Movie Review: Nanny McPhee Returns

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When you watch Mary Poppins, you hope that you could get that wonderful nanny who would blow into town and make your life all better. Well apparently Mary just deals with groups of two. For larger situations, you call on Nanny McPhee (Emma Thompson). In the 2005 original she dealt with seven brothers and sisters who had lost their mother and had scared off seventeen other nannies. This go around there are five children, three from one family belonging to Isabel Green (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and a brother and sister who are cousins with all five children causing pandemonium which is why Nanny McPhee Returns. Please note, small "c" and big "P". Thank you very much!

Isabel is trying to hold it all together. She's working at a store, struggling to keep the family farm running and keep hope alive in her children as their father and her husband is off at war. She's attempting to keep at bay her brother in law Phil (Rhys Ifans) who owns half the farm with his military brother and wants to make money by selling the farm. Top that off with the arrival of her niece and nephew from the city and you have one overwhelming situation but Isabel won't admit that.

Nanny McPhee arrives just in time, saying that she's from the War Department with her services being paid for by the Army as it's implied that this is occurring during World War II. She immediately steps up to the plate to teach the children five lessons right away. "When you need me but do not want me then I must stay; when you want me but no longer need me, I have to go." she tells the children. Of course she manages to impart her practical life lessons and moves on. You don't get recommend by drawers, pots, boots and tea cups if you can't accomplish the required task. Getting the approval of inanimate objects would seem to be a rather high compliment!

Taken over from Kirk Jones, director Susanna White gives us a set design and look of the film are very similar to the original. Even the camera shots of the first time the title character is on screen showing her wart, uni-brow and snaggle tooth and then full face is identical between the two movies. Being set on a farm, the family house isn't quite as colorful as the Brown's house in the original but the adults clothing, other than Nanny McPhee's is rather colorful. The English country side is beautiful.

Emma Thompson once again delivers a fine performance as the caster of magic that teaches the children. Through the story a little of Nanny McPhee's history is shown so while we don't know her full story, there are a few rays of light cast giving us those brief glimpses. Ifan as Uncle Phil to the children shows us a different side of his acting. We usually see him as whacked out, care free, let's party and have a good time character. As Phil it was a nice change to see Ifan play a bit of a high stung and uptight man with curly hair and not his usual frizzed out straight hair worried about what might happen to him. Who seemed to be out of place was Gyllenhaal. All of the other adult actors were from England. She's the only one that wasn't and it seemed a bit out of place without a British accent but other than that incongruity, delivered a fine performance.

The story line was pretty straight forward for a children's movie. There was whimsy and magic along with some rude humor (mostly poop jokes), language and mild thematic elements with the kids dealing with war time dad issues that many children of today's soldiers are handling earning the movie a PG rating for its 109 minute run time. The credits are visually interesting to watch as they seemed to mix two different mediums together and at the very end there is an easter egg.

Rumors are that there will be a third movie. Thompson who wrote both movies off of the Christianna Brand Nurse Matilda stories hinted there might be. I would like to see that with the couple of reveals about Nanny McPhee moving the story into a trilogy will give an opportunity to explore and cast some more light on the nanny's magic. Here's wishing for a good box office and a third installment!

The Movie Monkey

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Movie Review: Pirate Radio

These days when you think of pirates, Johnny Depp is probably what comes to mind. In Pirate Radio you have Bill Nighy, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Nick frost, probably not anything like you would have thought of in a million years. The year is 1966 and these pirates are not plundering and looting for treasure, they are pirating the airwaves. The Rock in Roll world is alive with The Kinks, The Who, The Hollys and lots of other groups that begin with the word "The". The British government won't allow this music on the regular radio so a rogue band of DJs organized by Quentin (Nighy) start broadcasting 24 hours a day from a ship off the coast of Britain that is outside of the jurisdiction of the government.

We follow Carl (Tom Sturridge) , a expelled high school teenager who is sent to the boat by his mother. He is introduced to the the eclectic, colorful band of DJs by his god father Quentin. Most of the DJs are British with the exception of The Count (Hoffman) who is from America. The only female on the boat is Felecity. She's the cook and a lesbian. To make up for the shortage of available women, they have Sexturdays where a supply boat brings over not only food and mail but women who stay for the weekend.

While the station hangs out on the North Sea, back in Parliament, they are trying to figure out a way to get these people off the air. They considered them immoral and reprobates among other things. This falls to Sir Alister Dormandy (Kenneth Branagh) who in turn hires a gentleman by the name of Twatt (Jack Davenport) to actually come up with the details of how to do it. These two were wound very tight. Actually, they were wound so tight they could have doubled for the rubber bands on a balsa wood airplane.

The government tries different machinations to get them off the air waves while at the same time we watch and hear what is happening on the boat. Just how to you play table football on a boat that is rocking? While Carl is not a DJ, we see the various DJs working the microphone and turn tables. Some DJs with mouths constantly moving and some hardly saying anything at all. As they are on the air we hear a selection of music from the time. In turn we see how their listeners are reacting to the music. As some of life's events happen to the crew they in turn share it with their listeners. One of the editing decisions that I liked was they had several groups of listeners that they revisited with each of these events.

In the end, the government finally passes a law that will outlaw the pirates because one of the neat things about being the government is that if you don't like something you just pass a law to make it illegal according to Dormandy. Will the government be successful with their attempt, will the pirates being pirates find a way to keep going? You'll have to go see the movie to find out.

This movie for me was very enjoyable. Along the lines of 2003's Love Actually (another Bill Nighy film), this was very British from the clothing (broad vertical stripes) to the language (snogging) and the culture (Boxing Day). The ensemble cast and their interactions, the editing, the music pull together for a fast moving 138 minute movie. The editing of the audience actions and reactions gave the movie a great energy. These are rogue DJs in both action and language so the R rating is well deserved, but don't let this be a distraction for not going to see this movie.