Jeremy Blachman's Weblog: 2012

My Grandma Reviews: "Juno" and "The Great Debaters"

"You liked that movie, with the pregnant girl?"

"Sure, grandma.  I did.  I liked it."

"I think that's the wrong kind of movie to show young people.  Every young person who sees that -- here's this girl, 16 years old, pregnant, and nobody raises a fuss, like it's an ordinary thing.  She's never sick, no one cares, even her mother and father don't think anything of it.  But that's not the way life is,  or at least not how it used to be.  Everyone frowns on someone being unmarried and pregnant, don't they still?  But that's not how the movie is.  And they call it a comedy, but I don't see anything funny in that.  Is it the usual thing for a 16 year old girl to be walking around with a belly like that, and pregnant, where is the comedy?"

"Well, maybe the dialogue..."

"And then at the end she finds out she really likes that young fellow!  First she didn't want anything to do with him and then she decides she really likes him, it didn't seem like it made any sense."

"Okay, so you didn't like Juno, but you liked The Great Debaters?"

"I did.  Finally a movie I liked.  I liked that a lot -- I liked it because there was a message there, it was something thoughtful.  People trying to make themselves better and achieve something, there was a real story there.  I don't if you'll like it -- compared to all this other stuff it's awfully sedate and ordinary -- but I really liked it.  But in the pregnant one -- could you hear all of what they were saying?"

"I guess."

"Why does everyone in the movie talk like young people, very fast and very low.  That's how young people talk -- and it wasn't only low to me.  It's like the way [your cousin] talks, I never know what she is saying, I swear to you she talks like that, only in this movie they spoke even lower.  But she was a beautiful girl, the one who was pregnant, she has a beautiful face.  I must say that, she has a beautiful face.  But she was non-caring.  Like it was not a shameful thing, or even anything at all, like having a baby was just something to brush right off, like it was not a big deal or something that would affect her life."

"At least you liked one of the movies."

"Oh, of course.  No, and the biggest disappointment wasn't even the movie.  We went to the deli on Avenue U and let me tell you, I thought I'd treat myself and I got tongue, in a sandwich.  [My two friends] each got corned beef, and even though the meat was like two inches high -- how anyone can eat so much meat in a sandwich I don't know -- they didn't like it.  And my tongue, I said I want first cut, the leanest, and I didn't even recognize it as tongue.  It was so mushy, I don't even know if I was even eating tongue, or if it was something else they put in the sandwich, I really don't know.  And they used to have good coleslaw, but now they have big pieces of cabbage in it you have to chew instead of it all being the same size.  And we shared a knish, and it was cold, everything was cold, nothing was warm, and they weren't even that busy.  And the waitress they had -- she was an old lady, she could hardly even walk!  She was sitting all the while she wasn't serving."

"How old was she?"

"Oh, she was probably about 65.  Maybe she wasn't even that old, but she seemed very old.  I'm disappointed by the food at that deli,I always thought their food was better than that, I felt like taking them on the side and saying 'what happened to your food?' But I didn't want to say anything and call them over and make a fuss, but, really, I know what tongue looks like, individual slices, but this was all jumbled up."

My Grandma Reviews: Charlie Wilson's War

"I don't know about this one.  I know you saw it and liked it, but I don't know.  It seemed like no one cared about anything, every time you saw them they were drinking, and with the women, and it didn't really show you where he put anything into this that made them win the war with Russia.  He was so nonchalant, it didn't look like they were trying to do anything, just sitting and drinking.  What did Charlie Wilson do that was so wonderful that they made a movie about him?  How did he really help them win against Russia?"

"He asked Congress for money."

Money, money, that's all, it's not like he sacrificed anything.  It was almost tongue-in-cheek, that's all he did, and yet this movie gives him all of the glory.  I just didn't see the sense to it at all, these great sacrifices he made?  What sacrifices?  All he does is drink and then a little sexy thing comes in, you know?  And to make a movie about this war he supposedly helped us win, but they didn't show any fighting?  What kind of war was this?"

"They showed the children living in the refugee camp."

Not very long, you just see them walking and it looks like squalor, but then it's back to the drinking and the women.  He just asked for money.  Anyone could ask for money.  The way they presented it, it didn't look like it was a serious thing.  I was shocked.  I was shocked when it was over and that was all there was to it.  And it says this was a true story.  Usually a true story has some drama.  Nobody seemed to be affected by anything, they were so cavalier.  You know, I think the point of this movie, to me, was more about how Congressmen live and how nonchalant they are about all these things and not really very caring."

"Maybe."

"I didn't see why you'd recommend it, I didn't see the sense to it at all, I thought it would have so much more substance.  And then we went in, we snuck into the last few minutes of Enchanted, we snuck in the back -- the Charlie Wilson movie was over early and we didn't want to eat dinner at 3:30 -- so we saw some of Enchanted.  Oh, that was ugly.  That's a fairy tale, and it didn't even hold my attention, it was an ugly thing.  It was an ugly thing, ugly faces, imaginary faces."

"What part did you see?  The dragon?  That was the only ugly part I guess."

"The dragon, and the guy."

"Yeah, that part wasn't very good."

"They do everything for effect these days.  Fairy tales used to be so beautiful, and now because we have such modern technology, they always want to use that modern technology to burst things, and to do things they couldn't do years ago, and it loses its beauty and its truthfulness.  Well, I think I see things differently.  If you really want to study motion pictures, you would study some of the great things in the '40s and '50s, really.  Now everything's done for effect, because they can do so many things they couldn't do years ago, things explode in front of your eyes.  It was more natural years ago."

