So. There are these folks on YouTube who watch movies and “react” to them. In most cases

they watch movies they haven’t seen before and, since most of these people are very young,

there are LOTS of old and not-so-old movies which they’ve not yet seen. 

Of course I realize that these are people who are seeking money and notice for a

minimum of effort. Still, I fell into a pit of them about ten days ago and have been drowning

in that mire ever since, watching oodles of the things.

Some of them I watched for two or three or ten minutes then decided, nope, too stupid

or too unappealing or too clearly faking their reactions. What I was left with was a series

of mostly women, primarily aged I’d guess from 22-40. There was a man or two, and one

older person but they didn’t figure a lot in my viewing. 

This was all interesting to me on a couple of levels. First, I enjoyed seeing how some

old movies would play to fresh, young viewers. Second, I found it interesting, and

sometimes appalling, what younger folks knew and didn’t know.

Of course, I don’t expect younger people to know everything I do about old stuff. I

was there for much of those times and saw it first hand. Plus, I’ve had many more years to

learn stuff. So I try not to expect too much from the young, but I’ve made note of some things

which surprised or disappointed me, whatever age they might be.

My plan is to spread this over three or four posts. This one will just cover a few movies

and a few comments for each. The next two posts will focus on some specific movies which

got a lot of interesting coverage from these “reactors.”

 

Most of these folk seem to have trouble with comedy, especially of the wild, farcical variety.

They seem to enjoy AIRPLANE, MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL, THE

NAKED GUN, BLAZING SADDLES, or LIFE OF BRIAN, but they don’t seem to entirely

get it. There’s lots of “that’s so dumb” and “why would he do that?” And this for films which

are intentionally sort of dumb and full of characters who do things for laughs, not because it’s

behavior expected of real world humans.

Sadly, when they do recognize something from an old movie it’s because “it’s a meme!”

Something they’ve seen online or parodied in FAMILY GUY. When they recognize an “old”

actor, it’s because they saw him in a Harry Potter or Marvel movie. 

A couple of comments from movies whose titles elude me. 

“Who’s Wyatt Earp?”

“What’s Ovaltine?”

I guess those are somewhat understandable, but still upsetting.

Here are a few things gleaned from various movies:

Life of Brian

I watched maybe half a dozen people comment on this movie, and the single thing which

surprised me most was that none of them seemed to recognize the Sermon on the Mount.

They’d say things like, “is that Brian talking?”  “some guy is speaking to the crowd” and

so on.  It probably doesn’t speak well for modern Christianity that this was so unknown

to all of them. But worse than that, it killed the comedy. “Blessed are the cheesemakers”

meant nothing to anyone.

Rear Window

The people sleeping on the fire escape confused everyone. Eventually, about halfway

through the movie, one person did say, “oh, it’s cooler out there.”  Actually, the whole

problem of the heat had them baffled. A couple of them, after a few moments of confusion

finally said something like “oh, I guess air conditioning was a kind of thing for rich

people.”

I shouldn’t be surprised that none of these youngsters recognized Raymond Burr, but as

a guy who grew up watching him weekly, I kept waiting for someone to say, “it’s Perry

Mason!”

Fargo

Every single person who watched this one was totally taken in by the Coens’ “true

story” notice.

“What is a Fargo?”

“Who is Paul Bunyan?”

“What is unguent?”

Pulp Fiction

A favorite comment from one person: when Mia Wallace volunteers herself and Vincent

Vega for the twist contest, one lady said, “uh-oh. I wonder if he knows how to dance?”

And, of course, the “he” in question is John Travolta.

Back to the Future

Only watched one of these, but it provided a favorite observation: About 90% through

the movie, she says, “so I guess this isn’t just a drama, it’s a comedy too.”

Young Frankenstein

In the same vein as the above. We had to get to the “werewolf” / “there wolf” scene

before she said, “Oh, I think this might be comedy.”

The Big Lebowski

Walter, played by John Goodman, is either hilarious or needs to “shut up right now”.

Die Hard

 “Who are Arafat… Gary Cooper …Roy Rogers… John Wayne” … the first three don’t

surprise me too much but…John Wayne? Really? I thought every American of any

vintage would know the Duke.

The Godfather II

The Senate hearings sequences seemed to baffle everybody. “Is he on trial?”  “Uh-oh,

he’s in court.”   I guess they haven’t seen much in the Senate hearing genre. For those

of us who grew up with Kefauver, Watergate, and Ollie North, we can only admire the

authenticity of these scenes.

Casablanca

First, the movie played great with everybody. 

Second, not a soul recognized Peter Lorre. One guy, reading the credits aloud, said

“Peter Loar”.

The reactions to Paul Henreid and Claude Rains surprised me. Everybody loved

Henreid and not just the character of Victor Laszlo. I always found him eminently

forgettable.

And all the women kind of despised Rains because of his admittedly vile habit of

trading exit visas for sexual favors. I’m sure that a lot of people were uncomfortable

with this over the years but forgave it because Rains was so charming and funny. But

21st century women fail to see the humor. To them he’s just a slimeball using his office

instead of Rohypnol.

So you get the picture. More later.