I have a dozen film recommendations, old and new, playing at the ByTowne and Mayfair, some of them pretty violent.
Let’s start with the first half of Mayfair’s Mad Max Marathon: George Miller’s first two instalments of motorized Mel Gibson madness in the Australian outback. Mad Max introduces us to Max, a loner policeman in a world sliding towards chaos, and he’s trying to neutralize a violent motorcycle gang. Then in Mad Max: The Road Warrior (originally released as Mad Max 2 The Road Warrior), we’re plunged into a post-apocalyptic world where marauding gangs terrorize small communities, raiding them for their precious gasoline. The former film has a 91% Fresh rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes; the latter, a 95% Fresh rating. Pretty impressive for B-movie fare. One thing’s for sure—you’ll never see vehicle stunts like the ones George Miller dishes out.
Want violence but with better scripts and actors? I highly recommend three films from the vault, all at the ByTowne:
Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece Raging Bull is a biography of middleweight boxer Jake La Motta. Robert de Niro has never been better, and Joe Pesci, as La Motta’s brother and manager, is perfect. It’s a stunning picture of a man who only knows how to relate to the world through his fists.
Then there’s the Coen brothers’ first feature film, Blood Simple. With Dan Hedaya as a jealous bar owner, Frances MacDormand as his straying wife, and M. Emmet Walsh as the vile private eye, it foreshadows many of their later films—violent people who aren’t as smart as they think they are, betrayal, and of course, bloody revenge.
Greed is the downfall of Humphrey Bogart’s character in John Huston’s Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Bogart is a seedy drifter who throws his lot in with an old prospector (played by Huston’s father, Walter Huston) and heads for the Sierra Madre to search for gold. I think this is one of Bogart’s best roles. The film is not as bloody as the other two films, but the main character is just as venal.
There’s a different kind of violence–politically motivated–in these two new films at the ByTowne:
Even watching the trailer for Chile ’76 frightens me. It’s set in Chile at the beginning of Pinochet’s bloody dictatorship. A middle-class woman’s priest asks her to shelter a badly wounded young man hiding from the junta. She agrees to do so and inadvertently becomes entangled in the political opposition, at great risk to herself and her family.
Bones of Crows should probably be mandatory viewing in all Canadian high schools and universities. It’s a multi-generational epic about the brutalities inflicted by the Canadian government and the Catholic Church on Indigenous children and their families via the residential school system, the impact it had, and the resilience one family achieved in the present.
Can’t relate to a rogue road warrior or a brutal boxer or a murderous husband? Well, I have a quartet of relatable films about families for you.
You Hurt My Feelings is a dandy family drama with lashings of witty humour. It’s about a long-married middle-class NYC couple (Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tobias Menzies—totally believable as a couple). She’s a writer who teaches creative writing, and he’s a psychotherapist. All is well until she overhears him saying he doesn’t like her latest book, despite having lavishly praised the dozens of drafts she’s shown him. Oh, and their 23-year-old son with a dead-end job has just moved back home, despairing about ever achieving the brilliant successes his mother has always told him he’s capable of. If you’ve ever lied to a loved one to encourage them, this film is for you. Makes you think while smiling at some of the absurdities of everyday life. At the ByTowne.
Supernova is a touching drama about Sam (Colin Firth) and Tusker (Stanley Tucci), a longtime couple driving in their RV around Great Britain to visit friends, family and places from their past. It’s an essential trip because Tusker is sliding into dementia. A moving film with two excellent actors. This screening is a fundraiser to raise funds to support LGBTQ+ refugees. At the Mayfair.
Brother was a runner-up for the Toronto Film Critics Association’s 2022 Rogers Best Canadian Film Award prize and garnered excellent reviews. Directed by Clement Virgo, the film follows the relationship between Francis and Michael, two Jamaican-Canadian brothers growing up in Scarborough in the early 90s. Francis is the charismatic, confident guy everyone in the ‘hood knows. Sensitive, diffident Francis worships his older brother. Despite her punishingly long work hours, their stoic mother tries to keep her sons on a path to a better, safer life. Francis desperately wants to “be somebody,” aspiring to a music career, but things go horribly wrong, devastating the family. At the Mayfair.
Good news! A film based on Judy Blume’s beloved YA novel Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. has finally arrived at the ByTowne. If this was one of your favourite books when you traversed those awful years between childhood and being a young adult, this film is a must-see. Want to know what all the fuss is about? There’s only one way to find out!
The last new film I’m recommending is a historical biography of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges. Bologne was a prodigy—a composer whom the film compares to Mozart, a brilliant violinist and an expert fencer. He rose to great heights in the court of Louis XVI… or at least as high as he could, as a young man who was an illegitimate son of a French plantation owner and his African slave. And then came the French Revolution… The film is Chevalier, and it’s at both cinemas.
Happy viewing!
Dates, times and tickets for the ByTowne are at www.bytowne.ca. Dates, times and tickets for the Mayfair are at www.mayfairtheatre.ca.
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