03Jun
Last Love
When an older man and a younger woman are drawn to each other in a movie, red flags pop up. We expect to go down the typical road of mutual, or perhaps, one-way exploitation in the relationship.
All Film Reviews
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03Jun
The Way We Get By
The Way We Get By offers an intimate glimpse into the lives of three elderly Maine Troop Greeters at the Bangor Airport. Because of its eastern-most location, the Bangor Airport has served as the major departure and arrival point of more than a million U.S. troops involved in the Iraqi and Afghanistan theaters of war.
07Apr
Life According to Sam
This multiple-award winning video provides a smooth flowing, intimate, 2-year portrait of life within a family dealing with Hutchinson–Gilford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS), a rare and fatal genetic disorder more commonly referred to as “premature aging syndrome.”
07Apr
Philomena
Back in the mid 50s in Ireland, when she was a teenaged unwed mother to be, Philomena Lee was banished from her family and sent to a convent to have her child. She and the other young women sent there for the same reason were allowed contact with their babies for 1hr a day.
05Feb
Still Mine
One such new film, Still Mine, takes us into the lives of Craig and Irene Morrison as they face the gradual loss of Irene’s short-term memory (the comments that follow are elaborated from a review I did of this film for Itineraries, an online publication of Second Journey; Vanden Bosch, 2013b).
07Dec
Starlet
Starlet is a rich and insightful film that traces the development of an unlikely friendship between two women separated by 64 years of life. Jane (Dree Hemingway), a 21 year old who is adrift and newly finding her way in Los Angeles, first meets Sadie (Besedka Johnson), an 85 year old crusty-tempered widow, at Sadie’s yard sale where Jane buys an old but decorative thermos to use as a flower vase.
08Oct
Departures
In Departures, the topic of death is initially objectified and held at a distance. By the end of the film, death has become more personal. Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) is a young aspiring cellist in Tokyo and is deep in debt from the purchase of a new cello.
07Oct
The Mayor
The Mayor is a film that should be viewed by every serious student of gerontology. In a display of remarkable trust, selected residents of Town Village North, a retirement community in Dallas, TX, share their daily lives—public and private thoughts, feelings, and activities—with brilliant documentarian Jared Scheib. The most intimate focus is placed upon 88-year-old Sam Berger, called “the Mayor” by other residents because of his irrepressible social largess.
07Oct
The Genius of Marian
The Genius of Marian focuses on a family affected by Alzheimer’s disease. Marian Williams Steele (1912–2001) was a noted watercolor artist who died of Alzheimer’s disease at age 89. Pam White, her daughter, at age 61 began to compose a book, The Genius of Marian, as a tribute to her mother.
16Aug
The Bucket List
The two men initially banter with each other and then develop a supportive relationship. When Edward finds a discarded “bucket list” started and then abandoned by Carter, he suggests that they make it a joint list and then go out and do the things on the list while they are still able.
08Aug
Assisted Living
Assisted Living is an engaging film—part fiction, part documentary—that takes us into the nitty-gritty of life in a long-term care facility in the United States. The film is unusually rich and perceptive in its portrayal of images and themes associated with aging in an institutional setting. It is the creation of a 22-year-old film student.
04Aug
Into the Other Lane: Driving and Dementia
Into the Other Lane: Driving and Dementia, the longer of the two videos, relates the stories of five individuals and their care providers who are affected by dementia-related cognitive impairment.
16Jun
Quartet
A new film directed by Dustin Hoffman, takes place in an upscale retirement home in the classical rolling countryside of the United Kingdom. One of the best things about the film is the ever-recurring stream of live and energetic classical music pouring out of it. Another is watching older professional performers play and/or sing this music.
08Jun
Amour
After winning the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2012, Michael Haneke’s Amour has received rave reviews from most reviewers, and more recently, an Oscar for Best Foreign Film. At first viewing, Amour seems like it could be a departure from Haneke’s other films, which ask the viewer to tolerate wanton violence or at least the ever-foreboding threat of violence.
04Jun
Ten More Good Years
Ten More Good Years documents the experience of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender aging. Prior to viewing this outstanding film, I wondered why anyone with any sensitivity would lump lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender aging within one now-familiar acronym—LGBT. Categorical thinking, after all, makes far too easy the negative stereotyping and discrimination used so often to create, denigrate, and disenfranchise those who are not “straight.”
08Apr
To Age or Not to Age
In To Age or Not to Age, independent filmmaker Robert Kane Pappas has put together a fascinating exploration of what current research has discovered about the potential to alter the biological process of aging in humans and other animal life forms. The film does a good job of taking a potentially difficult to understand science and making it understandable at a basic level. In the film, several leading researchers talk about how discoveries that were made in the early 1980s are now being refined and brought to clinical trials to test their effectiveness at delaying the onset of major diseases in humans, and thereby extending the human life span.