When You’re Young@Heart
Young@Heart is a documentary about a chorus of senior citizens (no, not The Rolling Stones) who perform songs you might not expect by such artists as Coldplay, The Ramones, Sonic Youth, The Clash and Talking Heads. The film follows them through the ups and downs of 7 weeks of preparation leading up to their latest show.
Here’s a clip of them performing Schizophrenia by Sonic Youth:
Reading a description on paper, or even seeing the music video clips all over YouTube, it’s impossible to get at what Young@Heart is really all about. It’s easy to look at the old codgers singing The Ramones’ I Wanna Be Sedated and turn away or just laugh at them. It’s true, you’ll laugh during this movie, but you will also cry. You get to know these people and you watch as they bond with this unlikely material. By the end, what seems silly becomes an inspirational and poignant look at a remarkable group of people who refuse to go quietly into the night.
Young@Heart opens tomorrow in limited release and I hope you’ll give it a chance. I’ll try to have a full review up by the end of the week.
For those of you in Los Angeles, the chorus itself is coming on April 17th.
Filed under: Upcoming
Related Posts: - Review: Young@Heart (2008) ****
- Paris Loves ‘Young@Heart’ in the Summer When it Sizzles
- Notes from the LA Film Fest - Part 4
- Not everyone sad to see Winehouse off ‘Solace’
- The Bond Plays On
Cool, Craig. I look forward to your full review.
I’ve been looking forward to this for a while. Was it delayed? I swear I first saw a trailer like a year ago.
It’s been kicking around for a long time. I remember it played at the LA Film Festival last summer.
This looks like a film that could really touch at something. I hope to see this as soon as its anywhere near me.
Sort of off-topic (but not really since this has to do with music) - Bob Dylan was given an honorary Pulitzer Prize.
lol, okay, this I want to see.
I’m with you Daniel, I feel like I saw/read about this ages ago. I completely forgot about it until I saw the trailer on a movie recently. Looks just as good now as it did back then. I know it’s gotten some good buzz around it, but I hope it really picks up. I think it has the potential to be the next big doc that’s not from Mr. Moore. At least it might become “the documentary of 2008.”
Great call on its potential, Justin. If the trailer alone has such wide appeal, it’s gotta take off with word-of-mouth. Everybody could use something lighthearted like this these days.
The funniest (and a little sad) thing happpened when I went to a screening of this last week. I walked into the theater, and there was a group of elderly people who had clearly come from a nursing home. I went upstairs to the auditorium and was standing in the general area of the line, when that group, with their screening passes, came to the podium. I let them go ahead. The ticket-taker announces that the auditorium is full. I scattered. I didn’t want to be near that conversation. I figured it was going to end with canes being brandished. They stood there for a while trying to figure out what to do. There was no way I was going to walk up there in front of them and insist that I had a reserved seat. They eventually sent them in to see Married LIfe.
Oh man, oldies denied Young@Heart. There’s something wrong about all that.
I’ve gotta say, the most recent incarnation of the trailer bugs me a little bit. The guy’s voice and he’s trying to make it out to be the next Little Miss Sunshine or something.
Oh well, if it gets people to see it, that’s fine, I just worry it will turn off more people than it turns on.