Mary Poppins Returns (a movie review post)

Where even to begin with this one? I mean, Mary Poppins Returns should have been... Man, I hate going to sports analogies, but it should have been a grand slam. At least a home run. It's the kind of movie that parents should have been swarming to with their kids, not so much because their kids wanted to see it but because they wanted to see it. Mary Poppins is one of the most beloved of Disney characters and has been for decades. But, yet, it's been drowned out by Aquaman. Aquaman!

Which is not unjustified, as it turns out. Not that I've seen Aquaman (and probably won't bother to, either, or at least not in the theater), but Poppins never managed to rise above mediocre. And mediocre is very difficult at more than two hours.

So let's deal with the most glaring problem first: the music. In a word, boring. In two? Unmemorable. And to add insult to that: They had Lin-Manuel Miranda right there! He's in the freaking movie, man; use him for what he's really great at: writing music, not singing it. Which is not to say that he's not a fine singer, he is, but it's not his gift. When you have one of the greatest living song writers on hand, why would you settle for lackluster crap? It's a musical, for crying out loud, the music is the most important element. Come on, Disney, you're better than this!
Now I have to go listen to the Moana soundtrack so that I can experience a bit of what Poppins should have been like.

Moving on to the story, we fare no better. Stories in musicals tend to be a bit simpler than your general movie plots because you have to spend time on musical numbers rather than telling story, and that's okay... when the music is good, because the music should be carrying the story. But, when the music isn't great, you better have a solid story to fall back on. In Poppins, not so much. The plot is simple and predictable, predictable almost to the point of unbelievability.

Unbelievable in what ways? Well, the villain is the villain because he's the villain. He just likes to win. Or he doesn't like to lose. On of the two. He seems to have no motivation other than that. Every time they hint at anything beyond that, they back off of it and leave it at, "I must take all the houses from all the people!" And Colin Firth just isn't adept enough as an actor to pull any of this off.

Michael Banks is also completely unbelievable as the asshole father, something which is constantly undermined by the script. He gets mad at his kids and yells or whatever but breaks down in tears over it moments later. He's lost his wife and is losing his house as a result of his grief, so we can't even see him as incompetent, just vaguely hapless. It really destroys the dynamic of the first Poppins where Michael's father is an asshole. It's like the writers wanted to retain that dynamic in the household but couldn't bring themselves to have Michael have grown up to become an asshole. Which, granted, would have been hard to swallow, but it would also have been a great reason for Poppins to return, "Michael! I'm ashamed of what you've become!" But, no, instead they just kind of wallow around in being wishy-washy.

It makes the movie a mess.

Then there's Emily Mortimer, and I like Emily Mortimer, but her role is a mess, too. I'm blaming it more on the directing than on her, but she's constantly spunky and upbeat through the whole movie which makes the threat of losing the house seem like a non-threat. And you know that that's true, anyway, because you know that there's no way they're going to lose the house, but the viewer needs to believe that the characters believe that the threat is real and Mortimer's character more than any other undermines that tension.

So not only is the music boring, but the movie is too.

However, the animation sequences were beautiful.

And, actually, Emily Blunt was fantastic as Mary Poppins. So good in fact that I wish there was going to be another Mary Poppins movie just to see her return to the role; however, I doubt the box office will be good enough on this for Disney to want to risk another one anytime soon. Which is a shame because, like I said, this should have been an easy win for Disney rather than the snoozefest it turned into.

Coco (a movie review post)

This turns out to be a difficult movie for me to review. Seriously, I've been contemplating the review for two days and still haven't figured out how exactly I want to approach this.

The easy thing to do is just to say that it's a great movie, because it is a great movie. In fact, since Toy Story 3 came out in 2010, Coco is one of only two great movies that Pixar has released, the other being Inside Out. The story is well-told and heartfelt. Heartfelt enough that it brought a tear to my eye. The aforementioned Toy Story 3 was the last movie to do that to me, as far as I remember.

As per Pixar, even in their less than good movies, the animation was fantastic. And fantastic in a way that we really haven't seen before: It was fabulously colorful. Like a sugar skull:

In fact, there's not anything I can point to that I would say would make the movie better. No improvements necessary.

