Thursday, April 30, 2015

Three Bank Ads From Spring, 1965

OK, Boston has set a new record for the amount of snow falling in one winter. Time to think spring. For inspiration, three ads from half a century ago




The country gentleman in the Chase nest egg ad contrasts with the urbane financier portrayed by  Citi, or as it was known in those days, First National City:


Note the double sales pitch: We'd like to manage your personal portfolio, and we want your company's pension plan, too.

Though the Irving ad below doesn't  feature fiduciary services, the salute to world's fairs reminds us of what people were looking forward to in the spring of 1965. New York's 1964-65 World's Fair was not as grand as the 1939-40 extravaganza, but as the fair's Disney exhibit sang, "It's a small world, after all."

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Child 44—Movie Review

 by Peter J. O'Connell

Child 44. Released: April 2015. Runtime: 137 mins. Rated: R for violence, some disturbing images, language and a scene of sexuality.

“There are no murders in paradise.” For much of the Soviet Union's history, this saying was accepted as gospel. The USSR was a “workers' paradise,” and such phenomena as murders, particularly child murders or serial killings, were regarded as products of decadent Western societies,

In Child 44, set in 1953, Leo Demidov, is noting that the deaths of a number of children do not really appear to be the accidents that official accounts deem them to be. Leo (played by Tom Hardy) is an officer in the MGB, predecessor of the KGB, who became an accidental hero in World War II when he was chosen to raise the Soviet flag over the Reichstag as Berlin fell to the Red Army in 1945.

As an MGB officer, Leo primarily pursues “political criminals,” but more-or-less motivelessly malignant enemies of his (Vincent Cassel and Jeff Kinnaman) in the agency engineer his and his wife's (Noomi Rapace) more-or-less exile to a distant area. Leo, an orphan himself, is not, however, deterred from doggedly investigating the suspicious deaths of the children. A somewhat sympathetic superior (Gary Oldman) supports Leo in his efforts to learn the truth.

After various twists and turns and some of the most brutal hand-to-hand fights ever committed to film, Leo does learn the truth—but has to put it in a deeply ironic context. Hardy performs his role in a manner slightly reminiscent of the early Brando. Rapace is sensitive, yet tough. Oldman is crisply effective. Overall, however, the film, as directed by Daniel Espinosa, is like the Soviet Union itself, bloated and inefficient, almost as if a final—and necessary--edit had been omitted. And that is too bad, considering the potential impact that the merger of a political drama with a crime thriller might have had.



“Footnote” to the film: Child 44 derives from a novel by Tom Rob Smith. Though set in the early 1950s, the novel is based on an actual case, that of the “Rostov Ripper” serial killings, mostly of young people, in the 1980s. Fans of the novel point out an astonishingly major change in the plot from book to film, even though the screenplay was written by the highly regarded Richard Price. 

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

It Follows—Movie Review

by Peter J. O'Connell

It Follows. Released: March 2015. Runtime: 100 mins. Rated: R for disturbing violent and sexual content, including graphic nudity, and language.

In recent decades younger filmmakers often have sought to achieve their breakthrough in the business by making a low-budget horror movie with an unknown cast. Sometimes they profit notably, as, for example, with The Blair Witch Project (1999). Most of the time, though, these independent works end up direct-to-video with never a wide theatrical release.

Writer/director David Robert Mitchell's It Follows was slated for just a video-on-demand release when some favorable critical buzz started to surround the film at festival showings. That led to a four-theatre release, which then became a 1,600-theatre release.

The film deserves success, for it has a creative quality that transcends its genre. It uses some typical horror tropes in a measured way while ringing some interesting changes on others. We have the group of teens—few adults are seen—menaced by a monstrous force. We have the illogical flight for safety to an isolated setting. Etc., etc. But we have relatively little gore and few “jump scares.”

Instead, to creep us out, we have a metaphor as the monster. Call It Follows a metaphorical movie. Horror films often mix sex and violence by having teens be killed after engaging in sexual activity. Call this either “exploitation” or “a cultural comment on residual puritanism.”