A Christmas Carol

If you happen to be somewhere in upstate New York this coming weekend...

I co-wrote a new musical version of "A Christmas Carol" being performed  at the Fort Salem Theater (in, appropriately enough, the town of Fort Salem, NY).  It premiered this past weekend, and runs this coming weekend, 7:30PM on Friday and Saturday, 2:00PM on Saturday and Sunday.

Review here, and feature story here.  The review's pretty cool.  I wasn't expecting this would be the kind of thing to get reviewed anywhere.  Neat.  My collaborator did all the heavy lifting -- he owns the theater, music directed the show, and was nice enough to invite me to write it with him.  Check it out if you're in the area!

My Grandma Reviews: I Am Legend

Thankfully, my grandma is all recovered from her hospital stay and back to her normal active life.  She and her friends saw I Am Legend this afternoon.

"What did you think?"

"It was terrible.  I think it was terrible, about New York being destroyed because of a vaccine, or germs, or something.  I wanted to get up and walk out.  It was so boring to me and so many other people.  Why do they make pictures like that?"

"I don't know anything about it except Will Smith is in it and it's doing very well so far."

"I don't know how they filmed it.  They had to build a set of Manhattan, I guess.  It wasn't a true depiction of anything, they couldn't just go around and film things all broken down and desolate.  I really don't know how they did this.  That to me is a remarkable feat.  Not the essence of the picture, the movie itself was terrible, but the photography,  How they photographed New York without people running around,  That's the greatest part of the picture, filming NY, I don't know how they make movies today."

"I didn't see the movie, but I'm guessing they can do a lot of that with computers -- erase people, make things look unreal, the computers can do a lot."

"Oh.  I was hoping it was self-made, a little set they could then expand.  You know, being a little bit informed about photography, I thought that was interesting, as I watched the movie, trying to figure out just how they made it.  I was excited they could make things and then blow them up."

"You want to hear some reviews?  I'll find some reviews and read them to you."

"Oh, that would be interesting.  I'm curious what people thought.  Remember, I think pictures are made for young people today, not old people like me.  Give them a little excitement, they like that, they don't even care if it makes sense or anything.  Young people.  I don't know."

"Okay.  One review: 'The film descends into a monster-movie malaise starring a horde of balding CGI monsters that look like refugees from a video game and that will scare absolutely no one, save those who worry that green-screening is ruining the movies.'"

"Oh, yeah, the monsters -- why did they have those faces?  What does that have to do with New York being destroyed?  Weird faces, and animals?  It was so unrealistic."

"Another review: 'What starts off as a compelling drama descends into a stock B-grade horror flick with some of the worst big budget special effects of recent memory.'"

"I don't think they can just erase the people with computers.  That seems impossible."

"Or they can close off streets, I suppose."

"You know, after a while i just felt it was boring, I just hoped it was over.  And i was thinking everyone in the movie -- and it was a full theater -- would get up and say 'let's get out of here.'  If those people were feeling what I felt, we'd all have gotten up and left.  We'd have said, hey, let's get out of here, we don't want to see this.  I would have been overjoyed.  And I never feel that strongly in a movie -- I mean, I see movies I don't like all the time.  But this one -- I felt wronged -- I felt whoever made this movie, they were taking advantage of people, just to give excitement to people's lives that only made them very nervous.  It wasn't a relaxing picture, it wasn't an enjoyable picture, it was absolutely unnecessary.  Just because people say 'ooh, did you see that, New York, barren' -- it was so contrived.  You know, we were all set to see The Golden Compass golden compass but your mother talked us out of it.  It's a fantasy right?"

"Yeah, same problems for you -- lots of special effects, reviews are terrible, it cost 200 million dollars to make but isn't doing well."

"See, that's it -- special effects, that's why these movie producers are making movies like that, they want people to go ooh, ahh, and get physical thrills, seeing things they've never seen before -- as long as people are amazed at what they're seeing, they're satisfied, they don't care about a good plot or anything.  Years ago you went to see a movie, every movie had a good plot, otherwise it never went any place -- movies were about real life, about human nature, about people in general, now they just want to shock you into things.  It's a terrible, terrible time for the movie industry, and I bet they're making money anyway."

"They are."

"You know, there are plenty of people who hunger for the kinds of movies we used to have in the 40s and 50s, for a plot you can remember.  If these guys get away with making movies like this, they ought to be fined by the government.  Really, I'm not kidding.  You think it would pleasant to sit there and be scared and see things you never saw before, but I don't think it's so thrilling.  I think it's nervewracking.  The more nervewracking it is, the more successful they feel like the picture is.  I don't know what kind of society we live in today, and a lot of it us due to the computer era, right?  The things they can do?  What movies did you see recently?  What should I see next week?"

"I saw Walk Hard."

"Work hard?"

"No, Walk hard.  Walk.  W-A-L-K."

"Walk Hard? What does that even mean?"

"It's a parody of a movie about Johnny Cash from a couple of years ago called Walk The Line."

"What else?"

"I saw Juno, about a 16 year old girl who gets pregnant and gives a baby up for adoption.  It's a comedy.  I liked it a lot."

"A comedy?  How could that be a comedy?  That's funny?  That too, if the subject matter is weird and supposed to be sad, in today's world that's funny to people.  To me that subject matter sounds tragic, giving a baby up for adoption.  That's it, everything is changed, my world is not what it was.  We had different things developed in us to appreciate."