasoned with sophisticated humour.
Next, in The Wind Rises, Miyazaki tells the story of a young man whose passion and talents for designing beautiful aircraft collides with how these aircraft are used in wartime. This is interleaved with a tender love story—the leading man and a sweet young woman fall deeply in love, though her health problems and World War II challenge their deep devotion to each other. It’s one of Miyazaki’s most personal films.
I’m excited about a collection of four short films from way back. Return to Reason: Four Films by Man Ray are from 1923 to 1929. Man Ray was influential in the Dada and Surrealist movements. As Liam Lacey wrote in Original CIN, “If you like to have your eyes excited and your brains scrambled in a medically safe manner, I recommend Man Ray: Return to Reason.” It’s “a series of caprices, reveries, and mind games that tell no stories, but communicate the excitement of creative spontaneity.” He concludes, “Perhaps there’s nothing more surprising than realizing that films from a century ago make most of what is made today look conventional and old-fashioned.”
When Run Lola Run came out in 1998, it was hailed as groundbreaking. It’s filmed in (almost) real-time as Lola races against the clock to find 100,000 Deutschemarks to give to her boyfriend Manni. If she can’t get the money to Manni in 20 minutes so he can deliver it to his gangster boss, he’s sure to be killed on the spot. It’s breathless cinema!
There’s a ton of press about Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Want to see its predecessors from George Miller? The Mayfair shows three of the four (they can’t get the first Mad Max). In the second film in the series, Mad Max: The Road Warrior, loner Max agrees to help defend a small community against a band of blood-thirsty (or perhaps I should say gasoline-thirsty) bandits. In the third film, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, Max encounters his cunningest enemy yet—Aunty Entity, the ruler of violent Bartertown, magnificently played by Tina Turner. Roger Ebert called it “not only the best of the three Mad Max movies, but one of the best films of 1985… a movie of great visionary wonders.”
Now let’s look at new releases–all at the ByTowne–starting with the biggest new film—Dune: Part 2. This must be seen on the biggest screen possible with a first-rate sound system. If you haven’t already been immersed in this big-in-every-way epic or can’t wait to see it again, here’s your chance!
From the biggest spectacle to the smallest show, check out The Movie Man, a Canadian documentary about one man’s obsessive love for the cinema experience, which I recommended in my last article.
Cottontail was filmed in Japan and England. A Japanese father and son are shocked when they discover their recently deceased wife and mother wanted them to scatter her ashes at the place she loved most as a child—Lake Windermere in England. They argue and eventually, the father heads to England, alone, grieving, and unsure what he’ll find there.
Two films–one from France, one from England–that I wrote about in previous articles are back. The first is the mouth-watering and oh-so-romantic film La passion de Dodin Bouffant (The Taste of Things). The second is Wicked Little Letters, the saucy, sassy based-on-a-true-incident film. Both are blessed with excellent actors.
My final recommendation is also a based-on-a-true-story film. The Great Escaper stars Michael Caine as a 90-year-old gent who made a “great escape” from his old folks home to attend the 70th anniversary D-Day Landing in Normandy to honour his fallen comrades. It’s also about his 60-year marriage to the love of his life, played by Glenda Jackson, in her final film role. Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian said, “Caine and Jackson and their ineffable class give this film some real grit… there is something moving and even awe-inspiring in seeing these two British icons together.”
See you at the movies!
Dates, times and tickets for the ByTowne are at www.bytowne.ca. The ByTowne publishes its calendar at least three weeks in advance. Dates, times and tickets for the Mayfair are at www.mayfairtheatre.ca. The Mayfair usually publishes the coming week’s schedule midweek and adds to their “coming soon” list, so check their website and emails for the latest updates.
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