Even a spoonful of sugar might not help my 2nd favorite movie of the ‘60s go down with all you film snobs and Disney haters out there, but here’s what I say to that: go fly a kite. I also say a few other things, in an essay that’s practically perfect in every way: why most of us might have Walt Disney all wrong, why P. L. Travers’s spoonful of attitude was just the medicine this script needed, why chimney sweep is apparently the best profession ever, and why Mary Poppins isn’t even the protagonist of Mary Poppins (shh: it’s Mr. Banks). No remuneration do I ask of you, but good luck will rub off when you click on this link.
1. Lawrence of Arabia (Lean, 1962)
Anyone else getting thirsty around here? Other movies tried to claim they were my favorite movie of the ‘60s, while this one sat in the back of the room and laughed. What was it that pushed it to the top of the sand dune? Was it the epic desert vistas, the unexpected jump cuts, the astute analysis of racism, the subversive homoerotic subtext? Or was it the intimate portrait of an outcast longing to become someone new, only to be left wondering, at the end of it all, if he’d rather stayed in Tunbridge Wells? “Nothing is written,” you say? What do you call this essay then?
1. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (The Beatles, 1967)
May I re-introduce to you the album you thought you’d known for all these years? It was twenty years ago today, they started telling me Revolver was the one to play, and I know my favorite album of the ‘60s has been going in and out of style, but for me it beats Revolver by a mile. Dated vaudevillian Summer of Love whimsy? Me, Rita, Mr. Kite, Billy Shears, and the girl with kaleidoscope eyes all call bullshit. Lend it your ears and it’ll sing you songs that, on the surface, appear full of beauty, optimism, and psychedelic wonder, but are secretly teeming with angst, loneliness, and existential dread. A splendid essay is guaranteed for all.
