Nanny Movie Magic

Saving Mr. Banks is a spoonful of Mary Poppins movie fun

Movies about making movies, especially ones based on real-life stories, will always be catnip for film lovers, as they purport to take us behind the curtains and show what really happens during the filmmaking process.

The latest example is Saving Mr. Banks, which chronicles the collaboration between Walt Disney and author P.L. Travers to adapt Travers’ novel, Mary Poppins. Travers (Emma Thompson) was notoriously reluctant to have her book adapted into a movie, especially by Disney (Tom Hanks), who, of course, was known more for making cartoons than anything else.

It’s fascinating to discover how songs like “Feed the Birds,” “A Spoonful of Sugar” and “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” came to be.

After 20 years of entreaties, Travers finally agreed to travel to Los Angeles in 1961 to meet with Disney, screenwriter Don DaGradi (Bradley Whitford), and composers Robert and Richard Sherman (B.J. Novak and Jason Schwartzman) to see if they could agree on a proper adaptation.

Director John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side) intersperses that story with scenes from Travers’ childhood in Australia, where she shared a close relationship with her unreliable and alcoholic father (Colin Farrell). The movie takes great pains to show how her upbringing would come to influence both Travers’ demeanor and her writing.

This splitting time between stories, however, does little to enhance the enjoyment of the film. The objections Travers raises to virtually every element dreamed up by Disney and his cohorts are what make the film interesting. Every time the story digresses into her childhood, it loses steam.

That’s mostly because it’s fascinating to discover how songs like “Feed the Birds,” “A Spoonful of Sugar” and “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” came to be — especially due to Travers’ prickliness. Farrell makes the most of his performance, but nothing he does can compare to the Disney scenes.

Thompson plays Travers just right, making her irritable but not so off-putting that she’s not relatable. Hanks is probably the perfect actor to play Disney, as his natural openness and friendliness play right into the persona for which Disney was known.

Saving Mr. Banks doesn’t break any new ground, but it’s a greatly enjoyable look at the making of one of Disney’s best-known movies. The fact that it’s basically a feature-length commercial for the 50th anniversary edition of Mary Poppins doesn’t diminish its pleasures in the slightest.

Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson in Saving Mr. Banks.

Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson in Saving Mr. Banks

Fact.co.uk

Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson in Saving Mr. Banks.

Vinyl Record News

Dallas record store chain Josey Records spins new location in Garland

Josey Records

Josey Records

Vinyl at Josey Records

Dallas music maker Josey Records has extended its reach east: The record store chain, whose empire includes one of the largest single independent record stores in the U.S., has opened a location in Garland, at 1005 Northwest Hwy., at the intersection of Centerville Road, where it's selling its trademark assortment of vinyl records, CDs, cassettes, turntables, music posters, new releases, and music accessories.

This is the sixth location and the third in the Dallas area, joining the original in Farmers Branch which owners Waric Cameron and Luke Sardello opened in November 2014. They've since opened locations in Plano, Tulsa, Kansas City, and Vidalia, Missouri.

The original location is a giant place with 16,000 square feet devoted to vinyl, 45s, CDs, turntables, and T-shirts. They do a good job showcasing new releases and collector vinyl — they made CultureMap's list of 5 best places in Dallas to buy vinyl records — and are known to host album release and listening parties such as a recent blockbuster celebrating Linkin Park.

They made headlines in June 2020 when they acquired the vast musical inventory of Bill’s Records following the death of owner Bill Wisener; Cameron and Sardello both worked at Bill’s, and knew the sprawling collection first-hand.

"It has taken us years to even start going through it, but in last two years, we've made some headway," Cameron says. "Bill's has its own audience, so we created a specific Instagram account, just for Bill's Records merchandise called @billsrecordsvault."

They chose Garland because they saw it as an area that was under-served.

"There are very few record stores in that area of northeast Dallas, Casa View, Garland, Rockwall, Mesquite," Cameron says. "We have customers who live over there, so it seemed like a good place for a store."

The storefront they're in was most recently The Music Store, which sold and rented musical instruments and accessories; but coincidentally, it's next to an address that was once RPM Records, a hip record store from the '90s.

The Garland store follows the same model as their others: selling new and used records and merchandise, and buying used goods, as well.

"One thing that's cool is that each location takes on its own identity," he says. "We buy used CDs, vinyl records, cassettes — we're a used resale business — and what we buy from our customers dictates what that store becomes. For example, our Plano store has a lot of classic rock. So we're looking forward to seeing what Garland gravitates to."

Garland does have one thing that the other locations do not.

"Right now, Garland has this incredible collection of jazz," Cameron says. "We bought a great collection of jazz records — someone called and wanted to sell it. We get that a lot, we buy major collections from all over the U.S., we even make house calls. So we saved it for the Garland store."

Loading...