Movie Review—A Bigger Splash

A Bigger Splash

by Peter J. O’Connell

A Bigger Splash. Released (USA): May 2016. Runtime: 125 mins. MPAA rating: R for graphic nudity, some strong sexual content, language and brief drug use.

Pantelleria, a remote island off Sicily, is a great place for the jet set “to get away from it all” and enjoy the “dolce vita” of sunbathing and splashing in the nude at a villa pool, gazing at spectacularly scenic vistas, and devouring mouth-watering food. Director Luca Guadagnino’s A Bigger Splash, an English-language production with an international cast, begins with a series of quick cuts depicting this joyous lifestyle, scenes that constitute an almost irresistible travelogue for a Pantelleria vacation. Featured in these scenes are rock star Marianne Lane (Tilda Swinton) and her filmmaker husband, Paul (Matthias Shoenaerts). Marianne cannot speak as she is still recovering from an operation on her vocal chords.

Yet it is not actually possible, even on Pantelleria, to get away from “it all.” Marianne and Paul have a tense encounter with some of the African and Middle Eastern migrants who are washing ashore on the island. More directly, Harry Hawkes (Ralph Fiennes) calls to tell the couple that he is going to pay them an unexpected visit at the villa, which is his. Harry is a record producer who helped make Marianne a star and became her lover. He also introduced her to his friend Paul, who eventually became her husband. Harry supposedly came to terms with that. 

Harry is a manic motormouth, and soon after he arrives, he does a happy, hilarious—yet somewhat creepy—solo dance, to a Rolling Stones tune, that winds throughout and around the house. (Yes, you read it right; Harry is played—brilliantly—by Ralph Fiennes!)

The awkwardness of the situation at the villa is intensified by the fact that Harry is accompanied by a sulky, sultry teenager, Penelope Lannier (Dakota Johnson), who he says is his daughter. No one knew that Harry had a daughter, apparently because he never paid any attention to her until she became a sulky, sultry teenager.

Tensions start to mount in the idyllic setting, often communicated indirectly (symbol: Marianne’s muteness). Paul suspects that Harry is trying to win back Marianne, and the producer also now seems to be showing a bit too, shall we say, warm a degree of attention to the daughter that he previously neglected. Marianne gives signs of feeling Harry’s magnetism once again, and Penelope and Paul also seem to be developing an interest in each other. Eventually, the tensions erupt into an act of hideous violence. (After all, Pantelleria is a volcanic island.)

The local police conduct a lackluster investigation under the direction of a commander (Corrado Guzzanti), who is starstruck with Marianne. Suspicion falls on various of the celebs, but, just maybe, wouldn’t it be easier, after all, simply to blame the migrants?

A Bigger Splash doesn’t have Tom Hanks, Daryl Hannah and the ghost of John Candy; it isn’t a sequel to their 1984 hit comedy, Splash. What A Bigger Splash does have are terrific performances by Ralph Fiennes and Tilda Swinton as characters different from ones that we usually associate with these actors. Matthias Schoenaerts and Dakota Johnson are also quite good in their roles in this dark film—which includes moments of dark humor—set in a sun-kissed paradise-not, with a topnotch soundtrack. Take the plunge and see A Bigger Splash!

“Footnote” to the film: A Bigger Splash is the second film made with elements from the 1969 classic French/Italian psychological thriller La Piscine. Swimming Pool (2003) was a French/British version. 

  

Baked Sweet Potatoes with Crispy Pancetta Veggie Topping

By Sarah Walker Caron. Bangor Daily News

If you’d asked me 20 years ago if I’d ever stop performing on stage, I would’ve said of course not. I was one of those kids who spent afternoons at the dance studio, and auditioned for every production — musicals, plays, whatever — I could. Though I gave up dance lessons by high school, my theatre credits on my college application were long.

When asked what I wanted to do in life, I’d say I wanted to be a writer — and an actress. Both creative endeavors, the two professions seemed to go hand in hand. They fit — a two piece puzzle that came together perfectly in my head. After all, writers write the words actors say and they critique the work actors perform. Actors bring it all to life. Why couldn’t I do both?

It didn’t matter that I couldn’t sing. As much as I loved musical theatre, there are so many wonderful non-musical productions I could perform in — anything by Shakespeare, perhaps a revival of “Machinal,” and definitely “A Streetcar Named Desire.”

