Being Elmo

[ericadawn16]

According to my guide, Being Elmo is on PBS this week as part of Independent Lens. Look for it online tomorrow or Wednesday.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

Comments

[twhitesakura.livejournal.com]

Oh, thanks for this! I saw it playing in a small theater in my area but wanted to save some cash, so I didn't see it.

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it was only at one theatre here for one week and the schedule just didn't allow for it.

I'm watching it now and it's so freaking awesome. They just had him describing meeting Jim Henson and it's just...man, it's so inspiring.

[cp.livejournal.com]

I think I saw that for streaming on Netflix, too! I'll have to check it out sometime, looked interesting.

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

It's really good. At its heart, it's an inspiring story about a kid in basically the projects that takes something he loves and not only does it, but goes after what he really wants with it, like working with his idols and learning from them.

The other big thing is Jim Henson. I was only 8 when he died so Jim had always been like how most older people describe Walt Disney or Santa Claus. He was this bearded man who was always smiling and always had some new present for us, whether it was Muppet Babies or his NBC show or he was just appearing on Arsenio. I watched everything. I adored everything.

When the radio said he'd died, it was like finding out Santa Claus was dead and I had never been raised to believe in Santa Claus. I went outside to my swing and cried and cried and cried. I couldn't even watch that part in this documentary without crying again.

However, in the documentary, they talk about him and not just how I remember him from the tv but as a real person with flaws.

[cp.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think Americans (and maybe all Western societies, I dunno) have this thing where we need to see people as either heroes or villains. So we lionize our heroes and regard them as without fault, while others are regarded as simply and uniformly nefarious, even if they've accomplished some good too. As Ben Stiller's character in Zero Effect says, "There aren't any GOOD guys. You realize that, don't you? I mean: there aren't EVIL guys, and INNOCENT guys. It's just - it's just... It's just a bunch of guys."

[ayaneva.livejournal.com]

Ooh I watched this on Netflix. It was unexpectedly awesome. I thought, "Well I'll watch 10 minutes of it and go to bed." I watched the whole thing and went to bed late.

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

I ended up eating my supper late because it was like, Well, I'll wait until after this part but then the next part was also good and the next and the next...

I still remember watching Jim Henson on tv when I was a kid and I even got to meet Bob Keeshan at a local PBS event when I was 4 or 5.