I don't care what country you're from, in the streets, you gotta be careful, you know? All kinds of bad things can happen out there. You need to keep your eyes open, stay sharp, or frosty. Or both. And if things get really bad, you might even have to call in the Regulators and mount up. Assuming, of course, someone interferes with the consumption of evening skirts.
And there's one street in particular, where you better be extra cautious, because you can end up on your butt before you even know what hit you. One street that's in my neighborhood, and yours too. It's quite possibly the toughest street of all.
It's called Memory Lane.
After inexplicably (to her) having to drag me to the movies (this is the first time in the history of my life this has happened, I'll admit), my wife was fairly (and surprisingly) pissed that I didn't love one of her all-time favorites, Mary Poppins. Showing downtown for one night only!, the Saturday night screening was the first time I had ever laid eyes upon Disney's beloved, fifty-three year old classic, and while this is apparently blasphemy, I thought it was terrible.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Before you punch your screen in the face, put down those lube-covered bed knobs and broomsticks and hear me out, will ya (wrong movie, right?)? This is not a movie I was indoctrinated into by the unquestioning dead-eyed, smiling Disney humanoids you likely call(ed) parents. My folks had no known reverence for any of the flicks from Walt's vault. My older brothers showed me the classics. And it wasn't a spoonful of sugar that made the medicine go down. It was friggin' Rocky fighting Apollo, microwaving Gremlins, or a dancing Ferris Bueller that made me feel better, you know?
I didn't even spill my Kool-Aid, dammit. I wasn't offered any in the first place.
Just in case you don't know, or would be amused by an idiot's rendition, here's the plot as far as I can decipher it. Young Ivanka and Don Jr. are precocious little children (of the Corn), who just so happen to be continually driving their nannies to contemplate whether or not they still enjoy...being alive. And it's not that these two punks need to be, uh, nannied, as their mother is more than capable (I was gonna go with ample, but this is a family site, for f--k's sake) of taking care of them, but she's more concerned with burning her bra, than burning dinner. And Dad? Dad's a movie banker. So, obviously, he's a heartless turd interested in nothing but money and drugs. And by drugs, clearly I mean pleasing weird old men in the bowels of Gringotts.
Enter Marry Poppins, the stunningly beautiful Julie Andrews (my goodness!), to charm these tiny terrors into becoming productive members of society. She's basically a sorceress, and her magic powers consist of insanely catchy songs, levitation, and inducing mass hallucinations at and around penguin-based establishments.
Somewhat running alongside Ms. Poppins, is this potentially homeless/totally awesome drifter named Bert (Dick Van Dyke, winning everything ever). I'm not sure I'd want my kids hanging around ol' swinging Dick, er, Bert, at all hours, but I'm damn sure he's a fantastic dancer. And painter. And imaginary horse racer. And union head of the local chimney sweep brigade/gang/interpretive dance squad.
Let's just say, in the name of pointless adventures, these two make quite the pair.
And speaking of nonsensical pairs I wouldn't put in charge of photographs of my children, let alone the actual wee beasties, here are the Yays and Boos. Hindsight tells them that there is a sort of timeless charm to Mary Poppins (not to mention seeing it theatrically), but had we skipped out on this family outing...we totally could have seen Logan instead.
And there's one street in particular, where you better be extra cautious, because you can end up on your butt before you even know what hit you. One street that's in my neighborhood, and yours too. It's quite possibly the toughest street of all.
It's called Memory Lane.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Before you punch your screen in the face, put down those lube-covered bed knobs and broomsticks and hear me out, will ya (wrong movie, right?)? This is not a movie I was indoctrinated into by the unquestioning dead-eyed, smiling Disney humanoids you likely call(ed) parents. My folks had no known reverence for any of the flicks from Walt's vault. My older brothers showed me the classics. And it wasn't a spoonful of sugar that made the medicine go down. It was friggin' Rocky fighting Apollo, microwaving Gremlins, or a dancing Ferris Bueller that made me feel better, you know?
I didn't even spill my Kool-Aid, dammit. I wasn't offered any in the first place.
Just in case you don't know, or would be amused by an idiot's rendition, here's the plot as far as I can decipher it. Young Ivanka and Don Jr. are precocious little children (of the Corn), who just so happen to be continually driving their nannies to contemplate whether or not they still enjoy...being alive. And it's not that these two punks need to be, uh, nannied, as their mother is more than capable (I was gonna go with ample, but this is a family site, for f--k's sake) of taking care of them, but she's more concerned with burning her bra, than burning dinner. And Dad? Dad's a movie banker. So, obviously, he's a heartless turd interested in nothing but money and drugs. And by drugs, clearly I mean pleasing weird old men in the bowels of Gringotts.
Enter Marry Poppins, the stunningly beautiful Julie Andrews (my goodness!), to charm these tiny terrors into becoming productive members of society. She's basically a sorceress, and her magic powers consist of insanely catchy songs, levitation, and inducing mass hallucinations at and around penguin-based establishments.
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| It's okay, son. Point to the part of the body where the dirty man touched you. |
Let's just say, in the name of pointless adventures, these two make quite the pair.