I held onto my stage dreams through college, taking classes on theater criticism and whatever dramatic literature courses I could fit in. But I stopped auditioning. I left the acting to the serious actors who wanted that more than anything else. And in the end, I chose to pursue only writing.

My daughter is drawn to the stage, as I once was. She wants to be so many things — an actress, a singer and a teacher, among them. As a mom, I’m letting her take the lead on it all. She can join the chorus, audition for school plays and whatever else her heart desires. And if she truly loves it, I will support her as long as she wants to be there.

Meanwhile, I’ll just keep writing. Writing lets me share the stories of people, places and things with the world. It also lets me share the food that nourishes my family — like these sweet potatoes. Much like the puzzle of careers I dreamed of when I was younger, these are a puzzle of flavors with pieces that fit perfectly together to make a satisfying dish.

The tender, sweet mashed flesh of baked sweet potatoes is a good contrast to the salty, crispy pancetta veggie topping. Sweet and salty, creamy and crispy, it’s a yin and yang of flavors and textures.

You start by baking the sweet potatoes. Like other potatoes, you prick a few holes in them and then bake them to tender. It takes a little under an hour. Hint: place a baking sheet on the rack below the potatoes to catch drippings as they bake for easier cleanup.

While the sweet potatoes cool, make the topping. First saute the pancetta to crisp. Then add the veggies and saute until they are tender and browned in places. Mix it all together in a bowl.

Mash the inside of the potatoes lightly with a fork and season with salt and pepper. Top each with a quarter of the crispy pancetta veggie topping and dig in. This potato is filling enough to eat as a meal, though a light salad is a nice accompaniment.

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The Case of the Dixfield Cats

From a post by James L. Madonald

In a modest trailer in Dixfield, Maine, live a lucky group of homeless cats – lucky because they are looked after by the Dixfield Cat Ladies. 

Twelve years ago one of the Cat Ladies died. She left most of her estate, about $150,000, for the creation of a corporation or trust "for the purpose of providing shelter, food and health care for abandoned and unwanted cats in the Town of Dixfield."

Are the Dixfield cats living in luxury and organic catnip? Not yet. Predictably, bequests to animals produce more snarls than purrs. Click here to read the story.

Movie Review—PAPA: Hemingway in Cuba

by Peter J. O’Connell

PAPA: Hemingway in Cuba. Released: April 2016. Runtime: 110 mins. MPAA rating: R for language, sexuality, some violence and nudity.

PAPA: Hemingway in Cuba, written by Denne Bart Petitclerc and directed by Bob Yari, begins with Ed Myers at age 5 in the Depression, abandoned by his father and soon after placed in an orphanage by his mother. The movie then takes us to Miami in the late 1950s.

After a knockabout life, Ed (Giovanni Ribisi), has become a journalist. He tells his girlfriend (Minka Kelly) that his love of the writings of Ernest Hemingway is responsible for his achieving a career. Copying out all of the stories of Hemingway taught him how to write well. 

Ed informs his girlfriend that he has, in fact, written a letter to Hemingway, who has been living in Cuba, thanking the great author. Ed, however, does not have the nerve to mail the letter, but his girlfriend sends it surreptitiously anyway. Ed is stunned when he receives a letter back from Hemingway inviting him to come to Cuba for a fishing trip.

Ed, with some trepidation, flies to Cuba and goes fishing with the bearded, sixtyish Hemingway (Adrian Sparks), now called “Papa” by many of his friends. The two bond, and Ed becomes a regular at Hemingway’s Finca Vigia estate, where Papa lives with his wife, Mary (Joely Richardson), and presides over dinners and parties with chums from Spanish Civil War and World War II days and other friends (including one played by Ernest Hemingway’s actual granddaughter Mariel).

Ed is starstruck as Papa Hemingway becomes his mentor, almost, in fact, a surrogate father. But as time goes on, Ed comes to realize that his idol has feet of, well, flesh and blood. The great man, who witnessed wars close up and was in prize fights and bar fights and battled wild beasts and huge fish is now in a battle with alcoholism, depression, paranoia and writer’s bloc, a battle that he seems to be losing. And Papa is taking out his despair on his loving wife, Mary, to the distress of Ed.

