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Young@Heart

Exotic AnimalsBy John DeSando, WCBE's It's Movie Time

It's hard not to like a large group, average age 80, singing punk, blues, and rock 'n roll with enthusiasm in the documentary Young@Heart. Be it Sonic Youth's "Schizophrenia" or Cold Play's "Fix You," these seniors are fun to watch in large part because such hip songs are out of place in any room of over 30-year olds. In reality, these old timers are not very good, barely reaching notes or staying in tune. As the saying goes, if they weren't old, they'd never be on stage.

It's distracting to be thinking of how the subjects of this energetic documentary are elderly who would not be expected to be performing. Yet, a good doc shows you things you probably never experienced before, so it is a success, regardless of my suspicions that the performers are being exploited as if they were exotic animals in a zoo.

So I find myself thinking about their survival (two die during the filming, one after it) rather than the music, and the fact that they can memorize their lines rather than create lovely sounds. I become a picky critic who dares to criticize the work of old people and who wouldn't give them a standing ovation if he were at their concert. Now Tony Bennett I might, and there's the difference.

John DeSando teaches film at Franklin University and co-hosts WCBE 90.5's It's Movie Time, which can be heard streaming at www.wcbe.org Fridays at 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm and on demand anytime. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.RR.com