"Radio Age"
"Radio Age" is all about Woody's childhood memories. A house full of Jewish relatives living together, a father who drives a taxi and works, an aunt who always fails blind dates, an uncle who babbles, grandparents, feelings for the radio, trips to Manhattan, eavesdropping on neighbors’ phone calls. . . . . . These are Woody's real childhood life experiences. Let's take a few examples directly above.
Woody's childhood, a large family lived together.
Woody's parents were always bickering.
Of course, the beatings are indispensable, and Woody is always beaten by his parents.
Woody's father had a lot of jobs and, like in the movie, his father's name was Marty, he also drove a taxi and wanted to be a jewelry carver.
Woody's aunt is always on the way to a blind date. The movie is the same as reality. She didn't have a successful blind date in the end.
Woody used to eavesdrop on his next-door neighbor's phone as a child.
In 1948, the Jewish National Fund used blue donation boxes to raise money for Palestine, when Israel was just founded and Woody was 13 years old. He came up to me and said, "I've got a great idea. I've got donation boxes here, and we'll get the bottom out." And then we took those boxes and raised money in front of the Midwood Theatre. We took a metal jar and followed it up, and a crisp sound could be heard when someone put a coin into it. Then we take the money and put it in our pockets. --- Elliott Mills (Woody's childhood friend)
Regarding the movie itself, Radio Age is an atypical drama movie, it doesn't have the structure like a regular drama movie, it's more like a comic book movie. One fun little episode followed by the next, with Woody's familiar childhood music blazing fast, and the film is only 88 minutes long. The advantage of this is that you can dazzle the audience and never feel bored. Even if one or two passages seem boring to the audience, it doesn't hurt, because each passage is short, and the next one starts right away. This comic-style narrative film is very much like Woody's early comedy film "A Fool in Prison", but the film is even better. Woody compares the family life storyline in the film with the radio studio scene The plot is connected, alternated, and then the plot is connected with the events of the big era. So the film reflects the entire American culture of the radio age through this little Jewish family. This kind of technique Woody also used in "The Legend of Xili". It is better to combine the background narrative of the big era with personal stories, so that the film will be more interesting.
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