#{jack my beloved lamplighter}

[aercnaut]

if/when i make that multi muse i'm gonna move jack over there. i feel like him being limited to a sideblog really tanked my desire to write him.

#*001. ham is my jam // out of character. #{jack my beloved lamplighter}

[babesonly]

fic recs 2.0!

hello kings (gn) ive got significantly more fic than last time which means this is gonna be a little more organized than the last post bc it is much longer <3 categories in order are non casefic canonverse, casefic/roadtrip fic, finale fixits, endverse, non supernatural aus, and then non destiel ones. titles will be in bold for my favs! also within each category they’re in order from shortest to longest

Canonverse

I’m a tulip in a cup by godtiering (1.2k)

I worry that I never really came back from hell. I wonder why, if I got remade by heaven, I’m still the same screwed up kid that I always was.

Sometimes I worry I’m not into women at all.

"Guess not,” he looks at his shoes.

a REALLY good fic that’s basically just a look inside dean’s head during my bloody valentine do not read this looking for a fun time but please do read it

on vessels by flightsofangels (1.9k)

“You know,” Cas mutters into Dean’s bare skin. “When I was still… an angel, I used to dream that I would take you as my vessel.”

hello consumehimnatural fans!!!!! read newt’s fic right now its incredible

dean winchester is not a nicholas sparks protagonist by microcomets (1.9k)

Dean fell in love with Cas the way you fall asleep--slowly, and then all at once. Or some other hackneyed and trite bullshit. God, this is embarrassing.

dean is in LOVE. he’s also a disaster who keeps staring at cas’ hands. sigh

Stay by aeli_kindara (2.5k)

Coda to 13.06 (Tombstone). In which Castiel reckons with the aftermath of Dean's grief.

hello fellow widow arc fans <3 click here to see cas find out abt the events of advanced thanatology !

walking on a string by swordfishtrombones (2.7k)

Between the doomed offensive at the Firmament and the impending retreat from the ravaged northeast border, Castiel left camp long enough to answer one of Dean Winchester's prayers.

S6 DEAN IS A WAR WIFE. been really into early seasons deancas lately and this one is very good. god

the flesh of the mighty by Mudprophet (2.7k)

Ezekiel 39:17 "you shall eat the flesh of the mighty and drink the blood of the princes of the earth."

MY GOD. anyone who saw the @autisticandroids​ purgatory cannibalism talk and was interested read this right now. also anyone who enjoyed nbc hannibal OR raw (2016). if romantic cannibalism is remotely aligned with your interests read this right now. god

Sam Winchester, Ally At Law by alittleduck (3.3k)

Sam was pretty sure he could read every single gay friendly guide to coming out or supporting queer family members ever written and literally none of them would even imply that arguing with gay people that they were actually just homophobic constituted as "ally behavior". However, Sam was equally sure that none of those book authors had found themselves accidentally watching their brother get pounded by an Angel of the Lord at 9 am on Tuesday, so Sam was pretty sure he might actually still have the higher ground. Now, if only Jack would stop trying to bond with Dean using gay slurs long enough for Sam to convince everyone of that, he might just be able to cobble together some remnant of sanity or, failing that, dignity.

Or, the one where Sam desperately wants to invent PFLAG but Dean won't stop teaching Jack gay slurs

JACK VOICE HEY COCKSUCKERS. 

hummed low by microcomets (3.3k)

Dean pulls the Impala over at a cider barn about thirty miles out; doesn't really think about it, just sees the hokey orange lettering off the roadside and lets his hands guide the Impala off the interstate with gravel spitting under the wheels.

they get a nice day out together and dean has a gay crisis and it’s written beautifully mwah

Vena Amoris and Other Old-Fashioned Bullshit by pyrebi (3.9k)

In which angelic marriage bonds are apparently stupidly easy to trigger, Cas wages multidimensional war in Heaven, Dean can't catch a break like ever, Sam rather enjoys being a dick, love saves the day, and nobody consummates anything.

sometimes i think about this fic and it hits that at this point dean and cas would have been married for more than a year. cas my beloved...

an exploration of gender; angelic by sometimeswelose (4k)

Castiel's true form is made of electromagnetic radiation. He has spent the majority of his life, if you really want to add it all up and average the whole thing out, as a wavelength of celestial intent.

The thing about being made of light: it's light in the physics sense of the word. Castiel's waves are gamma, x-ray, micro, and radio. He's visible light too, of course, a visible light so intense that it is blinding to most humans.

hello trans cas community <3 he’s literally trans he was assigned genderless and then went hm actually i will be a man! love of my life

Some Boys are Sleeping Alone by prosopopeya (4.2k)

This isn't something that's okay, not for him, but it chases him through the years until it turns into something he can't -- doesn't want to deny. 

ohhh deans tenuous relationship with his sexuality my beloved...

love. worship. consummation. consumption. by redeyedwrath (4.3k)

ConsumehimNatural (copyright marcusantonius) the Series!

These are all snapshots centered around the idea of you know. Hunger in Supernatural. Both carnal hunger and other kinds. Fics are shown in semi-chronological order but this series is generally nebulously early seasons.

for ANYONE who is a consumehimnaturual this is required reading it is INCREDIBLE and gorgeous and very visceral and i am so very obsessed with it. thank you redeyedwrath for enabling my brainrot

the reach of human sense by perilously (4.5k)

“You know what Jimmy Novak looked like. You think he was beautiful—gorgeous, hot, all of it. It’s him. Not me. This isn’t my face.”

“But,” Dean says. He doesn’t know where he’s going with it. Just that Cas’ face is right there, brows drawn together and cheekbones gleaming in the lamplight. It’s a face that’s made his heart skip probably a couple hundred beats collectively since they met.

And it used to belong to someone else.

this one is just very nice <3 cas gets uncomfortable w dean calling him attractive since dean has never seen his trueform and they work it out

Down in the River by Ias (4.7k)

Alone in Purgatory and hunted by Leviathans, Castiel finds himself praying to the one person who can't hear him.

cas i love you <3 cas alone in purgatory praying to dean bc dean is the only thing he still worships i love you so much

Creature of Habit by trinityofone (5.1k)

The more you love someone, the more you want to kill them. Or: How Cas developed some bad habits, and Dean coped surprisingly well.

written in s5 when cas was depowered and completely nails the later seasons bitchy husbands dynamic it’s very good and fun <3

sink by crackers4jenn (5.4k)

"Where to?" A 9.06 coda.

very bittersweet very well written and also canon compliant so do not go into this one looking for a happy ending but i DO recommend it it’s very good

Sensational by castiowl (6.1k)

“When I first came to earth, it was advised that we temper the senses bound to our vessels. They were a distraction, we were told. An antiquated form of experiencing existence that would hinder our ability to complete our missions, whatever that may be. My true form can better facilitate these experiences. What you would recognize as heightened senses of sight and sound, among other things.”

Or, how Dean helps Cas experience all five human senses for the first time in one night.

early seasons deancas man. i love the sound part i love dean being so worried about doing a good job with this. god. read this please

Something to Protect by Sass_Master (6.2k)

Dean’s violent reaction to being unexpectedly woken has become something of a running joke among them, but Castiel can’t help but look past it to the underlying cause. It makes him ache to think that Dean feels so unsafe, so persecuted, before he’s even fully conscious.

Secretly, Castiel has been determined to work on that, to ease Dean into awareness in a less jarring way, smooth away one of the many stresses that follow him even in sleep. Now’s as good a time as any to try.

oh to sleep more soundly in the presence of someone you love...this fic is very nice i enjoyed it a lot

all this and heaven too by ftmsteverogers (7k)

“Hey,” Dean said. “I’m not ashamed of you, okay?”

Cas raised skeptical eyes to meet his.

“I mean it,” Dean insisted.

“I understand you mean it,” Cas said. “But I don’t think it’s any better if you’re only ashamed of yourself.”

hello trans dean community here is 7k of trans dean having to deal with his internalized homophobia now that he’s sleeping with cas <3 it is SO good

The wilderness. by orange_crushed (8k)

He takes a shower and the pressure is not especially good, but it doesn’t matter. It’s warm and he stands under the spray a long time. Human skin, he knows, constantly renews itself, shedding the dead cells of the epidermis. He wonders how long it will take until he is an entirely new person, until every cell on his surface is a new one. He looks at his hands under the water. It might take less than a month.

this might be the only post 9x03 fic on here with a happy ending actually? plenty of good melancholy leading up to it though <3 canon divergent after 9x03 though which means no 9x06 fanfiction gap but it is absolutely worth reading

till the juice runs by deathbanjo (8.4k)

Apparently whoever drew up the venn diagram of Dean’s sex life decided the circle labelled ‘good sex’ and the one labelled ‘sex with men’ should be kept far apart.

hello this one is SO funny dean finally gets comfortable enough with his bisexuality to start having sex with men and it goes so very bad every time so sorry about your shitty choices beloved </3

First Date by aeli_kindara (8.9k)

“We should go on a date. You and me.”

Castiel wishes he could see Dean’s face. He wishes he had any idea what to say.

“I’m asking you out, Cas.”

this one is very sweet i liked it a lot <3 good refreshing little fic where they just get to have a nice evening together

Entertaining Strangers by cadignan (9k)

Dean settles on to his side, lying in the bed facing Castiel. “So you had sex without me and you bit all my moves. I think I deserve to hear about it, at least. What was her name?”

op im in love with you. premise is established relationship deancas and cas mentions he did have sex before dean and not only that it was a threesome. good for him <3 this fic is cas describing the story of what led up to the threesome and what happened during it while dean interrupts regularly. incredible

the shape you take by noviembre (10k)

“What?” Dean says, fake-offended. “I’d be hot as a girl, you know I would.”

And this is when he really, really should have stopped talking. When he shouldn't have whipped back around and asked, “Cas, if I was a woman, you’d fuck me, right?”

Because if he hadn’t said that, then he wouldn’t have had to deal with this:

Cas, meeting his eyes, forehead wrinkles all smoothed out like there’s nothing to be confused about anymore. Cas with something at the corner of his mouth that might barely be called a smile.

Cas saying, calmly and without hesitation, “Yes, Dean.”

--

Dean Winchester fucks around and, with the inadvertent help of some witches, Finds Out.

dean winchester your gender is diabolical. this fic is insane and its the only thing that matters actually. dean fully convinced its normal and straight to think about being a woman so you can fuck your male friend. incredible. op im proposing to you

Sinnerman by a_good_soldier (10k)

Dean listens to Nina Simone, reads Anne Carson, and makes out with a dude (sort of).

yall want to read about dean realizing he’s in love with a man as a direct result of learning to better respect women right?

you’re fooling yourself by cowboydeanwinchester (13k)

Dean Winchester and Castiel retire from hunting to raise baby Jack. Dean struggles to allow himself the things he truly wants.

Jack is two, Castiel and Dean are idiots, and Sam's gotta solve everyone's problems.

love a married couple who doesn’t know they’re married <3 everyone say thank you sam for bullying dean 

The Girlfriend Experience by rageprufrock (15k)

While it's not like Dean hasn't had a couple of truly regrettable hit-and-runs in his sexual history, this is probably the saddest fucking thing that has ever happened to him.

a classic for good fucking reason. we’ve all talked about dean thinking holding hands is too gay after having just had gay sex but my personal favorite was sam accusing dean of cheating on cas because dean bought condoms. incredible

No Kingdom To Come by domesticadventures (16k)

“We should fuck,” Dean says.

Cas looks up from where he sits on his bed, hair still damp from the shower, frowning as he places a finger on the page of his book to mark where he left off.

There are a million things Cas could say here; Dean has rehearsed them. After lunch, his restlessness had given way to a vague panic, a dread that matched his every step and crept along with him from room to room. Eventually, he had returned to his bedroom and spent the rest of the afternoon pacing back and forth, playing out all the possible scenarios. When Cas asks him Why? or Are you being serious? or when he sighs and says, in that way he has, Dean, he knows exactly what he’s going to do. He’s going to shrug casually, like he isn’t invested in the answer, like he isn’t desperate for an outlet, and say, Why not? He’s going to raise an eyebrow and say, What, are you not interested? He’s going to crowd into Cas’ personal space, he’s going to shove himself right up in there and whisper Cas against his ear.

Instead, Cas says, carefully, “Okay.”

literally the only quarantine fic i’ve ever bothered to read in any fandom and completely worth it it’s SO good. they become fwb and dean has an existential crisis and he keeps bringing up meaninglessness and death during sex

Bodies by Speary (18k)

It was a secret they never acknowledged even with each other. It would change everything, end everything if either of them ever dropped the act. So they became very good at acting, at keeping up the lie that gave them what they wanted. Even if that lie involved constantly seeking out temporary, consenting female vessels, Cas would do it. He told himself it was worth it for Dean. He just hoped that he could stop wanting more, or maybe one day Dean might stop pretending that he wasn't really sleeping with Cas every time.

i don’t even have anything to add tbh if that summary did not immediately make you click we are very different this fic is incredible. god. fellas do you ever make yourself a woman so you can fuck the man you love without him having to talk about it or confront his sexuality

it’s such a mystery (the way you know me) by fleeceframe (20k)

So the man crouching in front of Castiel is named Dean. He wonders if that’s supposed to mean something to him.

“Cas must’ve got hit with something earlier. He just dropped like a sack of fucking potatoes a minute ago. By the time I was checking on him, he had already woken up again, but now he doesn’t fucking know who we are.”

“I’m right here you know,” Castiel says testily.

Sam’s eyes are wide even as his eyebrows are furrowed, and he looks between Dean and Castiel again.

“What do you remember, Cas?”

“Firstly, that I’m not Cas. I don’t know who Cas is, but it’s not me. I don’t know who either of you are, either."

or the one where castiel is hit with a memory curse that makes him forget the winchester brothers and is stunned to find out he has a family... also why can't he stop thinking about dean?

