The FDA approved the use of plasma as an injectable into the face in March 2010 and already it has taken off like vampires in the night.

Offices in Beverly Hills, Newport Beach, Miami, Manhattan and now La Jolla are offering this hematologic procedure. The Spa of La Jolla will start offering this non-invasive lift this weekend. Beauty and youth-seekers are paying anywhere from $1,500 to $3,800 for this procedure across the U.S.

On Saturday and Sunday, Dr. Jon M. Grazer will perform the “lift” at The Spa of La Jolla for a killer deal starting at $1,800.

“I had mine done a few weeks ago and I had absolutely no downtime and no bruising,” said Dianne York, president and CEO of The Spa of La Jolla. “This is very, very exciting.”

The procedure is four simple steps. First a practitioner draws blood from the patient’s arm, not their neck. That blood is placed into a centrifuge that spins the blood very rapidly to separate out the platelets. While the blood spins, the practitioner fills face wrinkles and lines with a filler such as Juvederm. Once the blood is separated and the filler has been injected, the platelet rich plasma (about 50 percent of the blood drawn) is injected into the patient’s face.

“This is really exciting because you are using you to look younger,” said Kathleen Duggan-O’Brien, licensee of the trademarked procedure and former La Jolla resident. “We are not cutting, we are volumizing you.”

This procedure was featured on Doctors and has rare reviews by many, but no studies have been conducted based on results. Many claim that platelet-rich plasma injections can improve skin color, lift the face with collagen and make skin appear smoother.

Duggan-O’Brien explained that there is no risk for an allergic reaction because the blood is your own.

In addition, Duggan-O’Brien, an owner of Dallas-based Eclipse Aesthetics, a manufacturer and supplier of aesthetic medical products, said Eclipse will be opening its Southern California base from The Spa of La Jolla. Duggan-O’Brien and Eclipse Aesthetics will conduct physician-based “vampire” training workshops and courses, as well as holding “vampire” events for future patients and neighbors throughout the year.

For more information about the vampire facelift email kduggan@eclipsemed.com or call 972-814-5521. To make an appointment at The Spa of La Jolla call 858-459-6868.

Find La Jolla Patch on Facebook and Twitter @LaJollaPatch.

Article source: http://lajolla.patch.com/articles/look-younger-with-new-vampire-facelift-procedure-offered-in-la-jolla-c192a7c1

Now that I’m over 50, I look back at my younger self and wish that someone had pulled me aside, sat me down, looked me straight in the eye and told me what I’m about to tell you. For sure, many — if not all — of these “commandments” you intellectually already know to be true. However, your current younger you may not be emotionally ready to accept them. You might still be in that glorious, relatively carefree stage of life where you think, “Oh I don’t need to think about these things now. I’ve got plenty of time to think about them later,” which is a variation of The Ant and the Grasshopper fable from Aesop. Or, perhaps you’re simply too engaged with the business of life to bother. Or, you are caught up in the very youthful idea that you are invincible.

• Don’t Stop Networking: Whether you choose to stay home to raise children some day or work straight through, you should never stop networking, and building on that network. If you do choose to be a SAHM (stay-at-home mom) try to stay connected to your career by moving from full-time to part-time work, which will make it easier for you to move back into full-time work when you’re ready.

• Do Create a Personal “Board of Directors”: Whether you’re looking to change jobs or careers, pursue a relationship, or end one, having a trusted group with whom you can review life’s challenges, is essential. Invite several friends (or even just one) who will encourage, inspire and guide you. Having a regular group you can depend on for unbiased and objective views and advice is critical, especially as you are facing major life decisions.

• Don’t Smoke: Lung cancer is the #1 leading cause of cancer death for women, but it is avoidable. The #1 cause? Smoking, which is also associated with many other illnesses. We are considered the smarter sex, and yet women are picking up the habit more than ever before.

• Do Wear Sunscreen: I spent my teenage summers basking in the sun at Coney Island, with baby oil mixed with iodine slathered on my body, a reflector aimed at my face. I threw away the reflector and tried to remember to put on sunscreen, but it wasn’t until my mid-40s — when I saw sun damage on my face (wrinkles, brown spots) — and I developed skin cancer on my chest, that I got serious. Soaking up the sun feels great and who doesn’t look fabulous with a little peachy-bronzy glow. But, if you don’t apply sunscreen every single day of the year, including on your neck, chest and hands, you will put yourself at high risk for skin cancer (highly avoidable) and skin that looks much older than its years (wrinkles, brown spots, sagging, leathery skin). Steer clear of tanning booths, too.

