Mindset

“Amelie” is a French romantic comedy from 2001. This fantastic film is life affirming and heart-warming on so many levels. Whenever I watch this movie, it gives me a sense that all is well with the world. It revives my faith in people and reminds me of how we are capable of caring for each other, while living with our own priorities, fears, shortcoming and strengths. It also reminds me that we can change the world by being more sensitive to everyone’s struggles and personal journeys. Read More

“Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom and Wonder,” is the latest book by Arianna Huffington. Arianna was born in Greece. She moved to England as a teenager and graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in Economics. The mother of two teenage daughters, she also happens to be the well-known co-founder and editor in chief of Huffington Post and the author of 13 books. Read More

“The Way” is a most inspiring film, showing that we can find solutions in the most unexpected places. In this film, Tom, played by Martin Sheen, is an American doctor who comes to France to collect the remains of his adult son killed in the Pyrenees during a storm. His son had been walking the 800km long Camino de Santiago, a path for pilgrims when he died. Tom leaves his familiar life in California and begins a journey that he hopes will help the healing process. Read More

“Orphan Train” is a fascinating story of friendship between women from two generations. According to a New York Times review, the book is “A revelation of the universal yearning for belonging, for family, for acceptance and, ultimately, the journeys we must all make to find them.” Read More

Just a few years ago, it would have been inconceivable to imagine a world without paper books. Not only were paper books superior to their electronic counterparts in terms of resolution and brightness, but there was also an intangible quality to paper that many people preferred on a subconscious level. Read More

“The Notebook” may only be a decade old, but, it is already a classic. In fact, it is so well loved that the Sixty and Me community voted it as their favourite movie of all time.

On one level, this is a movie about the power of love. It also feels so real that you can’t help but get involved with the deep complexity of the characters in the movie as they experience the heartbreak of loss. Read More

“The Luminaries” is a Booker-Prize winning book by Eleanor Catton. This intriguing book is described as a “fiendishly clever ghost story and gripping page turner and a thrilling novelistic achievement.” The New York Times praised it saying the author had created a “parody of a 19th-century novel, and in so doing created a novel for the 21^st, something utterly new.” This week, I wanted to select a book that would offer an engaging modern story with escapism, adventure and an entertaining look at human complexity. The Luminaries fits this description perfectly. Read More

Some movies take us into fantasy worlds, where we can escape for a few hours. As we watch, we leave the complexity of our daily lives behind. “Enough Said” is not one of those movies. Instead, an all-star cast and fabulous script will take you into the lives of two ordinary middle aged people looking for love. They face all the doubts and fears that many older men and women experience when looking for a relationship after a divorce.

The basic story line of the movie is that Eva, a middle aged divorced woman (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), starts dating Albert (the late James Gandolfini). The twist is that she learns he is the ex-husband of a new girlfriend (Catherine Keener). Should Eva listen to her new girlfriend’s advice or follow her heart? Read More

“Love in the Time of Cholera” is a book by Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, a Colombian novelist, screenwriter and journalist. His writing style has been referred to as “magical realism,” because he uses elements of fantasy to explain and enhance real life experiences. Most of his books express a theme of human solitude.

He won the Nobel Prize in 1982 for a book called “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” which enchanted and intrigued me. Marquez is a stunning writer who pulls readers into his stories in a sensory way. He understands relationships. Sometimes you feel as though you walking alongside the characters, experiencing their lives with intensity and realism. Read More

We all love Helen Mirren and Julie Walters, and Calendar Girls is a movie that offers their wonderful on screen chemistry and so much more! The entire cast is absolutely fabulous! It is funny, authentic, touching, sad, inspiring and just plain entertaining – everything a great movie should be!

Released in 2003, “Calendar Girls” is a timeless story of creative resilience and friendship. Women in the Sixty and Me community gave it such a positive recommendation that I wanted to feature it as this week’s Movie Choice. Read More