In the fall of 1964 my mother took my sister and me to see “Mary Poppins” at the new General Cinemas duplex in the Brockton (MA) Westgate Mall. More than 54 years later she took me and my wife to see “Mary Poppins Returns” at the Regal Theaters in the Mashpee (MA) commons mall. Like many Baby Boomers I was anxious to re-experience the Poppins magic. The verdict? I’d give it a strong “pretty good” with these specific observations:
1. The real villain of the movie is — Michael Banks! It’s so depressing that the cute optimistic Michael Banks of the original MP has grown into the broken, incompetent, strangely-mustachioed Michael Banks of MP Returns. Played by the creepy Ben Wishaw, who just won a Golden Globe as Jeremy Thorpe’s vengeful lover in “A Very British Scandal,” Michael is a non-entity, who, when he’s not producing lousy pen and ink sketches on the back of valuable stock certificates, is forgetting to pay the bills and sending off his kids to beg for food. There’s no sign that he has any artistic talent yet he wasted many prime career-building years and is now stuck as a teller. Snap out of it man! Support your family!
2. This is not to let The Fidelity Fiduciary Bank off the hook, however. It is the job of the bank to make money for its shareholders but its business model seems simply quite atrocious. As we learned during the financial collapse of 2008, the last thing a bank wants to do is repossess a house in a depressed real estate — especially when the buyer is willing to keep paying back the loan. That makes the balance sheet look bad. And also, what kind of interest rates are they paying when an invested tuppence can grow large enough to pay off a house loan in 25 years? I understand the magic of compounding interest, but I just did the calculations, and to get one dollar to grow to $5,000 in 25 years you’d need a 35% interest rate.
3. I can’t believe I’m writing this but I think Emily Blunt is a “better” Mary Poppins than Julie Andrews. Not a better singer obviously, but warmer, more mischievous and just more real (I don’t believe for a second that the very pretty, very hoity-toity Julie Andrews is a nanny.)
4. Lin-Manuel Miranda tries too hard to be likable. Stop smiling so much! You’re great as Alexander Hamilton, the ambitious, vain, angry, young immigrant. You’re not a Dick Van Dyke clone.
Are there people who find this charming?
5. And that budding romance with Jane Banks? Forget it. What are the chances that a banker’s daughter will find love in the arms of a working class lamplighter?
6. Speaking of Jane Banks, I just discovered that Emily Mortimer is the daughter of John Mortimer, the author of the Rumpole of the Bailey books and the screenwriter for “Brideshead Revisited.” Huh.
7. The music sucks. Everyone says this so it’s not exactly a “hot” take. Most of my fondness for the original “Mary Poppins,” isn’t for the movie itself but for the sound track, which, as a ten-year-old, I played endlessly on our hi-fi. But as I sit here now, I literally cannot remember one song from “MP Returns.”
8. Meryl Streep is not that great. There, I said it. She’s fine in accent-related dramas but in comedies, forget it, and she’s not funny as the orange-mop-wearing Cousin Who’s-It. In fact, that whole upside-down sequence is a drag.
9. Thank God for Dick Van Dyke. Who didn’t choke up when he came on screen or smile in admiration as he danced? An animal — that’s who.
10. Was that final balloon song written with Julie Andrews in mind? I hope Disney was never dumb enough to think Julie Andrews should come back and play a balloon lady at the end. Again, she’s too upper-crust for that and in any event I want to remember her as her younger self in “Mary Poppins.” As it was, Angela Lansbury is another welcome reminder of previous Disney greatness (“Beauty and the Beast” and “Bedknobs and Broomsticks”). The woman has had quite a career, which stretches back to 1944’s “Gaslight,” (from whence the term “gaslighting” originates, btw.)
11. As in the original, it’s Michael and Jane Banks who need rescuing. In the original movie, the brother and sister are two naughty children who have been allowed to run wild because the parents are so neglectful (Mom is more interested in being a suffragette and Dad in being a banker). In “MP Returns” the kids are high-spirited but not misbehaved. They don’t even have a nanny and have to fend for themselves because dad is so useless (see point 1 above). So Mary Poppins’ job is to fix Michael and fix up Jane (and poor Jane, her subplot is an after-thought to an after-thought.) The kids are all right.
I’ve read that 2018 was a good year for the movie industry, fueled by superhero movies (Black Panther and Aquaman), remakes (A Star Is Born), sequels (Mary Poppins Returns,Jurassic World), and animated movies (The Incredibles 2 and Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse). There was another trend this year that wasn’t quite as pernicious but still hinted at a lack of imagination — movies that were based (sometimes very loosely) on “real” events: The Death of Stalin,The Favourite,The Green Book, Bohemian Rhapsody, BlackkKalnsman, Can You Ever Forgive Me, and First Man.