As the personal drama at Finca Vigia intensifies, dramatic events taking place elsewhere in Cuba start to enter the picture. Castroite rebels are making gains against the repressive Batista regime. The movie concludes as a kind of political thriller when, in scenes of dubious historicity, Hemingway and Ed aid the rebels.

PAPA: Hemingway in Cuba is based on events from the life of its writer, Denne Bart Petitclerc (1929-2006), the model for the character Ed Myers in the film. Petitclerc became a successful writer and producer for films and TV series and wrote the movie version (1974) of Hemingway’s posthumously published (1970) novel Islands in the Stream. Before his death Petitclerc wrote the screenplay for PAPA: Hemingway in Cuba. Petitclerc lived for 35 years in Ketchum, Idaho, where Hemingway committed suicide in 1961.

Giovanni Ribisi’s portrayal of Ed Myers is adequate, no more. Minka Kelly as Ed’s girlfriend brings little except gorgeous looks to what is essentially a superfluous role. Joely Richardson, of the famed Redgrave/Richardson clan, is strong as Mary Hemingway. The alpha actor of the drama, however, is Adrian Sparks.

Sparks’ Hemingway is of Shakespearean proportions, a kind of Lear-like literary lion fighting real and imagined enemies. It is a towering performance, perhaps never more so than when Hemingway is at his lowest points—entering zero after zero on a listing of words written each day or gazing longingly at a gun in his hand. The actor also bears a striking physical resemblance to the author whom he plays.  

PAPA: Hemingway in Cuba is the first American feature film to be made in Cuba since 1959, and director Yari makes good use of such actual locations of Papa’s life as Finca Vigia and the bar of the La Floridita hotel, where one night Hemingway drank 17 cocktails in succession.       

16 Things I Would Want If I Got Dementia

Credit: Getty Images

A heartfelt wish list from a dementia care worker

By Rachael Wonderlin 
Alzheimer's Reading Room

When you work in dementia care, people tend to ask you a lot of questions. Probably one of the most common questions that I hear is, “Are you afraid to get dementia when you’re older?”

Honestly, there are many things that scare me much more than dementia does. Don’t get me wrong: dementia is a terrible group of diseases. I’ve been fortunate, however, to see many of the beautiful moments that people with dementia can experience.

Just in case I do get dementia, I’ve written a list of 16 rules I’d like to live by.

If I get dementia, I’d like my family to hang this wish list up on the wall where I live:

Rules for a Good Life

• If I get dementia, I want my friends and family to embrace my reality. If I think my spouse is still alive, or if I think we’re visiting my parents for dinner, let me believe those things. I’ll be much happier for it.
• If I get dementia, I don’t want to be treated like a child. Talk to me like the adult that I am.
• If I get dementia, I still want to enjoy the things that I’ve always enjoyed. Help me find a way to exercise, read and visit with friends.
• If I get dementia, ask me to tell you a story from my past.
• If I get dementia, and I become agitated, take the time to figure out what is bothering me.
• If I get dementia, treat me the way that you would want to be treated.
• If I get dementia, make sure that there are plenty of snacks for me in the house. Even now, if I don’t eat I get angry, and if I have dementia, I may have trouble explaining what I need.
• If I get dementia, don’t talk about me as if I’m not in the room.
• If I get dementia, don’t feel guilty if you cannot care for me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It’s not your fault, and you’ve done your best. Find someone who can help you, or choose a great new place for me to live.
• If I get dementia, and I live in a dementia care community, please visit me often.
• If I get dementia, don’t act frustrated if I mix up names, events or places. Take a deep breath. It’s not my fault.
• If I get dementia, make sure I always have my favorite music playing within earshot.
• If I get dementia, and I like to pick up items and carry them around, help me return those items to their original places.
• If I get dementia, don’t exclude me from parties and family gatherings.
• If I get dementia, know that I still like receiving hugs or handshakes.
• If I get dementia, remember that I am still the person you know and love. Click here to go to the Alzheimer's Reading Room Web site

FOUR DAYS IN DEMENTIA VILLAGE

Click here to view a video of the Village.

Being able to enjoy the seasons and take a walk to the post office when you feel like it may not sound so special — unless you know the world of dementia care. In traditional nursing homes, residents don’t do much but sit.

