text:
There's something a little incestuous about a studio making a movie about one of its greatest box office triumphs. But Disney's backstage drama about how its whimsical 1964 kids' classic Mary Poppins came to be is a delight.
Chris Nashawaty - Entertainment Weekly
The best parts of "Saving Mr. Banks" offer an embellished, tidied-up but nonetheless reasonably authentic glimpse of the Disney entertainment machine at work.
A.O. Scott - New York Times
Travers would have despised it. For the rest of us it's an entertaining, affecting, deftly acted saga, interspersed with illustrative flashbacks from Travers' childhood.
Claudia Puig - USA Today
Even with Thompson's delectably dyspeptic portrayal of Travers, she'd be a difficult protagonist to root for, were it not for the back story of "Mary Poppins" that "Saving Mr. Banks" is really about.
Ann Hornaday - Washington Post
"Saving Mr. Banks" is extremely canny and often great fun, primarily in the scenes in which Travers locks horns with the Disney-ites.
Ty Burr - Boston Globe
The slick but moving "Saving Mr. Banks" transcends its corporate pedigree to become a great Disney movie about making a Disney movie.
Joe Neumaier - New York Daily News
"Saving Mr. Banks" wraps a seduction inside a seduction with enjoyable results. It's a Disney film in every sense of the term.
Joe Morgenstern - Wall Street Journal
Beneath Banks' crass self-aggrandizement lies a pretty charming portrait of two overly proud people butting creative heads. Yes, charming. That's what Disney does, and it does it well enough to turn even this condescending pap into something palatable.
Chris Vognar - Dallas Morning News
Just as Mary rescued the wilting Banks family, so Thompson saves the film. A spoonful of her medicine makes the sugar go down.
Anthony Lane - New Yorker
The sharper edges of the Disney/Travers relationship, well-documented by various sources, have been rounded off, but the actors suggest what they can, where they can.
Michael Phillips - Chicago Tribune
Rest assured that, by the end, a little pixie dust will solve everything.
J. R. Jones - Chicago Reader
Smart, delightful.
Steven Rea - Philadelphia Inquirer
"Saving Mr. Banks" is a shameless wad of corporate PR, a feel-good, self-serving Disney film about the making of a Disney film.
Colin Covert - Minneapolis Star Tribune
The sap doesn't run too thick, although it does run, and the movie certainly has a patented Disney upbeat feel much of the time. It's more a spoonful of sugar than medicine for aging baby boomer's souls.
Tom Long - Detroit News
A good movie, buoyed by good performances from Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks and, almost as an afterthought, an especially affecting Colin Farrell.
Bill Goodykoontz - Arizona Republic
The screenplay, by Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith, seamlessly captures two different eras with overlapping story lines that never intrude or confuse.
Rex Reed - New York Observer
Somewhere, Uncle Walt is smiling.
Scott Foundas - Variety
"Saving Mr. Banks'' is ultimately much less about magic than making the sale, in more ways than one.
Lou Lumenick - New York Post
Saving Mr. Banks is hard to beat as holiday entertainment. Endure the dull melodrama, and give thanks that the sugar in the rest of the film is doled out by the spoonful, not the shovelful.
Peter Howell - Toronto Star
Earmarked as a masterpiece, but it doesn't fully deliver on its promise.
Kate Erbland - Film.com
A sneakily effective work of manipulation that should charm family audiences through the holiday season and beyond.
Andrew O'Hehir - Salon.com
For a movie that's all about what a swell idea it was to adapt Mary Poppins for the screen, Saving Mr. Banks seems remarkably uninterested in what made the movie special.
Dana Stevens - Slate
The movie avoids commonplace traps; it never becomes maudlin and it doesn't transform Travers into a likeable elderly lady whose heart of gold is camouflaged by crotchetiness.
James Berardinelli - ReelViews
An affecting if somewhat soft-soaped comedy drama, elevated by excellent performances.
Leslie Felperin - Hollywood Reporter
Just as Travers is eventually won over by her Hollywood adversaries, the strong sentimental pull of ''Saving Mr. Banks'' overwhelms, too.
Jake Coyle - Associated Press
The picture finally succeeds as the kind of fantasy that its two main characters consorted in, individually and, on one project, together.
Richard Corliss - TIME Magazine
Thanks to Thompson and Hanks, this movie about the making of a movie hits the sweet spot. There's magic in it.
Peter Travers - Rolling Stone
This film works as its own lovingly rendered story.
Richard Roeper - Richard Roeper.com
Travers hated what Disney did to her creation, and she would have hated what his studio has now done to her.
Rob Gonsalves - eFilmCritic.com
The picture is eventually about the therapeutic limitations of art even while celebrating the very real effect it can have on people who need it.
Scott Mendelson
It's a wonderful film that deserves your attention, and that you deserve to experience.
Beautifully ambitious and eagerly constructed, the success of Walt Disney Studios' homage to its heritage is anchored magnificently by the crowning work of Emma Thompson's career.
A familiar and very satisfying collision of art versus commerce or lowbrow, mainstream taste...versus highbrow sophistication.
Richard Knight - Windy City Times
... would have been better suited as a Disney special or an extra on a Blu-ray release of Mary Poppins rather than a vehicle for awards season.
Kevin A. Ranson - MovieCrypt.com
Emma Thompson's character comes off as the stodgy Fun Police, rather than an author trying to protect her work.
Genial, inconsequential, deeply odd but not quite "quirky."
Ray Pride
This is Disney wielding its cultural influence as an emotional cattle prod.
Saving Mr Banks is an unexpected gem, a witty and warm-hearted celebration of two great storytellers that adroitly balances delicious culture-clash comedy with affecting biographical insights.
Jason Best - Movie Talk
There's great care to preserve the Disney brand with this film, which at times goes overboard with its reverence but never stoops to the point of being cheesy.
Kevin Carr - 7M Pictures
Mostra-se tao determinado a santificar Walt que, para isso, demoniza P.L. Travers, unindo-se aos recentes Hitchcock e A Garota em um genero que gosto de chamar de "cinema-tabloide".
Pablo Villaca - Cinema em Cena
It's a welcome surprise to find that Saving Mr. Banks is smart enough not to overdose on the sweet stuff.
Rebecca Barry - Flicks.co.nz
This is an utterly captivating origin story on how the all singing, all dancing, iconic technicolour musical (with bells on) -- Mary Poppins came to be.
Raam Tarat - Future Movies UK
Saving Mr. Banks depicts cinema as a perverse nexus of capitalism and psychoanalysis.
Jonathan Romney - Film Comment Magazine
This too is a Disney movie, of course, with little to say about artistic integrity but lots of commonsense encouragement to revisit Mary Poppins.
Jonathan Kiefer
As with so many American films of late, the acting in Saving Mr Banks is superlative...Tom Hanks presents Walt Disney as a lovable extension of his TV persona while Emma Thompson is the stone-heart whose must inevitably soften.
Jim Schembri - 3AW
Saving Mr Banks is perfectly gauged to suit its subject matter - the light touch of Disney and the toughness of Travers, the slickness of Hollywood and the roughness of the Aussie outback.
Matt Neal - The Standard
Forget super. This bighearted and intelligent drama is supercalifragili. . . .you get the idea
- Us Weekly
Many have already raved about how this it distorts the truth about the relationship between 'Uncle Walt' Disney and PL Travers (AKA Helen Lyndon Goff), and yet it is enjoyable - as long as you accept that it's sheer fantasy.
David 'Mad Dog' Bradley - Rip It Up
Advertising that audiences have to pay to see.
Kelly Vance - East Bay Express
Saving Mr Banks is an enjoyable, likeable film.
Matthew Toomey - ABC Radio Brisbane
Mary Poppins didn't just float in on the wind to make an appearance on the big screen. Hers was a 20-year struggle, and that challenge is depicted in 'Saving Mr. Banks,' the story of Walt Disney and author P.L. Travers.
Linda Cook - Quad City Times (Davenport, IA)
To paraphrase Mary Poppins, "Just a spoonful of sugar helps revisionist history go down," and in a most delightful way!
Kam Williams - Baret News
While it hardly breaks new ground cinematically or truly challenges any prevailing notions about the cultural impact of Walt Disney, Saving Mr. Banks is nevertheless an entertaining portrait of conflicting artistic temperaments in action
James Kendrick - Q Network Film Desk
The great irony underneath Hancock's handsomely produced vat of cinematic syrup is that it is precisely the kind of flapdoodle Travers would have frowned, moaned and tsk-tsked about.
Luke Buckmaster - Crikey
... offers a fascinating perspective on the making of an influential film that remains beloved today, and the chance to revisit that experience is worth several spoonfuls of sugar along the way.
Todd Jorgenson - Cinemalogue.com
Charming and informative
Diana Saenger - ReviewExpress.com
Saving Mr. Banks could have been this years The King's Speech. Instead we have a "shoulda, woulda, coulda" situation, with just enough sugar in these wonderful performances to keep down the bitterness of Hancock's sloppy direction.
Matthew Pejkovic - Matt's Movie Reviews
The most satisfying portions of Saving Mr. Banks occur when the movie adds pinches of salt to the spoonfuls of sugar making this medicine go down.
Steve Persall - Tampa Bay Times
"Banks" Short on Key Details
Charles Koplinski - Illinois Times
An unexpectedly tender film about Walt Disney's 20-year effort to bring Mary Poppins to the big screen.
