Mary Poppins Returns–doing Nostalgia right

Star Wars Episode 7.  The Day of the Doctor.  Ocean’s 8.  Live action Beauty and the Beast. All, on some level or another, movies that offer some fun in the viewing–some thrills, some warms feelings, some familiar taps of the toe to classic songs and musical themes.

In other words…nostalgia–that feeling of fondness and comfortability that comes from revisiting sights and sounds and situations that used to occupy happy places in our hearts in the past, especially from our childhood.  Mary Poppins Returns, the sequel to the 1964 Disney classic, definitely trades in on that nostalgic quality to earn some of its goodwill.  But it does so perhaps in the best way I have ever seen.

Edge of Tomorrow

How weird is it that the last post I put up was about the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, Cause and Effect, and that this one is about the recent movie, Edge of Tomorrow?  Not planned at all.  In fact, until this morning, I didn’t even think I was going to the movies at all today.  Bizarre coincidence.  Or statistical node, I guess.

Looper

I’ve found “Looper” a challenging film to write about.  The log-line looks exactly like something I’d really get into with it’s high concept time travel (criminals from the future send people they want to be killed into the past to be gunned down by “loopers” – hit men who then dispose of the body where future technology cannot find it.  One day looper Joe Simmons recognizes his latest victim as…himself.  What will he/they do?)  Unfortunately, the actual viewing proved less satisfying.