Alive Inside
Alive Inside is a documentary about Dan Cohen, a nursing home volunteer
who discovered exposing seniors with dementia to the music of their youth can
relight their memories and personalities.
Alive Inside is a documentary about Dan Cohen, a nursing home volunteer
who discovered exposing seniors with dementia to the music of their youth can
relight their memories and personalities.
Here’s the deal: when
we’re growing and our brains are still in supersponge mode (a period that lasts
roughly from birth through our mid-20s), the music of our youth gets encoded
deep in our brains – way back near the stem.
If dementia sets in, that’s the last part to go. Thus, it’s possible to light up the brain
once more by triggering those musical memories.
This isn’t to imply that iPods cure dementia. It appeared that patients slipped back into
their hazes some time after the music stopped.
Nevertheless, while the music played, these people were themselves again
in a fundamental way.
That’s a thing of beauty.
Fury
Fury is a
by-the-numbers WWII picture, just like they used to make. Brad Pitt is the grizzled, fatherly
first sergeant. Jon Bernthal is
the hick; Shia LeBeouf the preacher; Michael Peña the alcoholic, and Logan
Lerman the New Guy.
They hit many of the same beats as the dogfaces from the
great Lee Marvin film The Big Red One,
and the film doesn’t have much to offer in the way of surprises. But if you like war movies, you’re sure
to like this one. It touches all
the bases.
Hot Tub Time Machine 2
Rude, crude, and mildly amusing, Hot Tub Time Machine 2 is the perfect movie to fold laundry by.
