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SWEET AND SOUR NOTES

Today's film was the documentary

The Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story (2009)

This story, told by two cousins about their father's partnership doing songs for Disney is an odd amalgam of schmaltz and dysfunction. But, on second thought, maybe the two go together a lot more than we think.

The Sherman Brothers were very successful, their epic Poppins score a high point of their careers.

Born to a tin pan alley writer the kids grew up with an age gap and Robert, the eldest, went to war and was drug through the worst of the European campaign ending at the gates of Dachau as the first squad to enter the place.

An ominous beginning. But the two are great together except when they are not. There are out takes of film interviews where they break out in conflict and redo it to project the usual sunny Disney attitude.

All of this is very interesting. The cousins interview the other's father. Very nice coming together. An exorcism.

It is also interesting to watch this because it shows the seams under the Disney facade. To some extent. Unusual. That is not the usual corporate line.

I had to pick and choose here. I don't much like the music. I am sick to death of Mary Fucking Poppins. I did find that the medicine, the frank sad stuff, helped the sweet stuff go down. A reverse on the tune they wrote.

I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5.

Labels: films