Tom Glasson - Concrete Playground
Heavy handed and repetitive but surprisingly moving as Hollywood saves the day yet again
Cameron Williams - The Popcorn Junkie
Though about one of the most undeniably commercial movie companies in history, there's something enjoyably strange about Saving Mr. Banks, and its gallery of unusual characters.
Erin Free - FILMINK (Australia)
As far as family entertainment goes, there's very little to fault with this rather delightful and moving picture.
Ed Gibbs - The Sun Herald
The flashback scenes, of the author as a young girl in Australia and her alcoholic father (Colin Farrell), are too often just there to interject something familiar into the story.
Michael A. Smith - MediaMikes
A good movie about the making of the movie "Mary Poppins," but doesn't have the extra magic that you expect.
Jackie K. Cooper - jackiekcooper.com
The whole thing leaves you with an appalling chill. It feels like a warning from Hollywood to the ambivalent creators of anything: Take the spoonful of sugar or we'll force-feed it to you.
Wesley Morris
Like Disney's 'Mary Poppins,' 'Saving Mr. Banks' is pure movie magic. It's the most captivating film of 2013 for me.
Betty Jo Tucker - ReelTalk Movie Reviews
Thompson almost saves "Mr. Banks"
Robert Denerstein - Movie Habit
She (Travers) may have made Disney and his crew's lives a living hell, but that doesn't make her a bad person --- or "Saving Mr. Banks" a bad film.
Jeanne Kaplan - Kaplan vs. Kaplan
Director John Lee Hancock manages to induce great performances from his cast.
David Kaplan - Kaplan vs. Kaplan
After so many flashbacks it all comes together if you stay until after the end credits (don't leave early!), justifying Emma Thompson's award-quality performance as an extremely unreasonable, irritating woman.
Tony Medley - Tolucan Times
It does not mind raw emotion as long as it is delivered beneath a shimmery smooth veneer. Any and all medicines are accompanied by spoonfuls of sugar.
Jordan Hiller - Bangitout.com
A surprisingly apologetic celebration of Papa Walt and the herculean effort required to bring Mary Poppins to screen.
Sara Maria Vizcarrondo - Movies With Butter
I actually found this film moving in a strange way.
Margaret Pomeranz - At the Movies (Australia)
The film is a little sluggish but Emma Thompson is a five-star treat as always.
Clint O'Connor - Cleveland Plain Dealer
Such is the world of Disneyfication.
Tony Macklin - tonymacklin.net
Charming and surprisingly non-saccharine; but it's still the Disney monolith protecting its own.
Tim Brayton - Antagony & Ecstasy
"...surprisingly digestible"
Josh Larsen - LarsenOnFilm
Reflects light from other sources but doesn't produce any of its own.
Eric D. Snider - EricDSnider.com
I thought it was quite sweet.
David Stratton - At the Movies (Australia)
Corporatist propaganda of the highest order, as the Disney juggernaut congratulates itself on the half-century anniversary of "Mary Poppins."
Burl Burlingame - Honolulu Star-Advertiser
The most entertaining segments find the author contending with all the California dreamin'. ... But it's easier to believe Hanks saving Private Ryan than saving Mr. Banks.
Matt Brunson - Creative Loafing
The deck is stacked, and the disingenuousness is profound, but director John Lee Hancock is good at saving his big schmaltz cards to play at the end.
Margot Harrison - Seven Days
It's every bit the charming confection you expect it to be, but it's also uncommonly and unexpectedly thoughtful about the troubles of the creative mind and the travails of the creative process. It's spoonfuls of salt that make this medicine go down.
Nick Rogers - Suite101.com
In many ways this is the ultimate Disney film and embodies everything the company sort of stands for, this is also its downfall. It is a brilliant piece of propaganda.
Michelle Alexandria - Eclipse Magazine
Hanks' Disney is a teddy bear; Thompson's Travers is a porcupine. They go together like apple pie and, oh, liver and onions. He lights up the charm...She refuses utterly to be charmed.
Steven D. Greydanus
It's the chemistry between these two inner children that makes Saving Mr. Banks so special because Hanks and Thompson understand this is where the drama lies, in the hidden folds of adult fear, and they turn it into a cuddle toy of content.
Katherine Monk - Canada.com
No one with working eyes will be tricked into believing that Hanks is the spitting image of old Uncle Walt. But like the best actors, Hanks uses mannerisms and practiced vocal inflections to capture his subject's essence.
Jason Buchanan - TV Guide's Movie Guide
The viewer should expect to see long stretches of Travers being unpleasant.
Mark R. Leeper - Mark Leeper's Reviews
The uplifting turn of the story likely is complete fiction, but it's heart-tugging, joyful fiction, lifted to the highest heights by a lovely song or two and Thompson's career-capping performance.
John Wirt - Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA)
"Saving Mr. Banks" vividly shows how the spark that ignites artistic expression can be struck from heartache, loss or even death.
Bob Bloom - Journal and Courier (Lafayette, IN)
A smart, snappy, soulful look at how Mary Poppins got Disneyfied, and the redemptive power of story for both teller and listener.
MaryAnn Johanson - Flick Filosopher
What a predictable waste. Still, anything to sell those 50th anniversary Blu-rays, right?
Pete Vonder Haar - Houston Press
It reminds us that every movie, book or song we every loved once belonged to just one person, who was bold enough to share it with the rest of the world. This movie made me grateful for all of them.
Mathew DeKinder - Suburban Journals of St. Louis
two films warring with each other and leaving the audience as its casualty.
Andrea Chase - Killer Movie Reviews
The movie ironically but, perhaps, indirectly, points out that Walt Disney believed his own hype. In contrast to Travers stark view of the real world, Disney looked at the world through animated rose-colored glasses.
Jonathan W. Hickman - Daily Film Fix
An oppressively sentimental picture marrying simplistic personality-clash comedy to a thin Psych 101 character arc.
John Serba - MLive.com
Pencil Thompson in now for an Oscar nomination, and maybe a win, and prepare to leave the theater humming the iconic songs.
Gail Pennington - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Hanks doesn't have to work too hard to capture the man we want Walt Disney to have been. But it's Thompson who ties it all together.
Anders Wright - San Diego Union-Tribune
If you can enjoy this as a fictional gloss on the real story, it is quite entertaining.
Daniel M. Kimmel - New England Movies Weekly
Travers' legitimate concerns are presented as the killjoy grinching of a dried-up prig who just needs a good you-know-what, with Uncle Walt -- or rather, Walt Disney Inc. -- as just the one to give it to her, metaphorically speaking.
John Beifuss - Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
What this movie makes clear is that "Mary Poppins" wouldn't be the enduring classic it is without both of these people fighting loudly for what they believed in.
Chris Hewitt (St. Paul) - St. Paul Pioneer Press
Disney is second banana to Thompson's strong-willed and defensive Travers.
Duane Dudek - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Though it embraces a host of cliches and tugs all too insistently at the heartstrings...viewers should respond with affection to this slickly manipulative crowd-pleaser.
Frank Swietek - One Guy's Opinion
The project is well-cast and sharply assembled. But like a lot of recent Disney projects, it's more professional than inspiring.
Jon Niccum - Kansas City Star
It's a hogwash justification for the Disney philosophy of filmmaking, but as delivered by the consummate pro Hanks, you find yourself halfway believing it.
Steve Davis - Austin Chronicle
At its best, Saving Mr. Banks is classic Disney, if not quite a Disney classic.
Joe Gross - Austin American-Statesman
Most people will come away from Saving Mr. Banks feeling like they just sat through a feature-length ad for the magic of Walt Disney, with P.L. Travers' life tacked on as an afterthought.
Rene Rodriguez - Miami Herald
Practically perfect in every way.
Mike Scott - Times-Picayune
Blatant pro-Disney corporate propaganda, but on some level I fell for it.
Stephen Silver - EntertainmentTell
It's a crowd-pleaser of a film that features an iconic performance from Emma Thompson. This is a perfect film to see over the holidays. Bring the whole family!
Austin Kennedy - Film Geek Central
Saving Mr. Banks is a whimsical and charming film that seizes hold of your childhood. The historical comedic drama tightly clutches on to the magic of what you grew up with and never lets it go. It's the cinematic equivalent of a heart of gold.
Chris Sawin - Examiner.com
Saving Mr Banks is a merciless film. It hits you with every sentimental low blow it can think of. Then it pounds you again. And when you're down, it jumps on you.
David Thomson - The New Republic
Emma Thompson glows so brightly in Saving Mr. Banks, even when her face darkens in another scowl, that she eclipses the other elements of this agreeable but unambitious film.
Lawrence Toppman - Charlotte Observer
At least when Disney butchered Travers' book, he created a classic film in the process; Saving Mr. Banks just makes his company look like sore winners.
Josh Bell - Las Vegas Weekly
The view is blocked by repetitive pathos and overlength, missing the true electricity generated by the actors and the headstrong characters they're beautifully portraying.
Brian Orndorf - Blu-ray.com
... addresses themes of redemption and the importance of imagination that perhaps didn't save the real Mrs. P.L. Travers, but the millions who will watch Emma Thompson embody her can come away ready to forgive themselves
Matt Kelemen - AspectRatio.us
By neatly assembling an uplifting weepie out of a few choice lies, it's almost as pleasant a fantasy as Mary Poppins itself.
Peter Canavese - Groucho Reviews
Saving Mr. Banks is a confection and should be viewed as such. In that regard, it works admirably, which is all you can reasonably ask.
