Young at Heart, Closed City

On Saturday, I caught a matinée showing of Young at Heart, a documentary about a senior citizens' chorus in Massachusetts. At first, the narration and a whiff of condescension turned me off, but eventually I couldn't resist the stars and their poignant and witty renditions of rock, pop and punk songs. You can't fake the life experience the singers bring to the music. I was glad I saw Young at Heart, but I could have waited for the dvd.

In the case of Rossellini's Open City, I didn't have any choice. Yesterday I tried to watch a Netflix dvd of this big deal neorealist classic. As with many older foreign films that haven't been recently restored, the subtitles were very spotty. Whoever did the subtitles way back when didn't bother translating about 25% of the dialog. I couldn't figure out why some of the dialog was unworthy of translating. That question distracted me so much from the movie itself that I quit watching it after about ten minutes. I guess I'll try it again tonight.