BEST amnesia fic oh my god. cas my beloved you deserve the world. everyone read this that is not a request.

More Than Ever by Sass_Master (20k)

Dean’s getting some pancakes together for breakfast when Cas saunters in after a run.

He’s trying to focus on whisking batter, unfairly distracted by Cas a few feet away, breathing heavily and shining with perspiration. Dean’s been painfully aware for a long time that Cas is pretty easy on the eyes, but he’s used to seeing Cas buttoned-up and unflappable, looking straight-laced in a stiff oxford and an unflattering trenchcoat.

Now Cas is sweating, Dean’s borrowed t-shirt clinging to his skin, flushed from exertion and Dean really can’t deal with that in his kitchen right now.

this entire series is really good i enjoyed it a lot, i’m just putting this one specifically on the list bc the rest of the series is very explicit and this is really good as a standalone for anyone who wouldn’t be into the rest of the series!!

Being Dean Winchester by Anonymous (20k)

"You should show me some respect. I dragged you out of hell. I can throw you back in."

Who the fuck was this bitchy "warrior of God" doing talking to him like that? Fuck Cas-tee-el and his dumbass trench coat and abrasive motherfucking attitude.

Dean was done with this shit.

***

Wherein a monster of the week steals the essence of Castiel's vessel, so he must use Dean, recently raised from hell, as a vessel instead.

it is at this point i realize that there are more fics than i expected there to be on this list that involves a threesome with only two people/using the presence of a female body to act like what’s happening is heterosexual. deangirlism is a disease 

I Shall Not Want by domesticadventures (20k)

His grace is burning out, and the wasteland it leaves inside him becomes an echo chamber for all the memories, all the fear and doubt and self-loathing he's collected over the years. Things said and done hound him on endless repeat until he's convinced they’ll break through his skin and fill the silence of the bunker.

His head is killing him, and he sits hunched over an open book, not really reading, just digging his fingers into his skull and praying nothing slips through the cracks.

this one is GORGEOUS i love it so so much. dean and cas are both struggling so much to get by and they’re trying to support each other but fucking it up and they have to grow together and learn to cope with the fact that this is where their lives are and they fall in love i need everyone to read this

To Boldly Go by 8daysuntiltheapocalypseiguess (24k)

Title: Just One of Those Things Author: Impala67 Series: TOS Rating: M Summary: Four years into their five-year mission, and all the planets start to look the same.

In which Dean is not Gene Roddenberry, but he does write Star Trek fanfiction.

mx winchester writing star trek fanfiction to process his own trauma <3 this is a wip but it’s SO good and i also have not consumed a single piece of star trek media so it IS definitely readable to anyone who isn’t a star trek fan. please read this

where the weeds take root by deathbanjo (30k)

“Are you happy? Y’know. Just—being here,” Dean says, gesturing to the yard with his beer bottle. “Being with—I mean, you used to fight in celestial wars and—and save the world. Now you’re growing vegetables and talking about chickens.”

this is on here just for the 1.5 people who were putting off this one like i did for no reason. it’s extremely good and it is just gentle. i enjoyed it a lot

Heroes for Ghosts by pantheon_of_discord (42k)

After Sam and Dean are arrested, Castiel is left alone and scrambling to find them. He knows they’re locked away in a government facility, and he’s still able to hear their prayers, but no matter how he tries Castiel can’t seem to track them. He chases leads and even attempts to hunt on his own, but Mary is AWOL, Crowley refuses to help, and Castiel’s options are running out.

Weeks pass, Castiel’s hope dwindles, and through it all Dean prays, keeping them connected. His voice is comforting, frustrating, and occasionally annoying, but in his solitude Castiel comes to cherish it. But then one day, without warning, Dean stops praying, and Castiel is forced to confront some uncomfortable truths about his feelings.

yall ever wonder what it would’ve been like if the sam and dean arrest storyline in s12 was interesting? yeah <3

Teaching Poetry to Fish by aeli_kindara (52k)

In which Castiel teaches poetry to fish. Also, himself. Also, eventually, Dean.

(A series-long story, diverging slightly from canon after S14.)

cas learning about humanity through poetry before dean and thats what led to him developing enough emotion to be lobotomized....cas i love you so much

Emergence by ellispark (58k)

Something’s been missing from Dean’s life for the past three years, a void left after a hunt gone terribly wrong. He often feels a sense of longing with no discernible cause, a need to talk to someone who isn’t there.

A call from an acquaintance leads Dean to James Novak, a man who disappeared more than a decade ago, and suddenly Dean gets the feeling he’s found what he’s been missing. But James isn’t really James — he’s the angel Castiel, who’s wanted by angels, demons and hunters alike. And he may be at the center of the storm that wrecked Dean’s life all those years ago.

another cool amnesia fic!! for unknown reasons everyone forgot cas three years ago but cas didn’t forget anything. cas deserves so much love and support. god

a turn of the earth by microcomets (95k)

Dean’s your typical half-orphaned, monster-killing 22-year-old until a trenchcoated stranger crashes into his back windshield one September night, claiming he’s an angel that knows him from the future and that he’s on the run.

Frigging fantastic.

(Or, in which Castiel gets stuck in Dean’s timeline preseries and Dean kind of hates it—until he doesn’t.)

cas getting to meet and fall in love with pre hell dean just as much as he loves the dean he already knows oh my GOD. i love this fic so much. turn of the earth my beloved

Crossing Lines by sometimeswelose (122k)

Two Deans, one Cas - it's not as sexy as it sounds

Or

An ethics lesson from Hell

Or

The one where Dean from the past meets Dean in the present. They're not sure they like each other very much.

deans intense self hatred vs cas’ unwavering love for every version of dean oh my GOD also this is a wip fair warning but it’s so worth waiting for updates i’m having such a great time with this one i cannot wait to see how it gets ended

Plot Holes by saltyfeathers (160k)

Of course it wasn’t over after the apocalypse.

There was season six. Then there was season seven. Against all expectations, there was season eight. There were the alphas and purgatory, and then the Leviathans, and then the angels fell. Enter season nine. Loose threads Metatron, Abaddon, and Crowley have to be tied up. Sam, Dean, and Cas have to try to tie them while at the same time dealing with their evolving relationships and newfound graceless states.

Amidst all the chaos, someone has started publishing the Supernatural novels again. Convinced there’s something amiss in the pages, Charlie starts her own quest to suss out the truth behind the Winchester Gospels.

With the help of various faces, old and new, they must now not only deal with the typical runs of demons and recently fallen angels, but also reconcile the battles raging inside themselves, as the fate of the world, once again, quite literally lays in the palm of their hands.

saltyfeathers said i WILL make the plot holes in this show mean something because the showrunners are sure as shit never gonna adress them ! and i thank them for it bc this was a really cool read

Casefic/Roadtrip Fic

Deprived Of Every Planet by KelpietheThundergod (9k)

Dean's breathing is audible in the scant space between them, irregular. The motel room is dark, pale blue shadows falling in through the gaps in the blinds. Throwing a pattern of uneven white stripes over the bunched up covers. Over Dean's fingers twisted in the sheets. One half of him in shadow, softened by the dark. The heat of his skin. The tremble of him under Castiel's touch.

He caresses a hand over Dean's chest, slowly. Dean's mouth falls open, his body arching into Castiel's touch. Castiel stops over Dean's heart. Through the fever of his desire, he rejoices about the wonder of experiencing another's heartbeat through one's own senses.

Dean gasps, but then he turns his face away and towards the dark. Eyes closed tight and brows furrowed like something is hurting him.

Castiel stills.

“Dean?”

the case is background on this one but it Does take place over the course of a case so im putting it here. god touchstarved dean trying so hard to work through his shit for cas head in my hands i love this fic so much

before and after breakfast by spocklee (10k)

The monster of the week is a ghost who hates meat, alcohol, and feeling yourself. Guess who it is during the commercials.

chapter 2 of this one.....god. dean and cas you are both so unwell <3 i love everything abt this fic everyone read it now

we shovel all the ashes out by xylodemon (15k)

Dean’s always known things were headed this way. He just figured getting dragged under would be cleaner and easier than jumping in feet-first.

fics that make you go Oh they love each other...also there’s lesbians in it literally what else could you want.

thunder road by dothraki_shieldmaiden (20k)

After Chuck is defeated and the Winchesters settle into life without God, Dean Winchester is bored.

OR: Dean and Cas take a road trip and figure out some stuff along the way.

this fic is just like. it’s kind! this fic is kind it’s just a pleasant experience and i enjoyed it thoroughly. they’re in love and it’s good

Suck It, Judy Garland by GlitterDwarf, midrashic (20k)

It had to be St. Louis. Or, the one where Sam and Cas get fake married for a case, and Dean loses his mind.

actually im gonna defend dean here imagine youre dean and cas gives what definitely sounded like a deathbed love confession while making eye contact with you and then immediately afterwards fake dates your brother. who among us would not have been a bitch about this

best friends without benefits by lizbobjones (20k)

It’s nearing three a.m. and they’ve been on the road a long time. Sam’s been asleep in the back seat since eleven. Giving up and handing the wheel over to Cas and letting the guy who doesn’t sleep drive had seemed like a good idea.

the premise of this fic is so funny. cas voice dean you want to fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid. everyone read this

the taste of gravel in the mouth by deathbanjo (22k)

This is what Cas gave up Heaven for: greasy diner food, shitty motel rooms with even shittier cable, long car rides spent in complete silence except for the same six tapes playing over and over again, and a burnt-out husk of a man who can barely hold a conversation anymore.

alt version of getting rid of the mark of cain, the darkness never happens. this one is VERY heavy but it’s so good and it has a hopeful ending. ive read this one twice and loved it both times

Someone Who’s Feeling For Me by ellispark (45k)

Dean sees her for the first time in nearly six years in some no-name town in Idaho, and it's panic at first sight.

Lisa Braeden, the one woman Dean ever actually had a shot at a real life with, back from where he buried her in his mind. And her hand is on Cas's arm like it's no big deal, like it belongs there. Cas, Dean's dorky, sweet, badass, angelic best friend, and he's just standing there next to Lisa and not moving her hand away.

Dean feels the jealousy rising, and it's not directed where he expected it to be. Because it takes this exact moment for Dean to realize he's in love with his best friend. He's in love with his best friend, and Lisa is looking at Cas like he's the best thing since automatic rifles, and Dean is utterly fucked.

hello op please contact me. please contact me and let me see the inside of your brain. this fic was an unparalleled experience and everyone should also go through it. i love it so very much

Bumper Cars by mansikka (111k)

Two teenagers are missing from an abandoned carnival, and there’s enough to raise suspicion that their disappearance involves a ghost. Dean, Sam, and Cas arrive in town to investigate, though what they find leads them away from those teenagers, and on the trail of a ghost story that churns up things from their past.

Can newly-human Cas, and Dean, with the help of shipper!Sam, work out the mystery behind the abandoned carnival and its ghost, and along the way, figure out the riddle that is them?

one of my absolute fav case fics it forces dean to confront some aspects of johns parenting and work through some shit and also him and cas fall in love and it’s really well done. love this one a lot <3

Finale Fix-its/Finale Denial

Sorry Jimmy by K_K_TiBal (2.1k)

Based on the tumblr textpost:

jellydeans: so are cas and jimmy novak just up in heaven existing at the same time katebushstandean: #jimmy moves to heaven timbuku so that dean stops trying to make out with him every time they run into each other at the heaven grocery store

this one is just extremely funny. local midwestern heterosexual man is forced to play relationship counselor to the dumbest gay people in existence because one of them wore his face

Dean Winchester Really Needs To Make Some Gay Friends by AreYouReady (2.2k)

“Like, I’m trying to think if I’ve had, I don’t know, crushes. If I ever had a gay thing before you came along and just didn’t notice,” Dean said.

Cas suddenly looked down, and away from Dean. If Dean didn’t know better, he would swear Cas looked guilty.

“What is it, Cas?”

“You have had several… gay things before.” Cas still wouldn’t look at him.

“What? When? How come you know this better than I do?”

There was no way the answer to this question wasn’t funny as hell.

dean learning about gay ppl via the memories of dean smith...incredible.

tiny difference (between ending and starting to begin) by sunforgrace (2.4k)

Sometimes Dean catches Cas staring at the sky.

It doesn’t happen often. Not when Dean’s around to tell, anyway. But often enough that he starts to notice.

Eventually Dean starts to recognize the pattern.

Cas just doesn’t watch the sky. He watches the birds.

Chuck is gone, Cas is human, and the world is safe. In the quiet aftermath Dean and Castiel find each other again.

i really don’t have much to say abt this one it is just very good and they love each other so much

Bring Home by cenotaphy (3.8k)

Dean's phone doesn't ring on the drive back to the Bunker, but that's okay. Because—well, maybe Cas lost his cell, what with getting shuffled back and forth between a cosmic void dimension and all. And anyway, Dean doesn't want this conversation to happen over the phone, he wants to—he wants to talk to Cas face-to-face. They should talk face-to-face.

Dean will tell him—

Dean doesn't know what he'll tell Cas. Dean is, in fact, terrified by how utterly and completely he does not know what he'll say to Cas.

cas being forced to face the consequences of sending the risky text that was despair <3

dean’s coworkers vs the heteronormative agenda by cowboydeanwinchester (4.1k)

Dean started working at a local auto repair shop in Lebanon, Kansas about a year ago. His coworkers don't know much about him. Except that he has a wife. Or maybe he doesn't. But he has a kid. Who is either a toddler or a high schooler. Who is either named Jack or Sammy. He also might have a best friend named Cas, but that also might be his wife.