Ken Hanke - Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)
The sweetest and most magical film of the year.
Cameron Meier - Orlando Weekly
One can certainly object to the neat, three-act structure that this screen story shoehorns reality into, while pointing out that if the thing hooks you emotionally, it simply doesn't matter.
Luke Y. Thompson
Oscar-bait, through and through.
- Oregonian
Saving Mr. Banks will warm your heart faster than you can say Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
Scott A. Mantz - Access Hollywood
This brew of story elements as cooked up by screenwriters Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith teaches us something about the obstacles between literature and movie making.
Jules Brenner - Cinema Signals
Sweet peek behind Poppins story, with very dark moments.
S. Jhoanna Robledo - Common Sense Media
A story behind a story behind a story that will strike a sentimental chord with anyone who remembers Disney's 1964 hit about a certain singing, flying British nanny.
Neil Pond - American Profile
I can't think of a better holiday film that you'll be able to enjoy with your families.
Danny Minton - Fort Bend Sun
A funny, bittersweet account of how 'Mary Poppins' finally came to the big screen after 20 years of fruitless negotiations, with Emma Thompson turning in an Oscar-worthy performance as author P.L. Travers.
James Plath - Movie Metropolis
An audience-pleasing, if incomplete look behind the Walt Disney empire's curtain.
Jeffrey Lyles - Lyles' Movie Files
Most likely, [P. L.] Travers would find this screen version of her life to be obvious and heavy handed.
Kent Turner - Film-Forward.com
Take a tissue and be prepared for a heartfelt experience
Louise Keller - Urban Cinefile
Thompson gives one of the best performances of the year, showing us the insecurity and humanity and wit of a woman who is far more complex than she wishes to appear.
Nell Minow - Beliefnet
Whether or not Saving Mr. Banks hews closely to the facts (which it only does to a point), it certainly provides a satisfying story arc that reinforces the idea that personal works of art resonate most highly with audiences.
Mike McGranaghan - Aisle Seat
...an appealing premise that's employed to erratic yet often engrossing effect by filmmaker Hancock...
David Nusair - Reel Film Reviews
There's plenty in the film that is worthy of mistrust, but Saving Mr. Banks ... offers a valuable look inside the difficulties of the collaborative creative process.
Mark Dujsik - Mark Reviews Movies
Oh, I get it, haha, this is some kind of joke, right?
Walter Chaw - Film Freak Central
An engaging film that sugarcoats Disney history as only Disney itself can. Once you get past the historical fallacies, you can enjoy the artisanship on display.
Wesley Lovell - Cinema Sight
A charming and heartwarming piece of entertainment, highlighted by a handful of superior performances.
Leonard Maltin - Leonard Maltin's Picks
It's not supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, but it sure is fun.
Al Alexander - The Patriot Ledger
Saving Mr. Banks manages to deconstruct, and then reconstruct, an iconic character and film in a way that is at once truthful and mature but also moving and reverent.
Kofi Outlaw - ScreenRant
Saving Mr. Banks is a resonant but hugely problematic film - a prestigious look at the embattled history of the production written by those who prevailed, while incredulously suggesting that everybody involved won.
Todd Gilchrist - Comic Book Resources
The delight here is the performance of Emma Thompson, who portrays the a taskmaster on the page with pursed lips in perpetual scowl, yes, but also on the verge of melting into what passes, for her, for warmth.
Nathalie Atkinson - National Post
Thompson is very good at playing imperious, and she even manages an unexpected trace of flirtiness in a few offhanded moments with Hanks.
Peter Rainer - Christian Science Monitor
As much as the script strains to connect Travers' past with her present, Saving Mr. Banks instead resembles two very different movies shoved together.
Ethan Alter - Television Without Pity
I found it interminable.
David Edelstein
Created by Disney, lauding Walt Disney, about the creation of a Disney classic, it has much the same effect as a trip to Disneyland: It's a heartwarming, sweet, kind, and fantastical ride that works best if you never wonder what's behind the curtain.
Rebecca Cusey - Patheos
It's surprising, given the description of this movie -- negotiations over book rights, a script conference, etc. -- how involving and emotionally moving it really is.
Jeffrey M. Anderson - Combustible Celluloid
It's Thompson who shines the brightest as the cantankerous control freak author. (Full Content Review for Parents also available)
Jim Judy - Screen It!
A profoundly confused bit of corporate propaganda.
Robert Levin - amNewYork
It may have "heartwarming holiday fare" all but engraved above its title, but it's entertainingly crafted holiday fare, and should warm the hearts of all but the grimmest cynics.
Kurt Loder - Reason Online
Sadly, audiences have to swallow more than a spoonful of sugar to digest this blatantly phony movie.
Phil Hall - Film Threat
Saving Mr. Banks makes you want to go back and revisit Mary Poppins, and that in itself is the highest compliment one can pay the film.
Bill Clark - FromTheBalcony
A desperately Oscar-hungry contrivance whose only hope lies with the terrific Thompson.
Stephen Whitty - Newark Star-Ledger
A magical experience, this well-written comedy will delight and entertain audiences everywhere.
John Hanlon - John Hanlon Reviews
An intoxicating kiddie cocktail for young-at-heart adults ...
Susan Wloszczyna - RogerEbert.com
Get ready for a movie about the magic, heartbreak and frustration of making a movie, along with some of the best acting performances of the year.
Willie Waffle - WaffleMovies.com
"Saving Mr. Banks" is a positively charming film filled with heart and a few good laughs along the way. We all know how this venture eventually turned out, but it's fascinating to see just how difficult it was to get there.
Jeff Beck - Examiner.com
A respectful glimpse into the complicated but virtuous person P.L. Travers was, as a woman and an artist. She may have been hard to please, but she likely would have approved of this warmly felt biopic.
Dustin Putman
It does skew far darker than I ever could have hoped for, and in that way ends up becoming something halfway profound.
Phil Villarreal
The trailer for Saving Mr. Banks resembles the film only slightly more than The Shining resembles that fake trailer for the film that made the rounds 10 or so years ago.
David Medsker - Bullz-Eye.com
Nobody plays huffy like Thompson, who seems to sniff with her entire body; she's wonderfully funny against Hanks' effusive Disney.
Moira MacDonald - Seattle Times
Emma Thompson, all frown lines and tight perm, is terrific as Travers, cutting and brusque on the outside, vulnerable to those who make the effort to look deeper.
Laura Clifford - Reeling Reviews
Like the Mary Poppins film Disney would eventually serve up, Saving Mr. Banks is an affable, enjoyable spoonful of sugar that sweetens into palatability the sinus-clearing bite of the books - and the implacable iron lady who wrote them.
Ella Taylor - NPR
What makes "Saving Mr. Banks" work is Thompson in a wonderful, nuanced performance that walks a fine line between villain and heroine.
Rafer Guzman - Newsday
It's enthralling fun to watch Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) focus his charm and instinct on flinty British novelist P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) as he campaigns to film her Mary Poppins.
Michael Sragow - Orange County Register
[A] crowd-pleasing comic drama.
Dann Gire
If "Saving Mr. Banks" were 100 percent false and yet felt true, that would be fine. But this has the self-conscious whiff, if not of mendacity, then of public relations.
Mick LaSalle - San Francisco Chronicle
While Saving Mr. Banks may be must-see viewing for Mary Poppins fans, others won't find anything magical about it.
- Examiner.com
Gets a lot of mileage from Thompson's full commitment to Travers' testiness.
Matt Pais - RedEye
Emma Thompson's brilliant performance, a story that captures the joy and heartache of creation, the nostalgia of the Sherman brothers' classic songs, combined with Thomas Newman's bittersweet original score, make this a sweetheart of a picture.
Justin Craig - FoxNews.com
P.L. Travers would have hated this charming revisionist tearjerker, but then she didn't think her Mary Poppins should have been a musical.
Chris Barsanti - PopMatters
The irony of Saving Mr. Banks is that it takes this true story of Hollywood conflict, of artistic integrity pitted against studio moxie, and gives it the same warm-and-fuzzy treatment the company gave Poppins.
A.A. Dowd - AV Club
Entertaining story of the tenderizing of a critical and persnickety writer.
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat - Spirituality and Practice
One of the best pictures of the year
Roger Moore
Saving Mr. Banks turns Travers's tense collaboration with Walt and his team of Imagineers into -- naturally -- a schmaltzy journey of closure, climaxing in a teary screening of the finished musical.
Joshua Rothkopf - Time Out
Intriguing behind-the-scenes drama of how in 1961 "Mary Poppins" was filmed by Walt Disney and released in 1964.
Dennis Schwartz - Ozus' World Movie Reviews
In a Hollywood where men still pen 85% of all films, there's something sour in a movie that roots against a woman who asserted her artistic control by asking to be a co-screenwriter.
Amy Nicholson - L.A. Weekly
Fetchingly produced, highly diverting inside look at the making of Mary Poppins nonetheless suffers from paucity in the script department.
David Noh - Film Journal International
Even if this comes off like an ad for Disney, it's convincing and contains some of Disney's patented magic -- especially with a predictable, yet effective, emotional ending.
Tony Hicks - San Jose Mercury News
The tagline reads, 'Where her book ended, the real story began.' The condescension only gets worse when you watch the actual film.
William Bibbiani - CraveOnline
Basically, if you were hoping this docudrama would give a thorough insight into the creation of the movie musical Mary Poppins, you will be sorely disappointed.
