My first viewing of Mark Poppins

No, that is not a typo.

Not by me, at least.

It's not a typo that I've never seen Mary Poppins, nor is it a typo that I wrote Mark Poppins.

But there was a typo that made the subject of this post possible.

We're still in the little coastal town of Lakes Entrance until tomorrow -- we extended our stay through the weekend, to avoid lockdown back in Melbourne -- and so we've now made our second trip to the little cinema here.

And with the absence of new movies getting released, the little theater here has been mixing in "classics" -- both genuine and, er, recent -- with movies that got released earlier in 2020 (like what we saw on Monday, Sonic the Hedgehog). These have included the likes of Moulin Rouge, Bohemian Rhapsody and Death at a Funeral.

As well as, yes, Mark Poppins.

Bless their hearts, like many small businesses, they do not get all the details right, nor know how to proofread.

When we first decided to stay an extra four night, I immediately tried to figure out if we could go to the cinema again, and checked their website for what lay ahead. That was four days ago. They still have not fixed the typo, which reads, yes, Mark Poppins.

Actually it says "Mark Poppins (the original)", not to be confused with Mark Poppins Returns from two years ago. I'd say that the B-movie ripoff of Mary Poppins, about Mary's ne'er do well brother, would be quite original indeed.

Okay, I will now leave off teasing this sweet little theater with its very nice staff, and its squash courts.

The fact that Mary Poppins was playing was fortuitous for a number of reasons. First off, as coincidences in my viewing schedule continue to abound, I have been assigned this movie as my monthly selection in Flickchart Friends Favorites Fiesta, in which I am matched up with another person in the group, and watch their highest ranked movie on Flickchart that I have never seen. Informally, I consider Mary Poppins just about the most prominent movie I have never seen -- running neck and neck with the original King Kong -- so I was overjoyed to get this person's chart randomly assigned to me this month. Especially since I've already seen the sequel to Mary Poppins, my chronic oversight seriously needed to be corrected. Never did I dream I'd have the chance to watch it on the big screen.

Then there's the fact that my kids had already seen (and liked) the sequel, so I had some built-in name recognition I could use to convince them to be excited about the viewing. My older son sometimes turns his nose up at movies that he thinks are old -- "from the 1980s or something" -- so I worried there was a chance he'd rebel once he saw the movie start. But my goal was to get them in the door and worry about that part later. Besides, when we were staying in a hotel after Christmas before boarding the ferry to return to Melbourne from Tasmania, we started watching a bit of The Sound of Music, knowing we'd have no chance to watch the whole thing. He was really interested, so I had reason to believe Mary Poppins might work for him as well.

Finally, the 1:15 Friday showtime was perfectly timed to our needs. Because we had decided to stay, my wife had some work commitments that she had otherwise expected to be home to handle. One of these was an all-day meeting on Friday, which she didn't expect to last all day, but which did end up running until after 2. So I had a plan to take my kids to a nearby adventure park -- where we did archery, go karts, laser tag and batting cages -- before rocking up to the little cinema/squash court in time for the movie. Which we only just did, as the credits started rolling as we were taking our seats.

I had been bracing all week for the plan not to work. But every time I mentioned going to the movie, wincing a little bit for an expected negative reaction, I got only tempered enthusiasm. The fact that treats would be part of the deal certainly helped. I love the fact that my kids are not too jaded yet to appreciate something like Mary Poppins, or to at least believe they will appreciate it.

And appreciate it they did, as did I.

The two hour and 20 minute running time was another one of my big fears -- either the kids would get too restless, or have to go to the toilet. The latter never happened. The former sort of did, but it didn't matter. You know why? Because we had the whole cinema to ourselves, and could stretch our legs whenever we wanted.

At first we confined ourselves to the seats we had selected, around the middle on the left. But about 20 or 30 minutes in, my six-year-old, who was on the aisle, wandered down to the front area, in front of the seats. My first instinct was to follow him down there and wrangle him. But before I even had the chance to rise from my seat, I thought, "Who cares? If it keeps him interested, and as long as he doesn't actually exit the theater, more power to him."

We all ended up shifting seats multiple times. In fact, we all ended up in the aisle at one point. I had my head resting against the cushion of a seat, and my body sprawled as comfortably as I could on the stairs. My younger one nestled into me at times and spent other times roving. My older one spent a lot of time in the very back row, and even sometimes behind it.

As we watched the magic unfold on the screen above, I'd hear little laughs and comments spasm out of them, such as when Mary pulls a whole coat rack out of her hand bag, or the characters float to the ceiling for their laughter-propelled tea party.

At one point my older son did ask how long I thought was left, but immediately made it clear it was not because he wanted it to be over. Having been able to leave my phone on due to the lack of other patrons, I knew it was more than an hour, but I told him 45 minutes. So even if he was rebelling a little against it, he wanted me not to think he was, which is great.

At the end, the older one was singing "Let's Go Fly a Kite" and running up and down the aisles, and the younger one was still dancing along to some of the earlier dance numbers.

Whew! What a good experience.

Although I myself prefer a bit of a more determined pace than Mary Poppins gives us, it is, of course, a lovely film, and Julie Andrews charms the socks off me.

Having seen the sequel, it definitely interested me to see how much was taken directly from the original. One of the things I thought was weirdest about Mary Poppins Returns was their naval commander neighbor (played by David Warner) who shoots a cannon off his roof every hour of the day. Watching this I of course discovered that that bit was taken directly from the original.

When I got home later, I read my review of Mary Poppins Returns to see how foolish I'd sounded when talking about it, given that I hadn't seen the original. Fortunately, I was shrewd enough to write around the direct comparisons to the original -- I never mentioned the oddity of the neighbor, for example -- so I came off okay.

Afterwards, when I dared to share some of the fears I'd had about taking them to the movie (its length, the year it was made) to see how much they'd been affected by them, I was glad to hear my nine-year-old admit that yes, it was "old school." But that was alright, because it was a "classic."

Good on him for an increasingly mature understanding of the history of this thing called cinema.

And good on me for finally crossing this undoubted classic off my unseen list.

Now, to look into funding for that story of Mary's ne'er do well brother ...