Truth is nobody knows what to make of Dean.

obsessed w people not knowing a single fucking thing about dean because he talks so much and never explains anything. this fic is SO funny

Enhanced Extraction Techniques by goldenraeofsun (5.8k)

The Empty takes Meg’s shape, Samandriel’s, Duma’s, every one of the thousands of angels Cas killed up in heaven. But in the middle of lecturing Cas in the form of Balthazar, it explodes in a burst of light and sound.

Dean Winchester stands in the aftermath.

the empty playing mind games on an awake cas bc it can’t put him to sleep is a thing i like a lot and this is very very good 

Speak Silence No More by rea_sunshine (8.1k)

When Dean imagined this moment, it went like this:

Dean bursts into the Empty—guns blazing, chin high, righteous anger coursing through him. No matter what form his plans and fantasies and whiskey-drunk-whispered-promises took, he is always, always successful. When he imagined it, he was finally the hero Cas deserved.

The reality of the moment is this:

It’s fucking cold.

dean and cas STILL managing to not communicate with each other properly after the confession is so funny to me and this fic does it really well. also i like that a human being in the empty, where humans do NOT belong, had some like. consequences

my heart is a compass by lagaudiere (10k)

“There you are,” the Empty says, in Dean’s voice. It’s cold, like Dean’s eyes are cold, his expression set in contempt. It’s the expression Cas feared, he realizes, all the times he thought about saying it. Revulsion. It makes him feel sick in the way that goes beyond physical, here where there is nothing physical left.

The moment before it happened had been so sweet it covered up all the hurt. For years, Cas had been holding back those words, biting down on his tongue to keep from saying them. And now he had said it, and he knew that it was good, knew that it was worth it. But on the other side there is only this.

--

In the Empty, Cas dreams of his regrets, until someone comes looking for him.

one of thee best dean rescues cas from the empty fics out there i love the way his memories are written i love how many of them were ones that this fic came up with to give me new things to have brainworms over instead of just making me more fixated on He Watched Him Rake Leaves than i already am

killing time by orestespdf (11k)

It's been four years since Dean saved Cas from the Empty and confessed his feelings in return, and in their Vermont lakehouse, the retired couple is now learning how to heal. One morning, Dean gives Cas a haircut.

(A character study of Castiel.)

perfect fic perfect fic no notes no complaints they love each other so much and now dean is giving cas a haircut and they’re spending the day together. god.

and every time we kiss, i swear i can fly by knameless (14k)

Every time, Dean tells himself it’s the last.

--

aka, twelve times dean and cas kiss.

a just boy best friends kiss for every season <3 mwah

for which no words exist by MediaWhore (14k)

'a prayer for which no words exist' // richard siken

"Dear Cas who art in my bathtub, give me the strength to be honest about how I feel. For your sake and for mine. Forgive me all the times I wasn’t in the past, all the words I should have said but didn’t. And please stay. Please stay with me when all is said and done. Amen. "

Dean rescues a newly human Cas from the Empty. That's the easy step.

mediawhore i am in LOVE with you oh my god this fic. this fic. dean taking care of cas after rescuing him dean wrapping cas in a blanket oh my GOD

swimming with the fish pond fish by februyuri (17k)

Some time between Dean bleeding out on a makeshift hook in a barn in Ohio and Sam making marshmallows on his funeral pyre, Dean was brought back to life. By Castiel. Again. Dean agreed to it if only to give Jack time to work out the glitches up top. So, now Dean’s back in the land of the living and things are ... actually good, for once.

Or, as good as they can be when demons are attacking Earth, Dean’s failing to get over why he died in the first place, and Cas is suddenly, inexplicably taking every opportunity to casually tell Dean that he loves him.

this is a wip! but it is so good and so worth the read i love it a lot and am very excited for the last chapter. it IS pretty heavy though dean has a LOT to work through

looking like a true survivor (feeling like a little kid) by courfeyrac (20k)

"Jack’s a clever kid—has been ever since he was born, maybe even before that—but Dean’s pretty sure he hasn’t figured out where they’re going yet. And Dean’s… Dean’s excited about it. He remembers planning surprises for Sammy when they were little—saving up quarters and sneaking off to the arcade the year he turned seven, or slipping a book Dean had seen Sammy admiring into his jacket before sprinting out of the store the year he turned twelve. There was only so much Dean could give him back then, hindered by lack of finances and transportation and a father who paid attention. Now, though, Dean’s got a wallet full of cash, a tank full of gas, and the freedom to give his kid the kind of birthday he deserves."

Or, it's Jack's fourth birthday, and the kid wants to go to Build-A-Bear.

EVERYONE READ THIS RIGHT NOW. that is not a request this fic undid me. oh my god. oh my god. they’re a family and they’re going to build a bear and they love each other. oh my god. also no it isn’t a baby jack fic he is 4 and he is also alcal

what’s missing is found (our souls can exhale now) by sobsicles (27k)

It's not the first time Claire has ever gone missing. It is, however, the first time Kaia panics about it. Dean's dragged into the mess, but he soon finds that it's the best thing that could have happened to him.

~~~

"But have you ever just met someone and maybe it wasn't from the first moment, maybe it was after all these other moments that meant more than you ever expected them to, and it seems like your soul just—just—" Kaia makes a helpless gesture with her hands, pushing out, and she breathes out loudly. "Like it can finally exhale. And that person isn't guaranteed to make you happy, but they're—they're important. You just know it, you can't even escape it, you can't let them go. Ever met someone like that, Dean?"

"I—" Dean halts, his mouth hanging open. He's looking at Kaia, who's looking at him, and his heart is fluttering in his throat like a caged bird aching to soar again. His mind threatens to spiral out of control, but he focuses, swallowing hard. "Yeah. Um. I—yeah, I have."

deancas AND dreamhunter we love to see it also dean DOES smoke weed with kaia and apologizes for pulling a gun on her what more could you want in a fic

Command Me To Be Well by prospopeya (28k)

Dean did a lot of thinking about when and how he would get Cas back. Months of it, actually, stretching into a year, because while Sam and Eileen were settling into their new lives, Dean was stuck. He was stuck in a faraway corner of the bunker, dark and empty and hollow, ringing with the sound of a vibrating phone.

So when he falls to his knees in that same room, exhausted, hurting, breathless, and he feels a hand on his shoulder and looks up to see Cas, he realizes that he doesn't have a single clue about what to do now. Getting Cas out had been easy--actually, it'd been the opposite of that--but the planning of it, the methodical desperation of one attempt after the other had been a familiar rhythm. It'd been soothing almost, solid, something to focus on that wasn't Cas's eyes, watery and jubilant in a way Dean hadn't ever seen that up close on anyone, let alone Cas.

And now Cas is pulling him to his feet, and Dean's stumbling, and he instinctually grabs Cas's arm, and his hand lights up with a fire that he isn't prepared for.

"Hello, Dean."

oh post despair lack of communication....oh dean refusing to work through his feelings...this fic is incredible i love it everyone who enjoys dean doing everything in his power to avoid talking about feelings up to and including having sex with the guy who’s in love with him multiple times should read this

break the skin (to break the barriers) by sobsicles (29k)

The first time she meets him, he's nothing more than an almost-missed appointment.

SOBSICLES TATTOO FIC MY BELOVED. dean grieving and getting tattoos and it turns into tattoo therapy. im SO in love with mitzi it’s insane. requires some suspension of disbelief for how long a tattoo takes but it’s an incredible fic and an unparalleled experience. sobsicles does not miss

ascend by quiettewandering (53k)

Something in the world is wrong.

Demon activity is rising where mysterious black substance oozes and unusual ecological events are shaking the world. Dean, grief hanging on his shoulders, restlessly searches for answers that might lead him to the Empty… and to Cas.

But what Chuck wrote can’t be undone. The narrative thread pulls Dean along, forcing him to comply. Because once a story already has an ending, it can’t be rewritten.

Or can it?

SUPER cool concept i liked this a lot i’m pretty sure everyone’s read it already but just in case someone hasn’t you absolutely should

oh sooner or later it all comes down to faith by sobsicles (62k)

Getting used to Heaven is something of a marvel. It ain't perfect, and Dean thinks he'd hate it if it was, which is probably why it isn't.

~~~

"You don't understand," Dean whispers, exhaling shakily. "I know you don't, because even I don't. The instant you were gone, I wanted you back. Cas, I wanted you back. I wanted—I wanted—"

Cas stares at him, searching his face. After a moment, his own face falls slack, eyes widening just so. "Oh," he breathes out.

Dean wants to be furious that Cas has figured it out before he has—whatever it is—but he's not even that surprised. Cas knows him too well, always has, even more than Dean knows himself. He's been kicking Dean in the goddamn teeth with how deeply he understands him, even about the things Dean doesn't, ever since they first met. You don't think you deserve to be saved, that's what Cas had said. All bundled up in impossibilities and power, this being that looked at Dean Winchester and knew every single inch of him, as if he had a right to each part.

"What?" Dean grits out.

"I love you, too."

the ONLY heaven fic. i do not read heaven fics bc i refuse to budge in my finale denialism i refuse to read fic where it is accepted that dean dies. i was hesitant to read this but god im glad i did it was so good. literally the best possible outcome of dean dying

Endverse

final fantasy. by orange_crushed (1.9k)

“If I’d actually been born human, would I have gotten sick like everyone else? Would I be running around gnawing on the neighbors?” Castiel tilts his head up and even from here Dean can see the black ring of his pupils, wide and dark as dead stars. He’s high as fuck and he’s been loading the guns for forty-five minutes. He stares into the space where Dean is. He smiles and shows his teeth. “Maybe you’d have already put a bullet in my head.”

"This is why you don’t lead storytime anymore," Dean says. "This kind of shit."

endverse last night on earth fics are something that can be so personal actually. god

The Last Song by Moorishflower (3.5k)

The very last song is the Song of Solomon, and Castiel sings it only for Dean. Set in "The End."

this is like. pre endverse and the tone is so like. wistful? is the best word ive got? it’s gorgeous i love it but fair warning there is graphic description of like. viscera and infected wounds

to think that we could stay the same by cipherwriter (6.5k)

cas has all he needs; himself, his creation, and enough power to continue this cycle for a long time. he's fine. dean wants to take care of him anyway.

oh my GOD this one is good it’s based off the thing of how originally endverse cas was supposed to be just sitting in a room killing and resurrecting the same cockroach over and over. very bittersweet at some points i love it a lot, do not read it if youre looking for something happy though lmao

the first church at the end of the world by withbloodstainedclothingon (11k)

The angels don’t eat the brain. Only Croats do that.

this one is fucked but it’s incredible it contains very heavy and violent subject matter and cas is an Actual cult leader he doesn’t just have orgies it is SO well done and i had a great time reading it i recommend it very highly if the warnings sound like something you can stomach

Down to Agincourt by seperis (1.1 million. i know. yes it’s a wip)

There is no such thing as a guarantee when it comes to war.

The outcome's known. Why try? Return your rusty sword to battered sheath, bow your head and bend your stubborn knee. Why take the field when you cannot win the war? But Harry -- he went down to Agincourt.

PLEASE. i know the length is intimidating i KNOW it’s a very long fic but please. please read down to agincourt i am begging you. head in my HANDS this series is incredible.

Non Supernatural AUS

Long-Term Relationship by bendingsignpost (2.7k)

Castiel says, budging over to make room for Dean on the couch, “I thought we should have a serious talk about our relationship.”

Reflexively, Dean laughs.

Castiel does not.

“Uh, Cas... you know we’re not dating, right?”

look man it’s bendingsignpost okay. it’s bendingsignpost it’s good and it’s sweet and you should read it

One White Lie by komodobits (11k)

Castiel takes a deep breath and rings the doorbell. He doesn’t need to run through what he’s going to say – he’s already planned and edited and rehearsed it a thousand times. He is going to ask Dean Winchester out to dinner. If it’s not too forward, he’ll say, perfectly charming. You see, I’ve seen you around the neighbourhood and you always seem so earnest and I’d really like to get to know you bette— The door swings open, and Castiel panics.

