16Sep
Friend Request Pending
Friend Request Pending is a refreshingly unique short-sketch film that features a few hours in the life of an older woman making an online connection with a desirable man.
Attitudes about Aging
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16Sep
Five Flights Up
In Five Flights Up, a long-married couple faces the decision to sell their five-story walkup in New York City. Alex (Morgan Freeman) and Ruth (Diane Keaton) have lived their entire married life together in this apartment walkup and are now finding it more difficult to deal with the stairs.
16Sep
Last Vegas
In the film, Last Vegas (Turteltaub, 2013), four older men romp like frat boys in Vegas while a paper thin plot resurrects a past grievance between two of them.
16Sep
All Together
The premise of the film has potential; five older longtime friends move into one house in order to support each other in the face of a variety of health issues.
16Sep
Unfinished Song
Unfinished Song (Williams, 2012) presents us with another story of transformation—this time, that of a grumpy old man.
16Sep
This is 40
In the recently released, This Is 40, we are shown a week in the lives of Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann) who are both turning 40. Debbie’s method of dealing with this is flat-out denial, whereas Pete is fine with a party for himself.
16Sep
Trouble With the Curve
The recent feature film, Trouble with the Curve, portrays a different concern with the effects of aging. An alternative title for this film could have been Trouble with Aging. Clint Eastwood plays a crusty ill-tempered oldster (just as he did a few years ago in Gran Torino).
16Sep
How to Live Forever
Mark Wexler’s odyssey in How to Live Forever is an energetic, sometimes serious, sometimes amusing, but always interesting popular culture panorama about humankind’s efforts to extend both active and maximum longevity.
10Sep
Nebraska
In contrast, Nebraska, Alexander Payne’s new movie about a son accompanying his addled and self-absorbed father’s unlikely quest for the million dollars he thinks he has won in a sweepstakes, does not give viewers much to smile at.
09Sep
Going in Style (1979 original)
But before I did that, I decided to watch the original film by the same name from 1979 that the newer Going in Style is based on. I’m glad I did. Where the new film is stale and trite, the original film is engaging and deeply respectful of elders.
07Sep
Innocence
The one other film that deals authentically with late life marital intimacy is Innocence, produced and directed by Australian filmmaker Paul Cox in 2000. Like Hope Springs, Innocence addresses the issue of lifelessness and resignation in the relationship of an older couple.
11Jan
The Disappearance of My Mother
Some of the best films are created when an adult child attempts to understand the life of a parent by interacting with them from behind the camera. In The Disappearance of My Mother, the parent is not happy with being filmed.
11Dec
Lolly Font, Yoga Rebel
Good things come in small packages—and brief ones as well. Though a short film, Lolly Font: Yoga Rebel has strong relevance for gerontological theorists, researchers, and educators, particularly those interested in the evolving meanings of successful aging. Director Liz Cane introduces us to 84-year-old Lolly Font, a yoga teacher nearing the end of her instructional career.
11Jul
Ageless
At last. From 2012 to the present, we have reviewed more than four dozen documentary films dealing with several major topics in gerontology and adult development, and aging. Though not excluded by intention, nowhere among those films was one devoted specifically to ageism.
24Feb
Breath Made Visible
By presenting and teaching a form of dance that enables deep personal reflection and healing,
21Feb
The Elders: Everyone is a Story
An adult developmentalist recently told me that the main reason he enjoyed studying older adults is because “their bodies contain so many interesting variables” that are easily extracted with quantitative measures. To be sure, variable-oriented developmental science has contributed significantly to our understanding of the aging process.