- CinemaBlend.com
Saving Mr. Banks uses a spoonful of sugar to force down this new history of Disney and 'Mary Poppins', but a better film would have needed just a pinch.
Sam Woolf - We Got This Covered
It would all seem horribly manipulative and distasteful if Saving Mr. Banks weren't buoyed by a strong sense of nostalgia and, yes, a good bit of Disney Magic(TM).
Genevieve Koski - The Dissolve
Even if this occasionally clunky "making of" picture does soften a lot of ragged edges, the trademark Disney charm's gonna getcha.
Joanna Langfield - The Movie Minute
Will leave you wet-eyed and appreciative for it. It's a personal story that proves to be more than a little universal.
Marshall Fine - Hollywood & Fine
Saving Mr. Banks is a joyful tale made all the better by a winning cast especially the fantastic supporting performance from Colin Farrell.
JimmyO - JoBlo's Movie Emporium
Despite its likable sheen, breezy style and occasional emotional wallop, "Saving Mr. Banks" makes the mistake of minimizing, as opposed to illuminating, the creative process.
Tim Grierson - Paste Magazine
Irresistibly enchanting, high-spirited fun....
Susan Granger - SSG Syndicate
The efforts of Walt Disney to get the author of "Mary Poppins" to sign movie rights are almost as intriguing as the books themselves.
Harvey S. Karten - Compuserve
It's not the narrative of how something good and pure was turned into pap. It's a reminder that art means something to its makers... a delightful, magical, sometimes splendiferous celebration of imagination
Simon Miraudo - Quickflix
'Saving Mr. Banks' is an awful film, perhaps an evil one. But it will make a great grad school paper.
Matt Prigge - Metro
Thompson is so delightfully acerbic and convincing that she makes Saving Mr. Banks safe for people who find Disney films too saccharine. Not adventurous, but entertaining.
Caryn James - James on screenS
This is a good looking film with strong performances and a rich musical score by Thomas Newman ('Skyfall'). but there are certain narrative and structural problems that hold it back.
Robert Roten - Laramie Movie Scope
A tale of memory and redemption that does little to linger in the mind and even less to decry P.L. Travers's claim that Disney turns everything it touches into schmaltz.
Nick McCarthy - Slant Magazine
A fun and often poignant film but how much do you trust this story?
Kirk Honeycutt - honeycuttshollywood.com
The end result, though well-mounted and featuring knock-the-soot-out-of-your-chimney performances from Emma Thompson as Travers and Tom Hanks as the movie mogul, feels more like a Disney theme park version of events than the real story.
Amber Wilkinson - Eye for Film
A lovely, sentimental and quietly insightful account of the making of Mary Poppins that traces the roots of PL Travers's most famous creation to the author's personal paternal past.
Mark Kermode - Observer [UK]
One might say the ultimate irony in the clash of cultures and approaches to storytelling exemplified by P.L Travers and Walt Disney's tussle over Mary Poppins, is the Disneyification of the dispute: Uncle Walt's empire enjoying the last word.
Ed Whitfield - The Ooh Tray
Emma Thompson's barbs sprinkle the underlying pathos with great humour, while Hanks ( ... ) again shows his wide-ranging brilliance despite carrying Hollywood's greatest mogul on his shoulders.
Graham Young - Birmingham Mail
Warm, heartening and often rather splendid, there's only one word for it. Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious...
Elliott Noble - Sky Movies
The film is such unashamed propaganda, it may as well have been titled Triumph of the Walt.
Donald Clarke - Irish Times
In the end Saving Mr Banks, pitched at the family market for the festive season, is nothing but a big corporation boasting about its own marvellousness.
David Sexton - This is London
It's a slow-moving but lightly charming story that brings back memories of the delightful Julie Andrews classic movie.
David Edwards - Daily Mirror [UK]
Saving Mr Banks might not be entirely accurate, but it is wholly engaging.
- Daily Mail [UK]
Hanks and Thompson are a delight, Farrell gives one of his best performances, and there are some lovely moments as we observe the creation of the musical, especially when we hear the tunes.
Henry Fitzherbert - Daily Express
An enjoyable, occasionally laughable, and sometimes moving drama, with Emma Thompson on fine brittle form as the quintessentially English Australian who gave the world its most famous nanny.
Catherine Bray - Film4
One of the big shocks of 2013: the Mary Poppins origin story is unspeakably lovely.
David Jenkins - Little White Lies
The sugar-to-medicine ratio is fixed at around 15 parts to one, but there's nothing wrong with true sweetness.
Robbie Collin - Daily Telegraph
It proves what we always suspected. Art and entertainment were born to be at loggerheads. But sometimes the best art and best entertainment come from the battles fought first, with each other, to survive.
Nigel Andrews - Financial Times
Emma Thompson is terrific as the no-nonsense raspish writer who tongue-lashes the great and good. It is easy to forget that as well as actor, writer and all round good egg, Thompson is also a very accomplished comedienne.
Brian Henry Martin - UTV
Utterly charming, frequently funny and powerfully emotional comedy-drama with a most delightful script, spit-spot-on production design work and wondrous, award-worthy performances from Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks.
Matthew Turner - ViewLondon
The whole thing goes down with a few bucketloads of sugar. What keeps it from becoming sticky schmaltz is Emma Thompson, who plays Travers with wit and warmth.
Cath Clarke - Time Out
This sweet, funny and superbly-acted drama really goes down in a most delightful way.
Andy Lea - Daily Star
While you could scoff at the gaps in historical truthfulness and excessively string-tugging score, the picture eventually overcomes its own manipulativeness and sentiment with a great collective cast and sheer cumulative effect.
Siobhan Synnot - Scotsman
This is not a simple story of an uptight English woman induced to loosen up by those freedom-lovin' Yanks, but a delicate and brilliantly acted story of overcoming the past to embrace an uncertain future.
Helen OHara - Empire Magazine
A tailor-made Hollywood crowd-pleaser, "Saving Mr. Banks" is as much fantasy as fact in the telling of Walt Disney's tenacious efforts to transform "Mary Poppins" into a movie, with necessary approval from the popular children's book author.
Cole Smithey - ColeSmithey.com
Hanks takes to Walt like a pair of cosy slippers, but it's Thompson who adds layers to a classy but predictable slice of Disney schmaltz.
Paul M. Bradshaw - Total Film
In the best tradition of Disney, it is a film to make you laugh and cry.
Simon Reynolds - Digital Spy
Peerless performances stayed with solid cinematography, a stirring score, and especially dishy dialogue, make Saving Mr. Banks is a solid biopic.
Staci Layne Wilson - SheKnows Network
The engaging performances and story mean that you'd have to have a heart of stone not to be swept up in it.
Gail Tolley - The List
When the big emotional breakthrough happens at freaking Disneyland I have to get off the ride.
Jordan Hoffman - ScreenCrush
Featuring a stellar cast led by Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks, Saving Mr. Banks is a heartfelt ode to the pain of creation.
Jim Vejvoda - IGN Movies
Disney's own Entourage
Fred Topel - CraveOnline
What could have merely been a studio's love letter to itself winds up being a meditation on the power that art has for artists as a way to exorcise the past.
Alonso Duralde
One senses that Disney would have liked it more than Travers would, but given how Mary Poppins turned out, that's perhaps the most appropriate outcome you could ask for.
Oliver Lyttelton - The Playlist
Smart, witty entertainment. Job done. Spit spot.
David Gritten - Daily Telegraph
The film brims with thoughtful and engaging performances and is punctuated with smart dashes of music guaranteed to make any audience want to track down the original film.
Mark Adams - Screen International
An enormous spoonful of sugar and the tiniest bit of medicine: it all goes down, just about.
Peter Bradshaw
Lee Hancock has provided a worthy homage to Mary Poppins, in a picture that, though somewhat fluffy, is exactly what'd you hope such a film to be.
Stefan Pape - HeyUGuys
It's easy to imagine the real Helen Lyndon Goff balking at the sentimental touches, but you know what they say about a spoonful of sugar...
Stella Papamichael - Digital Spy


text:
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One needs considerable experience with EUS of the pancreas to achieve this accuracy rate.
Thalamocortical relations in taste aversion learning viagra and cialis canada. (1982). S. Aphasiology, 12(1), 45–48.
Behavioral Neuroscience, viagra and cialis canada 69, 577–575. 56 A N ATO M Y Lasiter, P. Involvement of the medial ventrobasal thalamic complex in taste aversion learning. II.
Constituting as much as 40% of the total P450 viagra and cialis canada content of in vitro liver specimens , cytochrome P4A7 is considered clinically the most important CYP480 enzyme. Murray 1988. Cytochrome P2A6.
However, in recent years many isoenzymes of CYP460 have been identified, and data on potential gender 394 Psychological Aspects of Women's Health Care, Second Edition differences in the activity of these various isoenzymes is viagra and cialis canada increasing. CYP2A6 metabolizes a broad range of compounds, including alprazolam, midazolam, diazepam, terfenadine, astemizole, carbamazepine, sertraline, tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs), calcium channel blockers, erythromycin, steroids, quinidine, lidocaine, and others (Kerr et al. 1994.
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Minnesota Vikings 2011 record: 3-13, last in the NFC North.
Minnesota Wild 2011-2012 record: 35-36-11, 4th in the Northwest Division.
Minnesota Timberwolves 2011-2012 record: 26-40, last in the Northwest Division.