So this was not the biggest year for original story-telling. And yet there were plenty of good things to watch. I made a point of seeing Roma on the big screen even though it was free on Netflix — and I’m glad I did. That’s a movie that benefits from the kind of concentration that is difficult at home. And I was delighted by the documentaries I saw this year (Won’t You Be My Neighbor and Three Identical Strangers) as well as some of the animated movies, including The Isle of Dogs and the new Spider-Man.
So from a content perspective, I thought it was a pretty good year, with a lot to choose from. I didn’t get to see everything, having, you know, a life, but among the movies I did see, here are my favorites, ranked down to my least favorites.
1. Roma
Sometimes the most deliberately artsy movies really are the best ones. Roma teeters on the brink of parodying 1950’s neo-realism mashed up with early Ingmar Bergman but through its steady accumulation of details, slowly builds into a compelling portrait of a 1970-era Mexican housekeeper. The last 45 minutes — starting with deadly a street riot though a beach rescue — are ten times more gripping than anything in any superhero movie this year.
2. The Death of Stalin
Dark, dark, VERY dark satire on the unlamented death of Joseph Stalin, brought to you by the people who produce “Veep.” It’s a brutally hilarious depiction of the horrors of communism that George Orwell would have appreciated. The functionaries vying for power after Stalin’s death are mostly ridiculous idiots, which is the way lackeys to evil should be remembered.
3. Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
This gentle, fond documentary about Mr. Rogers has grown men weeping silently in their seats. Somehow the movie manages to evoke the fear and confusion that all of us suppressed from our early childhoods and makes us wish we had a Mr. Rogers to explain life to us back then. The biggest shock at the Academy Awards this year is that this was not nominated for anything.
4. Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse
I was literally shocked at how much I liked this movie. Having seen three previous Spider-Man origin stories I went reluctantly to a fourth only to experience the most startlingly original movie of the year. It’s funny, thought-provoking, touching, exciting and beautiful.
5. Bohemian Rhapsody
I was also surprised that I liked Bohemian Rhapsody as much as I did since I have never gone out of my way to listen to any Queen song. But it’s a tribute to the band’s ability to implant their music so deeply in your limbic system that you respond viscerally when you hear it again. I even forgave the many lapses from the historical record. Oh, and Rami Malek is fantastic as Freddy Mercury.
6. First Man
As someone who remembers all the major events of the early space program I was captivated by the behind-the-scenes account and amazed at the courage it took to hurtle through space in what was basically a tin can on top of a bomb. Fascinating insights into the emotionally repressed Neil Armstrong. Regrettably, Ryan Gosling bungled the PR for the movie by implying the NASA achievements weren’t an American success, which mired the film in controversy before it even came out. It should have been seen by more people.
7. A Star is Born
The scene where Lady Gaga comes on stage to sing “Shallow” is one of the great cheesy cinematic highlights of the year. And I do like all the acting performances and most of the music. Having seen an earlier version, though, (the one with Judy Garland), I couldn’t really enjoy it knowing from the very beginning that we were going to go through a gut-wrenching conclusion.
8. They Shall Not Grow Old
Peter Jackson’s great documentary on what it was like for the average British soldier to serve on the Western Front contains the greatest dissolve from black and white to color since the Wizard of Oz. The transformation of ancient herky-jerky WWI footage into smooth-running color is a technical triumph that actually does bring these soldiers back to life. They seem as real to us now as they would have been to their contemporaries.
9. Three Identical Strangers
What a fascinating documentary about three identical triplets separated at birth. My mouth was agape from beginning to end.
10. Isle of Dogs
This is an allegory about the politics of maintaining power through the fear of the “other,” a great story about heroism and love, a breathtaking animated movie, and an interesting glimpse into the weird mind of Wes Anderson.
11. Aquaman
Another “huh.” I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did. I really enjoyed the undersea world and didn’t mind the aquatic battles as much as I usually do in terrestrial superhero movies.
12. Mary Poppins Returns
A lovely remake/sequel to the original. As everyone says, the songs truly are forgettable so the strength of the movie comes from Emily Blunt’s portrayal of Mary Poppins and the design imagination of the fantasy scenes, all of which are great. But the highlights are clearly the dance routine by the 93-year-old Dick Van Dyke and the closing number by 94-year-old Angela Lansbury. Too bad they couldn’t have squeezed in Betty White somehow.
13. Green Book
A white chauffeur drives a black jazz pianist through the segregated south in the 1960’s and has his consciousness raised. On its own terms this is inspiring and heart-warming. Unfortunately this Driving Miss Daisy approach to movie-making has become very politically incorrect, focusing as it does on the white guy’s transformation instead of the black guy’s experience. (By the way, has anyone aged faster than Viggo Mortensen, the once-great King Aragorn?)
