What Movie Did You Watch This Weekend? The Third.

[Lyle (Mooska)]

^^^

Thanks for reminding me about that!

[Jeff Wrangler]

^^^

Thanks for reminding me about that!

My pleasure. 

The movie itself was broadcast last night (Thanksgiving night), and in my opinion it was downright criminal that it was stretched out to three hours to accommodate commercials (at least eight at a time). The film didn't end till 11 p.m. EST, and I found myself thinking, Suppose you were a parent watching this movie with small children for the very first time. Would you want to keep them up till 11 p.m. to see the whole film? Would they even be able to stay awake that late?

Spoiler Alert--maybe.

I did find it very interesting to watch Julie Andrews' portrayal in light of the discussion in the documentary of Mary Poppins' character in the Travers books, where, apparently, she is quite firm with Jane and Michael. A spoon full of sugar may help the medicine go down, but Andrews' Mary Poppins was not all sweetness and light. At times she was quite firm, even a bit sharp, with Jane and Michael. At those times it seems to me there was at least a bit of the books' character in the movie character. I presume we have the screen writers, Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi, to thank for that.

The TV station where I watched the film didn't even show the movie credits; after the final scene they went right to the local 11:00 news broadcast.

[Lyle (Mooska)]

I watched the documentary before I went to bed last night. Was quite wonderful. What a pain P.L. Travers was, but that stubbornness may have made the movie what it is. Everyone involved seemed to come along at exactly the right time.

They conveyed that P.L. Travers decided to relent on selling the rights because the books had not been selling at that point and she needed the money. I'd read later on at some time that those books, bu scholars, aren't really thought of as being that good. I read the first one once and thought so, too.

A friend bought me the movie on Blu-Ray as a gift sometime last year. (It came with the Mary Poppins Returns movie, too.) I used to have it on VHS back in the day. No matter how many times I've seen it, it never fails to impress. It truly is superb; each and every scene.

The Blu-Ray has an extra of the premiere at the Chinese Theatre where many are interviewed going into the film and coming out. P.L. Travers is there and asked her opinion about the film. She hadn't seen it yet and she says, in the way you'd expect her too if you've seen this new documentary, in a very skeptical tone, "Well we'll see." I hadn't heard what she actually did think of it.

You kind of wish My Fair Lady hadn't been up for Oscars the same year as Mary Poppins surely would've won Best Picture. I do love My Fair Lady as well to be sure, but there's something about Mary Poppins that brings joy to anyone. (Three films had double digit nominations that year, that rarely happens.)

Mary Poppins (13 nominations | 5 wins)
My Fair Lady  (12 nominations | 8 wins)
Becket          (12 nominations | 1 win)
*=Won
BEST PICTURE -- Walt Disney and Bill Walsh, Producers
DIRECTING -- Robert Stevenson
*ACTRESS -- Julie Andrews {"Mary Poppins"}
WRITING (Screenplay--based on material from another medium) -- Bill Walsh, Don DaGradi
ART DIRECTION (Color) -- Art Direction: Carroll Clark, William H. Tuntke; Set Decoration: Emile Kuri, Hal Gausman
CINEMATOGRAPHY (Color) -- Edward Colman
COSTUME DESIGN (Color) -- Tony Walton
*FILM EDITING -- Cotton Warburton
*MUSIC (Music Score--substantially original) -- Richard M. Sherman, Robert B. Sherman
MUSIC (Scoring of Music--adaptation or treatment) -- Irwin Kostal
*MUSIC (Song) -- "Chim Chim Cher-ee," Music and Lyrics by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman
SOUND -- Walt Disney Studio Sound Department, Robert O. Cook, Sound Director
*SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS -- Peter Ellenshaw, Eustace Lycett, Hamilton Luske

Dick Van Dyke's accent always comes up at times as being atrocious, horrible, etc. and I always ask people, "When you watch that film does that EVER enter your mind? It has never bothered me in the least. He should've had a nomination as well, if you ask me.

This may have me watching Mary Poppins again before the weekend is over!

[Lyle (Mooska)]

This past week I revisited the Back to the Future trilogy of films.