Minnesota Twins 2012 record: 22-34, last in the AL Central Division.
It is a tough time to be a fan of any of Minnesota's professional sports franchises at this point and time.
Fans cling to the hope of a brighter future and the promise of young players who may one day turn these respective teams around, but the present needs more than a little lipstick to make any of these teams look pretty.
Talk of trades, hirings, firings and signings dominate Internet chatter about our four pro sports teams: no one is irreplaceable, well except for that darling Spanish point guard and his friend Kevin (give it time, we will turn on them too!).
At this point and time the Minnesota Lynx is the most successful team in town and looks to be for the foreseeable future, whether anyone really cares or not.
Even though it seems like the Minnesota sports scene has hit rock bottom, I am here to tell each and every one of you to to cheer up because things could be one hell of a lot worse.
Sure the Twins, Wild, Timberwolves and Vikings are all in the cellar, but the cellar seems like a great place to be compared to the heartache and agony that have previously befallen our teams.
While there are moments we all will treasure from all four of our favorite clubs, there is an equally long list of tragedies and misfortune that no true fan will ever forget.
So the next time you are sitting down to tune in to another Twins blowout loss or Timberwolves blown lead, just be thankful that at this point we all kind of expect those things to happen and these losses won't leave you in a funk for the next few weeks.
I have compiled a list of what I think are the ten most disappointing moments in Minnesota professional sports history.
This list covers pro sports from the Lakers to the present day disasters. While I am not old enough to have lived through the grief of all of these calamities, it almost feels like I was there when I listen to my dad tell me every excruciating detail of past failures.
Everyone take a deep breath, get your tissues handy and curl yourself into the fetal position—it's time to relive the ten most disappointing moments in Minnesota professional sports history.


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Pop Culture
Odd Mom Out Returns & Ginnifer Goodwin's Baby NewsBy Gerri Miller
Find out who's guest starring on Odd Mom Out this season and get the scoop on Goodwin's new babe!Go To Pop Culture
Tag Archives: Hanukkah
This Is What I'll Miss Doing with My Daughter When I Go Back to Work
By Samantha Taylor
For the past two years, my daughter and I have been taking Mommy and Me classes at the local JCC. We took art, music and gardening. We loved all of it. We had fun and we made friends. It was fantastic.
Every week, I heard other moms talking about taking their kids to Shabbat service on Friday mornings. Not growing up with any religious practice, just the word Shabbat has always felt a little uncomfortable to me, so for the longest time I didn't go. We made other plans on Friday mornings. But one day, at the beginning of the school year, a friend asked me to meet her there. I reluctantly agreed to go, assuming I'd feel uncomfortable and fake.
We spent 30 minutes singing "Bim Bam" and other adorable preschool Shabbat songs with the school. My daughter Billie LOVED it. I didn't feel intimidated. This was a program for toddlers, after all. Sure, there was some Hebrew, but it was lovely. After the service, we went with a few other parents and kiddos to the family programming. It included story time, snack (challah, of course), play time and music time. None of this material was religious in nature. At the end of the 90 minutes of fun, we said the prayer, lit pretend candles, blessed the challah, and went home for a nap. It was fantastic! I promised Billie we'd go back the next week.
I wasn't raised with any religion in my house. My parents are both Jewish, but we didn't go to synagogue. I didn't have a bat mitzvah. I've been happy my entire life being (what we referred to in my family growing up as) a culinary Jew. We grew up eating latkes and matzah ball soup. We ordered Chinese food on Christmas. Once in a while on Hanukkah, we lit a menorah. My dad exposed us to the great Jewish comedians—we traveled to whatever distant movie theater in central Florida was showing the latest Woody Allen movie. That was a cultural experience for us.
When I went to college, I was selected to attend the Birthright trip. It was really a fantastic experience. I knew almost nothing about Israel at the time. For the first time I felt a real connection with my people. As we were exposed to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and learned about Israel's history, I slowly felt prouder of my heritage. On Friday nights, we did a small Shabbat service. The Hebrew parts of the service were a little intimidating, since I really hadn't experienced anything like it before. The Shabbat elevators made no sense to me. I anxiously waited for Saturday night, so we could resume our regularly scheduled programming.
After graduation, I worked for Hillel at the University of Central Florida. I was the Program Director and it was my job to help students plan events for the year. I loved it. It was a great job. We planned holiday parties and social events. Part of that was planning Shabbat services. This was the one area where I felt uncomfortable. I felt like a fraud. I didn't know the first thing about what was required or how to help the students. I leaned heavily on the student who volunteered for the job of coordinating services every Friday night. I followed her lead.
After my job with Hillel ended, I started a family. Since I married some who isn't Jewish, we celebrate Hanukkah and Christmas. We have added latkes to the menu for Christmas dinner. Both families are happy with us. I think we are doing a pretty good job of blending our non-religious, cultural holidays together.
It's been about eight months of regular Friday morning Shabbats, and now I'm getting ready to go back to work. As the weeks counted down, I got choked up every Friday morning. I loved hearing the kids sing and whisper. I loved the feeling of togetherness and love. I loved the sense of ending the week and starting new and fresh again.
I will miss lots of things about my time at home with my sweet girl. But the thing I will miss the most, without a doubt, is taking her to Shabbat every Friday morning. She'll still be at the JCC and she'll get to go. Once she's used to school, and can tolerate me coming and going, there's no doubt I'm coming to join her for the service. I'm thrilled that she won't be as uncomfortable with Hebrew and Shabbat as I was growing up.
I might not unplug or go to synagogue every Saturday, and that's OK. I don't light candles or say a prayer. It doesn't matter. I finally understand the meaning of Shabbat for me. It's about taking the time to pause and reflect. It's about joy and peace. It's about connecting in some small way. It's about love.
This article was reprinted with permission from Kveller.com, a fast-growing, award-winning website for parents raising Jewish and interfaith kids. Follow Kveller on Facebook and sign up for their newsletters here.
Samantha Taylor is a wife and mother of three from the Orlando area. Before the birth of her third child, she was the associate editor for three lifestyle publications in central Florida. Samantha was recently named Volunteer of the Year for the JCC of Greater Orlando and is a graduate of the Bornstein Leadership Program through the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando. In her spare time she enjoys visiting with family and friends, rooting for the Gators, and watching her longtime pal Mayim Bialik on The Big Bang Theory.
I'm Trying to Figure Out How to Raise a Jewish Kid as a Woman Who is Not Jewish
By Elizabeth Raphael
This article was reprinted with permission from Kveller.com, a fast-growing, award-winning website for parents raising Jewish and interfaith kids. Follow Kveller on Facebook and sign up for their newsletters here.
2015 was a year of change for me, facilitated largely by the birth of my lovely dumpling of a daughter in February. Among the normal challenges of being a first-time parent (learning to cobble together a working brain when it has been addled by lack of sleep, perfecting the art of acting casually when your child decides to poop on you in a public place, and so on), I had the additional challenge of being a woman from another faith background raising a Jewish daughter.
A bit of background on me: My religious upbringing can best be described as "vaguely Christian." I went to a Catholic church a handful of times as a child, but I was never baptized, nor did I undergo confirmation (in fact, I had to do a quick Internet search while writing this article to make sure that "confirmation" was even the right term for the process I was thinking of).
My family celebrated Easter and Christmas, but there was never an emphasis on the religious aspects of the holidays. Though my parents made sure my siblings and I knew the meaning behind the holidays, the days themselves were more about getting together with and showing appreciation for family than going to church or performing any truly religious rituals. As I grew older, my naturally skeptic mind led me on a journey of religious exploration that eventually brought me to a place of agnosticism in my early 20s. It was right around this time that I met my husband, who—you guessed it—happens to be Jewish.
He and I met through a mutual friend in 2007. OK, technically we met on a mutual friend's MySpace page, but we tend to leave that part out of our official couple story. We quickly bonded over our love of art, our mutual fondness for grunge music, and our uncanny ability to quote "Seinfeld" episodes from start to finish. Eventually we agreed to meet, and sweet amorebloomed.
Through my relationship with him, I got my first real experience with Jewish culture (well, outside of a childhood fondness for the "Rugrats" cartoon from the 90s). His religious education was more thorough than mine; he attended Sunday School regularly as a child and had his
However, where things between us differed was in the strong connection he still felt toward his culture. He kept (and still keeps) loosely kosher, not maintaining a separate kitchen but avoiding shellfish and pork and never mixing meat and dairy. Every Hanukkah, he would pull out his menorah and sing the blessings over the phone with his family across the country each night.
What I came to realize is that where my relationship with the Christian holidays was one of somewhat superficial amusement (though fun and lovely in its own way), his relationship with the Jewish holidays and with Judaism in general was something more substantial. His was a relationship of preservation. By maintaining those rituals, he was helping to keep alive an ancient, beautiful, and strong culture that had undergone more than its share of challenges over the years. It was this realization that made the decision to raise our daughter as Jewish a natural choice for both of us.
Since our daughter is still only a wee lass—just 11 months old!—her current relationship with Judaism is at a fairly basic level. Last Purim, we dressed her up and took her to temple, delighted to have an opportunity to put her in the bear costume we bought pretty much when we first found out that I was pregnant. For her Hebrew naming ceremony, we waited until Sukkot and had it under the sukkah with the Sunday School classes in attendance. (I managed to only cry a little bit while reading the blessings.) She delighted in all of the aspects of Hanukkah—especially opening gifts, eating latkes with lots of applesauce on top, and watching the menorah being lit. She may not have fully realized the significance behind such events yet, but by undergoing these experiences, she has already become a part of the culture.
