From 2008 until Spring of 2013 I was not able to go to the movies, something I have loved all of my life. It was a part of the breakdown, I guess, too much fear, I simply could not process images from the outside world. I am happy to say that phase of my life is over, and this holiday season brings more movies that I want to see than I can recall in a short period. We’ve already seen “American Hustle” and “Anchorman 2” and “Wolf Of Wall Street.” Today we drove to Saratoga to see “Saving Mr. Banks,” with Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson.
Next week, Maria and I are going to New York for a couple of days (she will be blogging from there, I won’t) to see my daughter, get away from the frozen farm and see a some museum exhibits, a play and two more movies “Inside Llewyn Davis” and “Her,” I also hope to see some old friends I haven’t seen in a long time.
I’ll report on the movies. I enjoyed “Saving Mr. Banks,” this is a Disney movie of the old school, sweet and neatly wrapped up in good feeling and emotion. As a lifelong scholar of Walt Disney and his magical worlds, I especially enjoyed Hank’s portrayal of the willful and savvy Disney, whose great genius was that he never lost his love of the magic in the world. This movie is a refreshing counterpoint to the hard-edged, gritty and explosive movies of our time. The movie captures Disney’s 20 year battle to get the film rights to “Mary Poppins” from its suspicious and iron-willed author.
For me, the movie captures some of the emotion in the creative world, I cried two or three times. Hanks and Thompson are very good actors, I appreciated the movie, even it was sugared up a bit, as happens in Disney movies. I was thinking we need it sometimes, and this movie just worked for me.
I am so looking forward to a couple of says in New York, we’ll return on Saturday evening, stopping on the way to speak at the Chatham Public Library at 3 p.m., the last stop on the “Second Chance Dog” book tour. I was there last year, it is a beautiful library with an enthusiastic and intelligent crowd.