He intends to excuse himself. He means to apologise and come back some other time. However, in a moment of blind fear, what comes out of his mouth instead are the words, “Could you spare a moment for Jesus Christ?”

do you ever pretend to be a jehovahs witness for months to hang out with the guy you like because you fucked up asking him out? yeah.

separate ways and sleeping dogs by sobsicles (53k)

Dean is three years sober when Cas comes back into town.

~~~

For a moment, they just stare at each other. Dean, once again, has to swallow the urge to offer to swallow something else. It's very hard to resist the gut-wrenching pull of want that hooks in his chest whenever he looks at Cas. And to think, he used to have him, used to be able to act on that want.

God, he's so fucking stupid.

Well, there's no point in kicking himself three years later for shit he can't change. He'll just sit right here and pretend that his fingers aren't twitching with the urge to reach out and touch. He can't do that anymore, and it's his own damn fault.

"Three years ago," Cas prompts.

Dean huffs a weak laugh. "Yeah. Eventful."

this fic hit me SO hard emotionally oh my god. don’t have much to say bc most of my thoughts on this fic are very personal but my god read this please

Everyone’s a Critic by Englandwouldfall (109k)

The one where uninspired chef Dean Winchester has a one night stand with the male (!) food critic who described the flavour of his garlic bread as 'closeted' and accidentally ends up dating him to try and prove that he's a kick ass chef, thank you very much.

(He may have a point about the 'closeted' thing).

this one is SO fun. dating the food critic who called your garlic bread closeted and lying about your career because you’re embarrassed and you want to redeem your food in his eyes but then you fall in love with him

Non Destiel Centric

gender? you mean that thing i have that pisses people off? by bigender dean winchester (homosexualitie) (946 words)

sam and dean paint each other's nails and dean abuses the technicalities of her gender. what more could you want? 

HELLO HE/SHE DEAN COMMUNITY oh my god the pure rush of euphoria reading this. oh my god. oh my god. 

the quiet road to a distant city by rottingbrains (1.2k)

Sam stares out the windshield again. They’re approaching a city, and she can see the lights in the distance. She’s past the danger zone, and she feels like the world around her reflects that in some way she can’t put into words- as if God is telling her that it’s okay. She did the right thing, and soon she will be past the lonely unknown and into the warm, forgiving light of acceptance. Or something. Come to think of it, the lights only look warm from far away, and she knows that the actual city will seem far less welcoming. Still. Best not to imagine the worst when it’s already going well.

required reading for transfem lesbian sam fans. fics that live in your ribcage to make your heart feel good

Four People Ruby Seduced & One She Actually Fell For (Or: Ruby's Epic Love Affair with Humanity in General and Sam in Specific) by tuesday (3.7k)

In which Ruby has a lot of sex, is not any kind of therapist that would be legal, and helps a few people out for her own reasons. (S4/S5 AU)

for everyone out there who enjoys ruby being a girlboss <3

Fractured Link by Trell (orphan_account) (5.5k)

Meg goes on, resolute despite the way Dean flinches, "He likes me. He likes me a lot, and I like him back, and that's probably good enough for both of us. But fuck me for saying so, Dean-o, he loves you, probably more than anything else on his daddy's green Earth, and you need to man up and give back what Clarence over there has been devoting to you for years."

this is meg/dean/cas which is not smth i really seek out but this was extremely good. set in s7 so it’s meg and dean and honey cas and it’s a lot of dean figuring his shit out and trying to forgive cas and i love meg a lot in this

#spn #supernatural #destiel #deancas #mine

[sunflowersturn]

I'm curious as to what your rating for the lincarnations is, from who you like the least to who you like the most?

Oh man you’re really gonna make me do it aren’t you?

Okay please keep in mind that I love all the Lincarnations very, very much but I haven’t seen all of them, like Usnavi and Alvie, so they have to stay off my list for the moment. Same goes for his SNL sketches (Cody Shuck and Dale Sweeze my beloveds, who I know only through @weshallbegolden ‘s beautiful fics).

So that leaves four boys, and I love them all, but in order from oh you precious baby to I would die for him your honor, here we go:

Alexander Hamilton: I love the boy but I have so many mixed feelings about what he did to his wife and family. My guy. Why. At least Say No To This slaps and is the hottest number in the damn musical

David Santiago: I have this weird thing where if someone is visibly more interested in a character than I am I kind of back off mentally so in my head David Belongs to Serpzie lmao, but I still love the golden child very much.

Lee Scoresby: I have a thing for fictional dads and Lee falls into this category by sheer virtue of his love for Lyra. He can also be very Daddy if you know what I mean. 👀 He and Hester are The Best and everyone who writes them on tumblr just does them so well (including you)

Jack the Lamplighter: he started my whole Lin hyperfixation and out of everyone probably has the maximum potential for fluff and that’s really my jam and butter when it comes to fandom content. I also just love the whimsical source material and how magical Jack himself is. 💖

Special mentions go to Vivo, which I’ve been obsessively watching over the past week, and his cameos like the moon dance diner chef 💖

[brodependent]

you’d break your heart to make it bigger [finale fic]

They keep each other sane.

The noble size and beauty of their bodies, even when they were infants, betokened their natural disposition; and when they grew up, they were both of them courageous and manly, with spirits which  courted apparent danger, and a daring which nothing could terrify. . .

[something broke between them]

“In mythology, one brother always kills the other, just like he said. I never knew that was Chuck, over and over…waiting for us to come along and live out his version of the story.”

“Joke’s on him. What kind of story are we?”

“A damn good one.”

When Remus knew of the deceit, he was enraged, and as Romulus was digging a trench where his city's wall was to run, he ridiculed some parts of the work, and obstructed others. At last, when he leaped across it, he was smitten (by Romulus himself, as some say), and fell dead there.

Romulus buried Remus,

.

You always put me first.

.

They build a greenhouse the year after Jack goes skyward because, why not, Sammy? You could grow your own rabbit food, and the next thing you know Sam’s trying his hand at eggplant. The crop doesn’t get on very well, but they don’t chalk it up to lack of heroes’ luck or human frailty, they just eat the streaky little things grilled on top of steak-rounds. Dean says steak makes everything better—

[Every story has been told better than theirs, because they kept pulling at the seams of all the scenes, and that fucked things up.]

.

Sam likes to think he knows the difference between Dean and Chuck’s Dean. Or, more to the point, that he knows how his Dean was always himself, fighting against the walls of a prison they couldn’t see. They’re both like that, really. They both keep trying to get out, or get in, or go home.

And twenty years ago, a frightened boy was waiting for hours outside in the dark. California didn’t know what to do with him.

Sam didn’t let him in, then.

Sam didn’t know he had to.

.

Cain said to Abel his brother: Let us go forth abroad.

“Easier than I thought it would be,” Sam says. “Putting it all behind us.”

Dean squints at him. “And you’re the broody one.”

“Oh, like hell,” Sam says, and then—wryly triumphant—“See? Comparing—”

For all that pretended optimism, they have their little despairs. The vengeful spirit in Manitowoc that misses Dean’s throat by a millimeter with its talons. The weird case of strep that takes Sam out for a week and drags old hallucinations out of their cages. The weight of a gun, some days, is just too heavy.

I know where I am at my best.

[Dean’s Sam never forgets that November 2nd means Jess, too.]

[Sam’s Dean is the one who still knows how to laugh.]

And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and slew him. And the Lord said to Cain: Where is thy brother Abel? And he answered, I know not: am I my brother’s keeper? And he said to him: What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth to me from the earth.

.

“I’m tired, Sammy.”

He’s forty-four years old.

.

They keep each other sane. The ghosts in the bunker don’t need to be chased away with iron and salt; they need to be managed, which is the same thing some people call grief. A lot of people died in here, a lot of people walked out and never came back. They go to Lawrence in the summertime; the family they saved in 2006 is many states away now, and there’s no more disquiet in the old house.

Tree’s still there, though. The crooked one in the photograph that Sam dreamed of when he had no idea what was running through his veins and whispering behind his eyes.

“There’s nobody who remembers us here,” Dean says, quiet. “I used to…I used to keep track of Lawrence as the place I’d lived longest. Four years. Barely a chip off of anything, now.”

“But we still ended up in Kansas,” Sam points out. “Winchester roots go deep, I guess.”

“Deeper than God’s,” Dean says, which is the first time he’s referenced all that in ages.

.

Don’t you ever think that there is anything, past or present, that I would put in front of you.

.

“Hey, Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“You called Eileen lately?”

.

[I wish we could leave them in a state of unknowing, let them die of soft old age without realizing that death had even come from inside their weakening bones. But it would be cowardly, no matter how beautiful, to close on the yellow circles of lamplight, the smell of old books, the dust of the open road. Don’t all these things belong to them, no matter where they go? Don’t they have to try for something else?

Don’t they have to keep trying?]

.

Did I ever tell you? That night that I came to you at school? You know dad hadn’t come back from his hunting trip? I must’ve stood outside your dorm for hours. Because I didn’t know what you would say. I thought you’d tell me to get lost or get dead. And I didn’t know what I would’ve done….if I didn’t have you.

Sam’s Dean can’t live or die alone. It’s one of his endearing vices. Sam’s Dean was never allowed to be a child, so he had to become his own man. He made it about halfway there.

His brother—

It’s OK. I’m here. I’m not gonna leave you.

.

They weren’t like other people. God made them to be his playthings; he used to try to sit back and watch them dance. But they weren’t like other playthings, and then it was over, and they were still there.

You and me.

.

Sam’s Dean needed to let him go. He knew he had to die to do it. He tried that out a hundred times, dying. He’s all right with it now. He likes to think what a future holds for Sam. He’s thinking of this on a winding road, in the graveyard dirt, in the coffin, in the kitchen, in the part of heaven where they make you wait for hope.

I need you tell me it’s OK.

Dean’s Sam was just Sam, his own Sam, and then a Sam beloved by other people. On and on, those who’d known him when the world did, and those who were born and raised hereafter. That’s a good life for a boy who could have been king of hell twice over, and yet chose to stay on earth.

.

You can go now.

[I hope you know, they’re going home.]

#sam n dean #winchesters #sam winchester #dean winchester #my fanfic #mythology #abstract style #fanfic #spn fanfic #not wincest #supernatural #spn #spn finale

[laffiteslanding]

So, Mary Poppins Returns...

SPOILERS AHEAD

Things I liked:

- Dick Van Dyke is a national treasure and his cameo was beautiful. You can feel the love and joy radiating off of him, and the fact that he can still move like that is incredible.

- Jane Banks: Badass Union Organizer

- The traditional animation looked gorgeous

- General sense of optimism is mostly carried over from the first film

- Admiral Boom is just a really fun character every time he’s on screen.

Things I didn’t like:

- Far too many action scenes. In traditional musicals the big music and dance sequences are the equivalent of big set pieces in action films. Here the action interrupted the plot and seemed to take away from time that could have been spent building characterization or expanding some dance numbers.

- That animated chase scene is the worst offender of those sequences. It left me confused and with a bad case of tonal whiplash. Plus the way the scene is written, it seems like Mary Poppins either deliberately puts the kids in danger or knows it’s a real possibility. Either way, it’s not in her character to do that, and it caused a mental break from the world’s reality.

- The structure was incredibly reminiscent of the first. It was like they took the outline of the original and just plugged in new names and songs. This, along with the next point, leave this film feeling emotionally empty with a climax that rings hollow.

- You wouldn’t know this was during the Great Depression if they didn’t tell you. This could have been a great contrast to the joy Mary Poppins brings, and feels strange and like a missed opportunity. It’s just oddly dismissed and belittled outside a few throwaway lines.

- General characterization of Mary Poppins, Jack, and Michael. Jack felt like a Bert-lite or fan-fiction self insert. He was less of a character, more of a plot device. Lin deserves better.

- Michael started out feeling like a unique character, but became more and more a shadow of his father. This could have been an interesting arc, but we don’t spend enough time with him for his characterization to be anything beyond “I’m sad because my wife died” when they reach the climax. He gets a little more character development afterward, but it’s rushed and feels incomplete.

- As for Mary Poppins, I actually think Emily Blunt did a decent job with the character, but way she was written felt a bit off. She explains too much, gives backstory, and performs a weirdly sexual vaudeville number in front of cartoons and little kids. She also seems to have a weird thing for endangerment, first with the kids in the vase, then with the lamplighters for no particularly good reason.

- We also seem to get too many scenes of Mary’s frame of mind. She’s become a main character when she’s supposed to be an instigator or catalyst for the main characters to grow (think the issues with Jack Sparrow in the Pirates sequels) When we see her smiling saying “Off we go!”, we know things are going to be fine. There’s no tension or mystique about Mary Poppins in this one, and she needs that edge lest she become a shallower character.

- An example of this ruined mystique: the kids ask Mary to do something magical or fun and we’re generally supposed to be unsure of her reply. Every single time in this film she tells them “yes” and you can see it coming from a mile away. In short, Mary Poppins is become predictable when in actuality, you shouldn’t be able to predict what she’ll do. That’s a crucial part of the Poppins’ magic they’re leaving out.

- Songs were fine, and even catchy at times, but far too derivative. I shouldn’t be able to say “oh, this is this movie’s “Step in Time” or “Spoonful of Sugar””, at least not if the movie wants to have its own identity or try something new.

- Weak villain motivation. Why does Colin Firth hate the Banks family so much? And why them specifically? Did they steal all the toffee candy from him when he was a child?

- As stated previously, the lack of a solid emotional climax. I felt charmed at times, but you have to have that moment where everything you’ve seen before comes together to create a truly beautiful moment. In the original, it’s the one-two punch of Bert’s conversation with Mr. Banks and Mr. Banks’ epiphany at the bank, and here it’s....? I think it’s supposed to be the children singing to their father that he should cheer up because they are all there and their mother lives in them? But the moment comes off a bit weird and disconnected from the previous scenes. Definitely not as powerful as it should be.

- “The past is the past/it lives on as history/and that’s an important thing/The future comes fast/Each second a mystery/For nobody knows what/Tomorrow may bring” is a bit better than last year’s “Let the past die”, but still seems dismissive given that the whole movie is one huge nostalgia trip. Disney - either embrace the fact you’re selling nostalgia or make something that’s actually new. You can’t have it both ways.