And speaking of nonsensical pairs I wouldn't put in charge of photographs of my children, let alone the actual wee beasties, here are the Yays and Boos. Hindsight tells them that there is a sort of timeless charm to Mary Poppins (not to mention seeing it theatrically), but had we skipped out on this family outing...we totally could have seen Logan instead.
 |
| This scene was the reason D.A.R.E became a thing. |
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
- Even though the Constable is incredibly meddlesome (and all too comfortable in a strangers home), I still kind of dug this dude for some reason.
- Yeah, they're presumably all dead three blocks down, but I was a big fan of all those would-be nannies blowing down the road.
- I don't care who you are, you slide up a railing, and I will straight up murder someone isn't impressed by this.
- As I said, Mary is pretty frickin' hot, right? I mean, I know she's firm with the kids, but who knew she'd be firm with the audience.
- Oh, obviously robotic birds! I love you so.
- Irrelevant? Yes. But that little farm animal jamboree was technically stunning (to be fair, much of this movie was). As was the (entirely too long) Penguin dance off.
- I don't remember it, but I wrote down fox jump kicks a dog in the face! so regardless of the context, that's a Yay.
- Piecrust promise. Easily made, easily broken. Oh, Mary. You's got a way wiff words.
- Speaking of enchanting dialogue, I kind of had a thing for Mom and her incredibly smokey voice. Rowr. Not only was Glynis Johns easy on the ears, but this dame was easy on the eyes too, see. Real easy.
- It took me a second, but I was pretty giddy when I realized that Dick Van Dyke was also playing Old Man Longballs. That was his name, right?
- Let's go fly a kite! Oh, happy, jobless Daddy. He's so much fun when he's suicidal.
- Dude, that was a killer joke, wasn't it? No, really. It literally killed.
- And finally, even if I was secretly hoping to claw my own eyes out and stuff them into my ears by the end of it, there's something pretty cool about seeing a film that's so incredibly iconic, even if it's five decades after it came out. Yeah, Mary Poppins was certainly not my cup of tea, for sure, but if it's you're thing...I get it. I do. (okay, I don't...but clearly you have terrible judgment, and I'm assuming after the Boos you'd be willing to drive to my house and shove a talking umbrella in my butthole, so I'm gonna try and take the high road...).
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| Girl's face = how I looked for the first hour. Boy's face = how I looked for the second hour Dead Guy's face [not pictured] = how I looked for the tamat half hour. |
Boooooooooooooo!
- Let's just get this out of the way: if you took out the singing and the dancing...this movie is seventeen minutes long.
- Yo, Bert's wylin' out in the park and you bitches stiff him? How about we get Captain Stubing up there to fire a cannonball into these jerk's faces, huh? That'll show 'em.
- Speaking of Boat House Guy, what the Hell is this guy's problem. I've got some shitty neighbors, too - but this guy is a real sonuvabitch. Just because this guy's out of his damn mind, doesn't mean we have to accept his daily domestic terrorism.
- I would hope if my own kids' babysitter had voodoo powers, that they would at least question them. These two rarely have a duduk perkara with shit that should make their brains implode. And I'm sorry Mary, but if you think this finger-snapping business works when you're not around, well...it's not only your waist that's impossibly small.
- Remember that whimsical dance number at the farm? Great, huh? But uh, shouldn't someone be watching the damn kids? Or can we just assume they know their way around the British Upside Down?
- Mary Poppins win the horse race? What the shit is this? I totally bet it all on the guy in the orange, for f--k's sake. It's cool. My kids ate just last week.
- Okay, that guy on the ceiling was high as a f--king kite. I swear I met this dude's American grandson at college.
- That snowglobe song made me want to throw myself over the balcony. For real. It felt like it was eighteen minutes long. Feed the birds? F--k that. I'd rather give the bird.
- And what was with the Homeless Bird Lady? I may have slipped into a slight coma, but I saw no reason for her existence. At all.
- Say TUPPENCE one more time. One more time! I dare you.
- Honestly Mom, do you even like your kids? Yeah, Dad gets all the heat, but this lady was willing to pawn them off on Bert like that.
- Man, is it me, or is London the smoggiest place on planet Earth? I thought I watching an even scarier version of Goodbye Blue Sky. Yikes.
- But, hey - all that smog? It's the perfect place for a chimney-sweep dance off/parkour exhibition, right? Sure is, guv'nor. All we need is about twenty toothless vagabonds and oh, I don't know, thirty-five f--king minutes.
- And finally, I saw something recently about an upcoming movie having Disney's first exclusively gay moment? Uh, you're kidding, right? Apparently I'm not the only one who hadn't seen Mary Poppins...
In the car on the ride home, my wife asked me something to the effect of so, what did you think? And even though I could hear the smile in her voice, I decided to go for full-honesty anyway. So as soon as I (somewhat jokingly) mentioned the kids were awful children that no one cared about she instantly cut me off. Instantly. Didn't even let me finish the sentence.
If that's how you're going to describe the kids, I really don't want to hear anything else you have to say about the movie.
And that was that. We've basically never spoken about it again. I didn't even get to really get into it.
*rereads entire post*
That's probably a good thing, huh?
These streets might be tough to walk on, sure, but I bet they're even tougher to sleep on.