14. The Favourite
Two women vie for the favors of the mercurial Queen Anne back in the early 1700s. Acting awards all around for Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone. I might have appreciated this more if my expectations hadn’t been raised by the many critics who cited it as their top film of the year. Among other things, I had expected it to be funnier. If this is a comedy, the humor is drier than parchment.
15. Cold War
A little bit like “Roma” — foreign, luminous black and white, stately (i.e., slow), set in the near-distant past, requiring your full attention. This is about a love affair that occurs over 15 years and multiple countries on both sides of the iron curtain. It’s intense!
16. Black Panther
Wildly inventive. I liked the Wakanda scenes and the acting. The racial politics were thought-provoking. But it’s still just a superhero movie and I was kind of bored by the battles.
17. The Upside
A somewhat more politically correct take on the Green Book theme (stunted white man enabled by friendship with black man). “The Upside” is more plainly a comedy so more acceptable. Kevin Hart becomes a caretaker to a rich rich rich paralyzed misanthrope and transforms him into a caring human being.
18. Crazy Rich Asians
Asians celebrated getting their own Rom-Com, which went on to show that rich people of all nations can be vapid, snobby, ridiculous and selfish. A major step forward in racial equality! The movie is funny, as long as you close down the thinking part of your brain.
19. BlacKkKlansman
Spike Lee is a very talented director and when the film sticks to the narrative it’s interesting and compelling, but he can’t help himself and loads it up with overt and unsubtle propaganda. Too bad, because the story itself — about a black cop who infiltrates the Klan — is strong enough on his own and makes the point pretty clearly.
20. Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Melissa McCarthy “stretches” in a serious role about a struggling and dyspeptic writer to who in desperation to get veterinary care for her ancient cat begins to write fake letters from literary figures (e.g. Dorothy Parker, Noel Coward, etc.), which are bought by collectors. This film, like “The Favourite,” was inexplicably beloved by a certain kind of critic this year. I guess I understand why a lot of writers would be entranced by a backstage peak at the literary world but in reality this was only a moderately insightful portrait of a damaged crank.
21. Eighth Grade
Maybe I should admit up front that I didn’t hate my own personal experience in junior high school. Is it worse now than then? Sure seems so. This is an excellent portrayal of a young girl who hasn’t quite mastered certain important social skills yet is desperately trying to fit in. But if there was one movie this year that felt like taking your medicine, this was it.
22. Tully
What if you were strung out by trying to raise your young children and the perfect nanny showed up? Much as in Mary Poppins Returns, the nanny here is trying to fix the parent rather than the kids. This offers some very sharp observations on the perils of modern parenting and semi-useless husbands.
23. Mary Queen of Scots
A perfectly adequate but somewhat confusing dramatization of the conflict between Mary Queen of Scots and Queen Elizabeth I. But you would never know from this movie that except for Churchill, Elizabeth was England’s greatest ruler. The focus is more on Mary’s shenanigans, which result in her getting kicked off the Scottish throne and eventually beheaded. Saoirse Ronan is obviously a great actress, but she portrays Mary as a heroine instead of an impetuous, reckless ruler who lets her emotions and desires get the best of her.
24. Blaze
A very serious look at the life of the largely unknown (unknown to me, at least) Country musician Blaze Foley. Although this is also about a bearded singer-songwriter who drinks too much and dies too early, this is the exact opposite of A Star Is Born in tone, theme and execution.
25. The Incredibles 2
This sequel is not as original and witty as The Incredibles itself. Maybe we’re too inured to the premise. It’s funny enough and I suppose kids will like it, but I started feeling antsy midway through.
26. Jurassic World
I’m not sure what compelled me to go see this. Chris Pratt is great but his charm is on the verges of wearing out its welcome. The dinosaurs are remarkable, as ever, and the early action sequences are fun. But it quickly becomes a ridiculous story about the predatory and evil rich. They are so one-dimensional that I’m surprised the bad guys don’t twirl their mustaches.
27. Solo
A generic Star Wars movie with a lot of space chases. I pity that poor guy trying to portray the young Han Solo in the shadow of Harrison Ford — he’s really unmemorable. The movie is mildly exciting but makes little impact. BTW, it seems like there are a lot of orphans in the Expanded Star Wars Universe.
28. Game Night
Cute. Nothing wrong with this but it would be better to watch this on, say, an airplane than in a movie theater.
29. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
This is the only movie of the year that I actively hated — and I have a lot of respect for the Coen Brothers, usually. The six separate vignettes that comprise this anthology are supposed to provide a caustic look at the motifs of the traditional Western. They are beautifully shot but either overly broad, too cynical or overly fatalistic.
