Saving Mr. Banks

Good afternoon, my darlings. Time is just flying away from me. I don't know where it is going, it is always going.......  

So, if you haven't heard, there is a recent movie just released on blu-ray, titled Saving Mr. Banks.

It is about the true story of how the original film, Mary Poppins, came into existence.  It is about how Walt Disney, the man himself, pursued the author of the Mary Poppins novels for children for twenty years to sign over the rights of the books to evolve them into a live animation revolution.

Saving Mr. Banks begins after twenty years of pursuing and when Mrs. Travers, the author, is to fly to Los Angeles, Hollywood, to collaborate with Disney to overview the script before signing the rights over.  Poor Mrs. Travers is terrified of them destroying her original character; what author isn't terrified of that? But in this case, it isn't just a "character" to Mrs. Travers: Mary Poppins is much more than just a character; Mary Poppins is her family; Mary Poppins is all that's left of the real live family that disappointed her. She cannot betray her last remaining tidbit of memory over to people that would misunderstand it and translate it into something it's not.

I don't want to tell you anymore about the story, because I want you to see it for yourself. I don't know if you  will like this movie or not, it may not be your cup of tea, with a spoonful of sugar or not....  But this movie is something deeper than expected, than I expected.

This movie is about how life can disappoint us, people can disappoint us... Even people with good hearts, and the best plans can go astray and disappoint us.

This movie is about how we love and forgive people dearly in spite of their incredible faults.

This movie is about how Mrs. Travers, as a little girl, was disappointed by life when she lost her very loving father, who subsequently was also an alcoholic.

This movie is about never losing one's imagination and dreams despite the disappointment that finds us.

This movie is about all of us; about all of our sad tales, our sad histories....  It is about how we cannot control what happened in the past, but we get to finish the story. We get to let go of all the past and all its' skeleton's and create a beautiful future not dictated by our pasts.  ..... But the only way possible of accomplishing this is by forgiving ourselves our very own mistakes; until we can be kind enough to ourselves to do that, we are only disappointing ourselves for the rest of our lives.

For those of us who have passed on from this life, it is too late to grant this forgiveness. But to all of us living, there is always hope of a new ending. There is always beauty and wonder to be found in this world; just because you may not have discovered it the first adventure of your life doesn't mean you were foolish, doesn't mean it was a waste, doesn't mean everything up to disappoint's point was useless; it just means you were brave enough with enough heart to search for your dreams.

This movie is about granting yourself the freedom to pick yourself up and try to find your dreams again. Don't be so hard on yourself for failing to find them the first time around.... We all have failed. I have failed more times than I can count.

I always struggle forgiving myself for failing. ... I tell myself I must be too stupid and inadequate to find my dreams... But then I always come back to realizing, it is never a shame to have loved: it is never a shame to have trusted and put hope in any dream, even after those dreams have become a disappointment. It would only be a shame if I were to never to try and hope in any dreams ever again.


well, I am almost confident I am overly passionate about this film and you might not find it as satisfying as myself. But despite that, I am pleased you spent this time making it through this blog, I am pleased you took the time to come listen to me. I hope in some small way, maybe I am able to share some of the hope I chase after with you all.
I wish you all a beautiful life, my dears.

with all my love,
Read Riding Hood

You've Got Mail

Good late night my darlings, it is a bit late for me to be up and doing anything but be sensible and just try to sleep. But here I am, awake, none the less; and blogging for that matter. The last few days, I have felt the urge to watch an old time favorite of mine that I grew up watching: You've Got Mail, with Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Dave Chapelle, Steve Zahn, and a few other people I don't remember; oh, Yea! And Greg Kinnear. Meg Ryan is the small time bookstore owner, and Tom Hanks is the "price club" of books who is just opening up a new store in the same neighborhood as Meg Ryan's store, threatening to shut down her business.

This whole movie is full of so many sweet truths and the sweet seed of hope. Makes me think of all the endless hours as a child I spent at the Barnes and Noble in the Aurora neighborhood I grew up in. I can't even begin to describe all the lovely bits of this movie without rambling on for hours, and even rambling wouldn't fully get the feeling across for this film. I am a very non-verbal person, always using my hands, my face, and my expressions to tell a lot of my story for me.

This movie was in its' own way, my cult classic I grew up with. As I got older, it got put on the shelf where it collected dust, and I remember having turned twenty-one years old, and I pulled it out to watch, and my life was so different from where it had started and where it ended up at the time and even where it is now, and I remember watching it there, curled up in the corner of a ratty old couch that was my bedroom.... And I felt nothing for it. I didn't even finish it. It was like one of those sub conscience wake up calls, or like my conscience calling me from far away: asking me where did that part of me go that was comfortable just being myself? Where did that girl go that didn't have to act hard all the time? Where did that girl go that even when there wasn't someone else she was interested in romantically, she still had the dream of someone else?... Where did she go? I think that was one of the first poignant self evaluations I had of myself and the former life I was committed to.
I spent four years drifting away from this core classic of myself, and I am happy to say, it only took me two years to fight my way back. One of the emails that Meg Ryan and Joe Fox (tom hanks) share in the beginning epitomizes my sad poor pathetic addiction to Starbucks coffee and makes me laugh at myself thinking there is probably much more truth to what he says than I'd like to expand on, but I'm o.k. just laughing about it and considering it probably really is the truth, and I'm not going to fight it. It's who I am, and I am content with who I am, so why should I feel bad about it?

So, I will leave you with his opinion of people and Starbucks and I now realize it is one o'clock in the morning, so have a peaceful rest of your night.

"The whole reason of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. So, people who don't know what the they're doing or who on earth they are, can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee, but an absolutely defining sense of self."

~Joe Fox- Tom Hanks

And I have to say, the movie ends with Over the Rainbow.... It isn't the version by Iz, but I don't think it existed yet, so the Harry Nilson version just had to suffice in the meantime, and maybe the Iz version did already exist, I just didn't know about it yet.. But I know about it now, and they say when you find the real thing to hold onto it, so I will. And I wish you the same.

Big

It is my Friday... well, my first friday.. cuz then Wednesday is my second Friday... and real Friday isn't really a Friday at all... So, yea.... Anyhoo.....

And I spent the morning at work, and kicked some dragons, then napped (cuz kicking dragons will take the punch out of one's self..) and then passed a languid 45 minutes at 1/2 priced books and came home to eat a lovely Betty Crocker's dinner prepared by mi Nana with Bluebell ice cream and strawberries for dessert. After watching Sleepless in Seattle the other evening for the first time, the subject of Tom Hank's looks got brought up and I asked if they remembered the movie Big he was in......Aaaaand the answer was a big fat "No" cuuuz, they'd never even seen it. (!)What!!??

So, as of this moment, we are almost done watching Big, about a kid that made a wish at a carnival that he was big. "Big" meaning "grown-up." And he just so happens to make the wish while playing an arcade game for 25 cents...And it comes true. It is sweet and a movie from my childhood interestingly enough. Need I say more?... Probably... But I am just going to leave you to discover it for yourself... Goodnight everyone. It's been fun...