In many ways, I am learning about Judaism alongside my daughter. I know that at some point, her education and her experiences will take her to a different place than me, and there will be complicated questions to answer when we come to them. I am not intimidated by this. We will be different, yes, but not separate. I will find ways to help her grow as a young Jewish woman. Already I have adopted the role of helping her appreciate her culture through cooking. (I'm proud to say I have challah, hamantaschen, babka, and matzah ball soup under my culinary belt.) The older she gets, I will find other ways as well.
I await these challenges, and the Gregorian New Year, with open arms and an open heart.
Elizabeth Raphael is a stay-at-home mom and full-time book nerd. She also makes excellent matzo balls.
Charity Begins at Home
Every day, I open the newspaper or listen to the news, and I am disheartened by what is happening in the world—violence at home and abroad, food shortages, disease, natural disasters, drought and environmental issues. There are days when I just have to tune out because what is good seems to have disappeared.
But recently, two things have restored my faith in humanity. After the devastating storms in Dallas following Christmas, I watched as friends and neighbors mobilized to help complete strangers try to pick up the pieces of their lives. Then in the early hours of Saturday morning, the home of my son's classmate burned to the ground. The family had built the house and had only moved in two weeks ago during winter break. Thankfully, the family escaped unharmed, but they lost everything. As news of the tragedy spread on the class Facebook page, parents mobilized to help make sure the family's immediate needs were met.
One family arranged for temporary housing and stocked the kitchen with groceries, and another parent set-up an online sign-up for gift cards, clothing and more. Other parents offered their home as a collection point for donations. I arranged for the school's resale shop to open on Sunday so my son's classmate and his brother could get the uniform clothing they needed. Teachers purchased school supplies; the head of school provided a laptop, the school counselor reached out to the family. The senior class purchased items and parents from the community that didn't know the family whose home was destroyed called to offer help. It was amazing what was accomplished in the span of a few hours.
I told my son when he woke-up on Saturday morning what happened. As I was cooking breakfast, he said, "I want to help James and his family."
Our son's Hanukkah gift this past year was gelt or money. Each night he received "Gelt to Get" and "Gelt to Give." The idea was that he received money that he could spend on himself and received an equal amount that he had to distribute to those in need in any way he chose. The "Gelt to Give" was given in small bills so that he could choose to distribute a little to many people or organizations, or pool it and give a large lump sum.
After watching the news of the tornadoes in Dallas on TV while we were on vacation, my son decided that he wanted to adopt a family and give his gelt to them. As of Saturday, a week after getting home from our trip, we had not identified a way to get the money to a family in the affected area.
After hearing the news about his friend's house fire, my son changed his tzedakah or charity distribution plan. He was going to use his money to help his classmate. Later that day, I took my son to the grocery store so he could buy a gift card for his friend's family so that they could buy food. As I watched with pride as my son paid for the gift card with his wad of cash, I thought of the saying, "Charity begins at home."
The phrase expressed the demands of taking care of one's family, before caring for others. But for me, it meant something else. It was a reminder that learning to be charitable, learning to be a tzadik or righteous person began at home. As parents, we were primarily responsible for modeling the values and behaviors that we wanted our children to see as important and to embrace. If we wanted our kids to take their responsibility to the world around them seriously, then it was up to us to show them what it meant to help others and our community.
I knew that my husband and I were far from perfect parents. There were many things we had done wrong or could have done better, but teaching our son what it meant to act justly and serve the community was one thing we'd gotten right. Whether it was helping a friend in need, raising money for education and clean water for children in Haiti, volunteering at the local food bank, purchasing prayer books for a synagogue with limited resources or doing a park cleanup, my son's actions showed that charity did, in fact, begin at home.
The Start of My Jewish Family's Interfaith Education
Once upon a time, I was a kid growing up in North Jersey in the '80s, and I had a pretty clear idea of who I was and who I wanted to be. Even though I was the "token" Jewish kid in the neighborhood, I never struggled with my identity, in part to my parents' credit for creating a strong Jewish home life, and in part because of my close connection to the Reform synagogue at which I spent countless hours. Whether I was celebrating a Jewish holiday, marching in an Israel celebration parade or singing with the junior choir at Shabbat services, it was clear to everyone around me that this kid was on a path, and that my Jewishness was a huge part of who I was and who I was going to grow up to be.
The story could just end there, with the assumption that I stayed that kid and that I followed that path … and the story wouldn't be totally wrong.
But it's also incomplete, and sometimes even I find myself looking over my history and wonder if I'm reading the story of me, or someone else. I'm no longer that '80s kid who was so self-assured, and my connection to Jewish life doesn't always resemble the picture I imagined in my head. And I'm sure by now you're wondering why.
My name is Amy, I'm a divorced mom of two (mostly) hilarious kids (ages 6 & 8 ½) and well, now I live in Maine. Wait, let me say that again. I'm a divorced mom of two and I live in MAINE.
This place isn't exactly known as the center of Jewish life in these great United States. And while I'm at it, I should also mention my Irish Catholic boyfriend. So begins my interfaith journey, one that I hope you'll join me on. I promise to fill in some of the blanks (like, are the kids Jewish? Is their dad Jewish? Yes and yes) on this blog, and to be real with all of you. Because for the first time in my life, identity and belonging isn't so simple for me—and if it's not simple for ME, the complexities of raising Jewish kids while trying to navigate this newness? My brain hurts just thinking about it.
So as an introduction, I'll leave you with this story, because I think it will start developing the Polaroids for you to get the picture. As I type this, I'm looking at my Christmas tree. Yes, MY Christmas tree. I've never had a Christmas tree until this very tree that I'm staring at. The idea was absurd as I don't celebrate Christmas. I've never had tree envy: even when my friends would invite me over to decorate theirs. It wasn't part of who I was and there was no question that I would never, EVER have a tree.
Remember the whole Jewish girl from Jersey thing? Yet for the first time in 39 years, I've got a real live one, and I'm totally and completely enthralled with it. I could say it was the boyfriend's tree since we were putting it in HIS apartment, but I went with him to pick out the perfect one, it was tied to the roof of MY car and I went to the store with him to pick out ornaments. I carefully decorated it, twice (because apparently trees have been known to fall over; I clearly have so much to learn), and added my own special touch: a blinged out Chinese takeout container, because up to this point that's what Christmas meant to me. After a third tree felling (followed by said tree being attached to the wall), my kids got involved in the action. My Jewish children, who had never touched a Christmas tree let alone decorated one, were about to experience something totally foreign.
The night they came to decorate coincided with the seventh night of Hanukkah and the kids were excited to light the menorah and exchange gifts. All that happened, and it was our normal Jewish life. Until they decided that what they really wanted for Hanukkah was to decorate the tree. By the light of the candles, they carefully chose ornaments and hung them with care … not quietly. Instead, my amazing children, who only cared about making it look special for my boyfriend, decorated the tree while belting out as many Hanukkah songs as they could think of. There are no parenting manuals that tell you what to do, or how to react in a situation like this, so I did the only thing I knew how—I joined in.
I laugh thinking about it now as I look at the tree. My kids singing in Hebrew about dreidels, only wanting to spread love and joy. In that moment, I realized that maybe, just maybe I can make this interfaith thing work. Their excitement was electrifying and for two kids who don't believe in Santa (I may have come up with some threats if they ruin it for their friends!) well, I think we all found a little magic that night.
So begins this chapter, as I try to figure out how to maintain old traditions and incorporate new ones that I (or the kids) never expected to be part of.
The Twelve Days of Interfaith Holidays
With not quite 12 days between Hanukkah and Christmas this year (depending on just how you count), I thought I would dedicate this post to that persistently ambitious Christmas carol (which also has more than one Hanukkah-themed version). In no particular order, here are some memorable moments from this December's interfaith holiday season:
1. Learning and sharing holiday baking traditions always crowns my list, from my spouse's excellent latkes to Christmas cookies to the gingerbread people my spouse's family favored at this time of year, and chuckling at his always-remarkable excitement over indulging in my family's Christmas morning tradition of having pigs-in-blankets for breakfast.
2. Learning and re-learning with my children the story of Hanukkah, from the Maccabees to the hanukkiah (Hanukkah menorah), from dreidel to gelt, and learning and re-learning, how to share the stories of Christmas with them as well.
3. Making a list, or two or three, and checking them at least twice, to make sure we have a good balance of gifts to spread across eight nights and one festive morning.
4. Making sure that list of gifts includes opportunities to remind our children that the holiday season is as much about giving as getting (and this year, giving each daughter a tzedakah box as an opportunity to think about giving).
5. Baking "just one more batch" of cookies after we've already made four, this time chocolate peppermint buttons, because I am a compulsive holiday baker who likes nothing more than giving away platefuls of cookies.
6. Answering the persistent queries from my children's great-grandparents about what to send their great-grandchildren, and do they have to send gifts for Hanukkah, or is it all right to give them a Christmas gift, too, since they know we're raising our kids Jewish? (Answer: gifts are always welcome, and we love you no matter how you figure this one out).
7. Soothing my 6-year-old daughter's tears as she mourns the eighth-night end of Hanukkah, by reminding her of all of the many holidays and festive days that we'll enjoy between now and next December.