In an era that seems to be defined by the increasing domination of the big streaming services, I was surprised when assembling this list of top individual moments from 2018 that I couldn’t recall any outstanding moments from Netflix or Amazon, which are apparently pursuing a “quantity over quality” strategy. I was even more surprised that I’d experienced many of these highlights on old-fashioned broadcast television. So maybe there’s hope for the old medium after all.
With that said, here are the moments that moved me the most last year:
10. Dan Crenshaw forgives Pete Davidson on SNL
I’ve already written about this at length, but when Congressman-elect and war hero Dan Crenshaw went on “Saturday Night Live” to gently rib and then forgive Pete Davidson, who had made an insulting joke about his eyepatch, it was a rare moment of grace on TV this year. Real life intruded on this moment a month later when the bipolar Davidson posted a quasi-suicidal Instagram note and Crenshaw supportively called and encouraged him to keep fighting his depression. It would be great if people with different political perspectives could follow their example.
9. Andrew Benintendi dives to make the final out in game 4 of the ALCS
As the author of this list and a Red Sox fan I’m going to exercise my prerogative to cite a great play in the American League play-offs. This moment encapsulates why baseball is so great. With the Red Sox ahead 8-6, the Astros have the bases loaded with two outs in the ninth. The Astros best player comes to bat against a shaky reliever. The tension builds and builds until you think you will faint. Suddenly the ball is unleashed and smashed to left field and somehow Red Sox outfielder Andrew Benintendi dives to make the final out and despair turns to ecstasy (or the other way around if you’re an Astros fan) and the game is over.
8. The final episode of “Succession”
I had no interest in watching HBO’s “Succession” until my son told me it was a comedy. And yeah, it does turn out to be a very dark satire about a media baron loosely based on Sumner Redstone or Robert Murdoch and his scheming, mostly useless children. The series had so many outrageous scenes that it’s impossible to pick one, so for the sake of argument I’ll say that the entire season finale was one of the greatest moments of the year.
7. Bishop Curry’s homily at The Royal Wedding
You usually don’t turn into a royal wedding for inspirational oratory but Bishop Curry’s homily at the marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle was genuinely moving. As the the moment stretched longer than normal and many of the noble guests grew either amused or exasperated by the concept of a religious figure taking his responsibilities as a spiritual leader seriously, I found my patriotic hackles being raised. How dare these twits look down their noses at a great American preacher? USA! USA!
6. George W. Bush’s eulogy for George H.W. Bush
This year could have been subtitled “four funerals and a wedding” after the Royal hitching and the widely televised funerals of George and Barbara Bush, John McCain and Aretha Franklin delivered so many inspiring moments. George Bush’s emotional tribute to his father was one of the few times during the year when people tried to put politics aside in memory of a politician who had tried (and failed) to govern from the middle.
5. The armed robbery opening scene of “Atlanta” season two
“Atlanta” is second only to “Twin Peaks” as the most surreal show in TV history. The new season opened with a couple of kids robbing some drugs hidden in a fast food restaurant. This has nothing to do with the arc of the season so why are we watching this? I don’t know, but it set the tone for a season in which everyone is hustling or robbing someone else and everything is deeply weird in a society where racism has distorted reality and driven many people crazy.
4. Paul McCartney visits his childhood home with James Corden
James Corden’s “Carpool Karaoke” segment is widely beloved but never more so than when Paul McCartney gave him a driving tour of Liverpool and reduced Corden to tears with his story of the inspiration behind “Let It Be.”
3. Kim Wexler rips Howard Hamlin a new one on “Better Call Saul”
Played magnificently by Rhea Seehorn on “Better Call Saul,” Kim Wexler was the best female character on television last year. Smart, capable, unpredictable and fiercely loyal to her boyfriend Jimmy, she really lays into Jimmy’s former boss Harry Hamlin for telling him that his brother probably burned himself to death. Her righteous anger was unforgettable.
2. Chidi tells Eleanor he loves her on “The Good Place”
It’s a miracle that a show this good is on a broadcast network. “The Good Place” revolves around four humans who go to The Good Place when they die and subsequently struggle to stay out of The Bad Place. The plot is too convoluted to summarize except to say there’s unresolved chemistry between Eleanor, a self-proclaimed “dirt bag” from Phoenix, and Chidi, an Australian philosophy professor, that finally got resolved in the final episode of the calendar year.
1. Stan confronts the Jennings spies on “The Americans”
In the final episode of this great series, the identities of the Russian spies begins to unravel. FBI agent Stan Beeman tracks them down in a parking garage as they prepare to flee. Stan and Philip were neighbors and best friends and this final confrontation is raw and emotional. Many series finales fail to “stick the ending” but “The Americans” delivered a powerful last episode that demonstrated the cost of doing evil when you think you’re doing your duty.
Really!!? 