In Mitchell's more imaginative movie, sex is followed by the emergence of an entity—invisible to most of the characters--that assumes various human forms and seeks to kill the teen who engaged in the sexual activity, unless that teen has sex with someone else first, thus passing on the curse. The entity as presented here could be a metaphor for many things—guilt, regret, loss of innocence, possible unwanted pregnancy, STD (sexually transmitted disease); even the process of growing older itself or various kinds of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder).

Mitchell's teens decide to kill the entity rather than let it kill their friend Jay (Maika Monroe). This decision leads to a very striking sequence at and in an Olympic-sized swimming pool inside a deserted high school in desolate Detroit during a thunder-and-lightning storm. Electrical appliances play an important role and blood (mucho blood) makes one of its few appearances.

Mitchell's direction eschews the hand-held “shaky cam” and grainy look of many horror films. Instead, his shots are held steady, and his color palette is richly saturated. Mitchell also has “hommages,” as the French say, to some earlier classic films. The beginning sequence in a leafy suburb at dusk reminds one of the town in John Carpenter's Halloween (1978). The sequence at the pool nods in the direction of Val Lewton/Jacques Tourneur's Cat People (1942), and the last scene, surprisingly, brings to mind Mike Nichols' The Graduate (1967).

 Mitchell's cast is adequate to their tasks, with Maika Monroe, a sad-eyed beauty, and Keir Gilchrist as her dour friend Paul more than adequate. The syntho/techno score composed and performed by Rich Vreeland (a/k/a Disasterpeace) is excellent. The future careers of Mitchell, Monroe, Gilchrist and Vreeland all look like they might well merit following by film fans.


“Footnote” to the film: A curiously unsettling aspect of It Follows is the fact that electronic devices are depicted—clearly deliberately-- as types ranging from the 1950s to the present.

Meals-on-Wheels programs

Prepared meals delivered to a person’s home for  individuals who are unable to prepare or obtain nourishing meals on their own. Home-delivered meal programs provide one or two meals a day and can be obtained anywhere from one to seven days per week depending on the program. These programs can be private or federally funded and costs vary from program to program.

Please call the program directly for costs and specific dietary meals offered.

Bridgeport
CW Resources
200 Myrtle Street, New Britain CT 06053
203-332-3264 (Bridgeport area), 800-852-0384
Towns served: Trumbull, Bridgeport, Easton, Monroe, Southport, Stratford.

Fairfield
Lina Home Delivered Meals
119 Sanford Street, Hamden, CT 06514
203-288-4505
Town served: Bridgeport, Fairfield, Norwalk, Stamford, Stratford, Trumbull.

Greenwich
89 Maple Avenue, Greenwich, CT 06830
203-869-1312
Towns served: Greenwich only
Special Dietary meals offered: vegetarian, low-sodium, diabetic.


New Canaan
c/o Waveny Care Center
P.O. Box 231, New Canaan, CT
203-594-5318
Towns served: New Canaan only.


Norwalk
11 Allen Road, Norwalk, CT 06851
203-847-3115
Towns served: Norwalk only.


Greater Norwalk & Stamford
30 Myano Lane, Suite 14, Stamford CT 06902
203-324-6175
Towns served: Norwalk, Stamford, Darien, Westport, New Canaan. Latino and Russian meals available.

Weston
Town Hall, 56 Northfield Road, Weston CT 06883
203-222-2663
Towns served: Weston only.

Westport
21 Imperial Avenue, Westport, CT 06880
203-341-5099
Towns served: Westport only.

Wilton
439 Danbury Road, Wilton, CT 06897
203-762-0566 or 203-762-7861
Towns served: Wilton.



Friday, April 17, 2015

Put a Spring in Your Step Senior Health Fair & Symposium

HAMDEN >> The Senior Care Professional Council will be holding a symposium and health fair titled “Put A Spring in Your Step” Wednesday, May 13, 9 a.m. to noon, at the Thornton Wilder Hall Auditorium, 2901 Dixwell Ave.

At 11 a.m., Margaret Palmieri of the VNA Community Healthcare Physical Therapy team will provide a Sitercise demonstration and a demonstration on how to exercise with assistive devices. Bill Banick will demonstrate Tai Chi.

The symposium showcases services available to older adults. In addition to health exhibits with information, various agencies will be providing services and screenings such as glaucoma testing, blood pressure checks, body fat testing and balance testing. Gift bags with snacks, free giveaways and raffles will be available.