A couple oddities about those three films.
--The entire three movies actually take place over a period of 15 days.
--All three of these films, at this point, take place in the past.

A weird thing in watching these now is that I saw the first film when it opened in 1985 and I think it was on July 4th, though it could've been the day before or after, and the movie starts off and ends in that year of 1985. But, when you watch the movie now, 1985 feels like a period piece, which is so strange. And the second movie goes 30 years into the future, 2015, and now that is almost a decade ago.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Mary Poppins does, indeed, bring joy to anyone.  I need to find a copy to add to my library. I still have the original sound track album.

Quibbling over Dick Van Dyke's accent is quibbling for the sake of quibbling.

Now I think I'd like to see Mary Poppins Returns, although it better be awfully good for me to accept anyone but Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins. From the clips included in the documentary, I would really like to see Saving Mr. Banks.

[Lyle (Mooska)]

Now I think I'd like to see Mary Poppins Returns, although it better be awfully good for me to accept anyone but Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins. From the clips included in the documentary, I would really like to see Saving Mr. Banks.

--Saving Mr. Banks is two movies. One is the flashbacks of P.L. Travers life in Australia and the relationship with her father. (Mr. Banks.) The other is Disney courting her and her coming to the U.S. to get Mary Poppins made. That stuff is all very good. The flashback stuff feels like you just want to get back to the other story.

--Mary Poppins Returns is a mixed bag. I saw it in the theatre and then again once on Blu-Ray. Meryl Streep has a segment in the movie, a showcase segment sort of like Ed Wynn's in the original. When I first saw it I remember thinking I didn't understand a word she sang in that song she had. So when I watched it again I was actively listening to it and I still didn't understand what she was singing.

A better bet is to see the stage musical version of Mary Poppins if it ever arises. They didn't just do Mary Poppins, they re-invented it enough that it feels brand new. There's all the showcase songs, but a few new ones, a bit of altered plot with some outstanding choreography sequences, one of them is Bert dancing across the stage and UP the side of the proscenium and then upside down crossing the entire length and down the other side. You can't even imagine.

[killersmom]

Since it concerns a film, I'll post this here.

Anybody see the documentary on Mary Poppins? I found it quite good and quite entertaining. Hard to believe that film was released 60 years ago this year. The show was also a kind of paean to the Sherman brothers, Richard and Robert, who wrote the songs and more or less became Disney's house composers. It appears P. L. Travers was a piece of work. ... Allegedly at the film's premiere, she turned to Walt Disney and said, "We still have a lot of work."

The Shermans wrote some wonderful songs, but they also have to answer for inflicting on an unsuspecting world that ultimate earworm "It's a Small World."   

Yes I saw this the other night and loved it! I couldn't believe it's been 60 years either!! A lot of it made me cry! I CANNOT believe that Julie Andrews is 89 yo!!!  Also that Walt Disney started trying to get the rights to Mary Poppins back in 1943 and didn't get them till 20 yrs later!!!

[Jeff Wrangler]

Yes I saw this the other night and loved it! I couldn't believe it's been 60 years either!! A lot of it made me cry! I CANNOT believe that Julie Andrews is 89 yo!!!  Also that Walt Disney started trying to get the rights to Mary Poppins back in 1943 and didn't get them till 20 yrs later!!!

  I didn't know that, or missed it if it was mentioned in the documentary.

[Jeff Wrangler]

--Saving Mr. Banks is two movies. One is the flashbacks of P.L. Travers life in Australia and the relationship with her father. (Mr. Banks.) The other is Disney courting her and her coming to the U.S. to get Mary Poppins made. That stuff is all very good. The flashback stuff feels like you just want to get back to the other story.

Thanks, Lyle. I had read about Saving Mr. Banks--probably in The New Yorker--when it came out, so I knew about the part about Disney's efforts to get the rights from Travers, but I'd pretty much forgotten about it. When Tom Hanks first appeared in the documentary, I thought to myself, What is he doing here?  The same with Emma Thompson!  In the brief clip I saw, I thought Tom Hanks looked ridiculous with that mustache. 

