Day 11: Favorite Kid's Movie

What film is practically perfect in every way?  Has been called Disney's Masterpiece and is Supercalifragilisticexpialdocious?  No, not The Black Cauldron silly, it's Mary Poppins!

Never before, and as far as I am concerned, never again will such a magical film be made.  Julie Andrews wins the Academy Award for Best Actress for the Eponymous role of a lifetime, Dick Van Dyke gives the most noteworthy performance of his lifetime as Burt the Chimney Sweep, and the music from this film has become so famous in it's own right that it is practically part of the vernacular.  I mean I really must have watched this movie five hundred times when I was a little kid, because I still know every word to every single song.  I learned who Suffragettes were because of this film, and once I thoroughly embarrassed my mom at a party when I was 6 years old by asking out hostess for Rum Punch.  Nothing can bring you back to your childhood like watching Mary Poppins can.

And it's not exclusively a children's movie.  I actually think the main themes of the film are more relevant to adults than they are to children anyway.  Take for example the only pivotal character in the whole movie, Mr. George Banks.  At the start of the film he is an overbearing husband, workaholic and inattentive father to his two children who are clearly screaming out for attention with their mischievous behavior.  At the end of the film, Mary Poppins shows him how important his family is to him and he embraces his children, wife, and kite flying skills.  That's a lesson that really only applies to adults.

Not to mention many of the other important themes: Kindness to the homeless, the elderly, and the misfortunate, to be unprejudiced against people who work in lower class jobs, and to appreciate your family rather than money.  It is no accident that the evil employer of Mr. Banks is in fact a Bank.  And who is the happiest character of them all, Burt the Chimney Sweep, who is presumably living off street performing wages and chalk-drawn-magical-land's caramel apples.

If you've never seen it, watch it.  If you haven't seen it in years, remind yourself how much you love it.

And Kudos to whoever designed this poster for it in 1964.  Gotta love those penguins.