That’s why the Dutch village De Hogeweyk, a grand experiment known here as Dementia Village, has sparked so much attention worldwide. CNN’s medical reporter Dr. Sanjay Gupta spent four days there getting a feel for the village, speaking with its residents and learning about this eldercare model from its co-founder Yvonne van Amerongen, who was inspired to envision an alternative to traditional care when her father died suddenly and she found herself thinking, “Thank God he never had to spend time in a nursing home.”

Van Amerongen was working in a nursing home at the time.

Located in the Netherlands on the outskirts of Amsterdam, De Hogeweyk has 23 houses and 152 residents who are free to come and go within its confines, visiting their supermarket and the hairdresser, playing music, seeing theater, taking walks. The residents live together in settings that reflect their former lifestyles—traditional or modern, luxury or crafty. The staff wear street clothes instead of uniforms. It’s a little like a toy village, and some experts say it’s unethical because it fools people with severe dementia into thinking that they’re living in the real world. Van Amerongen is unfazed. She says this is the real world, one that feels safe even when you are lost. She wants people who live here to feel that it’s OK to be lost.

Could this model change the face of Alzheimer’s in America?

Movie Review—Green Room

 by Peter J. O’Connell

Green Room. Released: April 2016. Runtime: 95 mins. MPAA rating: R for strong, brutal, graphic violence; gory images; language and some drug content.

As those Westerns featuring white folks on the frontier battling “redskins” faded from movie screens in the 1960s and 1970s, one of the genres that emerged to replace them featured city folks in the wilderness or rural areas battling “rednecks” (who were sometimes criminals and sometimes cops). Such films ranged from schlocky and exploitative ones to critically acclaimed woks, such as Deliverance (1972).

Green Room, written and directed by Jeremy Saulnier, is no Deliverance, but it does have considerably more merit than one might guess from its MPAA rating. Its premise is clever; its acting good; and its plotting and directing imaginative.

“The Ain’t Rights,” a punk rock group—composed of Pat (Anton Yelchin), Reece (Joe Cole), Sam (Alia Shawkat) and Tiger (Callum Turner)—are living in their van and barely getting by amid the gloomy forests and small towns of the Pacific Northwest. Desperate, they take a gig at a dive bar in the wilderness. This dive bar is definitely at the lowest depths, for its manager, Darcy, played by famously bald British thesp Patrick Stewart, noted for everything from Shakespeare on stage to StarTrek: Generations on TV, is running a drug operation out of the bar and also hosts gatherings of neo-Nazi “skinheads.”

When a murder takes place in the “green room”—the area in a venue where performers or speakers wait before going on stage—Darcy orders that the band members, as witnesses, be exterminated. The four hapless musicians, joined by Amber (Imogen Poots), a young woman who is not a skinhead, barricade themselves in the green room and attempt first to keep the skinheads out and then to break out themselves.

The embattled group draws on every ounce of strength that they possess and use every possible weapon that they can lay hands on—from fluorescent lights to fire extinguishers to box cutters. The struggle becomes even more fierce when Darcy has pit bulls brought in.

Appropriately enough, the closing credits of the movie feature Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon on the Right.”

The Secret to Living a Longer, Healthier Life

Credit: Getty Images

An unexpected way to combat Alzheimer's, hypertension and depression

After attending the Milken Center for the Future of Aging’s Purposeful Aging Summit last week, I came away with this: There’s a growing body of scientific research proving that aging with purpose is really, really good for your health.

The relatively small AARP Experience Corps (where 2,200 people over age 50 tutor inner-city kids) and the three federal Senior Corps programs (a total of 270,000 volunteers 55 and older in Foster Grandparents, RSVP and Senior Companions) have doubled as labs demonstrating the beneficial effects — ranging from lower mortality and depression rates to reducing the risk of Alzheimer’s.

It’s the “relatively small” part that led Purposeful Aging Summit participant John Gomperts, president and CEO of America’s Promise Alliance and former director of AmeriCorps, to refer to such programs as “curiously and frustratingly subscale.” He asked the group: “If we have such powerful evidence of the benefit of successful programs, why has this not taken off in the way one would expect?”

Evidence-based research demonstrates that purposeful aging improves the lives of older adults and the beneficiaries of their service.