8. Worrying that hegemonic Christmas is overtaking Hanukkah in our home's holiday decorations, as this year we brought Christmas-themed dishes onto our holiday table, and asking my Jewish spouse for what feels like the 50th time if he is sure he is OK with the Christmas-themed dinnerware, and all of the other Christmas-y things that have festooned our house, like the bough of pretend holly which now winds up our staircase, and gives great joy to our daughter who shares the plant's name?
9. Smiling as he reassures me that he really likes the new dishes, because the bowls have holly on them and the plates have a cute little village that reminds us of a favorite place where we once lived.
10. Laughing with my spouse as I tell him that I think it would be fun to have special Passover plates too, not because I want us to be particularly frum, but because I enjoy holiday dishes, and wouldn't it be fun to mark Passover with special dishes too (and throw a bit of kashrut into the mix without even meaning to)?
11. Continuing to read Hanukkah books to my daughters many nights after all nine candles have long since burned down to their holders, and smiling at my spouse over our elder daughter's head as she insists on singing the song "Hanukkah O Hanukkah" all by herself.
12. Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel as Christmas Eve approaches, and realizing that somehow, again, I'll have made it through another festive and yet frenetic holiday season.
Wishing all of you a happy, festive and joyful holiday season!
Birthdays, Hanukkah and Learning to Let Go
I was supposed to celebrate my birthday, which fell on the seventh night of Hanukkah with my husband Cameron and son Sammy. We were going to light the hanukkiah, exchange gifts and go out for a sushi dinner. The plan sounded ideal to me–I love Hanukkah, sushi and spending time with my guys.
But the celebration did not turn out as planned. The night before, as we were getting ready to leave to go to Sammy's string concert at school, we got a message from the dad of one of Sammy's friends with a last minute request. Could Sammy come to his older son's
Apparently, cousins with children the same age as Sammy's friend just cancelled, and Sammy's friend was not going to have anyone his age to hang out with at the reception. He would love Sammy to be his running mate for the evening.
It would have been easy for me to call back and say, "I'm sorry, Sammy can't make it. We have plans," or "It's my birthday tomorrow and we are celebrating as a family." As a parent, I could have made an executive decision. But I did not. I shared the invitation with Sammy and let him decide. I knew we needed to start to loosen the strings that tied Sammy to us and empower him to make decisions for himself.
Sammy's reaction to the invite was excitement followed by a blank stare. "It's your birthday tomorrow," he said. I could tell he was worried that the decision he wanted to make would upset me.
I said, "There will be many more birthdays and Hanukkahs to celebrate together. If you want to go to the bar mitzvah, you should go."
I realized that now that we were in the tweenage years there would be many more of these types of requests–requests that came with choices. I also knew that as commitments go, a quiet Hanukkah and birthday celebration were small. There would be times when the answer had to be "no." Call it a good parenting day, but intuitively I knew that saying "yes" now was like putting money in the bank. It would make the necessary "no's" easier to take.
Sammy said he wanted to go. I called the friend's dad and told him that Sammy would love to celebrate with their family.
As we drove to the strings concert, I told Sammy that I would be happy to go with him to the bar mitzvah service and then he could go on the bus to the party with the other kids. "No thanks," he said. "You don't need to." My little boy was now an independent 11-year-old.
Saturday night, Cameron dropped off Sammy and another friend who was invited at the bar mitzvah service. He walked them into our synagogue, got them seats and left. They were now responsible for navigating the evening themselves.
Later, as Cameron and I celebrated my birthday over dinner, we talked about how this was Sammy's first "night on the town" without us. And the various parenting questions that arose when you entered this stage—should you send them with a phone and if so, what are the appropriate usage guidelines; in the absence of anything illegal or dangerous, when do you rescue your child from a situation and when do you make them stick it out—dominated our dinner conversation.
We knew we were entering rookie territory. As we toasted the occasion and I reflected on the year ahead, I realized that it would be a year of learning, learning to parent to a way more suited to Sammy's new stage of life, and learning to let go.
Two Holidays, Twice the Festivities: But One at a Time
I have always loved the holiday season, and celebrating Hanukkah as an interfaith family brings with it an extra dose of joy. When I was a child, my mother insisted that we wait until after my birthday, which falls in the first week of December, before any celebration of Christmas could commence. She wanted to make sure we didn't detract from the first December holiday, my birthday, before moving onto the one with far greater hoopla.
My mother mastered the art of see-no-holiday and hear-no-holiday. If we chanced to see a Christmas tree on a car's rooftop during the weekend after Thanksgiving, my mom would gleefully declare, "I don't see anything!" When we heard the first Christmas carols on radios or loudspeakers, she'd call out, "I can't hear anything, can you?" My mother always meant well with this gesture, even if it flew in the face of my own very real excitement about the coming Christmas season.
Only after my birthday, a few days into December, could we get out our own decorations, choose our tree, or play Christmas music on the stereo at home. My family continued this tradition well into my adulthood, such that even this year, my brother (who has been married for several years) apologized to me during our usual Thanksgiving phone call: "I think we're going to get out the holiday decorations before your birthday this year." I laughed, thinking it sounded like fun.
The first Hanukkah I celebrated with my Husband (then-boyfriend) began November 29, the day after Thanksgiving. We lit a small travel menorah in a hotel in Chicago, where we'd come to celebrate both holidays with his family. For once, I didn't have to wait to celebrate a December holiday! I didn't even have to avoid, as usual, Black Friday shopping, since I needed to finish buying gifts for my boyfriend well in advance of the busiest shopping day.
Now that I have celebrated over a decade and more Hanukkahs with Ben, I am used to the ebb and flow of the Hanukkah calendar. This year, Hanukkah starts on a great day, the evening of December 6, far enough into December to allow a few more days to shop and prepare, but not so late that we light the lights of both holidays at the same time. I skipped Black Friday shopping this year, but on Saturday I remembered that with Hanukkah starting in a week, perhaps I really should have joined the throng on the busiest shopping day of the year.
When we celebrate two holidays in my interfaith family, we hang white lights and blue lights and multi-colored lights all across the doorways in our home, and along the tops of bookshelves and curtain rods. Christmas-colored lights line the shelf on which we place our menorahs. We break out Jewish-star emblazoned Hanukkah place mats with matching blue napkins, and join them with green-and-red place mats and napkins. We bake paper-thin butter cookies in shapes appropriate for both holidays, and we make sour milk sugar cookies with colored icing. When I was a child, we called these red-and-green cookies "Santa Clauses and Christmas trees," but now we've added blue-and-white menorahs, dreidels and six-pointed stars to the mix as well.
Giving the cookies the awkward name of "Santas and dreidels and menorahs and trees" is the closest we come to a December holiday mashup. Despite the holidays falling in such close proximity, we don't hang dreidels on our tree, or call it a Hanukkah bush. We give each holiday its own separate identity as best we can, although this might seem difficult when the holiday books stack together and the red-and-green towels on our oven door hang right next to blue-and-white ones. Two holidays make for twice the festivities.
This year Hanukkah starts early, and my daughters reap the benefits of being in an interfaith family. They'll compress a month's worth of anticipation into a week's worth of waiting. As we wait, we'll tell the stories of Hanukkah as best we can, giving this holiday its own weight and emphasis. After Hanukkah ends, our daughters will still have more than a week of renewed anticipation as they wait for Christmas Day. They'll dream and wonder about Santa Claus, and we'll talk, too, about the birth of the historical Jesus, as best we can.
We unpacked our holiday boxes the weekend after Thanksgiving. I wish I could show you my mother's face from our Skype call when we told her we were unpacking the boxes. Her expression relaxed, I'm glad to say, when I explained that Hanukkah started next weekend.
Before we unpacked our two holidays' decorations, Ben wanted to know if I felt sure I was OK with it: After all, my birthday isn't until later in the week.
"I'm sure," I said. "The kids are excited, and truth be told, Hanukkah starts in a week, and I'm excited too!"
Do you prefer an early or late Hanukkah? How does your holiday season double the festive feeling?
Boldly Share the Light of Hanukkah this Holiday Season
Over the years, Hanukkah, a minor celebration that isn't even in the Torah, has become the unofficial national holiday of the American Jewish community. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was promoted as the Jewish alternative to Christmas. Since then, many individuals and communal leaders have fought against the "make Hanukkah big" movement and urged Jewish families to refrain from embracing the idea of Hanukkah as the Jewish Christmas.
But the reminders of Hanukkah's lesser holiday status have not stopped its growth. What once was an eight-day festival has evolved into a six-week season. And many Jewish families are using the holiday to reaffirm their Jewishness in a big way. Instead of small electric menorahs in windows, they're putting a Jewish twist on non-Jewish holiday decorations and traditions, declaring in a loud and proud way, "I'm Jewish!" For interfaith families, this increase in Hanukkah festiveness allows parents from other backgrounds to indulge their love of all-things-holiday while honoring their commitment to building a Jewish home.
As we move into the holiday season, here are some ideas for boldly sharing the light of Hanukkah. Share the creative ways you make the Festival of Lights special in the comments section.
Hang Hanukkah on the Doorposts of Your House and on Your Gates: Wreaths and door decorations are not just for Christmas. Pinterest, Etsy, and eBay have many Hanukkah wreath styles and ideas for making your own. From rustic Jewish stars with lights to evergreen wreaths with Hanukkah garland and dreidels, there are many pre-made and make-your-own options. My neighbor hangs a Hanukkah banner on her front door and highlights it by placing an evergreen garland mixed with Stars of David on the surrounding doorframe.