The Senior Care Professional Council is a consortium of agencies serving our elders in Bethany, Hamden and Woodbridge area and represents the continuum of care to these individuals.

All are welcome to attend. Contact Betty Wetmore at 203-376-9677 for more information.

Chicken Soup for the Soul

If you're looking for a laugh, a midday pick-me-up or a dose of inspiration, you'll love our featured stories. You can read three free stories every month by picking from the selection below or by searching through every Chicken Soup for the Soul story ever published using the box to the right. You can also have stories delivered right to your inbox with our free, featured story emails. 

1: Thanks for the Flowers

Thanks for the Flowers Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference. ~Winston Churchill The strains of Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond singing, “You don’t bring me flowers anymore…. You don’t sing me love songs…” drifted into my room via the radio. The lyrics, designed to rip one’s heart out, matched my mood that cold, dreary January morning. I wrapped the poignant words around my heart as I dressed for an early morning speaking engagement. How true, I thought — the last time David brought me flowers was twenty-five years ago, when our youngest son Bob was born. This morning David had already left for work in our more reliable car. I bundled up against the cold and headed out for the dreaded task of starting the old Chrysler. The beast normally took great offense at the cold and refused to start without coaxing. To start it, one had to find the lever inside the grill to release the hood, lift it, and then find the stick to prop it open. Next, one had to remove the wing nut from the big round thing, take it off, push the little copper thing, get back inside the car and start it. If it went “Pfft,” one had to go back outside and push the copper thing again. If it started coughing and then actually turned...  Click here to continue reading.

15 Fun (and Nearly) Free Things to Do with Your Grandkids!

Whether you’re called “Nana” or “Bubbie,” “Papadaddy” or just plain “Grandpa,” most grandparents are happy to be called to babysit. In fact, according to Grandparents.com, three out of four grandparents think being a grandparent “is the single most important and satisfying thing in their life.” (And nine in ten “enjoy talking about their grandkids to just about everyone.”  But we could’ve guessed that!)
While it might be the best job in the world, it’s not always the easiest—especially when called in to babysit the bunch. Generally kids love when a grandparent comes to babysit because it’s a time when they get undivided attention from a loved one— something that a parent, with daily distractions, may have a hard time providing.  So this special time is a bonus for grandparents, grandchild, and busy parents!
So what to do to make babysitting fun for you and your grandchild? The key is to keep it simple and interactive—the perfect recipe for creating lasting memories.
Here are some activities to try out the next time you’re called in to babysit. (And the best bit? These ideas will keep the focus on fun and off your wallet): 
  1. From trash to treasure: Keep recyclables on hand to inspire your budding engineer, architect, or musician. Make a dollhouse out of a shoebox. A racecourse for marbles out of wrapping paper rolls or a musical instrument from rubber bands and a milk jug. 
  2. Start a collection. Talk about what kind of collection you grandchild would like to start. Coins? Erasers? Rocks? Enjoy hunting for these special items together and share with your grandchild what you enjoyed collecting as a child. Maybe you’re still pining after that elusive baseball card? 
  3. Backwards babysitting. Either have your grandchild babysit you (they can take their cue from Jean Reagen’s picture book How to Babysit a Grandpa) or pretend to do your normal babysitting routine . . . backwards! Serve breakfast instead of dinner, put on pj’s inside out, and have your grandchild sleep with his head where his feet usually are. You can even read a bedtime story from back to front!
  4. Do a jig(saw)! With so many jigsaw puzzles available, it’s easy to find one that’s both challenging and fun for everyone. Clear off the dining room table, pop up some popcorn, and let the fun begin!
  5. Two (or more) for tea: Host an old-fashioned tea party using your dainty tea set or a less-precious plastic set. Be sure to invite your grandchild’s stuffed “friends.” Sip weak herbal tea and serve cookies or crustless tea sandwiches. (Speaking with a British accent is optional.)
  6. Go on a photo hunt: Use your imagination to go on a photo treasure hunt. Settle on a theme and start hunting. For example, you can photograph only yellow things or things that start with the letter B like bakery, bike, or blue doors. Be sure to also take some “selfies” of the photographers. Click here to continue reading.