And, yet...

And, yet, I am uncomfortable with the message, the message that family always comes first and is most important. More important than anything. I just... well... That's just not true.

I could get into examples of why that's not true, but it's probably not really necessary. Either you agree with the statement or you don't and nothing I say is going to matter one way or the other. Besides, any examples I could make could be entire posts, and I don't want to get into trying to summarize things in a way that is succinct. For instance, I could say:

When my grandmother died, my uncle, through unethical and possibly illegal methods, stole all of  the land my grandparent's had owned, leaving my mother and my aunt with virtually nothing.

But, then, you're going to want me to explain that, and I don't feel like getting into it. The short of it is that family shouldn't get any special passes just because they're family.

However, my disagreement with the message doesn't detract from the movie itself; the movie is great, and you should certainly go see it. At the theater even. It's really a movie which should be enjoyed on the big screen.

Clone Wars -- "Jedi Crash" (Ep. 1.13)

-- Greed and fear of loss are the roots that lead to the tree of evil.

[Remember, you can sign up to join the Clone Wars Project at any time by clicking this link.]

This episode opens with one of those huge, spectacular battle sequences. We don't get those all the time in Clone Wars because, I'm assuming, of the time and expense in producing them, which, I know, sounds weird for animation (it's just coloring, right?) but is true nonetheless. And I do understand that they're "just animated" (but, after all, that's what CGI is, too, and this stuff is basically the same), but they're still spectacular.

This is another episode which features on a fan favorite Jedi from the movies: Aayla Secura. I think when you look at the character, you can easily identify why she's such a favorite. heh

This is an interesting episode in that Anakin and Ahsoka are coming to Secura's aid, but Anakin is badly wounded and it's Secura and Ahsoka who have to rescue him. Amidst many, many complications. Including incorrect hyperspace coordinates which, as Han Solo told us, can lead to flying right through a star. Um, yikes! Because that's right where they're headed.

This episode centers on a philosophical question, which the series does from time to time:
Does fighting for peace justify fighting? As one of the characters says, "It takes two to fight." It is a legitimate question with no good answers. After all, Jesus said, "Turn the other cheek." It may be something that's easier done by an individual rather than by a whole society, though, because how can you choose to let an aggressor subjugate or enslave a group of people unopposed? The show doesn't try to answer the question; it merely poses the conflict between the two ways.

I think that's the mark of a good show, though: It poses the questions and doesn't try to tell you how to think about it, just that you ought to think about it. So, yeah, what if someone did a throw a war and one side just didn't show up? Is that even a possible thing? Maybe not, but maybe it could be.

Clone Wars -- "Rising Malevolence" (Ep. 1.2)

-- Belief is not a matter of choice, but of conviction.

One of the best things about Clone Wars is that it allows us to find out more about characters we only ever really glance at in the movies. This is especially true of the Jedi Masters. In the movies, the Masters mostly just function as cardboard cutouts to fill the Council Chamber. Sure, a few of them get some lines but, other than during the execution of Order 66, we don't see them doing anything. They're just there to look cool.

Clone Wars finally lets us get to know characters like Plo Koon and see them in action.

It's not the same kind of action as with Yoda in the previous episode, though. There's no plowing through battle droids in this one. It's more a survival tale. However, there is more affirmation that the Jedi view the clones as unique and valuable beings, something the clones don't really accept about themselves. There's a piece of dialogue where one of the clones tells Plo Koon, "No one is coming for us. We're expendable," and Plo replies, "Not to me." It's especially poignant considering Order 66.

The other big thing in this episode is the introduction/origin of the ion cannon. You probably remember it best from The Empire Strikes Back has the huge ball turret the rebels used to disable whole star destroyers so that their ships could escape from Hoth. Here, we see General Grievous out testing the first prototype of the weapon in his flagship, the Malevolence, hence the title of the episode. And, I just have to say, the Malevolence is a pretty awesome ship. The animation on it is incredible. The episode is worth watching just for the ship but, even without it, it's well worth watching. [My kid has the Lego of the Malevolence which is pretty awesome, too.]

"Anakin just redeployed himself. Again." -- Obi-Wan Kenobi