I’m almost overwhelmed by the number of promising new and terrific old films we can see at the ByTowne and the Mayfair in the second part of November.
I’ll start with my top recommendations of films I’ve seen and very highly recommend.
First and foremost, be sure to see the animated feature Flow. I saw it at the Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF) in September. Of the hundreds of animated films I’ve seen, it’s one of the best, ranking with the best films from Studio Ghibli (My Neighbour Totoro, Spirited Away), and matching them in exquisite beauty. It’s also one of the best films I’ve seen in 2024. Period. In a world suddenly devoid of humans and devastated by terrifying floods, a courageous cat finds refuge on a rickety sailboat with a capybara, a lemur, a stork, and a dog, A remarkable thing about this extraordinary film is that all the animals behave like animals. There’s no anthropomorphism, no dialogue beyond mewing, barks, and squawks. There’s only a wary coexistence on the boat, especially between the cat and the dog. The sense of peril is pervasive but so is the sense of wonder. The emotional spell Flow casts is unforgettable. I can hardly wait to see this again, this time on Mayfair’s big screen.
Flow. Photo from Ottawa International Animation Festival website.
I think Billy Wilder is one of the 20th century’s best directors, and Sunset Boulevard is one of his best films. In 1950, a young Hollywood screenwriter on the make (William Holden) develops a dangerous co-dependent relationship with a faded silent-era actress (Gloria Swanson) who is attempting a comeback. Recipient of a slew of awards, Roger Ebert called Sunset Boulevard “the best drama ever made about the movies” and the BBC said it was “the finest movie ever made about the narcissistic hellhole that is Hollywood.” At the Mayfair.
The Mayfair’s Francis Ford Coppola Film Festival includes one of my two favourite Coppola films—The Conversation. A surveillance expert who trusts no one (Gene Hackman, in one of his best performances) has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that the young couple whose conversation he recorded will be murdered by her older husband, a powerful executive.
I’ll round out my top recommendations with an iconic Canadian drama from Atom Egoyan—The Sweet Hereafter. Set in a snowy town in the interior of B.C., it follows a cynical lawyer (Ian Holm) trying to drum up business with families devastated by a horrible school bus accident. But what’s the truth, when there are so many secrets? His nemesis seems to be the one survivor of the accident, a paralyzed teenage girl (Sarah Polley). At the ByTowne.
There are plenty of other films that I recommend.
I’ve been mightily impressed by other gritty but sympathetic films by Sean Baker (Tangerine, The Florida Project, Red Rocket), so I’m eager to see his latest—Anora. I wrote about it in my last Magic in the Dark article. At the ByTowne.
Speaking of award-winning new films, All We Imagine as Light by director Payal Kapadia won the Grand Prix at Cannes, the runner-up to the Palme d’Or. This film is about three ordinary women living in Mumbai whose lives are transformed by a trip to a beach town where they can finally flourish. At the ByTowne.
Every cineaste must see Coppola’s The Godfather and The Godfather Part II. They’re part of the Mayfair’s festival devoted to Coppola. Some–including myself–consider the second film even better than the first, which is unusual for a sequel.
I’m not a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino, but when he made an Elmore Leonard novel into a film with a star-studded cast (Samuel L. Jackson, Robert De Niro, Michael Keaton) and topped it off with two underrated actors–the exquisite Pam Greer and the versatile Robert Forster–well, I was sold! The film is Jackie Brown, and the dialogue and plot twists are pure delight. It’s in the ByTowne’s new “Detour” series.
I’m also not a big fan of David Lynch, but when The Straight Story came out in 1999, I looked at the plot—a true story about an elderly brother who drives a 1961 John Deere lawn tractor from Iowa to Wisconsin to reconnect with his estranged critically ill brother whom he hasn’t spoken to in a decade. It starred Richard Farnsworth, Harry Dean Stanton and Sissy Spacek, so I took a chance on it and was glad that I did. You may be, too, when you see it at the ByTowne.
Another film from the vault–The Marriage of Maria Braun–is presented at the ByTowne by Goethe-Cinema. This 1979 film was director Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s biggest international box-office success because of the superb Hanna Schygulla in the role of Maria. The story is about Maria marrying Hermann Braun, a German soldier, in the last days of WWII. He disappears and is presumed dead. Her life ruined, Maria uses her beauty and ambition to good effect, making a new life for herself in the German “economic miracle.” Then Hermann resurfaces in her life.
Fritz Lang’s The Big Heat is a 1953 classic film noir in ByTowne’s Golden Age of Hollywood series. A tough cop (Glenn Ford) is told to stop his investigation of the apparent suicide of a bent cop. He doesn’t. Then a car bomb meant for him kills his wife. He resigns from the force and starts his investigation/vendetta. He’s up against powerful forces in the underworld, including a cold-blooded killer (played by Lee Marvin). And of course, there’s a femme fatale, the inimitable Gloria Grahame. Lang’s cynical view of corruption in small-town America still stings.
I’ve enjoyed every film featuring Saoirse Ronan that I’ve seen, and her two new films–The Outrun and Blitz–are no exception. In my last article, I praised The Outrun and was looking forward to Blitz. Now that I’ve seen the latter, I have nothing but praise for Ronan and Elliott Heffernan who plays her 9-year-old son. I’m pleased you can catch these two films at the ByTowne.
The idea behind My Old Ass is intriguing. To celebrate her 18th birthday, Elliott takes magic mushrooms with a couple of her friends. But her trip is even weirder than theirs because suddenly she’s conversing with her 39-year-old self. “Older Elliott” has advice to give “young Elliott” about how to make the best of her fleeting youth and how to avoid the mistakes “older Elliott” made when she was 18: being nice to her little brother and her Mum, and avoiding guys named Chad. This touching comedy by Canadian filmmaker Megan Parks is playing at the Mayfair.
In the past few years, there have been documentaries based on “me too” incidents, but Black Box Diaries is the first Japanese documentary I’m aware of. Journalist Shiori Itō turned to documentary filmmaking to investigate her sexual assault and to seek the prosecution of her high-profile rapist. She’s not afraid of showing herself vulnerable. Her quest became a landmark case in Japan, exposing its outdated judicial system and societal norms. A Metacritic must-see at the Mayfair.
Last but not least, there’s an animated feature that I saw in September at the OIAF: Memoir of a Snail. Grace, a painfully shy and lonely girl with a penchant for collecting snails, has an odd childhood in suburban Australia. Besides her fascination with snails and her love of books, her main source of happiness is her twin brother Gilbert. When their father dies and they’re separated, her anxiety and despair deepen. Then things seem to look up for her—Grace makes friends with a delightfully eccentric old woman named Pinky and a handsome neighbour begins to romance her. At the ByTowne.
Such a wealth of films! We’re so fortunate!
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.