--Mary Poppins Returns is a mixed bag. I saw it in the theatre and then again once on Blu-Ray. Meryl Streep has a segment in the movie, a showcase segment sort of like Ed Wynn's in the original. When I first saw it I remember thinking I didn't understand a word she sang in that song she had. So when I watched it again I was actively listening to it and I still didn't understand what she was singing.

Thanks. I knew nothing about that movie.

A better bet is to see the stage musical version of Mary Poppins if it ever arises. They didn't just do Mary Poppins, they re-invented it enough that it feels brand new. There's all the showcase songs, but a few new ones, a bit of altered plot with some outstanding choreography sequences, one of them is Bert dancing across the stage and UP the side of the proscenium and then upside down crossing the entire length and down the other side. You can't even imagine.

Hmm. I'd have to give that some thought. Jersey Boys would probably be higher on the list.    I just missed a production of it in Philadelphia. 

[killersmom]

I didn't know that, or missed it if it was mentioned in the documentary.

It wasn't. We talked about the documentary at Thanksgiving dinner and someone asked and I looked it up. The dates of trying to acquire the rights to the stories was though.

[Jeff Wrangler]

This past weekend I watched another old 1950's movie on YouTube. This was The Pathfinder (1953), which starred George Montgomery.

I had known Montgomery's name, and I figured he was mostly in B pictures, but I'd only ever seen him once, on an episode of Wagon Train. He was nothing what I had expected: very handsome.

Despite the title, the movie has only the most tenuous connection to James Fennimore Cooper. Montgomery's character was referred to only as "Pathfinder," and he had a sort of sidekick named Chingachgook, who was played by a pre-Tonto Jay Silverheels. There was also a brief appearance by a little boy who was addressed as Uncas. The leading lady's character was named Welcome Alison. The plot was forgettable, something about preventing a French attack on a British fort on the American frontier in 1754.

Here's what astonished me about this movie. Montgomery was 6'3", and they dressed him in a coonskin cap and a faux-buckskin shirt with fringe on the yoke. From some angles he looked astonishingly like Fess Parker in the early episodes of Daniel Boone, where Parker was dressed in much the same way.

[Lyle (Mooska)]

--Woman of the Hour

I knew the story of this film a little bit as years ago I watched one of those news shows like 20/20 or 48 Hours or Dateline about it. In watching the movie there was one big thing I thought that was wrong, though! The RT synopsis: An aspiring actress crosses paths with a prolific serial killer in '70s LA when they're cast on an episode of "The Dating Game." Based on a true story.

I thought it was really well done. Anna Kendrick directed it as well as starred in it. The way it's plotted out may seem odd, but there's method in the way it's done because of the story itself. I mention that because on RT critics are really into it, but the audience score indicates they might be a bit confused. A movie that's only 89 minutes, too!

[Jeff Wrangler]

--Woman of the Hour

I knew the story of this film a little bit as years ago I watched one of those news shows like 20/20 or 48 Hours or Dateline about it. In watching the movie there was one big thing I thought that was wrong, though! The RT synopsis: An aspiring actress crosses paths with a prolific serial killer in '70s LA when they're cast on an episode of "The Dating Game." Based on a true story.

I thought it was really well done. Anna Kendrick directed it as well as starred in it. The way it's plotted out may seem odd, but there's method in the way it's done because of the story itself. I mention that because on RT critics are really into it, but the audience score indicates they might be a bit confused. A movie that's only 89 minutes, too!

But what was it? 

[Lyle (Mooska)]

But what was it? 

If you want to really know, I'll say, but it's a big spoiler if one doesn't know the story, so it's up to you:
(Highlight the sentence if you want to see it better.) SPOILER ALERT:
I thought the character Anna Kendrick played was actually a victim of his crimes; turns out she was not.

[Jeff Wrangler]

If you want to really know, I'll say, but it's a big spoiler if one doesn't know the story, so it's up to you:
(Highlight the sentence if you want to see it better.) SPOILER ALERT:
I thought the character Anna Kendrick played was actually a victim of his crimes; turns out she was not.

Got it. Thanks!