- The built-in “you need to remember how to be a child” counter-argument the movie provides. In context it made sense for Michael, so that was fine, but it also seemed addressed at potential backlash for being a sequel to a beloved classic. And that’s just plain old emotional manipulation.

- Above all, the fact that this was a stealth remake/reboot in the form of a sequel. Which would have been fine, if they had called it that. But because they billed it the way they did, Disney invites comparison to the original, and this in my mind did not live up. It was still good, but it was far from great.

#mary poppins returns #mary poppins #disney #films #feedback

[keepingupwithlinmanuel]

Lin-Manuel Miranda on ‘Mary Poppins Returns,’ Taking ‘Hamilton’ to Puerto Rico, and the ‘In the Heights’ Movie

While many actors on the press circuit use platitudes like “unforgettable” to describe their experiences working on a movie, Miranda literally means it; After watching a rough cut of Poppins in February, his wife went into labor. “My wife was nine months pregnant. We watched the movie, had lunch and she went into labor with our second child. So I will always associate this movie with that very special day. It was incredible moment in our lives.”

The red carpet, star-studded event, drew stars Emily Blunt (Mary Poppins) and Miranda (Jack), as well as Rob Marshall (director/producer), David Magee (screenwriter), Marc Platt (producer), Marc Shaiman (composer/songwriter/co-lyricist), and Scott Wittman (co-lyricist). There were also plenty of celebrities in attendance to preview the beloved sequel – from John Leguizamo to Martha Stewart. “It’s so exciting to see anything that he does,” said Leguizamo, who attended the event with his daughter Allegra. “The man is brilliant. He brings a new voice and a new sound.”

...

It’s a gift that Miranda made sure to bring to his favorite New York neighborhood of Washington Heights, holding a screening at the historic uptown theater United Palace. “It was the best part of the process,” he added. “To bring it to United Palace [theater] on 175th Street and to bring back movie-going there. I helped contribute to the screen and the HD projector that they have. It felt like the closing of a circle. To premiere a film that I made there was like a dream come true.”

In Mary Poppins Returns, Miranda plays Jack, a character akin to Dick Van Dyke’s Bert from the original 1964 classic Mary Poppins. Jack, like Bert, is Poppins’ wingman and goes on adventures with the Banks children. As Lin-Manuel puts it,“Mary Poppins is authentically back to take care of the Banks children, but she is also really there to take care of Michael and Jane Banks.” Unlike Bert, a composite of several characters from PL Travers’ stories, Jack is a character specifically invented for Miranda by director/producer Marshall and screenwriters. “They thought of a Jack of all trades. So, [they decided] let’s call him Jack,” said Miranda, whose character is roughly the same age as the adult Michael J. Banks.

As Lin-Manuel tells it, the character of Jack is similar to Usnavi, the protagonist of his break-out Broadway show In the Heights – which is where Marshall first saw him acting at the Richard Rogers Theater.“Usnavi is a lot like Jack,” Miranda points out. “He’s a streetlight [literally and figuratively] as someone who illuminates his neighborhood. And then there’s Jack, who’s literally a lamplighter. He’s the guy who brings light to London in the darkness. It’s a metaphor for what he does in the film and it’s his job description.”

Movie fans will be excited to hear that Jack has his own line of toys. “What was weird and cool was that there is a Barbie doll of me and the next day there was a Funko doll, so not one, but two toys. I remember the surreal experience when the Moana dolls first came out – and those were characters that we helped create but this is on a whole other level.”

With the film’s anticipated success, we can predict a sequel to follow. “If Rob is in, I’m in,” Miranda says hypothetically, quipping “I can play a 90-year-old Jack [as Van Dyke did as Mr. Dawes Jr].”

...

Simultaneously, Miranda is working on the film version of his hit In the Heights, which is currently in casting mode and will be shot in its entirety in Washington Heights. Mirada hopes to cast Latino legends and Latino talent no one has heard of. “Everything that currently happens in the streets of Washington Heights, will happen on the streets of In the Heights,” he confirmed. That means the movie will be “smartly updated for 2018-2019,” tackling hot topics like gentrification and immigration head-on.

So far, the role of Abuelita has not been secured (award-winning Boricua actress Rita Morena had previously been reported to be taking the role). “What a beautiful rumor,” said Miranda who affectionately calls her Titi Rita. “She’s an in-demand actress. I don’t know if it will happen.”

[Image source: LinMiranda.com]

#lin manuel miranda #mary poppins #in the heights #remezcla #interviews

[letterboxd]

Icon.

Our world was calm, well ordered, exemplary. Then we met the stars and director of the new sequel Mary Poppins Returns to discuss the legacy of the original, how to follow in Julie Andrews’ footsteps and rapping in a Disney movie.

Even in an era when seemingly every single film exploits something we cherish from childhood, it still feels brazenly sacrilegious to even attempt to sequel-ize Mary Poppins (1964), the iconic and timeless Disney movie.

One of the most universally beloved children’s films of all time, Mary Poppins is deeply imprinted on multiple generations of movie-goers, many of whom spent much of their childhood wishing (or indeed, believing) that Mary Poppins was their nanny.

To tread on such hallowed movie ground is risky indeed, but everyone involved in Mary Poppins Returns seems to realize that, and a great deal of care and attention has been applied to the new film to ensure it honors the original while captivating contemporary audiences.

The film gained a huge amount of instant goodwill from the casting of its title character. Few would argue that there’s anybody better suited to follow in Julie Andrews’ footsteps than Emily Blunt, who is an utter delight in the role. She doesn’t simply “do” Andrews, instead bringing her own flavor to the character, who returns to London to assist in the grown-up lives of her charges from the first film: Michael and Jane Banks, now played by Ben “voice of Paddington” Whishaw and Emily Mortimer, both also fantastic.

The film was directed by Rob Marshall, who in addition to helming 2003 Best Picture Oscar winner Chicago, also previously worked with Blunt on the 2014 adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s Into The Woods.

Emily Blunt as Mary Poppins.

Joining Blunt in Mary Poppins Returns is musical man of the moment Lin-Manuel Miranda, making his first major big-screen appearance since the phenomenal success of his Broadway smash Hamilton. Miranda is a great student and practitioner of musicals. He wrote many of the beloved songs from the Moana soundtrack, and you can check out his five favorite movie musicals here.

In Mary Poppins Returns, Miranda plays a cockney lamplighter named Jack, revealed to be an apprentice of Bert, Dick Van Dyke’s character from the first film. Well, one of them. In one of many winsome musical numbers, Miranda performs in the the rap-meets-Broadway style he popularized with Hamilton. Rapping. In a Disney movie. Try not to faint.

All the songs are pretty fantastic. They were written by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, whose most famous collaboration was the hit Broadway musical Hairspray. Richard B. Sherman, the surviving half of iconic songwriting team the Sherman Brothers (who wrote the songs for Mary Poppins, among other iconic films), is a musical consultant on the film.

The result? Mary Poppins Returns won’t be destined for The Place Where Lost Things Go.

A man has dreams, and Letterboxd’s Dominic Corry had one of his come true when he got in a room in Beverly Hills with Blunt, Miranda and Marshall (and some other press) to discuss the film.

On the pressure of following up such a beloved movie: Rob Marshall: I thought to myself when this came my way, “if anybody is gonna do it, I would like to do it”. It was incredibly daunting at first of course, but I wanted to be able to, in an odd way, protect the first film and treat this film with great care and love. Musicals are very difficult to do, an original musical, there are so many layers to it, but with this one, creating an original musical from scratch was actually for me a dream, and I’ve never done it before and to be able to create it with this beautiful company was exactly what I was hoping for. The guiding message of this film about finding light in the darkness is honestly what drew me to it and kept guiding me throughout the whole process including until this very moment, when people are actually now seeing the film. And I’m just speaking for myself, but I feel people need this film now. I knew that I wanted to live in that world and be part of sending that message out into the world now of looking for hope and light in a dark time.

On how Emily Blunt came to the role: Emily Blunt: I got a voicemail from Rob, who is my dear friend and we have known each other a long time, and the voice mail certainly had a sort of charged energy to it. I was like, “Oh my God, what is it? What is this project?” And when he called me, he said, “We’ve been digging through the Disney archives and by far their most prized possession.” And I was like “What, what is that?” And when he said Mary Poppins, I thought the air changed in the room.

It was so extraordinary, such an extraordinary, rather unparalleled moment for me because I was filled with an instantaneous “yes”, but also with some trepidation, all happening simultaneously in that moment because she is so iconic. She had such a big imprint on my life and on everyone’s lives, you know? People hold this character so close to their hearts. And so how do I create my version of her? What will my version of her be? No one wants to see me do a sort of cheap impersonation of Julie Andrews because no one is Julie Andrews. And so she should be preserved and treasured in her own way for what she did. I knew this was going to be something that I wanted to take a big swing with and I knew I could do it with this man who is the most emboldening, meticulous, brilliant director in the world and I was in safe hands with him. However much I knew I had my work cut out for me.

Rob Marshall and Emily Blunt on set.

On how Blunt sought to differentiate her Mary Poppins from Julie Andrews’ take on the character in the 1964 film: EB: What I decided to do, even though I’d seen it as a child, was not watch the original so close to shooting our version, I think probably because she is so beautiful and so extraordinary, I would have maybe tried to accommodate in some way, and let that sort of bleed into what I wanted to do. So I just decided to go on my gut instinct from the book because she is rather different in all of the books [by P.L. Travers].

If I’m going to carve out new space for myself, it was gonna have to be without watching the details of what Julie did so close to shooting. I have this searing memory of Mary Poppins, but not of all of the tiny details of how she played the character. And so as soon as we wrapped I watched the original. I was just floored by it, and probably relieved that I hadn’t watched it because I was all, “My god, she’s amazing!”.

On how Lin-Manuel Miranda came to be involved in the project: Lin-Manuel Miranda: I remember going to the midnight premiere screening of Chicago at the Ziegfeld Theater [in New York], and seeing the greatest modern movie musical I’d ever seen in my life. So when I got a call from Rob Marshall, and [choreographer] John DeLuca saying, “We’d like to talk to you about something,” that became an immediate priority.

They came to buy me a drink between shows. I was still in Hamilton at the time and I had a two-show day. So I finished the matinee, rolled across the street to the Paramount Hotel and I met them for a drink and they said, “Sequel to Mary Poppins,” and I said, “Who’s playing Mary Poppins?” And they said, “Emily Blunt,” and I said “Oh, that’s good”.

I can’t give them enough credit for seeing this role in me because there is no childlike wonder in Alexander Hamilton. He has a very traumatic early life. He goes on that stage and he wants to devour the world and he wants to move so fast and he wants to do everything, whereas Jack in this movie, as they pitched him to me, has this childlike sense of wonder. He’s in touch with that imagination you all see in your kids when they can sort of play in their own imagination for hours. Jack never lost that and that was I feel so humbled that [Rob] saw that in me. From that moment, from that drink, I was in. It came along at the perfect time for my family too, you know. We had finished a year of performing Hamilton and then I chopped my hair off and left the country and jumped into Mary Poppins’ universe. It was like, beautiful. On rapping in a Disney movie: LM: I would urge you to re-watch the first film. Because everyone who is like, “Wow, there’s rapping in Mary Poppins Returns,” forgets that Bert has a 30-second rap about all the women he dated before Mary Poppins. You’ve forgotten it, but Jolly Holiday is one big flirt between Mary and Bert.

Lin-Manuel Miranda (top center) as Jack.

On balancing reverence with innovation: RM: I really felt that everyone who was a part of this needed to have the first film in their blood in some way because that’s what we were following. I use myself as a barometer because I thought well, what would I want to see? If I came to a sequel to Mary Poppins I would want to see an animation sequence with live action and I would want it to be hand drawn in a 2D world. I would want Cherry Tree Lane to have a curve to it because that’s the Cherry Tree Lane we all know. It was as simple as that, although we were finding our new way. There were sort of goal posts or sign posts throughout that we needed to hold on to because it’s in the DNA of the material.

I knew there needed to be a big huge production number with athletic dancers with Mary and Jack, Jack leading the entire piece. That needed to be in there in some way. I would feel that if it wasn’t there we’ve gone off track. It was this insane balancing act of honoring the first film, but at the same time forging our own way. Marc and Scott were incredibly careful about making sure that we didn’t abuse using [musical] themes from the first film. It’s so easy to use. We used it in very strategic places throughout the film. Most of it actually very much at the end where we feel we’d earned it by then. And that’s what Marc was very careful about doing. I did feel that we were coming from the right place and that was the key.

‘Mary Poppins Returns’ is in cinemas from December 19.

#mary poppins #mary poppins returns #lin-manuel miranda #emily blunt #rob marshall #musical #musicals #interview #letterboxd #film

[glenngaylord]

BLUNT FORCE - My Review of MARY POPPINS RETURNS (5 Stars...But Not In My Galaxy)

As a child, I grew up with a mother who despised conventional Hollywood films.  She thought WEST SIDE STORY was corny.  She deemed THE SOUND OF MUSIC a bland bore, and MARY POPPINS made her gag on its spoonfuls of sugar.  A Disney-file she wasn’t, preferring instead a more adult diet of TAXI DRIVER, MIDNIGHT COWBOY and THE EXORCIST.  Call it motherly bias, but her attitude definitely colored my own perceptions with my own tastes drifting towards edgier fare.  

With that in mind, the original MARY POPPINS from 1964, despite its worldwide success, just never really did anything for me.  Call me a curmudgeon from the word go, but innocent children’s films bored me.  I’ll take NETWORK any day of the week over CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG.  PADDINGTON 2 proved an exception this year, but it’s artistically gorgeous and featured a highly relevant theme of immigration.

