Nonureva Really Surprised!

GrimPrecise I'll tell you why so serious

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

MrGKB ...the "Up" series, or "The Up Series," or whatever you wish to call it, is not only Michael "Gorillas in the Mist" Apted's lifework, his calling card of calling cards, it's also one of the greatest documentaries produced so far. Nothing like it had come before, and all those after are but reiterations of a theme, perhaps worthy in their own right, but unlikely to outshine the progenitor of the form.Said form is multiple life histories at seven-year intervals: in this instance, fourteen British children (now reduced to twelve and possibly declining in future installments), all of whom are (as of this chapter, 2005) in their late-40s, heading into their 50s. The next meeting of the minds, so to speak, will hopefully come to pass before the supposed Mayan end of the world. I have no doubt it will be as thought-provoking and entertaining as the rest.That the series is utilized in various academic circles goes without saying; it's a time machine, a remarkably honest window on the past half-century of Western civilization, British style. Its sociological value is enormous, and it has spawned a number of similar projects examining German, Russian, American, and other populations. I hope they all have extremely long runs.Enough of the blather you'll read in any standard review of this series. What did *I* think? Well, I found it to be pretty damn fascinating. Had at best heard of it peripherally until I saw a recommendation recently from a source I respect, and so ordered up the whole ball of wax from the local library (yes, folks, your library is one of the best values your tax dollar has to pay for!), and watched it start to finish over the course of several weeks. The drawback to viewing the series in this manner is the amount of repetition of "flashback" sequences in each person's revealed timeline; occasionally it's irksome. But you come to accept the necessity of it, given the nature of the project. I suspect the series is of more interest to an older cohort for obvious reasons, which is not to say the young can't profit from it, but they'll simply have a more difficult time empathizing with it to the fullest. A stop-motion picture of aging will always appeal more to those who've been along the same path than the ones who have yet to travel it. I found myself considering my own life as if I'd lived in similar fashion. That, and I noted how easily one is drawn into the progression of these dozen-odd lives. This is "real" Reality TV, not the crap that most of you reading this have come to endure as a staple of modern entertainment.All the subjects of "The Up Series" are interesting, each in their own way, but you find yourself drawn to favorites. No doubt this is unordinary, since even Apted admits, in how he structures the later episodes, that some are more popular than others. One even wonders how this structuring itself somehow affects the viewer's perceptions of the individual; no doubt theses are being writ even as I type. Taken in large doses or small, "The Up Series" will exercise your brain and your heart, and if nothing else leave you with a better understanding of just how alike all members of the human family really are.

roland-104 The seventh film in the unique "Up Series" - documentaries made for Granada, the privately held British television corporation - that has followed a group of 14 ostensibly normal English subjects, of differing backgrounds, from age 7 to 49, issuing a follow-up film every 7 years. This latest installment is the best to date. It is well organized, presenting one person's life at a time rather than skipping around among them. Nearing age 50, these people have become highly thoughtful and articulate; they're all more interesting now than ever before. And the director, Michael Apted, has also vastly improved his skills at interviewing his subjects, which makes a great difference for the better. What impresses is how well nearly everyone has done in life.The original thesis of the series is that kids grow up without much change from the way they were early on, a view put forward in the 16th Century Jesuit aphorism: "Give me the child until he is seven, and I will give you the man." But the life trajectories of a number of these individuals belie that view, suggesting instead that people often do change in response to life circumstances, a view supported in several 20th Century accounts of human development across the lifespan (e.g., the work of the Harvard psychologist Robert White and his contemporary, the psychoanalyst Erik Erikson).The original thesis in the first film, "7 Up," also held that social class, or socioeconomic opportunity, had a controlling effect on development, a view that excludes the influence of both hereditary and learned aspects of individual psychological makeup and adaptation. Roger Ebert lists the "Up Series" among his top ten film productions of all time, and has said that the series represents "…an inspired, almost noble, use of the film medium." I heartily agree. My grades: 10/10 (A+) (Seen on 10/17/06)

cadmandu This is the film documentary of the lives of a dozen English children filmed at 7 years intervals starting at age 7. They are from a wide variety of backgrounds. A few turn out with predictable lives, most do not.On the plus side, this is the story of people who grow up, deal with life's challenges, and grow into maturity. Some of them are relaxed and open with the documentary, such as the African/English fellow (sorry -- I'm bad with names). Many of them are profoundly concerned with the welfare of others, and became teachers, or philanthropists.On the dark side, most of these people are clearly annoyed with the project -- tho they have participated in it for years. Also, one must assume the best on the part of the director of these films, for the devil is in the editing. How balanced is it really? And there is also one more point which detracts somewhat from the appeal of this movie: it's about the English, the most guarded, self-efacing and embarrassed people on the face of the earth. The physicist tells a joke about the extrovert engineer who looks at the feet of the *other* person when he's talking, and one wife talks about how her husband was always apologizing to her for nothing, but that just about sums up the English social milieu, typically an uptight people who are embarrassed with life.Maybe this is why I found the fellow with mental illness to be so refreshing, poignant and profound. He had come to terms with life -- as they all had -- but he was able to conceptualize it and share it.Watching a film like this inevitably inspires one to compare oneself with the people on screen, or more accurately inspires one to look at one's life a little more closely and how one has handled the ups and downs of life on this planet. In that sense, it's surely a good film.Unless one is a thoroughly incorrigible voyeur, some parts of this film will be boring and irrelevant, but overall a good experience.

jamesdamnbrown.com/movies In 1964, English filmmakers including director Michael Apted assembled a group of fourteen British children from various economic and social backgrounds, all age 7, and made a documentary about them called 7 Up. Every seven years afterward, Apted revisited the same children and made another documentary about them, chronicling their lives at the ages of 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 and now 49. The first installment that I watched, 28 Up, made me fall in love with these films. Much has been said about the series depicting the rigidity of the English class system, but as decades go by, the human element, the nature and personalities of the individuals being profiled, seems to be almost as important in affecting how their lives turned out. After seeing 28 Up and 35 Up, I remember feeling very bad for one kid who grew up coping with mental health problems and eventually wound up homeless, and thought leaving the theater that he wouldn't be alive for 42 Up. But by then he had moved to London and involved himself in local politics, a rewarding turn of events for him, and for the audience as well. The kids from the upper crust backgrounds have predictably had more affluent lives, and turned out to be the least forthcoming and most guarded on camera as adults, and less easy to warm up to. Some kids had deep seated feelings of shyness and insecurity that stayed with them as adults, and very publicly evaluating their failures and achievements every several years has been very difficult and uncomfortable for them. But even though some seem to resent the filmmakers' intrusion in their lives, they generally seem to understand the larger value of the series and twelve of the original fourteen kids continue to participate, even though they have misgivings or regrets about it. It's interesting to watch marriages and relationships suddenly begin and end, and usually people quickly remarry or find another relationship, often to someone more compatible and attractive. I identified most with the children who grew up to be teachers and academics, highly likable, intelligent people who realize that they aren't the most socially or economically successful but in many ways seem to be the most happy and fulfilled ones of the bunch. Despite their ambivalence, the participants deserve a big round of applause for letting us grow up and old along with them.