On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

This is as much a statement of opinion as a pulling-together of what facts I know. I want to believe that the announcement is premature. Therefore, I've written this to see if I can help make it become so.



Today, Bruce White, owner of the Bytowne Cinema, announced that he was closing it down effect New Year's Eve, 2020. For myself, I found out via Twitter from "NotBruce" who runs the Cinema's Twitter account, like just about many others who knew to care.

As Mr. Whyte explained, the Pandemic's knocked the stuffings out of the Bytowne's finances and business model. We can and will leave it to other threads here, on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere across the Web to better explain or debate the reasons why the Pandemic stretched out as it has.

My first visit would've been back in the winter of 1986-'87, to see Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. I think I saw it with my brother, but I can't be sure at the moment. It would have been operating as the Nelson Theatre back then. Since the change of name and management in 1988, I've been to see several other movies there across the decades. The ones I can remember with certainty include:

• Good Night, and Good Luck
• In the Shadow of the Moon
• Inside Job
• The Way
• Particle Fever
• The Death of Stalin
• Dark Waters

(Possibly Akira in 1990 as well, because of the Animation Festival that year, and Algonquin Animation students got passes to that. Whether that was for volunteer work or as a benefit of attending Animation History class, I'm not sure. I do remember seeing it. Just not sure where right now.)

(And that was a lot of documentaries and docudramas there, right?)

Anyway, I'm getting bogged down in the specifics of what I saw, instead of noting the reactions to it. Like City Councillor Shawn Menard arguing - dare we hope - for some sort of support from Ottawa City Hall via Twitter.

Like former Capital Ward councillor David Chernushenko posting similar sentiments.

Another Ottawa resident suggesting that the Bytowne be reorganized as a co-op.

We also know that Mr. White is looking for a buyer to revive the place post-Pandemic. If any of you know someone with the cash and the will to do this, now would be a good time to send that e-mail or make that phone call.

This place is worth either saving or reviving. And it's not just my thinking here, as you've seen.

To my Ottawa allies: which theatres in town are keeping Gunless past this Thursday? I'm hoping to put together an extended family outing.

Does anyone remember whether this was one of the movie theatres in Saskatoon that showed Return of the Jedi? I remember seeing it in that city, but can't recall which theatre?

Funny timing, between the music and my learning the latest on the fate of the Mayfair Theatre on Bank Street in Old South Ottawa.


The first I went to actually see a movie there was Serenity, as part of the annual global fundraiser for Equality Now. Damn good movie, and the cause was worth the time and the money as well. As well, the architecture of the place was a touchstone of sorts for me to a time before my parents' birth. It may not be special as such things go, but I'd like to see a way to keep that place standing as a movie theatre, and a place of fun for that part of town. It would be one more excuse to visit that part of town more often, and a good one, too.

Just a thought.