This brings us to MARY POPPINS RETURNS, the long overdue sequel directed by Rob Marshall (CHICAGO) and written by David Magee (LIFE OF PI).  If you loved the first, this film delivers everything you could possibly want - gorgeous songs, eye-popping visuals, great choreography, and a pair of flawless lead performances.  It’s, pardon the reference, practically perfect in every way, yet, once again, in the end, just not for me. Funny how both films served as a way to bury ones head in the sand as the world crumbled.  The original came in the aftermath of the Kennedy Assassination and the U.S. involvement in Vietnam.  The new one comes as a true monster occupies the most powerful position in the world.  Call me a buzzkill, but I didn’t need the escapement.  As Mary flitted about and the Banks children chirped like doe-eyed angels from British Central Casting, all I could think about was my hoping Mueller’s report would lead to impeachment and prison time.  I don’t need a Magical Nanny.  I need a hard-hitting Special Council investigation report!

I suppose context is everything,  Removing myself from current events and seeing MARY POPPINS RETURNS through the eyes of a child, it’s easily a masterpiece of its kind.  Set decades later than the first, Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt) returns to save the Banks family from losing their beloved home at No. 17 Cherry Tree Lane.  Grown-up siblings Michael and Jane Banks (Ben Whishaw and Emily Mortimer) find themselves on the brink of financial ruin and have been given a short amount of time by the evil bank owner William Wilkins (Colin Firth) to pay the overdue mortgage or end up in the streets.  Add Lin-Manuel Miranda as Jack, the kindly local lamplighter, who will do anything to help this family, and the wheels crank into motion, providing a classically molded cousin to the first film.  

Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman’s songs, all memorable, fit beautifully within the Disney model of pure melodies and innocent themes.  Every moment in the film feels like it has its companion scene from the original, with a lamp lighting sequence pinging on our memories of “Chim Chim Cher-ee” or a spectacularly animated scene reminding us of the famous “Penguin Dance”.  Yet, it’s not lazy.  This is a fully considered narrative which doesn’t redo the original, but, to quote the writer at the screening I attended, “rhymes with it”.  I have no doubt this film will enter the realm of beloved classic like its predecessor.  

Emily Blunt, who already has the best sleepy side-eye expression in the business, owns this film.  Assured and completely in charge of every moment, her Mary delivers withering glances, to-the-point orders, and dead-eyed one liners with expert timing. She can also sing and dance, putting her on the level with Andrews.  There’s an edge to her, a lack of cornball sentimentality which elevates the performance. Drag Queens have enough material here to fuel their acts for decades.  Are you listening Ru Paul?  Please have a Lip Sync For Your Life set to “Can You Imagine That”.  You’re welcome.

Miranda also proves himself a worthy successor to Dick Van Dyke, all beaming smiles, energetic dancing, and a guileless commitment to happiness.  Add a fun cameo by Meryl Streep as well as some lovely surprises and the film feels like a complete meal.  I even got teary-eyed in the last act, surrendering to this movie’s charms.  Rob Marshall truly knows the mechanics of a musical, always using the camera to swoop and reveal new information or enhance the feelings of elation.  

Again, this is a perfect film, but it’s also a brand I don’t love.  Why do most of the adults in this movie care so much about the Banks children?  They’re really wide-eyed, creepy and soulless, like one of those Keane paintings come to life.  If I were the neighborhood lamplighter, I’d stick to my job and not pile a bunch of brats and a mystical umbrella-flying fussbudget onto my bicycle, risking ones livelihood and life to save the day.  I’d more likely keep my head down and worry if my meager wages will pay my own damn bills.  MARY POPPINS RETURNS, like all of the films in the Disney canon, exists in the world of escapist entertainment, where to paraphrase the Emcee from CABARET, we should leave our troubles outside.  Nothing wrong with that.  Things are pretty awful right now, so I don’t blame people for wanting some blissful respite.  Me?  I take after my mom.  We resisted. The big bad ones out there want us to succumb to the distractions.  My mom wanted Julie Andrews to shut up so that she can hear the body count from Walter Cronkite, and I, while loving and appreciating the flawless care and craft that went into every second of MARY POPPINS RETURNS, just wanted to get right back to reading the Mueller Report.  

[carmineri]

Pixar Pier Review and Photo Tour

Pixar Pier is now open at Disney California Adventure in Disneyland Resort. In this post I’ll walk you through the new(ish) land, talk about what’s changed from its previous incarnation (Paradise Pier), and share my thoughts.

The former Paradise Pier is now split into two separate lands that still surround the same body of water, known as Paradise Bay. The area of Paradise Pier that ran along the southern and eastern boarders of Paradise Bay has been renamed to Pixar Pier. At the moment, the land doesn’t feature any new rides, but California Screamin’ and Mickey’s Fun Wheel have been rethemed to Incredicoaster (a roller coaster based on the Incredibles franchise) and Pixar Pal-A-Round. At some point next year, two more attractions will open; Jessie’s Critter Carousel (formerly King Triton’s Carousel), and Inside Out themed midway ride named Inside Out Emotional Whirlwind (which will be Flik’s Flyers relocated from the soon-to-close, “a bugs land”). Shops, restaurants, and boardwalk games have also been rethemed to match the new land.

The remaining chunk of Paradise Pier, located along the northern edge of Paradise Bay, is now called Paradise Gardens Park. Paradise Gardens Park is home to The Little Mermaid ~ Ariel’s Undersea Adventure,  Goofy’s Sky School, and other smaller attractions. Overall, not much beyond the name of the land has changed.

Near The Little Mermaid ~ Ariel’s Undersea Adventure and Pacific Wharf is the main entrance of Pixar Pier. Guests walk under an archway with the Pixar Pier logo. Disney has confirmed that later this year the “Pixar Lamp” will be added to this archway. As you walk up the path, on the right you’ll see the only table service restaurant in the land, Lamplight Lounge, which I will go over in an upcoming post. For now, here are some pictures of Lamplight’s food that we shared on our Twitter page:

Lamplight Lounge is Pixar Piers table service restaurant. Here is some of the food. Salmon PLT, Potato Skins, Carne Asada Roll, and donuts with raspberry dipping and hazelnut sauce pic.twitter.com/deXrTpV5Kp

— TouringPlans (@TouringPlans) June 23, 2018

  On the left is Knick’s Knacks gift shop. I’m not sure what kind of look they were going for with Knick’s Knacks, but it looks like a cross between a hotel gift shop and a front desk of an office building. On the plus side, some nice concept art from Pixar’s films line the walls. The shop sells the usual assortment of shirts, plush, toys, and art.

Next door is Adorable Snowman Frosted Treats, which sells soft-serve. Adorable Snowman’s signature flavor is lemon soft-serve, which is delicious and refreshing. The Pixar Pier Frosty Parfait (a Lemon Soft-serve with Blue Raspberry Swirl) is easily in my top 10 Disneyland Resort treats.

Continuing up the boardwalk and into Pixar Pier you’ll enter one of four “neighborhoods” that make up the land, with the first being Incredibles Park. Like California Screamin’ before it, Incredicoaster dominates the skyline. The coaster itself has the same layout and thrills as before, but now a story line has been introduced. Disney’s description:

Back in the town of Metroville… the local townspeople are dedicating their beloved roller coaster to the Incredibles as a symbol of gratitude for all their heroic efforts. Our honorees are thrilled to attend the inaugural “Incredicoaster” launch, accompanied by iconic super-suit designer Edna Mode, who’s graciously agreed to watch Jack-Jack. But things go awry when the unpredictable baby escapes from Edna’s not-so-watchful eye.

Jack-Jack manifests various superpowers while teleporting from tunnel to tunnel, causing chaos along the way. His family sprints into action to save the day and, just when they think they’ve got a handle on things, he disappears all over again!

Join the Incredibles in their mad dash to catch baby Jack-Jack as he wreaks havoc throughout every inch of this high-speed chase!

  Here’s a few pics from Incredicoaster. What do you think? #PixaPier pic.twitter.com/b9rbzZN7mv

— TouringPlans (@TouringPlans) June 23, 2018

The new story line is fine. Static figures of the Incredibles family have been added along the track, as well as some neat lighting effects, and a new soundtrack. None of these additions add or subtract from what was already a very good roller coaster, so if you were a fan before then you still will be now. I have the mention the queue area of Incredicoaster. It’s been redone and given a new sleek mid-century modern look that is a big upgrade over the previous version of the queue. At one point in the queue, a video plays where Violet has a particularly funny quote: “Sure, slap our names on an old ride.” Edna responds with “Quite normal, darling. Corporations call it synergy.”

Near the exit of Incredicoaster is Jack Jack’s Cookie Num Nums, a food cart selling fresh-baked cookies. The cookies are tasty, warm, and chewy. They’re also $6. A huge plus is that thanks to the cookie cart the area smells like fresh cookies. It’s intoxicating.

Moving on to the next area of the Pier, you will find Toy Story Boardwalk, home of the interactive dark ride Toy Story Midway Mania. Nothing has changed inside the ride, but the building’s roof sports a nice new blue paint job. Two food kiosks are also in this area; Poultry Palace, which serves fried chicken in nicely themed to-go boxes, and Senor Buzz Churros.  I enjoyed the chicken (and especially appreciated the nice to-go box) from Poultry Palace. But $10 for three drumsticks is way too much money.

Next to Toy Story Boardwalk is Pixar Promenade. This neighborhood is home to Pixar Pal-A-Round. The gondolas on the ferris wheel are now adorned with Pixar characters, and they look great. If you’ve never experienced Mickey’s Fun Wheel before we recommend giving it a try thanks to its spectacular views of the park. Just avoid the swinging side if you are easily made sick by rocking motion.

The best part about Pixar Promenade is the boardwalk games themed to various Pixar films and shorts. They feature some nicely done artwork, and have excellent prizes that are appropriately themed. Keep in mind that the games are an additional charge, $5 per a play. I especially liked the cute prizes for the La Luna game.

A food cart, Angry Dogs, sells the appropriately named Angry Dog, which is a Spicy All Beef Hot Dog for $7.99.

A small water feature is located in Pixar Promenade. A granite ball that looks like the Pixar Ball rotates with help from a water fountain underneath.

The fourth and final neighborhood is Inside Out Headquarters, which is incomplete as of this time. It will be home to the previously mentioned Inside Out ride and a candy store called Bing Bong’s Sweet Stuff Confectionery.

A canopy with various Pixar characters.

I’ll wrap this post up with some light criticism. I was never much of a fan of Paradise Pier. Personally, a land themed to a theme park, inside of a theme park, doesn’t do much for me. Pixar Pier doesn’t change that. The land is pretty much the same, except now it has a layer of Pixar paint on top of what was there.  I’ve seen many hardcore Disney fans/apologists brush off any criticism because Pixar Pier is meant to be “for families.” Almost like they’re saying the rest of DCA and Disneyland isn’t for families? I don’t understand the argument. Have you ever heard a family say that they hate Cars Land or Pirates of the Caribbean? Didn’t think so. Anyway, I’m equally as confused by the downright hatred the land has received from fans. Mostly because overall Pixar Pier isn’t worse than what was there before. I believe those tasked with designing and building Pixar Pier did the best they could with the budget and time they were given. There’s nothing downright hideous, Incredicoaster is still a great coaster, and the land still looks great at night. I will say this, Pixar movies are still special to me, and I think they are to most on the planet as well. I’m hoping at some point another Pixar movie gets an attraction that is similar to Radiator Springs Racers in terms of scope, scale, artistry, and fun.

What do you think about Pixar Pier? I’m especially interested to hear if the land made you more likely to book a trip this year to experience it. Let me know all your thoughts in the comments below.

        The post Pixar Pier Review and Photo Tour appeared first on TouringPlans.com Blog.

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[newtopmovietrailers-blog]

"Magic Bathtub" Featurette | Mary Poppins Returns

"Magic Bathtub" Featurette | Mary Poppins Returns

Lorene Porter - Movie Trailers - My Hollywood News

"Magic Bathtub" Featurette | Mary Poppins Returns, Pixar Trailers.

Hd Movie Trailers 1080p, New Disney Princess Movies, "Magic Bathtub" Featurette | Mary Poppins Returns.

Disney Movies 2017 Movie Trailers Fandango top Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment (incorporated as Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Inc. since 1997 and formerly known as Walt Disney Telecommunications & Non-Theatrical Company from 1980 to 1987 and eventually Buena Vista Home Video until 1997) is the home video distribution division of The Walt Disney Company. Disney began distributing videos under its own label in 1980 under the name Walt Disney Home Video.

How much are the movies on Disney anywhere?

Walt Disney Studios has debuted their new Disney Movies Anywhere online service and iOS app which allows users to buy Disney, Pixar, and Marvel movies and view them on multiple devices. Individual movies – from a catalog of over 420 films – will cost $19.99 each.

What is Mulan’s last name?

Although Mulan is set in north China, where the dominant language is Mandarin, the Disney film uses the Cantonese pronunciation, “Fa”, of her family name. In Mandarin her name is pronounced “Hua”.

Who runs Disney World?

Robert A. Iger is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company. As Chairman and CEO, Mr. Iger is the steward of one of the world’s largest media companies and some of the most respected and beloved brands around the globe.

See Mary Poppins Returns in theatres now! Get your tickets today:

In Disney’s “Mary Poppins Returns,” an all new original musical and sequel, Mary Poppins is back to help the next generation of the Banks family find the joy and wonder missing in their lives following a personal loss. Emily Blunt stars as the practically-perfect nanny with unique magical skills who can turn any ordinary task into an unforgettable, fantastic adventure and Lin-Manuel Miranda plays her friend Jack, an optimistic street lamplighter who helps bring light—and life—to the streets of London.

“Mary Poppins Returns” is directed by Rob Marshall. The screenplay is by David Magee and the screen story is by Magee & Rob Marshall & John DeLuca based upon the Mary Poppins Stories by PL Travers. The producers are John DeLuca, p.g.a., Rob Marshall, p.g.a. and Marc Platt, p.g.a. with Callum McDougall serving as executive producer. The music score is by Marc Shaiman and the film features all new original songs with music by Shaiman and lyrics by Scott Wittman and Shaiman. The film also stars Ben Whishaw as Michael Banks; Emily Mortimer as Jane Banks; Julie Walters as the Banks’ housekeeper Ellen; Pixie Davies, Nathanael Saleh and introducing Joel Dawson as the Banks’ children, with Colin Firth as Fidelity Fiduciary Bank’s William Weatherall Wilkins; and Meryl Streep as Mary’s eccentric cousin, Topsy. Angela Lansbury appears as the Balloon Lady, a treasured character from the PL Travers books and Dick Van Dyke is Mr. Dawes, Jr., the retired chairman of the bank now run by Firth’s character.

Twitter: Instagram: YouTube: Hashtag: #MaryPoppinsReturns

Disney Movies 2017 & Film Trailers, "Magic Bathtub" Featurette | Mary Poppins Returns.

Walt Disney has since created corporate divisions in order to market more mature content than is typically associated with its flagship family-oriented brands. The company is best known for the products of its film studio, Walt Disney Studios, which is today one of the largest and best-known studios in American cinema. Disney’s other three main divisions are Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, Disney Media Networks, and Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media. Disney Trailers 2018, "Magic Bathtub" Featurette | Mary Poppins Returns.