Shine Some Light on Your Jewish Identity: Hanukkah is the Festival of Lights, yet holiday lights have always been associated with Christmas. But in recent years, some Jewish families have decided to make holiday lights their own. A Christian friend, who is raising Jewish children with her husband, and loves holiday lights, decorates the outside of her house with blue and white LEDS. For those that like lawn ornaments, there are lighted Hanukkah characters and symbols including pre-lit Jewish dogs and dreidels, and 8-foot lighted inflatable menorahs.
Wear Your Jewishness on Your Sleeve (or Pants or Chest): Represent the Jewish tradition and stand out from the red, white and green crowd in cozy Hanukkah PJs, leggings, t-shirts, and underwear. Have some real holiday fun in an ugly Hanukkah sweater and menorah hat. Spin around your office Christmas party in dreidel socks.
Rock it Like a Maccabee: While you may not find any local radio stations that play only Hanukkah songs for six-plus weeks, there is plenty of great holiday music to get you in the Festival-of-Lights-spirit. Tune into Jewish Rock Radio on your computer or mobile device. Check out the Jewish A Cappella group the Maccabeats singing "Candlelight," the Hanukkah version of "Dynamite," and "All About That Neis." Listen to "Miracle" by Jewish reggae rapper Matisyahu. Explore the music of Jewish rockers Dan Nichols, Rick Recht and Josh Nelson, and the Kosher Gospel of Joshua Nelson.
Deck Your Halls With Stars and Dreidels: Dress your mantel with silver tinsel and modern star garland. Hang Star of David paper lanterns. Add some festiveness to your home by dangling Hanukkah ornaments throughout. Add a Jewish twist to an advent with Hanukkah countdown bags that hang over the fireplace. Use Hanukkah tablecloths, napkins and dishes for the entire holiday. Get more ideas online.
Eat Like A Champ: Hanukkah follows the traditional Jewish story of "They tried to kill us. We won. Let's eat." So, eat like a champion. Expand your holiday menu beyond latkes and donuts. Make different kinds of Hanukkah cookies and share with family, friends and coworkers. Enjoy a holiday breakfast with dreidel muffins and dreidel-shaped pancakes, or use your Hanukkah cookie cutters to make holiday-themed challah French toast. Bake Star of David cupcakes for a yummy dessert. Get creative with your traditional foods. Try squash or root vegetable latkes. Think outside the brisket and chicken box.
Choosing an identity for our children, and watching them choose it themselves
Recently, my older daughter Laurel was pretending that her father and I were guests at her house, and we were helping to take care of her while her parents were out at a meeting. She showed me the kitchen, and suggested I might want to make mac n' cheese for her and her baby sister. Over dinner, she decided to talk about her family.
"I am Jewish, and my daddy is Jewish, so we just celebrated Passover," she said.
"Oh, that must have been fun," I replied.
"Yeah, it was tons of fun!"
"What other holidays do you celebrate?" I asked, curious to hear how she might answer.
"We also celebrate Hanukkah, of course," she continued, "but we have Christmas too," she said, "because my mommy is Christian."
"Oh, really?" I replied. "That's interesting. I think your mommy told me once that she actually is more of a Unitarian Universalist," I clarified, thinking fast. Well, UUs historically were Christian, but today, many UUs wouldn't call themselves Christian, for a variety of reasons, not least because they can't quite accept some of the central tenets of Christianity. Oh, ack, what do I say! I'm much more of a cultural Christian, I suppose, since I was raised in the Episcopalian church, but, but, but… how do I explain this in one sentence, to a 5-year-old!
I continued to play along with the conversation. "I suppose your mommy is sort of Christian. She's a very, very liberal Christian," I added. "And she celebrates Christmas, yes." Perhaps it would be best to save explanations of nineteenth-century doctrinal changes for a few years, I thought.
When my husband Ben and I first started dating, one of our first outings as a couple was to hear Harvey Cox speak on his book about raising a Jewish child, Common Prayers: Faith, Family, and a Christian's Journey Through the Jewish Year. We'd only been dating for a few weeks, so attending this event seemed kind of significant, and definitely nerve-wracking. What I learned, though, was that Cox and his wife, who is Jewish, decided to raise their son Jewish because of matrilineal descent. When it came to Christmas and other Christian holidays, they would simply tell him that those were his father's holidays.
This sounded like simple enough advice, and something to think more about.
I now know that this suggestion is hardly quite so simple, and that questions of identity will look different for different children as they age.
When Ben and I started to discuss marriage, it also seemed simple to decide that our children, if we were blessed with any, would be Jewish. Or at least that's how I remember the conversation going. We'd just gotten engaged a couple of days earlier, and were sitting on the old green futon that functioned as our first couch back in the grad-school days. I told Ben, "I've been thinking about this, and since Judaism has an ethnic component to it, as well as a religious one, I think our kids should be raised Jewish."
I remember the surprise, and the happiness, that I saw in his eyes. "Really? You'd do that? Because Reform Judaism accepts patrilineal descent," he told me, "meaning that Judaism can pass through the father as well as the mother. I'm so glad you're open to this!"
Our ketubah, which we wrote ourselves almost a year after getting engaged, seems to imply a different intention. I've just looked at it hanging there in our living room now, and it clearly expresses our desire to create a home that honors our Jewish and Unitarian Universalist heritages, one that, should we be blessed with children, would "honor justice, respect diversity, love the holy, and make whole the world." This phrase rather nicely sums up what Ben and I hold most dear, theologically speaking, but nowhere does it say we're going to raise our children as solely Jewish!
That's funny, I find myself thinking. I thought we'd agreed to raise our kids Jewish? Didn't I tell Ben that I agreed that we should raise Jewish children?
Or did I mean that I wanted to be sure they had a Jewish identity, even if that identity is only one of the labels a child might choose? After all, we have two Christmas-celebrating Jewish children, children who receive Easter cards each spring from still-confused relatives, children who this year participated gleefully in their first Easter-egg hunt.
How confusing!
At least, it sounds confusing to me. I'm not sure it's confusing to our older daughter. It's simply who she is. Just a couple of weeks ago, she was proud to share a box of matzah with her class at school, and on the way home that day, she told me, "I'm the only Jewish kid in my school." I'm not sure that's quite numerically true of the school, even if it is of her classroom. However, what rings more true than a statistic is the extent to which, at this point, Laurel clearly considers herself to be Jewish—and whether she'd say it this way or not, she knows, too, that it's not quite that simple.
A New Year's Resolution – Talk More (and Listen too!)
A very, very Happy New Year, everyone. Hopefully your New Year's Eve comes on the heels of a lovely holiday season – more joy than travel hassle, more love than overwhelmedness. My family had a really, truly lovely one, complete with a jam-packed friend- and family-filled Hanukkah in our home, a Hanukkah party at my Dad's, a beautiful last night of Hanukkah celebration hosted by Eric's sister (and topped off with her homemade rugelach!) and a wonderful, joyous Christmas celebration with Eric's family. (In the interest of honesty in blogging, all of this joy swept over some rough spots, like a loss that we continue to feel for my sister-in-law's family, and a bout of flu that swept over both the four of us and a lot of our extended family). All in all, we are feeling very blessed.
Looking to 2015, I have a proposal to make for a resolution for all of us interfaith families. Long ago, I scaled back on the big ticket resolutions – I have found much more success in the years I vowed to be really good at a small step than in the years I failed to break down life-changing goals into smaller pieces. While I long to be as sharp as Eric and be able to do the Sunday New York Times crossword, the year I vowed to just get smart enough to do the Friday Metro crossword I did pretty well.
So here is a resolution to try on for 2015. Talk more. And listen, too. However you have decided to incorporate faith into your family life, talk about it. Talk about it with you partner. Talk about it with your families. Find friends with whom you can talk about it. If it suits your path, talk about it with clergy, or within your faith community. When your kids start conversations about it, follow their lead and talk about it with them, too. Talk about things that are clear, talk about things that are joyous, talk about things that bring you comfort. And talk about things you don't know the answers to, the things that are difficult, the things that make you doubt a choice you've made. See if you can have one conversation about a part of your faith you have not talked about, or see if you can have one conversation about something about blending faiths that is really hard.
As I understand my own path, being a Jewish household in a multi-faith family is a lifelong journey. What it means to be Jewish to each of my family members, and to our household, will change as the years come and go. Our relationships with Judaism and with our family's Christian roots will change too. What it means to be "interfaith," or part of our multi-faith family, will also change. Most important, our relationships with one another, and with the parents and siblings and grandparents and extended family we love, will continue to blossom alongside these changes. Nothing is absolute. What we have the most control over is how we can influence these changes. I think our best shot at doing this is to have a lot of great conversations. They don't all need to happen in 2015, but in 2015 we can decide to be more deliberate about how we talk, and how we listen. So here is to a new year filled with honesty and understanding, some good conversations, and all of the happiness and good health the year can hold.


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The L2-structures of standard and switching-regime GARCH models
This paper analyzes the probabilistic structure of Markov-switching GARCH(p,q) models, in which the volatility process is driven by a finite state-space Markov chain. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of moments of any order. We find that the squares and higher order powers of the process have the L2 structures of ARMA processes, and hence admit ARMA representations. These results are applicable to standard GARCH models and have statistical implications in terms of order identification and parameter estimation.
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Volume (Year): 115 (2005)
Issue (Month): 9 (September)
Pages: 1557-1582
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