Mary Poppins Returns tries to recapture the magic of the 1964 original, and mostly succeeds.

The film is a mirror image of the original, with characters and situations in the same mode, but different. Emily Blunt is the practically perfect nanny without Julie Andrews’ lilting voice, but with the same ability to beguile almost everyone she meets. She’s the glue that holds the film together. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s lamplighter is in the same mold as Dick Van Dyke’s chimney sweep. Emily Mortimer is a grown-up Jane Banks with the same zeal for unit organizing that mother Glynis Johns had for women’s suffrage. Ben Whishaw is the now widowed Michael Banks who has fallen into the same tired banker’s mold as his father, David Tomlinson, did in the earlier film. His three children have the same awe for their new nanny that he and his sister had for her in their childhood.

Several of the other characters from the original return as well. Ellen the housekeeper is now Julie Walters instead of Hermione Baddeley. Admiral Boom is now David Warner instead of Reginald Owen. Dick Van Dyke returns in his secondary role of Mr. Dawes. Ed Wynn’s Uncle Albert has been replaced by Meryl Streep’s Cousin Topsy while Jane Darwell’s beloved Bird Woman has been replaced by Angela Lansbury’s instantly lovable Balloon Lady.

The animated portions of the film stand up to the animated portions of the original. The songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, though not quite as catchy as the originals by the Sherman Brothers, are nevertheless quite good. They seemed to me to be more in the mode of the Sherman Brothers’ songs for Bedknobs and Broomsticks than those they wrote for Mary Poppins. The Oscar-nominated “The Place Where Lost Things Go” sung by Emily Blunt, reminds me more of “The Age of Not Believing” sung by Angela Lansbury in that film than anything else.

The standout performances, for me anyway, are those of Dick Van Dyke and Angela Lansbury, both 93 at the time of filming. The least effective was Meryl Streep singing, among other things, about her girdle to a group of kids. Cousin Topsy, like Uncle Albert in the original, was my least favorite character in the film.

Mary Poppins Returns is available on Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a cleverly conceived construct that that takes place in an alternate universe where various incarnations of Spider-Man gather to thwart megalomaniac Kingpin. It probably wouldn’t work as a live-action film given all the variables necessary to bring it off, but as an animated film it works splendidly. No wonder it was a near-unanimous choice for Best Animated Feature at all 2018’s year-end film awards.

The splendid voice cast includes Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld, Nicolas Cage, John Mulaney, Mahershala Ali, Liev Schreiber, Oscar Isaac, Chris Pine, Zoe Kravitz, Kathryn Hahn, Bryan Tyree Henry, Lily Tomlin, and Spider-Man co-creator Stan Lee who died a month before release of the film at the age of 95.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is available on Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Making their U.S. Blu-ray debuts are Far from Heaven, Lovers and Other Strangers, The Witches, and Detour.

Far from Heaven is Todd Haynes’ 2002 tribute to legendary director Douglas Sirk, whose films of the 1950s it reflects. Its opening sequence, its cinematography, and much of its screenplay are reminiscent of Sirk’s 1955 melodrama All That Heaven Allows, but there are also filmic references to 1953’s All I Desire and 1959’s Imitation of Life. Sirk never got the credit he deserved in his day, but Haynes more than made up for it starting with 2002’s New York Film Critics Awards where his film won for Best Film, Supporting Actor (Dennis Quaid), Supporting Actress (Patricia Clarkson), Director, and Cinematographer (Edward Lachman). Julianne Moore was a prime contender for Best Actress but lost in the end to Diane Lane in Unfaithful. Oscar nominations went to Moore, Lachman, Haynes (for his screenplay), and Elmer Bernstein for his haunting score.

One of the top box-office hits of 1970, Lovers and Other Strangers won an Oscar for Best Song, “For All We Know,” as well as nominations for Best Supporting Actor (Richard Castellano) and Adapted Screenplay from Joseph Bologna and Renée Taylor’s insightful play about love in a time of generational and cultural change. Bonnie Bedelia is the bride whose parents are Gig Young and Cloris Leachman; Michael Brandon is the groom whose parents are Richard Castellano and Bea Arthur. Anne Meara, Harry Guardino, Anne Jackson, Bob Dishy, Marian Hailey, Joseph Hindy, and Diane Keaton are among other members of the wedding. It’s a joy from beginning to end and hasn’t aged a bit in nearly fifty years.

Joan Fontaine’s entry into the elder ladies’ horror fest, 1966’s The Witches, was her first film in four years and would be her last, although she continued to act sporadically on TV for the next two decades and live for another two decades after that, dying in 2017 at the age of 96.

Fontaine bought the film rights to the novel and brought it to Hammer, but neither she nor anyone else was happy with the results and the film flopped badly. Half-scary, half-risible, it’s one of those so bad it’s good films. Fontaine is the heroine, a middle-aged missionary who survives an attack of witchcraft in an African village. She takes a job as a teacher in a small English village where she is befriended by an odd brother and sister, played by Alec McCowan (Travels with My Aunt) and Kay Walsh The Horse’s Mouth. Her pupils include Ingrid Boulting and Martin Stephens (Village of the Damned, The Innocents) in what would also be his last film. Once the strange happenings occur again, it takes Fontaine’s dimwitted character forever to figure out who the villain is, but savvy audiences will have figured it out long before she does.

An undeveloped subplot involves Fontaine attempting to do for Stephens what Bette Davis did for John Dall in The Corn Is Green.

The Criterion release of Edgar G. Ulmer’s Detour is a 4K restoration that more than does justice to the quintessential 1945 film noir. Filmed in just 28 days, the film takes place largely in two locations, a hotel room and a sound stage in which the car in which Tom Neal and Ann Savage ride, is filmed against a rear projection screen. The Blu-ray release includes tons of extras, mostly about the film’s eccentric director.

This week’s new releases include If Beale Street Could Talk and Stan & Ollie.