https://www.myhollywoodnews.com/magic-bathtub-featurette-mary-poppins-returns/

#MovieTrailers

#Movie Trailers

[vrsmith]

Mary Poppins Returns

The film is a sequel to the beloved film of yesteryear, Mary Poppins. I saw it as a child and the songs are forever in my heart. This film had moments of wonder, but not like the original. It was not supposed to be a remake. It was a story that took place when the Banks children have grown to adults and Michael has three kids of his own. The animation mixed with live action had fantasy magic for the younger audience, but the peril of the family losing their home was quite adult like. The leeries (lamplighters) did a fantastic dance, and the song that stuck with me was Nowhere to Go But Up. It’s my anthem for today’s times. Emily Blunt did a great Mary Poppins, her friend Jack played by Lin Manuel Miranda was endearing.

[mrmichaelchadler]

Why Mary Poppins Returns is Disney’s Best Reimagining to Date

“Can’t put me finger / on what lies in store / But I feel what’s to happen / all happened before.”—Bert (Dick Van Dyke) in “Mary Poppins”

Fifty-four years after its release, “Mary Poppins” remains the greatest Disney film of all time. Had “Mary Poppins Returns” been a mere remake of Robert Stevenson’s 1964 Oscar-winning classic, it would rightly be labeled a work of heresy. But what director Rob Marshall has pulled off here is more akin to James Bobin’s “The Muppets” or J.J. Abrams’ “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” Both of these gems achieved the seemingly impossible task of recapturing the appeal of the landmark crowd-pleasers from which they spawned, and that had evaded numerous imitators. Viewers who criticized Abrams for hewing too close to the formula of “A New Hope” failed to take into account just how monumental an achievement it was to make a film that felt like “Star Wars.” Even George Lucas couldn’t replicate his own signature blend of space opera and Saturday morning serials in his enervated prequel trilogy. With “Mary Poppins Returns,” Marshall has triumphed in making a film that—with the exception of its technological flourishes—feels like it could’ve been released in the 1960s, preferably as the first half of a double bill with this year’s similarly goofy “Christopher Robin.” No attempt is made to modernize the source material of P.L. Travers’ books or the Vaudevillian charm that characterized Stevenson’s film. On an aesthetic level, it is as transporting a throwback as Todd Haynes’ “Far from Heaven,” with every cobblestone of the Banks family’s street, Cherry Tree Lane, meticulously recreated in an indoor set, courtesy of ace production designer John Myhre.

“Finding Neverland” scribe David Magee loosely mirrors the beats of the original film in his screenplay, just as composer Marc Shaiman and his “Hairspray” co-lyricist Scott Wittman have created nine new songs that pay homage, in one way or another, to the unforgettable numbers by Robert and Richard Sherman—the melodies of which are interwoven throughout the score. So immortal were the songs in “Mary Poppins” that the Sherman Brothers themselves couldn’t equal them in either “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” or “Bedknobs and Broomsticks,” though both films went on to become widely beloved as well. How extraordinary it is to see, in 2018, a brand new old-fashioned musical, complete with an overture accompanied by paintings evocative of legendary matte artist Peter Ellenshaw. “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda channels the exuberance of Dick Van Dyke’s jack-of-all-trades Bert as lamplighter Jack, who opens the film with “(Underneath the) Lovely London Sky,” a stirring spin on “Chim Chim Cher-ee.” Playing the adult version of Matthew Garber’s Michael Banks, Ben Whishaw sings “A Conversation,” a poignant remembrance of his late wife, in the speak-singing style of Michael’s father (David Tomlinson), who once expounded about “The Life I Lead.” 

No actor in the history of cinema has possessed the indelible screen persona, let alone the pipes, of Julie Andrews, and a “Mary Poppins” film featuring her in any role other than the titular one would feel profoundly wrong. Andrews was entirely correct in turning down a cameo role, providing Emily Blunt the space needed to create her own version of the character. She is a complete delight—sweet, sardonic and more zesty than deadpan. Her singing voice may not hit Andrews’ high notes, but it is more than capable of belting “Can You Imagine That?” (the equivalent to “A Spoonful of Sugar” that kicks off the enchantment), “The Royal Doulton Music Hall” (an abbreviated “Jolly Holiday”), “A Cover Is Not the Book” (Mary and Jack’s irreverent tongue-twisting duet that tips its hat to “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”) and “The Place Where Lost Things Go” (a lullaby reminiscent of both “Stay Awake” and “Feed the Birds”). 

Meryl Streep delivers her best musical performance in ages as Topsy, Mary’s dotty cousin who, like Uncle Albert, has a supernatural conundrum in need of fixing, as detailed in “Turning Turtle” (a much more urgent number than “I Love to Laugh”). Jack and his fellow lamplighters’ big dance routine, “Trip a Little Light Fantastic,” is being pushed as an Oscar contender, though it’s not nearly as acrobatic or catchy as “Step in Time,” which was itself inspired by the British music hall anthem, “Knees Up Mother Brown.” My favorite song of them all is saved for last: “Nowhere to Go But Up,” a joyous companion piece to “Let’s Go Fly a Kite,” performed by living legend Angela Lansbury (who might as well be playing the grandmother of Eglantine Price, the benevolent witch she brought to life in “Bedknobs and Broomsticks”). 

By the time Lansbury materialized for the grand finale, I was already levitating in my seat. Had my critical faculties been rendered useless by the glorious imagery drawn frame-by-frame, thanks to a team of veteran animators who were brought out of retirement solely for the occasion? (The fact animated flowers initially leap from a bowl, after Mary’s spinning of it causes the designs on its rim to coalesce as in a zoetrope, is a brilliant touch.) Or was it the peerless casting of Julie Walters as Ellen, the Banks clan’s longtime maid who nails the accent of Hermione Baddeley, and David Warner as Admiral Boom, a hilarious yet less surly version of Jane and Michael’s delusional neighbor? Or perhaps it was the cameo by Karen Dotrice (the original Jane Banks), who shows up just long enough to utter her trademark line, “Many thanks, sincerely.” I have no doubt my love of the picture was increased exponentially by the marvelous appearance of Dick Van Dyke as Mr. Dawes Jr., the son of the banker he played incognito in “Mary Poppins.” Inhabiting that role in the original film was Arthur Malet, who went on to play Tootles in Steven Spielberg’s “Hook,” where he received his own opportunity to defy gravity just like Mr. Dawes, Sr. The 92-year-old Van Dyke does not soar through the air on wires in “Mary Poppins Returns,” but he does leap atop a desk and dance, a euphoric sight that had the crowd at my preview screening applauding. 

I’m reminded of a priceless story Van Dyke shared on the 40th anniversary DVD of “Mary Poppins.” “When I was playing the old man,” he recalled, “we would break for lunch, and on my way to the commissary, I liked to wait for the buses with the tourists to come along. Then I would start to cross the street. The bus would stop, and I would take forever to cross the road, turning toward the driver to say, ‘Thank you!’ Once the bus began moving on, I’d let it get 20 yards away before I’d pass it in a dead sprint, as fast as I could run.” That’s the same sort of childlike spirit that appears to have informed Marshall’s approach to this movie. It has the same kinetic pacing as the director’s sensational stage-to-screen adaptation, “Chicago,” and it could likely be transferred onto the stage without much alteration. What I admire most about the picture is its refusal to simply recycle what came before. It puts forth the effort to come up with new songs, set-pieces and emotional payoffs, rather than go through the motions of what had already been perfected. In an era where shot-for-shot duplicates are the new norm at Disney, “Mary Poppins Returns” stands as a definitive example of how to honor a masterpiece. “Mary Poppins” will always be irreplaceable, but this endearing tribute succeeded in making me feel like a kid again.

Header Photo Credit: Jay Maidment - © 2017 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

from All Content http://bit.ly/2Q2X2ZJ

[recentnews18-blog]

New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/why-emily-blunt-made-her-mary-poppins-weird-batty-and-incredibly-rude-the-daily-beast/

Why Emily Blunt Made Her Mary Poppins 'Weird,' 'Batty' and 'Incredibly Rude' - The Daily Beast

Early on in Mary Poppins Returns, Emily Blunt does something positively un-Mary-like while singing one of the magical sequel’s infectious new songs. While crooning about a rambunctious music hall, Blunt, as Mary, slides her voice. She growls.

Julie Andrews would never.

This isn’t to insinuate that Blunt isn’t practically perfect in every way, taking on the iconic role 54 years after Andrews sent her bottomless carpetbag to storage. It’s that, as Blunt explains after a screening of the film Monday night in New York alongside director Rob Marshall and co-stars Lin-Manuel Miranda, Emily Mortimer, and Ben Whishaw, she’s practically perfect in her way.

“I knew that taking on a role as iconic as this played by somebody as iconic as Julie Andrews, that I had my work cut out for me,” Blunt says. “But at the same time, I tried to approach it as fearlessly as possible, because she is such an extraordinary character.”

Blunt dove into P.L. Travers’s books, on which the 1964 Disney classic was based, and discovered that the character is remarkably different from the characterization Andrews so memorably brought to the original.

“She’s weird,” Blunt laughs. “And sort of batty. Really funny. Just so funny. And incredibly rude and acerbic. I just found her eccentricity just a delight. She is so enigmatic. She is mysterious. She doesn’t reveal her inner workings to anybody, which I find really intriguing and sort of delicious.”

Anyone familiar with director Rob Marshall’s work, which includes big-screen adaptations of Chicago and Into the Woods—not to mention the storied legacy of the original Mary Poppins production itself—should know to expect dazzling vibrancy in the new film’s set design, choreography, production value and costumes. In fact, it’s the nanny’s wardrobe that Blunt saw as a key to her take on the character.

“I feel like this coat I wear when I arrive, this blue coat which is quite austere and quite put together, and then the inside is this absolutely batty fluorescent orange lining,” she said. “And that’s her.”

Within minutes of revisiting the Banks children—the events of Mary Poppins Returns take place 25 years after the first, with Jane and Michael Banks all grown up, the latter with children of his own—Mary has them journeying through a bathtub drain to sing and dance (well, swim) under the sea. “Off we go!” she chirps with a knowing smile, whisking the youngest Bankses to an animated music hall, an upside-down repair shop presided over by Meryl Streep, and to a lamplighters’ grand production number.

“She’s like an adrenaline junkie going into these fantasias,” Blunt said. “It’s sort of her outlet, you know? I think that’s where she should explode. It’s where she laughs, it’s where you see her smile, it’s where you see her at her happiest. Because she’s got to be emblematic of childlike wonder, because it’s what she tries to infuse into their lives.”

The film makes you wait for Mary Poppins’ arrival, using the lead-up to her applause-earning entrance to set up the story’s emotional spine: Michael Banks (Ben Whishaw) lost his wife and mother to his three children, and, thanks to a defaulting loan, perhaps soon his cherished 17 Cherry Tree Lane house, too.

Not that the film’s opening is lacking in familiarity, greeting the audience with the instantly-recognizable imagery of a flickering lamplight.

It’s Lin-Manuel Miranda’s infectious smile and cockney rasp we meet next—one, with all due respect, considerably more refined than Dick Van Dyke’s spin on the dialect—as Jack, an apprentice of Van Dyke’s Bert who used to wave at the Banks children from the lamppost outside their window.

“There’s a different point of view waiting for you, if you just look up,” he sings in the opening number “Underneath the Lovely London Sky,” a warming morsel of advice for audiences watching in today’s cultural climate, as well as a clever tease to the flying nanny soon to make her way to the screen.

“I had an amazing research assistant in childlike wonder, which is my two-year-old son,” Miranda, speaking just 24 hours after receiving his special Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C., says. “We moved to London to make this movie and he was just gaining language and I was watching him power his own imagination by its own power. I give Rob a lot of credit for seeing me in this part, because when you think Hamilton, childlike innocence is not what you see on stage.”

The entire cast found surprising personal connections to their roles. For Whishaw, whose Michael is struggling to realize that the stressors on his life have forced his children to grow up far too fast, it was observing his own brother, a new, young father himself.

“I thought about him a lot, because I see how difficult it is and how stressful it is,” he says. “I could see my brother’s vulnerability. I see him as a child because I know him as a child. So I see that he’s a father, but he’s a kid.”

Mortimer’s Jane Banks has taken on the role of mother figure to Michael’s children, having not gotten married herself and feeling that, as she works on behalf of labor rights, that time in her life has passed her by. In researching the film’s time period of 1930s London, not long after the end of World War I, she learned something surprising about the legal limits placed on women.

“The women who had been taking all the jobs in the war effort had to be sort of got rid of somehow, so they introduced this law, this actual law, which said you couldn’t have a professional job and be married at the same time,” Mortimer said. “That really got to me.”

She found something heartbreaking about Jane, that she thought it would be safer for her to love everybody around her, going so far as to have a career in civil rights, instead of expecting love to come to her.

“It’s a much more whispering kind of help that Mary gives to Jane,” she said, alluding to one of the film’s more charming subplots. “But she helps her feel like she can look for love herself rather than give it.”

Several times during the conversation, Blunt alludes to Mary’s “enigmatic master plan,” what exactly it is that she hopes to accomplish with her meddling in each of the Banks’ lives. But when it comes to the film itself, a risky gamble coming all these decades after the beloved original, the goal is blessedly less of a mystery.

“We all felt we needed this film,” says Marshall. “To be able to go to work and put this message of this film out into the world now… And it became more important as we started to work on it, because the world got even darker and more fragile.”

“I know for certain the films that I grew up with like Mary Poppins, like The Sound of Music, like Oliver!, the films that meant so much to me gave me that sort of sense of seeing life with wonder and joy,” he continues. “It might sound like a trivial thing, but to me it’s everything. To me, it’s what life is.”

Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns hits theaters December 19.

Source: https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-emily-blunt-made-her-mary-poppins-weird-batty-and-incredibly-rude

[sunflowersturn]

Can I send multiple? HDM, Mary Poppins, Star Wars and OUAT

Oooh, okay, let's see if we can breeze through this. I haven't seen much more than like three episodes of OUAT so I can't pass judgement there, but here we go:

HDM:

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most): lee scoresby my beloved ❤️

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped): will parry, god bless that boy

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave): roger, my baby boy

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week): charles the librarian, oh how i miss thee

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave): marisa coulter. LOOK SHUT UP i just think she's so fun to watch because she's so fucking evil!!