• Don’t Have Risky Sex: Unsafe sex = higher risk for pregnancies and STDs, some of which are life long. Don’t think because you are young, you are immune and invincible. You are not. And don’t put pleasure before common sense. Make sure you know the scoop on your partner before you proceed, including your boyfriend or husband. Use condoms. Discuss your risk factors with your gynecologist, and get tested for HIV, Hepatitis B and C, and syphilis, especially when you start a new relationship. Insist that your partner does the same.

• Do Move Your Body Every Day: Get yourself into the habit of working out, and don’t let excuses (even really good ones) get in the way of giving yourself this daily gift. Obesity is the culprit in many serious illnesses, including certain cancers. One third of all cancer deaths are related to obesity, physical inactivity, or poor nutrition. Make fitness a lifelong commitment.

• Don’t Ignore Your Young Bones: Osteoporosis is a disease of the bones that we associate with aging, and rightly so. But, it takes time to get there. Poor nutrition, specifically a lack of adequate amounts of calcium and Vitamin D (which helps the body to absorb the calcium) is partly to blame. A more powerful contributor is the lack of regular strength-training exercises.

• Do Save More and Spend Less: Retirement is, presumably, years away, but it’s never too early to plan for it. The more money you have when you reach 50, the less stress and anxiety you will have. One of the biggest fears among women over 50 is not having enough money to live a good life as they age. It’s not always easy to do, but the sooner you start saving the better you will be down the road.

• Don’t Be Apathetic: We’re all busy with family, work, and friends… but that’s no excuse to stop thinking about causes that are important to us and to the world. The world is weary, it seems, from the economy, jobs, war, politics, and are turning away from getting involved. More than ever, we need the energy and ideas that youth can provide. Get involved, stay involved. Be the change.

• Do Embrace Your Age: Don’t fight aging. Embrace it. This doesn’t mean you should spend your life focused on getting older, and how to stop the process. On the contrary, live fully engaged with each year of your life, embracing the future ones with joy. It is a very powerful concept — letting go of your younger self, and embracing and loving your aging self. Treat yourself with kindness and respect, and take care of you — body, mind, and soul — as you would your children, your family and your friends.

For more information on living your best life after 50, visit www.bestofeverythingafter50.com. Staying connected is a powerful tool: “Friend” me on Facebook and “Tweet” me on Twitter (BGrufferman). Be well, and stay in touch!

Article source: http://blogs.jpost.com/content/ten-commandments-turning-50-manifesto-all-ages

The track starts its thoroughbred season at 7 p.m. Friday. Live racing continues Saturday (7 p.m.), Sunday (5 p.m.) and Monday (1:20 p.m.). For first-timers who come just to observe, it’s a sure thing.

Start at the paddock. About 20 minutes before each race, handlers walk horses from barns to the paddock. Jockeys, trainers, owners and officials await them. Horses know what’s up. They’ve have had their food pulled. The abrupt diet change alerts them that race time nears.

Reaching the paddock is another tip off. They’ve been confined, left to stare quietly at drab stable walls. Now people are everywhere. They flit their eyes from stranger to stranger. Paddock anxieties often make a horse extra frisky, even unruly.

Ten minutes before a race, jockeys mount. Then horses parade from paddock to the track. That short stroll seems to sooth a horse’s edginess.

Jockeys, too, are a study for the first-time spectator. Faces reveal the hopes and challenges of racing. Youthful riders seem to smile more than seasoned veterans. It’s as though they’re eager for thousands of races. The face of an older rider reveals he has put in his time. Those face wrinkles might be from years of minimal eating to prevent weight gain.

For the observer, there’s one place to be at race time (post time). SHRP races of one mile or more begin in front of the grandstand. The observer should move close to the starting gate. Though racing is a visual sport, it is auditory, too.

Horses “load” into starting positions. Assistant starters help jockeys enter gates in numerical order, then snap closed the barrier behind each horse. Younger horses in a first or second race are more likely to act up than a seasoned runner. A tractor connects to the starting gate.

When each horse settles, the starter pushes a button. Gates burst open in sync as a bell sounds loudly. Dirt flies as horses dash to the first turn. Unnoticed by most, the tractor slowly pulls the starting gate to trackside. When horses complete their oval, the gate will be out of their path.

