Truly Dreadful Film

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

From director Mark Wexler I expected funny and entertaining and quirky. "How to Live Forever" is so much more than that. From the very first scene, in which Wexler goes to visit Edna Parker, the oldest living person at 115, we are aware that the dark, devolution of aging will subtend whatever else the film promises to offer on the longevity front. Edna appears beyond this world, her tiny frame wrapped in a gauzy robe and propped in her wheelchair. Her sunken eyes remain expressionless as the cheery nursing home staff loudly announces Wexler's visit. She is unmoved by his friendly display of interest in her. We can't help but feel the discomfort of their disconnect. What is actually happening here? Might it be nothing more than voyeurism? Right when discomfort gets to be the main character, the scene shifts. Over and over the film proceeds this way, cutting from one speaker to another just after we begin to squirm, or laugh, or sink, or cry.You can't just watch "How to Live Forever" because the very topic requires participation. Wexler transparently models our assumptions, defenses, and uncertainties about the unassailable fact of our own demise. We can keep a distance perhaps when he's being gingerly hoisted into a casket by a "body scoop" demonstrated at a Las Vegas morticians' trade show (he's a corpse with a little smile), but his furtive measurement of midriff flab in a fast bathroom scene, or his earnest queries at a San Francisco Brain Gym lend a disarming intimacy to the wealth of attitudes and info the film presents us.Inevitably we are drawn in by the diversity and richness of the film's speakers—each is presented with a ticker counting up his/her age—and their particular cultural and historical contexts. I hope to remember forever the story of Jeanne Calment, the French woman who took up fencing at 85, long before she died at 122, and the film's poster boy, Buster Martin, who at 101 is doing the London marathon, smoking, drinking, and making hit rock band recordings, and especially Eleanor Wasson, my favorite, who at age 100 beautifully articulates her lifelong work for peace in the context of such diverse accomplishments as flying ferry ships in World War II and writing a book entitled "Twenty Eight Thousand Martinis," based on her personal practice of drinking one martini a day. Of course there are lots of luminaries here too, and they each offer a provocative angle—John Robbins, Marianne Williamson, Jack LaLanne (my other favorite), Suzanne Somers, Ray Bradbury—as do people on the street who respond to the question "If there was a pill to live for 500 years, would you take it?" As for the philosophical questions the film raises--Is the quest for longevity just 21st century narcissism? Will nanobots interacting with humans neurologically deliver us to the theater of radical life extension? Will the creation of the ageless society dwarf the age of the computer? to name just a few—"How to Live Forever" is full and fast paced enough to give us a sense of the possibilities, if not the answers. For this reason I suspect I'll be drawn to watch this film many more times. An added pleasure is the soundtrack, which is beautifully matched to the sequences, never overly obvious but always nuanced and compelling. And finally the haunting credit art, by Wexler's mother, Marian, is especially poignant. But you'll have to see the film to find out why.

I really enjoyed the humor of this movie- it sent a great message to every viewer. Aging is such a negative hype and How To Live Forever sheds a new light upon the topic. Screw the typical "health/exercise/eat right" advice; the people interviewed in this film tell it how it is and that positive attitude/enjoyment of life itself is the key. Includes a variety of people ranging from fitness guru Jack LaLanne (deceased) to Suzanne Somers and John Robbins. I'd have to say Buster Martin the smoker/drinker/marathon runner was my favorite. If only more seniors aged as happily as these did the world would be a brighter place! I recommend this to everyone of any age! Entertaining, inspiring, light hearted and fun.

I have to say I love how this movie doesn't beat you over the head with an opinion one way or the other. We get to look into a world of cryogenics, active seniors, even hormone replacement therapies, but we aren't told what the best way is. Only that these options are out there. At first I was really expecting a even more longevity secrets, but the movie slowly transitions into a focus more on characters and quality of life.While these ideas and technologies are interesting, the interviewees really make the movie. Seeing them live out fulfilling lives into their 90's and beyond was really inspiring. Honestly I think Mark Wexler's decision (leaving it up to us to decide what we think about longevity and really the meaning of life) was correct, I wouldn't have enjoyed an ending that promoted a certain ideal way of life.

If only this documentary could really tell you how to do it or even come close. Director, writer and producer Mark S. Wexler who has also been a successful photojournalist as well as a documentary maker is the son of an award winning cinema photographer. He has used his own funds to make this film, which basically looks at old people and tries to explain what is their secret to a long life. He doesn't really come up with an answer other than maybe they have a passion for living and don't worry very much about dying. Perhaps the film could have used a better focus and a stronger point of view. We also found it very interesting that in all the interviews, the role of family never came up in the questions or in the discussion, nor were any children or grandchildren ever shown. There were certainly some unforgettable characters such as the 114 year old women from Indiana who was the oldest person in the world at that moment, the Senior Beauty Pageant and the effervescent Ms. Arkansas who was competing for the national crown, the funeral directors conference in Las Vegas where the latest marketing ploys reflected the attitudes of the baby boomers about their mortality, the 93 year old guy in Oklahoma who would regularly eat a diet which is the antitheses of a healthy diet and a clip of Wexler with the unforgettable Jack LaLane who actually died this year at age of 96. The subtitle of this movie is "Results May Vary" and this probably sums up how we think most people will react to this film. (2011)