— Paul Irving, Milken Institute Center for the Future of Aging

Good question, and one that the 34 attendees wrestled with for the better part of the day.

The Health Benefits of Purposeful Aging

“The conversation we’re having is not just a group of do-gooders trying to save the world,” said the Summit’s leader, Paul Irving, chairman of the Milken Institute Center for the Future of Aging. “Evidence-based research demonstrates that purposeful aging improves the lives of older adults and the beneficiaries of their service.”

A few examples of the evidence, much of which was conducted by researchers including Summit participants Dr. Linda Fried (dean of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University), Patricia Boyle (a neurologist with the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago) and Becca Levy (a professor at the Yale School of Public Health):

• Older adults with a positive self-perception of aging lived 7.5 years longer than those who were less positive (Yale and Miami University)
• Senior citizens who rated highly on a purpose of life scale had a 30 percent lower rate of cognitive decline than those with low scores (Rush University Medical Center)
• Residents of retirement communities and senior housing facilities with greater purpose in life had a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease (Rush University Medical Center)
• Senior housing residents without dementia but with a greater purpose in life had a lower risk of developing impairment in basic activities of daily living and mobility (Rush University Medical Center)
• Experience Corps volunteers improved significantly in physical activity and mental health compared to other similar adults, a likely reason those with arthritis reported less pain and those with diabetes needed fewer diabetes medications (Johns Hopkins/Columbia/UCLA)
• In a 2013 UnitedHealth Group survey of people who’d volunteered in the previous 12 months, 94 percent said volunteering improved their mood; 78 percent said it lowered their stress levels and 76 percent said it made them feel healthier

And, quoting Barbara Bradley Hagerty from her excellent, well-researched new book, Life Reimagined: The Science, Art and Opportunity of Midlife, volunteering “makes you happier and spares you depression. And heart attacks. It helps keep you sober, and boosts your immune system. It cures burnout.”

In short, Hagerty said, volunteering gives you purpose in life. “If you could put this stuff in a bottle and sell it at Rite Aid, you’d be a billionaire,” she quotes Dr. Stephen Post, director of the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care and Bioethics at Stony Brook University, as saying.

“There is a huge potential for programs like Experience Corps, if they are well designed and implemented, to delay the loss of cognitive function in older age,” said Fried. Experience Corps Vice President Lester Strong echoed her view, saying: “The power of this engagement is enormous.”

Volunteering Pays Dividends

Volunteering in the second half of life is also something that can pay dividends for everyone. Marc Freedman, the CEO of Encore.org who co-founded Experience Corps with Fried, told Summit attendees: “Experience Corps volunteers are the salt of the earth. They’re mostly working and middle class. We’re not just talking about an elite phenomenon.”

You don’t “need to have a new career to lead a purposeful life,” noted Summit attendee Ken Dychtwald — founder and CEO of the AgeWave research firm.

But to receive the potential health benefits, it helps to volunteer for the right reason and for the right amount of time.

A 2011 study from the University of Michigan, Stony Brook and the University of Rochester found that volunteering only lowers your mortality risk if you do it primarily to help others. There was no mortality benefit for people who volunteered for “self-oriented” reasons.

And although no one knows for sure how much volunteering you need to do to get healthier, Carnegie Mellon found that 200 hours a year correlated to lower blood pressure; other studies found a 100-hours-a-year threshold (or two hours a week) for positive health outcomes.

If Older Americans Volunteered More

Most people over 55, however, are falling short. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, people 55 to 64 who volunteer do it for 56 hours a year —that’s the median — which is a hair over the 52 hours for volunteers overall. People 65 and older who volunteer get closer to that minimum threshold: they give their time to others 94 hours a year (median). Only about one in four Americans who are 55 or older actually do volunteer, however, and that percentage has been sliding since 2011.

Many seem eager to start adding purpose to their lives. Encore.org, which has given out The Purpose Prize for the past 10 years, conducted a survey which discovered that there are 4.5 million Americans in encore careers to help others but another 21 million who say they want to be in them.

The need is great, the Summit panelists agreed, to get the word out about programs like Experience Corps and Senior Corps. Said AARP’s Senior Vice President for Market Innovation Jody Holtzman: “We need to do a better job celebrating the victories. I think the tipping point is here, but it won’t tip unless the outer world knows about these victories.”

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