Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

BlazeLime Strong and Moving!

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Martin Teller I watched Ebert's interview with Apted on the DVD, and I noticed that Ebert's love for the series seems almost entirely about the concept of the thing as a whole. He rarely mentions specific moments or elements of the individual films that excite him. Yes, it is a "noble" endeavor, and one that I'm glad exists, but really, the films on their own are mostly pretty dull. Here we have everything settling into middle age, and most of them quite comfortably. Good for them, but what's in it for me? I don't really need to hear about the mundane professions your kids have taken up, or that you love your grandchildren (I kind of figured you did). It's somewhat rewarding to know that these folk have found some degree of contentment, it just doesn't make for compelling filmmaking. I could read about it in a Wikipedia article or something and have the same results. The one really interesting thing going on in this installment is that it seems to get a bit more meta. Several of the subjects address their involvement in the film, some with a measure of resentment or frustration (and maybe I'm mistaken, but I think we hear more of Apted's voice as well). These were the most rewarding parts for me.

emmafhughes At this moment i am watching 7,14 and 49up in my Sociology class. I also watched it a year ago when 49up came out. It was so exciting, not because of Bond like action or Saw type horror, but because it's real people in the real world changing and inviteing you into their lives. You can feel the reality of class and gender groups example John, Andrew and Charles. And listen to all their hopes, dreams, mistakes and on 49up, family joy. Opinions have changed and view of the programme is also put forward. Always they talk about us, the viewers, and tell us their opinion about being watched in the UK. All together a great watch and worth making some time to watch it whether with your class or family.

weisser-2 This is not a social science film and it's not exactly an art film either. But neither is it just another version of Big Brother. I personally found this unique project profoundly moving in its originality. Through this film we get a deep sense of the way humans adjust to their circumstances, maintain their personalities and shape their own lives around what they want and can have. I had a sense of the innate decency of most human beings, our capacity for love and survival, the way in which character runs deeper than circumstances, but also the strong effect that circumstances such as the class one is born into can have on us. Most of all I was touched by the unpredictability of life: it would have been hard to say whose marriages would last and whose would not, for example.Having said that, it is unclear to me why so many of the subjects, who volunteer to take part in the filming, seem to fear and oppose it so much. As someone who would have loved the opportunity to revisit my own life at different stages, I have a hard time understanding the reasons for their reluctance and even hostility.

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.