Movie reviews – Susan Joy Clark

Dog Gone Trouble (Netflix Animated Movie) — Fun, Silly, Heartwarming

A little dog named Trouble, the cute character in the center of the above photo, is the hero of this animated film. Netflix acquired the rights to this film made in 2019.

Trouble lives in a beautiful spacious mansion with his elderly mistress, Sarah Vanderwhoosie, voiced by Betty White. He lives a rather spoiled life where he’s kept sparkling clean, accompanies his mistress to the spa and even has a servant to spritz his behind after he relieves himself outside.

One day, his mistress dies, and a couple, her only relatives, are set to inherit the mansion and all her riches on one condition, that they take care of Trouble and first prove themselves to be good caretakers for him for a week. The selfish couple are excited about inheriting riches but show no feeling at the passing of their relative and plan to pass Trouble onto the pound as soon as they pass the test.

In the meantime, Trouble gets himself lost and finds he has to find a way to survive on the streets. He meets up with a female pit bull named Rousey who has street smarts and knows how to survive and scrounge for food. She tolerates Trouble but is not overly friendly to him at first.

Trouble also gets into some, well — trouble — with some comical squirrels who preface their gang-like threats with synchronized dance moves. Inspired by West Side Story? Perhaps. At one point, their leader steals Trouble’s jewel-studded collar and uses it as a belt. At this point, the dancing squirrels reminded me of a disco group like the Jackson 5 or the Osmond Brothers.

Eventually, Trouble runs into Zoe, a pizza delivery girl and aspiring singer, who takes him in.

Meanwhile, the mean couple who understand that Trouble is the key to their inheritance, hire a tracker to go after him. The way this character is drawn somehow reminds me of Jim Carrey the way he appears in several of his movies. His motions are strange and animal-like as he gets on all fours to sniff the ground, hops from tree to ground and practically slithers like a snake. He also picks up the most detailed information from the tiniest of clues. The character is, obviously, very exaggerated from reality but imaginatively presented.

A couple of celebrities are presented in the movie as animated characters, voiced by themselves. These include Cesar Millan, the dog whisperer, and Jason Mraz. Cesar acts like a personal attendant and almost therapist to Trouble while he is in the mansion (and later to other dog characters.) Jason Mraz hosts a singing contest that Zoe wants to enter.

I won’t disclose the whole plot, but I will say that everything ends happily. In spite of a lot of goofiness and exaggerated fantasy elements, there is a down-to-earth message that gets across about kindness to animals, adopting strays and how even humans might feel like lost strays sometimes. Overall, I found the movie enjoyable.

As a warning for parents watching with children, there’s a little bit of vulgarity in some places. The dancing squirrels talk to Trouble about “disturbing their nuts,” “stepping on their nuts” and similar phrases. The dialogue makes perfect sense in referring to actual nuts that they have stored in a tree, but there is a suggestion of a double meaning. Even Trouble, the dog, says several times that “this sounds inappropriate.” There is also a very brief scene where a random dog — not one of the main characters — is seen humping first a person’s leg and then a dog toy.

Everything Entertainment, Movie reviews

Mary Poppins Returns Will Please Fans of the First Movie

As a cautious fan of the first Mary Poppins, Mary Poppins Returns has completely exceeded my expectations.

I had the privilege of seeing Mary Poppins Returns in the theater twice this Christmas season, once with two good friends and once with my parents, brothers and sisters-in-law.

I should explain that the first Mary Poppins movie is highly nostalgic for my family. My older brothers saw it in the theater when it was first released. All this happened years before I was born, but my parents bought the movie soundtrack in the theater and that soundtrack became part of my childhood. I played the soundtrack over and over again until I had it practically memorized, although I had to wait years to finally see it as an ABC Disney movie special. The youngest of my older brothers was still practically a baby when Mary Poppins was released, so he remembers nothing of that experience, although he remembers practicing the “Chim Chim Cheree” dance with broomsticks along with my other two brothers.

So, with all of this nostalgic association with the original movie, I was cautious about seeing the new one. I thought perhaps it would seem too different and modern or that the main actors wouldn’t seem to suit the roles made famous by Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke. (There is no Bert in Mary Poppins Returns, but there is a Bert-like character.) Of course, at the same time, I wanted it to be a little bit new and different. Otherwise, it really wouldn’t be a sequel.

The movie does an excellent job of capturing the nostalgic feel while still being a new and different story. I was not at all disappointed in the performances of Emily Blunt as Mary Poppins or Lin Manuel-Miranda as Jack.

