Saving Mr. Banks

[SzczerbiakManiac]

I think this is the first I've heard about this movie. Apparently it's the story of how Walt got the uptight PL Travers to give him the rights to make Mary Poppins (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saving_Mr._Banks).
Here's the trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5kYmrjongg&feature=player_embedded).

[Alex]

Word on the script was that it was completely fantastic.

How well that gets translated into a movie? We'll see. But based on the incredible response to the script I'm eager for it.

Points of concern:

- John Lee Hooker as director. His high-shine middle brow stuff has only barely worked for me so far and his version of The Alamo is my favorite among that, The Blind Side, and The Rookie so my taste may be suspect.

- Disney doing Disney. Everybody is saying that it isn't hagiography and that he really isn't the center of the movie. And I hope that's true. But it also smells of the DNC doing a production about Obama.

- That accent. I don't know why Hanks is doing it, but it apparently wasn't in an attempt to sound like Walt Disney. Emma Thompson's accent is fine.

[innerSpaceman]

Heheh, there was a long discussion about it on the LoT-substitute Lounge of Tomorrow Facebook page yesterday. Most of that, naturally, was about the "mistakes' of filming in modern-day Disneyland - with period costumes but not bothering to change, for example, modern-day (since 1984) Fantasyland out for period-appropriate 1963 Fantasyland.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Some LoTters were at the park on one of the days they were filming there.


It's a must see for me. The trailer seemed charming. I liked Schwartzman and Novak as the Sherman bros.

[Alex]

I had no idea there was a LoT-substitute Lounge of Tomorrow Facebook page.

[Snowflake]

I had no idea there was a LoT-substitute Lounge of Tomorrow Facebook page.

:eek: Private Group LoT, how did you get missed?

[Moonliner]

:eek: Private Group LoT, how did you get missed?

Apparently it is not that uncommon a thing. I did not know about it either.

[innerSpaceman]

Ask to join. Lounge of Tomorrow at Facebook.com - the Lounge of Tomorrow - of Tomorrow ... Today!

[€uroMeinke]

Apparently it is not that uncommon a thing. I did not know about it either.

Uh, your other identity is a member - but I've now invited you to join

[€uroMeinke]

I had no idea there was a LoT-substitute Lounge of Tomorrow Facebook page.

I tried to add you, but apparently I can't because you chose to ignore your last invitation - maybe check your "other" mail box - or just keep ignoring us

[RStar]

I tried to add you, but apparently I can't because you chose to ignore your last invitation - maybe check your "other" mail box - or just keep ignoring us

Yes, it's quite difficult to contact celebrities. ;)

I've been hearing about this movie for quite some time, and am eager to see it. Marry Poppins was my first "indoor theater" movie (having only been to drive-ins prior). But this was the first time I've seen the trailer, thank you!

[Alex]

I tried to add you, but apparently I can't because you chose to ignore your last invitation - maybe check your "other" mail box - or just keep ignoring us

I'm not seeing anything in either Inbox going back to 2008. Oh well. May all be moot anyway, I'm in the process of doing an experiment with juggling various social networks and at the moment I'm pretty sure Facebook is going to lose.

I'm much more grumpy about not seeing Twitter than I was about the period of not seeing Facebook.

[innerSpaceman]

Heheh, and I've decided to dump everything BUT facebook. All the other social media sites, twitter, reddit, tumbler, instagram, blahblah, seem to specialize in one particular thing - ALL of which can and usually are done on Facebook. I'm simplifying by switching to Facebook exclusively.

[€uroMeinke]

LJ?

[innerSpaceman]

I don't consider LJ a social media site. Heheh, hardly. It's down to me and 3 other people I know. But yeah, I still el jay. Writing one now, in fact.

[Alex]

In my experience nothing truly interesting ever gets said on Facebook because it is so open and so spread hardly anybody is willing to say anything remotely controversial or thought provoking. And most of those who do regularly seem to be way out in the extremes and completely unaware of it.

After my 5 week vacation from all social media, I realized that by not reading Facebook I didn't appear to have missed anything of interest. Wasn't true of Twitter (similarly low calorie interaction but of more actual interest).

But who knows. Everybody's there so I doubt I'll dump it entirely.

[innerSpaceman]

I find it exactly the opposite. Sure, many interesting and pithy things are tweeted on twitter. But there's rarely a conversation. Once in a while, a reply and less often a reply to a reply. But Facebooks posts can, and in my feed pretty often do, spur actual conversation similar to what we might find in a message board thread.

[€uroMeinke]

I've gone back to MySpace

[Alex]

I find it exactly the opposite. Sure, many interesting and pithy things are tweeted on twitter. But there's rarely a conversation. Once in a while, a reply and less often a reply to a reply. But Facebooks posts can, and in my feed pretty often do, spur actual conversation similar to what we might find in a message board thread.

Good. But I don't generally see that, on my posts or anybody else's. And if a conversation does happen it is a conversation that happens in 18 minutes and then everybody moves on.

But that's fine. It apparently doesn't work for me.

[innerSpaceman]

It's one of the things I find fascinating about Facebook is that people can have completely different experiences of it. I think that recommends it highly, in general.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Last November, I happened to be at the park on a day they were filming. I got a few shots of period costumes and props at the entrance gates. I posted them on Facebook.

Sorry, non-Facebookers. It's just easier when you're uploading from your phone. I changed the permissions to Public so this link (https://www.facebook.com/jenniesloan/posts/4986300941748)should work.

