Family issues
Good Thursday morning to you....
First and foremost, I hope that if you're in one of the areas being hard hit by tornados and other violent weather that you and yours are safe.
Here in central Kentucky we've had some pretty drastic swings in temperature and conditions. The first two mornings of this week we had almost cool mornings followed by very mild days and evenings. Yesterday, though it was very hot and humid and today seems to be somewhere in between. As they say in many places, if you don't like today's weather, wait a little while and it will change!
My wife and I recently delved into the massive movie selection on Netflix and found several items that we enjoyed, and most of them are very family friendly. The lone exception was "Olympus has Fallen," a non-stop action picture that outlines what would happen if well-organized terrorists decided to incapacitate the American government by taking over the White House. "Die Hard" in Washington, if you will.
Anyway, we watched the charming "Christopher Robin," which posits what would happen if the title character had grown up and forgotten about Winnie the Pooh and his friends. It's a lovely movie, lots of gentle laughs and a few tears wiped away throughout. The live-action/animation blend was very well done and the acting by leads Ewan McGregor and Hayley Atwell was first-rate.
So that led to "Mary Poppins Returns," the recent sequel to the 1964 classic that was some 54 years in the making! Emily Blunt was wonderful in the title role, although deliberately different from Julie Andrews' take on the part. I have to say that it was bound to be different, so this wasn't an issue for me, at least. Lin-Manuel Miranda was excellent as a lamplighter named Jack, the parallel part to Dick Van Dyke's chimney sweep Bert (Jack apparently knew Bert as a child, it's said) and the other parts are well cast and acted. Colin Firth has a fun turn as an overly nasty banker (why are so many bankers in movies portrayed as such mean people?). Light family fun.
The last in our cycle was an interesting movie called "Saving Mr. Banks," wherein Walt Disney (played ably by our best American actor Tom Hanks) works very hard to finally persuade P.L. Travers (the engaging British actress/producer/writer/director Emma Thompson), the author of the "Mary Poppins" books, to allow a big screen adaptation of her work. Travers needs the money and Disney had promised his daughters he would make the books into a movie. Lots of recognizable faces in the movie and it relies on flashbacks of Travers' family and specifically her alcoholic father to identify who she had become, and how she wrote the Mary Poppins character.
It's a challenging movie, one that is not as suitable for young kids, but a good picture nonetheless, since the ending is a nice payoff!
And you thought there wasn't anything to watch this time of year.....
First and foremost, I hope that if you're in one of the areas being hard hit by tornados and other violent weather that you and yours are safe.
Here in central Kentucky we've had some pretty drastic swings in temperature and conditions. The first two mornings of this week we had almost cool mornings followed by very mild days and evenings. Yesterday, though it was very hot and humid and today seems to be somewhere in between. As they say in many places, if you don't like today's weather, wait a little while and it will change!
My wife and I recently delved into the massive movie selection on Netflix and found several items that we enjoyed, and most of them are very family friendly. The lone exception was "Olympus has Fallen," a non-stop action picture that outlines what would happen if well-organized terrorists decided to incapacitate the American government by taking over the White House. "Die Hard" in Washington, if you will.
Anyway, we watched the charming "Christopher Robin," which posits what would happen if the title character had grown up and forgotten about Winnie the Pooh and his friends. It's a lovely movie, lots of gentle laughs and a few tears wiped away throughout. The live-action/animation blend was very well done and the acting by leads Ewan McGregor and Hayley Atwell was first-rate.
So that led to "Mary Poppins Returns," the recent sequel to the 1964 classic that was some 54 years in the making! Emily Blunt was wonderful in the title role, although deliberately different from Julie Andrews' take on the part. I have to say that it was bound to be different, so this wasn't an issue for me, at least. Lin-Manuel Miranda was excellent as a lamplighter named Jack, the parallel part to Dick Van Dyke's chimney sweep Bert (Jack apparently knew Bert as a child, it's said) and the other parts are well cast and acted. Colin Firth has a fun turn as an overly nasty banker (why are so many bankers in movies portrayed as such mean people?). Light family fun.
The last in our cycle was an interesting movie called "Saving Mr. Banks," wherein Walt Disney (played ably by our best American actor Tom Hanks) works very hard to finally persuade P.L. Travers (the engaging British actress/producer/writer/director Emma Thompson), the author of the "Mary Poppins" books, to allow a big screen adaptation of her work. Travers needs the money and Disney had promised his daughters he would make the books into a movie. Lots of recognizable faces in the movie and it relies on flashbacks of Travers' family and specifically her alcoholic father to identify who she had become, and how she wrote the Mary Poppins character.
It's a challenging movie, one that is not as suitable for young kids, but a good picture nonetheless, since the ending is a nice payoff!
And you thought there wasn't anything to watch this time of year.....
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