"Dear Grandpa,
Today was a good day. I watched a movie at Gretchen's house called "Everything Illiterated", or something like that, about a young man who is on a quest to find and meet the woman who saved his Grandfather's life during World war 2 and hid him in a house where sunflowers grow. This young man finds two people to help him find this woman because it is in a foreign country and the young man cannot speak the language (Russian, I think). The two people that help him are a young man of similar age and his grumpy old Grandfather. They eventually find a woman who is actually the sister of the woman they were looking for, but the woman tells the story of the war and how her sister fell in love with the young man's Grandfather and had a baby.
The two guides (the other young man and his Grumpy grandfather) eventually get into a fight because the other young man hit his Grandfather's dog, but eventually make up when the grandfather learns to appreciate his grandson when he finally lets go of the war and all his anger when he hears the woman's story. Unfortunately, the Grandfather of the other young man then kills himself, but I guess he died happy because he finally felt better about his memories of the war. The travelling young man leaves and he is happy that he finally learned a lot about his grandfather and his past. The young man scooped up some dirt from the river bed that was near the place in that foreign country and took it home to add to his collection of things about his Grandfather (like me with your old cowboy hat). It was a great movie because it made me want to write this letter to my Grandfather and many others to come.
My writing teacher, Mr. Grady, has suggested that I pick a movie and re-write its ending. I decided to pick "Everything Obliterated" because I wanted to re-write the ending so that the other young man's grandfather doesn't kill himself, but instead buys his Grandson ice cream (just kidding). Actually, instead of killing himself, he teaches his grandson about how war never solves anything, but instead destroys families and villages and leads to many hungry people. And that the travelling young man learns about how lucky he was that his grandfather survived so that he could be born and collect things. Oh. Actually that part did happen in the movie.
I think Mr. Grady liked the idea, but seemed a little surprised that I didn't pick the X-MEN. I told him that the X-MEN is already perfect and doesn't need to be changed, except more scenes with Mystique in it (see picture).
Which movie would you pick Grandpa? and what would you change?
Love,
Your Grandson,
Jem 3"