[SzczerbiakManiac]

Alas, it did not. :(

[Alex]

Plus, Facebook is blocked at work, so for me it is a place where conversations happen for 18 minutes and I'm not able to easily see them for 2/3rds of the day (especially since on my the mobile app it seems to just offer up a random subset of posts in a random order).

So, out of curiosity, Chris tried to invite me to the group on Facebook again and can't because I have an outstanding ignored invitation. But if I have an invitation I can't find it.

Any brilliant insights?

Maybe a lively Facebook community will turn me around on the service (though possibly not because I'm not going to speak freely since I have no trust that it won't be something eventually made visible to friends and coworkers I'd rather not see it).

[Strangler Lewis]

I like dismissing things out of hand with minimal exposure to them. Especially with popular TV shows, it frees up a lot of time.

So, here goes, re Twitter.

I was curious what Chris Rock had to say about the George Zimmerman verdict, so I found his web site. It had a link to his Twitter feed. The "discussion" was pretty much on the level one finds in the Comments section at the end of anything, i.e., overheated and stinko. I would think Facebook discussions at least have the advantage of developed paragraphs of stinko and fewer contributors to slog through.

And a style point: I can't imagine signing up on Twitter to "follow" anybody.

Back to it.

[Alex]

Oh, I don't think good discussion happens on Twitter either. And while there are some celebrities I follow I don't see what anybody else says to them so the inanity of the general public doesn't come up for me often (I've clicked maybe one hash tag in my life and searched a topic only a couple of times).

That said, as a tool for keeping up with my friends I find what they say on Twitter to be of more interest on Twitter than on Facebook. Part of that is probably because I'm not spammed by stupid games on Twitter. Nor do they post so many pictures of [babies | pets | weddings | etc.].

And I'm not saying good conversations don't happen on Facebook. Just that they're not frequent enough for it to draw me there as a normal course of events. And even when there is good conversation I'm censoring myself in ways I'd prefer not to and when I don't then I feel like I should apologize to the person I was commenting to for any ruckus caused.

Yes, ruckus.

[innerSpaceman]

Thanks, Jen - - I didn't see those cool photos the first time around.

Alex, if you're blocked from Facebook at work, I can see that as a big sticking point. In my experience, 90% of Facebook posting is done during business hours. Says something about the state of the goof-off economy, I guess.

Anyway, while Twitter offers only text, and rarely conversation - but it's possible ... Facebook offers conversation, photos (yep, pets and such), links to topics of interest, and - as I said before and don't need to hammer - just about anything that the other social media sites specialize and operate nearly exclusively in.

So thanks again for those photos, Jen. Facebook IS the best place for them. :p

[Cadaverous Pallor]

The LoT page doesn't count as super lively, I don't think.

Sorry SM, it looks like "Public" means "Anyone on Facebook".

[Moonliner]

So I'm guessing Disney is not going to stay true to this aspect in "Saving Mr. Banks"

Spoilered in an over abundance of paranoia.

1. Disney’s Mary Poppins might be a cherished childhood memory for a lot of us, but for author P.L. Travers, it was a complete slap in the face (http://mentalfloss.com/article/31001/11-authors-who-hated-movie-versions-their-books). Despite having script approval, Travers' edits were largely disregarded. Travers loathed the movie's animated sequences and was perturbed that Mary Poppins’ strict side was downplayed. After some heated meetings, Travers reluctantly approved. She would have been shunned from the star-studded premiere had she not shamed a Disney exec into an invite. The 65-year-old Travers spent most of the movie crying and ultimately refused to let Disney touch the rest of the series.

Ohh, and Drat. You can't see which horse Mr. Disney is riding. I have my hopes in that respect.

[innerSpaceman]

That was an interesting read. I guess most authors don't realize that simply filming the book is not the way to make a good movie. I suppose filmmakers don't much understand what it takes to make a good novel either.

But it's funny to see authors grouse about such CLASSIC and nearly universally BELOVED movies as Mary Poppins, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Forrest Gump, The Shining and A Clockwork Orange.

Really hard to give the authors credence for their film criticism of such masterworks of cinema. Stick to writing books! :p

[Alex]

To be fair, Forrest Gump really is an awful movie.

[innerSpaceman]

I completely agree. It's the only one on that list I don't adore, but I put it there because I (and Alex) are apparently in the minority about that ... and it's a generally well regarded film. Dunno why.

[Kevy Baby]

Forrest Gump is good movie. Only curmudgeons don't like it.

[€uroMeinke]

But how's the book?

[Alex]

Forrest Gump is good movie. Only curmudgeons don't like it.

To be fair, you're way wrong. Awful, awful movie. Very pretty, but cancerous to its core.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Visible Mojo to Alex and iSm for hating Forrest Gump. It's no good.

[lashbear]

Well, I liked their shrimp.

[Alex]

I believe somewhere on this board you can find me hating on their shrimp too.

Yep, here is it (http://www.loungeoftomorrow.com/LoT/showthread.php?t=7044).

And that link provides some quality dramalgia. (CP: See post 85, apparently I've been saying the same thing for a long time.)

[Cadaverous Pallor]

(CP: See post 85, apparently I've been saying the same thing for a long time.)Otherwise intelligent people do individual things I think stupid all of the time.Hah, well it is a sound bit of wisdom.

[Snowflake]

To be fair, Forrest Gump really is an awful movie.

Thank you Alex.

[lashbear]

I believe somewhere on this board you can find me hating on their shrimp too.

At least you're consistent !