Saving Mr. Banks: Hanks as Disney, slathered with sentimentality

SAVING MR. BANKS - TRAILER NO. 1 -- Pictured: Tom Hanks (Screengrab)

Saving Mr. Banks is Disney’s story of the making of Mary Poppins, centering on the conflict between the avuncular Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) and the harshly fastidious author of the source material, P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson).  It’s a pleasing and satisfying movie, albeit sentimental, predictable and emotionally manipulative.  (I saw this with The Wife, who found the movie to be deeper than I did.)

From top-to-bottom, Saving Mr. Banks is quite well-acted.  It’s great to see Hanks bring alive Walt Disney – such an icon, especially to the Baby Boomers who watched him introduce the most imaginative family entertainment every Sunday night on television. Colin Farrell is very good as the playful and loving but unreliable father. Kathy Baker and Paul Giamatti are good in particularly unchallenging roles.  Emma Thompson does just fine, too, although her role has been written to be somewhat one-dimensional.

Here’s a pet peeve of mine – the trailer gives away the heart of story (and the reason for the title).  If you’re interested in Walt Disney and/or Mary Poppins – and you have two hours – skip the trailer and see the movie.  Otherwise, just watch the trailer.

Frozen: doesn’t leave you cold

by guest bloggers The Wife and Niece #1

We went to Frozen, to see how the film would stand up against other Holiday movies as well as other classic Disney movies. This heartwarming motion picture holds its own by taking a new spin on the Disney love story, reminding us that love comes in forms other than romantic.

The uniqueness of Frozen‘s story focuses on sisterly love.  While, like most other Disney movies, it does have a good dose of romance, the relationship between the sisters in Frozen  is very refreshing.

Frozen also stands out among the Disney movies through its music. The odd, tribal intro didn’t work for us, but the majority of the score does a good job bringing classic Disney show tunes into the modern-day musical.

Overall, the movie is a great balance between modern and classic Disney. While new twists on music and a refreshing tale of love keep this story from being your boring old animated film, the characters and plot give viewers the mix of adult and kid humor expected of Disney.  This is the perfect multi-generational movie for this Holiday season.  For those who feel like splurging, it may be worth seeing in 3D.  So warm up this winter, and go see Frozen.

[Note from The Movie Gourmet:  I really appreciate The Wife and Niece #1 seeing and commenting on Frozen, because it’s an important film that I just am not going to get to (I tend to skip musicals).  I’ve read several rave reviews of Frozen by mainstream critics (Frozen has a solid MetaCritic rating of 74) that predict that Frozen will win the Best Animated Feature Oscar and that see its potential Broadway spin-off as a sure-fire hit. But – at the end of the day – what makes a good movie is ALWAYS a good story, and it was very perceptive of The Wife and Niece #1, apart from other reviews I’ve read, to point out the sister-sister theme that sets Frozen apart.]