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason): that dude who was literally tormenting will's mom

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell): asriel, that piece of shit

Mary Poppins:

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most): jack the lamplighter, obviously

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped): georgie banks, the cutest little boy on the entire planet

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave): michael banks, especially in returns because oh boy is he such a good dad.

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week): winifred banks, i love her to death, VOTES FOR WOMEN

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave): i love templeton fry, the good lawyer. very much in the wrong line of work

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason): fry's partner whose name i can't spell (courdry? something like that?)

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell): winslow, that piece of shit

Star Wars:

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most): obi-wan kenobi. your girl had a ewan mcgregor phase

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped): grogu ❤️❤️❤️

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave): i will wave the finn flag high until the day i die

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week): there was this one soldier in the rise of skywalker, you see...

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave): i'm somewhat of an anakin apologist after rewatching the prequels recently during my previously mentioned ewan mcgregor phase

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason): palpatine, just because i'd like to send him through the plinko machine

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell): jabba the hut, that piece of shit

#i tried to have a running joke #do you see what i did there #this was super fun though!!

[recentnews18-blog]

New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/why-emily-blunt-made-her-mary-poppins-weird-batty-and-incredibly-rude-the-daily-beast/

Why Emily Blunt Made Her Mary Poppins 'Weird,' 'Batty' and 'Incredibly Rude' - The Daily Beast

Early on in Mary Poppins Returns, Emily Blunt does something positively un-Mary-like while singing one of the magical sequel’s infectious new songs. While crooning about a rambunctious music hall, Blunt, as Mary, slides her voice. She growls.

Julie Andrews would never.

This isn’t to insinuate that Blunt isn’t practically perfect in every way, taking on the iconic role 54 years after Andrews sent her bottomless carpetbag to storage. It’s that, as Blunt explains after a screening of the film Monday night in New York alongside director Rob Marshall and co-stars Lin-Manuel Miranda, Emily Mortimer, and Ben Whishaw, she’s practically perfect in her way.

“I knew that taking on a role as iconic as this played by somebody as iconic as Julie Andrews, that I had my work cut out for me,” Blunt says. “But at the same time, I tried to approach it as fearlessly as possible, because she is such an extraordinary character.”

Blunt dove into P.L. Travers’s books, on which the 1964 Disney classic was based, and discovered that the character is remarkably different from the characterization Andrews so memorably brought to the original.

“She’s weird,” Blunt laughs. “And sort of batty. Really funny. Just so funny. And incredibly rude and acerbic. I just found her eccentricity just a delight. She is so enigmatic. She is mysterious. She doesn’t reveal her inner workings to anybody, which I find really intriguing and sort of delicious.”

Anyone familiar with director Rob Marshall’s work, which includes big-screen adaptations of Chicago and Into the Woods—not to mention the storied legacy of the original Mary Poppins production itself—should know to expect dazzling vibrancy in the new film’s set design, choreography, production value and costumes. In fact, it’s the nanny’s wardrobe that Blunt saw as a key to her take on the character.

“I feel like this coat I wear when I arrive, this blue coat which is quite austere and quite put together, and then the inside is this absolutely batty fluorescent orange lining,” she said. “And that’s her.”

Within minutes of revisiting the Banks children—the events of Mary Poppins Returns take place 25 years after the first, with Jane and Michael Banks all grown up, the latter with children of his own—Mary has them journeying through a bathtub drain to sing and dance (well, swim) under the sea. “Off we go!” she chirps with a knowing smile, whisking the youngest Bankses to an animated music hall, an upside-down repair shop presided over by Meryl Streep, and to a lamplighters’ grand production number.

“She’s like an adrenaline junkie going into these fantasias,” Blunt said. “It’s sort of her outlet, you know? I think that’s where she should explode. It’s where she laughs, it’s where you see her smile, it’s where you see her at her happiest. Because she’s got to be emblematic of childlike wonder, because it’s what she tries to infuse into their lives.”

The film makes you wait for Mary Poppins’ arrival, using the lead-up to her applause-earning entrance to set up the story’s emotional spine: Michael Banks (Ben Whishaw) lost his wife and mother to his three children, and, thanks to a defaulting loan, perhaps soon his cherished 17 Cherry Tree Lane house, too.

Not that the film’s opening is lacking in familiarity, greeting the audience with the instantly-recognizable imagery of a flickering lamplight.

It’s Lin-Manuel Miranda’s infectious smile and cockney rasp we meet next—one, with all due respect, considerably more refined than Dick Van Dyke’s spin on the dialect—as Jack, an apprentice of Van Dyke’s Bert who used to wave at the Banks children from the lamppost outside their window.

“There’s a different point of view waiting for you, if you just look up,” he sings in the opening number “Underneath the Lovely London Sky,” a warming morsel of advice for audiences watching in today’s cultural climate, as well as a clever tease to the flying nanny soon to make her way to the screen.

“I had an amazing research assistant in childlike wonder, which is my two-year-old son,” Miranda, speaking just 24 hours after receiving his special Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C., says. “We moved to London to make this movie and he was just gaining language and I was watching him power his own imagination by its own power. I give Rob a lot of credit for seeing me in this part, because when you think Hamilton, childlike innocence is not what you see on stage.”

The entire cast found surprising personal connections to their roles. For Whishaw, whose Michael is struggling to realize that the stressors on his life have forced his children to grow up far too fast, it was observing his own brother, a new, young father himself.

“I thought about him a lot, because I see how difficult it is and how stressful it is,” he says. “I could see my brother’s vulnerability. I see him as a child because I know him as a child. So I see that he’s a father, but he’s a kid.”

Mortimer’s Jane Banks has taken on the role of mother figure to Michael’s children, having not gotten married herself and feeling that, as she works on behalf of labor rights, that time in her life has passed her by. In researching the film’s time period of 1930s London, not long after the end of World War I, she learned something surprising about the legal limits placed on women.

“The women who had been taking all the jobs in the war effort had to be sort of got rid of somehow, so they introduced this law, this actual law, which said you couldn’t have a professional job and be married at the same time,” Mortimer said. “That really got to me.”

She found something heartbreaking about Jane, that she thought it would be safer for her to love everybody around her, going so far as to have a career in civil rights, instead of expecting love to come to her.

“It’s a much more whispering kind of help that Mary gives to Jane,” she said, alluding to one of the film’s more charming subplots. “But she helps her feel like she can look for love herself rather than give it.”

Several times during the conversation, Blunt alludes to Mary’s “enigmatic master plan,” what exactly it is that she hopes to accomplish with her meddling in each of the Banks’ lives. But when it comes to the film itself, a risky gamble coming all these decades after the beloved original, the goal is blessedly less of a mystery.

“We all felt we needed this film,” says Marshall. “To be able to go to work and put this message of this film out into the world now… And it became more important as we started to work on it, because the world got even darker and more fragile.”

“I know for certain the films that I grew up with like Mary Poppins, like The Sound of Music, like Oliver!, the films that meant so much to me gave me that sort of sense of seeing life with wonder and joy,” he continues. “It might sound like a trivial thing, but to me it’s everything. To me, it’s what life is.”

Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns hits theaters December 19.

Source: https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-emily-blunt-made-her-mary-poppins-weird-batty-and-incredibly-rude

[recentnews18-blog]

New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/why-emily-blunt-made-her-mary-poppins-weird-batty-and-incredibly-rude-the-daily-beast/

Why Emily Blunt Made Her Mary Poppins 'Weird,' 'Batty' and 'Incredibly Rude' - The Daily Beast

Early on in Mary Poppins Returns, Emily Blunt does something positively un-Mary-like while singing one of the magical sequel’s infectious new songs. While crooning about a rambunctious music hall, Blunt, as Mary, slides her voice. She growls.

Julie Andrews would never.

This isn’t to insinuate that Blunt isn’t practically perfect in every way, taking on the iconic role 54 years after Andrews sent her bottomless carpetbag to storage. It’s that, as Blunt explains after a screening of the film Monday night in New York alongside director Rob Marshall and co-stars Lin-Manuel Miranda, Emily Mortimer, and Ben Whishaw, she’s practically perfect in her way.

“I knew that taking on a role as iconic as this played by somebody as iconic as Julie Andrews, that I had my work cut out for me,” Blunt says. “But at the same time, I tried to approach it as fearlessly as possible, because she is such an extraordinary character.”

Blunt dove into P.L. Travers’s books, on which the 1964 Disney classic was based, and discovered that the character is remarkably different from the characterization Andrews so memorably brought to the original.

“She’s weird,” Blunt laughs. “And sort of batty. Really funny. Just so funny. And incredibly rude and acerbic. I just found her eccentricity just a delight. She is so enigmatic. She is mysterious. She doesn’t reveal her inner workings to anybody, which I find really intriguing and sort of delicious.”

Anyone familiar with director Rob Marshall’s work, which includes big-screen adaptations of Chicago and Into the Woods—not to mention the storied legacy of the original Mary Poppins production itself—should know to expect dazzling vibrancy in the new film’s set design, choreography, production value and costumes. In fact, it’s the nanny’s wardrobe that Blunt saw as a key to her take on the character.

“I feel like this coat I wear when I arrive, this blue coat which is quite austere and quite put together, and then the inside is this absolutely batty fluorescent orange lining,” she said. “And that’s her.”

Within minutes of revisiting the Banks children—the events of Mary Poppins Returns take place 25 years after the first, with Jane and Michael Banks all grown up, the latter with children of his own—Mary has them journeying through a bathtub drain to sing and dance (well, swim) under the sea. “Off we go!” she chirps with a knowing smile, whisking the youngest Bankses to an animated music hall, an upside-down repair shop presided over by Meryl Streep, and to a lamplighters’ grand production number.

“She’s like an adrenaline junkie going into these fantasias,” Blunt said. “It’s sort of her outlet, you know? I think that’s where she should explode. It’s where she laughs, it’s where you see her smile, it’s where you see her at her happiest. Because she’s got to be emblematic of childlike wonder, because it’s what she tries to infuse into their lives.”

The film makes you wait for Mary Poppins’ arrival, using the lead-up to her applause-earning entrance to set up the story’s emotional spine: Michael Banks (Ben Whishaw) lost his wife and mother to his three children, and, thanks to a defaulting loan, perhaps soon his cherished 17 Cherry Tree Lane house, too.

Not that the film’s opening is lacking in familiarity, greeting the audience with the instantly-recognizable imagery of a flickering lamplight.

It’s Lin-Manuel Miranda’s infectious smile and cockney rasp we meet next—one, with all due respect, considerably more refined than Dick Van Dyke’s spin on the dialect—as Jack, an apprentice of Van Dyke’s Bert who used to wave at the Banks children from the lamppost outside their window.

“There’s a different point of view waiting for you, if you just look up,” he sings in the opening number “Underneath the Lovely London Sky,” a warming morsel of advice for audiences watching in today’s cultural climate, as well as a clever tease to the flying nanny soon to make her way to the screen.

“I had an amazing research assistant in childlike wonder, which is my two-year-old son,” Miranda, speaking just 24 hours after receiving his special Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C., says. “We moved to London to make this movie and he was just gaining language and I was watching him power his own imagination by its own power. I give Rob a lot of credit for seeing me in this part, because when you think Hamilton, childlike innocence is not what you see on stage.”

The entire cast found surprising personal connections to their roles. For Whishaw, whose Michael is struggling to realize that the stressors on his life have forced his children to grow up far too fast, it was observing his own brother, a new, young father himself.

“I thought about him a lot, because I see how difficult it is and how stressful it is,” he says. “I could see my brother’s vulnerability. I see him as a child because I know him as a child. So I see that he’s a father, but he’s a kid.”

Mortimer’s Jane Banks has taken on the role of mother figure to Michael’s children, having not gotten married herself and feeling that, as she works on behalf of labor rights, that time in her life has passed her by. In researching the film’s time period of 1930s London, not long after the end of World War I, she learned something surprising about the legal limits placed on women.

“The women who had been taking all the jobs in the war effort had to be sort of got rid of somehow, so they introduced this law, this actual law, which said you couldn’t have a professional job and be married at the same time,” Mortimer said. “That really got to me.”

She found something heartbreaking about Jane, that she thought it would be safer for her to love everybody around her, going so far as to have a career in civil rights, instead of expecting love to come to her.

“It’s a much more whispering kind of help that Mary gives to Jane,” she said, alluding to one of the film’s more charming subplots. “But she helps her feel like she can look for love herself rather than give it.”

Several times during the conversation, Blunt alludes to Mary’s “enigmatic master plan,” what exactly it is that she hopes to accomplish with her meddling in each of the Banks’ lives. But when it comes to the film itself, a risky gamble coming all these decades after the beloved original, the goal is blessedly less of a mystery.

“We all felt we needed this film,” says Marshall. “To be able to go to work and put this message of this film out into the world now… And it became more important as we started to work on it, because the world got even darker and more fragile.”

“I know for certain the films that I grew up with like Mary Poppins, like The Sound of Music, like Oliver!, the films that meant so much to me gave me that sort of sense of seeing life with wonder and joy,” he continues. “It might sound like a trivial thing, but to me it’s everything. To me, it’s what life is.”

Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns hits theaters December 19.

Source: https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-emily-blunt-made-her-mary-poppins-weird-batty-and-incredibly-rude