Emily Blunt was fantastic in capturing the character and quirks of Mary Poppins, the “practically perfect” nanny who has a bit of an ego and yet is still likeable. (The only other characters in fiction I can think of who can manage that are Hercule Poirot and Inspector Clouseau.) On the surface, she’s a persnickety and no-nonsense nanny — “Spit spot!” — and when she lets out her fun and magical side, always denies it afterwards. Blunt has all the eye rolls and perfectly turned out toes down just right.

The character of Jack is a lamplighter (or leerie) who supposedly worked with Bert as a chimney sweep when he was a boy. Manuel-Miranda is charming in the role and shows off his talents for singing, dancing and even a little rap. The sequel movie shows that the secret lives of leeries are just as magical as those of chimney sweeps.

The effects in Mary Poppins Returns, of course, are wonderful. Dick Van Dyke’s penguin dance with cartoon penguins was revolutionary at the time. Movie techniques and effects have improved a lot since 1964, so the sequel has more movie magic where real-life characters interact with cartoons in an animated world, jump into a magical underwater adventure and multiple characters float up into the sky.

There are many parallels between this movie and the original Mary Poppins, while still creating all new magical adventures, striking a good balance between nostalgia and new innovation. Of course, when Mary Poppins returns, Jane and Michael Banks are grown, with Michael a widower, now the father of three children: Anabel, John and Georgie. England is in the “Great Slump” in the 1930s, and Michael is in danger of losing the house at 17 Cherry Tree Lane. He is a teller at the Fidelity Fiduciary Bank where his father George had a more important position, and keeping the house due for foreclosure, seems dependent on finding a certificate proving he has shares in the bank. Without telling too much, Jane and Michael’s kite from the first movie has an important role in the second in a multitude of ways.

You will find Winifred Banks’ Suffragette banner still attached to the kite. Jane Banks has also become an activist … for laborers, in this new period of the “Great Slump,” something that gives her a opportunity to befriend the charming Jack. I always thought there was a bit of a flirtation between Bert and Mary Poppins, but it makes more sense for Jack to have a flirtation with Jane, rather than with Mary Poppins. For one thing, she’s a magical person and, presumably, old enough to be his mother (at least,) though without seeming to have aged at all.

Here are some of the various parallels I observed. There is no cleaning up song like “A Spoonful of Sugar.” Instead, the next generation of Banks children have an underwater (and boating) adventure while cleaning up themselves in the tub, with the song, “Can You Imagine That?” They do not jump into a chalk pavement picture but jump into a Royal Doulton bowl instead, where there are adventures and two musical numbers.

Instead of visiting Mary Poppins’ uncle and having tea parties on the ceiling, they visit the store of Mary Poppins’ cousin Topsy, played by Meryl Streep, where things “Turn Turtle” on second Wednesdays. For my mother and one of my sisters-in-law, this was their least favorite scene and song. I don’t agree. Topsy is a colorful character, and the song has a gypsy/klezmer feel to it. There is a lullaby scene too as in the first movie, where Emily Blunt sings, “The Place Where Lost Things Go.”

Of course, instead of a “Chim Chim Cheree” dance, the lamplighters dance a lively acrobatic dance to “Trip a Little Light Fantastic.” Instead of hopping over broomsticks, they hang on light poles and do stunts with ladders and poles for lighting. For one of the brothers who practiced the broomstick dance as a boy, seeing this scene was “pure joy.” There are even some extreme sport sort of bicycle stunts for this number. Where that may seem anachronistic, (the extreme stunts, not the bicycles,) it all fits with the acrobatics of the scene. A section of the song has a little fun with Cockney rhyming-slang.

Dick Van Dyke returns as the banker Mr. Dawes and does a little dance in one scene, singing appropriate lyrics about his dancing days not being over. How delightful! (By the way, Dick Van Dyke has a book about aging called, “Keep Moving.”)

The ending number, “Nowhere to Go But Up,” sung by Balloon Lady, played by Angela Lansbury, is also reminiscent of the playful, joyful, “Let’s Go Fly a Kite.”

I noticed in the credits that one of the Sherman brothers who wrote music for the first movie was a musical consultant for Mary Poppins Returns. The sequel’s soundtrack is excellent too and highly recommended.

Everything Entertainment, Movie reviews

Nutcracker and the Four Realms: A Colorful, Eye-Catching Fantasy with Adventure and an Unexpected Twist

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Disney’s Nutcracker and the Four Realms is packed full of a lot of things I really love.

Sometimes, I see a trailer for a movie and am excited by it, mostly from the aesthetics. I’m a fan of period movies sometimes called “costume dramas.” Nutcracker and the Four Realms has some elements of a costume drama to it and is just a colorful, visually-stimulating fantasy.

