Director: Mark Wexler
Year Released: 2009
Rating: 2.0
Wexler, upon turning The Big 5-0, sets out to investigate how some of the oldest people alive got that old (and here's a hint: they all didn't abstain from drinking or smoking) and, more importantly, how science can, in the (hopefully near) future help people lead longer lives. As a meditation on aging it's a bit more scattered and un-focused than I would have liked, and Wexler's approach is to basically throw everything in there and hope the viewer can pick through the bits and pieces for resonance, though it generally works best the less he's involved directing his subjects (and telling them what to say and how to say it) or making himself the subject (only Michael Moore seems to have a handle on how to do that). To his credit, he does break out some of the Big Thinkers in Life Expansion for some golden truths (specifically, the brilliant Ray Kurzweil and truly eccentric Aubrey de Grey) and get some fantastic subjects to participate: chain-smoking, meat-eating, pint-drinkin' Buster Martin, for example, is a movie in himself.