I love stories from the Victorian period as well as the Victorian aesthetic and am a fan of the Nutcracker story, ballet and music. I read the original Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E.T.A. Hoffmann a few Christmases ago. Sometimes, I think I’m a bit of a Russophile, and there are some Russian style influences in the movie as well. Nutcracker and the Four Realms also features a lot of Victorian-period mechanical inventions and clockwork, another fascination of mine. For this reason, the movie had a bit of a steampunk feel which might appeal to fans of that genre.

I guess my oldest brother recognized it as a “Susan movie,” and he suggested we see it together. I was surprised as it does not seem like a movie with stereotypical macho appeal. After all, it has a young female lead and is partly inspired by a ballet. The new Disney movie might have more appeal to a male audience than the ballet would. It has a bit more adventure and more intense scenes than the ballet and can even be mildly creepy in places. There are some scenes that might disturb someone with a fear of mice … or a fear of clowns. I don’t consider myself a musophobe — the main Mouse Prince has a cute little face — but there was one scene where I did pinch my brother’s sleeve … and he laughed.

The story of Nutcracker and the Four Realms is related to but quite different from the book and ballet, which may disturb some purists. I enjoyed it. I’d compare it to Oz fans being able to enjoy Wicked based on the book by Gregory Maguire. The Disney movie is not a ballet, but there are some ballet scenes in it as well as some Tchaikovsky music from the ballet in the soundtrack.

In this version, Clara Stahlbaum, played by Mackenzie Foy, is a bit of a science whiz and inventor. The movie opens with an owl swooping down over snowy London and a bird’s eye view of these scenes as you touch on some ice among ice skaters and hover over London streets. I saw this in 3D and really felt like I was in motion as my stomach lurched a few times. The significance of the owl relates to the ballet where the opening scene describes a grandmother clock topped with an owl. The owl is next seen with Clara’s toymaker godfather, played by Morgan Freeman.

Clara is first shown in the attic of her home with her brother Fritz where she has set up an elaborate Victorian version of a Rube Goldberg mouse trap, using various toys. This introduces you to her interest in invention and is also a foreshadowing of her encounter with the Mouse Prince.

Her Christmas gift is not a nutcracker. It is an elaborate gold egg reminiscent of Faberge eggs from that period. The gift is from her recently departed mother. It comes with a note from her mother, “Everything you need is inside,” but no key to open the egg. Clara shows her cleverness in that she knows what sort of lock the egg has although she is unable to pick it open. Later, at the Drosseldorfs’ party, Clara helps her godfather by reversing the rotation on his mechanical toy of spinning swans. Godfather Drosseldorf also gives her the key to her egg.

She and all the guests at the party receive Christmas gifts in a unique way. She finds her name tag on a string strung through the house and follows it through mysterious hallways all the way to the wintry outside where she discovers she’s in the magical place of the Four Realms.

The four realms are the Land of Sweets, Land of Snowflakes, Land of Flowers and Land of Amusements. The Land of Sweets is from the ballet. It is ruled by Sugar Plum, played by Keira Knightley. The other lands are not mentioned in the ballet, although the ballet has a Waltz of the Flowers and a Waltz of the Snowflakes. The movie’s story also has a Christmas Tree Forest.

Shortly after her arrival in the Realms, Clara loses her precious key to the Mouse Prince who snatches it and runs away. She meets the nutcracker, Phillip, played by Jayden Fowora-Knight soon afterwards and is astonished when he calls her Princess Clara and refers to her late mother as Queen Marie.

In the YouTube comments for the trailer, I noticed quite a discussion about how some people are disappointed that the godfather and the nutcracker were both played by black actors. Some were calling it “cultural appropriation” since the story is a European one. I can see finding it strange if a black actor was in the role of Andrew Jackson in a historical movie. That would seem historically inaccurate. This is a fantasy, and the nutcracker is a toy come to life. I don’t have a problem with it, and both actors were excellent in their roles.

The Land of Amusements is the home of the Mouse Prince, Mouse King and other mice. It is also the home of Mother Ginger played by Helen Mirren. The Land of Amusements has the feel of an abandoned, creepy carnival and is at war with the other three realms. The Nutcracker ballet features a Mother Ginger with a tent-like hoop skirt out of which climb little Pulcinellas, European style clowns. The movie’s Mother Ginger and her clowns are housed inside a huge mechanical Mother Ginger with a circus tent skirt. The clowns, with their strange, distorted faces, seem a little bit menacing.

I won’t give too many more spoilers, but there is battle and a very interesting plot twist that those previously familiar with the Nutcracker story would not anticipate.