It’s easy to observe racing. For an SHRP first-timer hoping to wager successfully, it’s like trying to beat the Baltimore Ravens at home with a rookie quarterback.

The track’s Rookie Room is a good starting place for the hopeful bettor. Newcomers can ask questions and get candid, plain-spoken answers.

SHRP sells a variety of wagering aids. Programs are popular. The tabloid Daily Racing Form offers tips.

It includes so-called Beyer numbers. Developed four decades ago by sports writer and Harvard scholar Andrew Beyer, the numbers compare speeds of horses, no matter where they raced.

Beyer numbers are boldfaced. They’re found on the left end of each horse’s running lines. Running lines detail, start to finish, a horse’s performance in each recent race.

horsechronicler@gmail.com

Article source: http://www.chron.com/sports/article/Horse-racing-notebook-Track-first-timers-can-2619081.php

Writing from the world premiere almost exactly a year ago: “The film not only suggests, but demonstrates, through the heroic investment by its subjects, day to day, that the cycle of violence can be broken, and must be broken. In the words of one, the goal is ‘humility and not anger.’ These are powerful stories of trust, transformation, and renewal of hope in Chicago streets and the hearts of America. The closing shot is elegiac, literally dazzling, as sunset ripples golden-orange across the Chicago skyline seen from the west, not the Lake, and yet it also says Chicago, and cities, and Chicagoans, and the hope for a better nation still stand, and stand strong.”

A list of ten more, with footnotes below.

1. Margaret
2. Drive
3. Melancholia
4. Take Shelter / Tree of Life
5. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
6. A Separation
7. Martha Marcy May Marlene
8. Shame
9. Road to Nowhere / Certified Copy
10. Aurora / Tuesday, After Christmas

A short shout, too, to the littlest guys rabbiting away at more sustainable means of distribution, including, but not limited to, Oscilloscope, Milestone, Variance, Vitagraph, The Film Desk, Factory 25, Icarus, Zeitgeist, Janus, Music Box Films, Kino-Lorber, Rialto, and Cinema Guild. (The Cinema Guild’s 2011-12 roster includes The Interrupters, Aurora, The Turin Horse, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia and new films by Hong Sangsoo and Grant Gee. Please survive.)

PLUS the programs, programmers and hospitality of 2011 festivals that I attended as a journalist or programmer, including Sundance; the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival; ”Illuminating The Shadows: Film Criticism In Focus” at Northwestern University’s Block Cinema; Hot Docs; Chicago Underground Film Festival; Chicago International Film Festival; the Thessaloniki International Film Festival; and the Marrakech International Film Festival.

AND Sara Driver, at a press conference for her tribute at Thessaloniki 52, indelibly describing herself and Jim Jarmusch across their years working together as “imagination gangsters.”

1. Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan) A frayed-nerves feat of furious articulation. Lisa Cohen (Anna Paquin) is a privileged young woman whose confusions run from mother to father, to sex, to the life of the mind, to elemental guilt. Thematically, “survivor guilt” after 9/11 resounds in Lisa’s witness to, and potential cause of, the death of a woman who’s hit by a city bus. The profusion of life, of life in Manhattan post-9/11, of life that eddies in all directions, is novelistic in ambition, Dickensian in a welter of cracked legalisms. Paquin brandishes a bravura performance—shrill, feral, emphatic, self-dramatizing, self-cautioning, self-aware, self-immolating—that is like nothing I’ve ever seen. She’s in Lisa’s skin and it’s an uncomfortable place. There’s a repeated fugue as interlude, figures on the city’s sidewalks caught in extreme slow-motion, with Ryszard Lenczewski’s cinematography tending to the shadow-bruised, the ashen. A shaft of light will suddenly pick someone out in the deep distance, their faces illumined in full proper focus for a brief instant. This, too, is Lonergan’s dramatic impulse: how do we all mesh? What’s teeming just beyond all parameters of the frame? The sudden, thrilling, earned ending is an impulsive and perfect and human moment: a little lunge toward tenderness. Plus: the promise of the Schoonmaker-Scorsese cut, nestling on a hard drive somewhere out there.

2. Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn) The unnamed driver (Ryan Gosling) meets a young mother (Carey Mulligan) in his picturesquely shabby apartment building, where he’s behind the door of apartment “405.” (Rimshot.) It’s the small, tingling grace notes that elevate Drive into what Refn claims it is, or the cinephilic repository that it also represents, such as the first meeting of the man and woman in the building’s elevator, two unmatched gazes, seeing, not seeing, each other. And once they’ve met, when she asks where he works and he answers, “Reseda Boulevard,” and Gosling stretches those syllables into something abstract and lyrical along his tongue, and in an ideal cut, Refn cuts to Mulligan indicating, yes, in this very second she may have well opened up to the possibility of loving this man. An awareness: this is a moment. I am in this moment. Not this is history, this is my destiny, but an engaged gaze that says: I am in this moment.

3. Melancholia (Lars Von Trier). Crushing. The weight of the worlds. The center of the world: Kirsten Dunst. Magnificent. There’s expressive greatness in her performance: quivering, alive, hurt. Not beauty: humanity. The world ends not with a bang, but a human face.

4. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson). The level in the details: each level of imagery is immaculately imagined, especially Maria Djurkovic’s production design, creating a world the color of whiskey and tea and nicotine—not nostalgic, but muted and drawn—curtains, sheers, windows, dividers, glass: things obscured, things observed in pearly drab.

5. Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols) / The Tree of Life (Terence Malick). Shelter: The wicked, damaged splendor to what Curtis sees. Viscous tan-black dribs of oil fall from the sky. Stopped on the verge of a highway, the night sky fires and streaks with bolts and clusters, like crests of ganglia and neuron bursting from the skull in ordinary madness. He imagines the planet, he’s at its center, the weather goes mad around him. Curtis seems a sainted fool somewhere between cousin Johannes in Dreyer’s Ordet, Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and Lodge Kerrigan’s errant schizophrenics. His daily life crumbles. When Samantha finally confronts Curtis, they’re surrounded by a patch of fireflies—no one noticing—rising, luminous, visible; unseen. The fireflies hang, drift, blink, out of focus, blots of light as if you scrunched your eyes closed so very tightly. The possibility of the deadly storm or an “airborne toxic event,” the phrase for the commonplace apocalypse in Don DeLillo’s “White Noise,” seems to be only in one man’s head, but then the ending is as simply and as directly about faith as the end of Ordet. Nichols’ hallucination of latter-day trepidation offers a stunning moment, yes, of transcendence, conveyed by, among other details, a husband and wife’s exchange of nods and two words that say everything: “Sam.” “Okay.” Tree: Superficially, yes, Malick’s gone native once more, following the breeze and tendril, but he interleaves the dandle and the caress, a lexicon of physical human gestures that repeat in other measure. A turn of a mother’s pale calf is also her unexplained dream of soaring into the air in the front yard, unobserved, but also a neighbor woman’s calf, but also how the human form turns, turns, back also moves to the light, to the light, and back, the source, the lamp, the limpid life of flicker or incandescence, modest against the star-spokes of late-day sun as it deliquesces into orange and pink pinpoint behind beloved mother’s head.

6. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi) Responsibilities: everyone’s.

7. Martha Marcy May Marlene (Sean Durkin) Durkin and his cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes lace the tapestry with green herrings: the rustic countryside is a place of little but omens and the underfurnished weekend home of her sister and her husband is a place of forbidding, plain spaces. The two zones are linked at one point by a dive into water; the descent into the lake of privilege, through a sudden cut, becomes the mingling of nude young bodies skinny-dipping directionlessly below the surface of a rural creek. Martha runs away at the beginning of the film, and a simple shot is as suggestive as minutes of montage. The camera pulls back from whispering trees in a stand of green. A voice calls out as she disappears from sight, “Martha! Marcy May!” The shot is lyrical, the camera’s move gentle on a simple frame yet suggestive and rich with multiple sensations, suggesting poetry, omen, even horror. This green space does not nurture.

8. Shame (Steve McQueen) A long take plays out the discomfiting comedy of a dinner date served by a lousy waiter. All goes awry in movement and moment and minutiae. Every social grace, every touch toward intimacy, alarms Brandon. His date asks, “What’s your longest relationship” as we hear the suck sound of a wine cork as it’s pulled, she pulls a face, wrinkles her nose, we hear the wine slop into a glass: it’s the contortions of Brandon’s insides, too. The play of eyes and dance of glance in the bookending last scene is a tease, another tease, still, teasing, repeating, as another possible scenario unfolds. Brandon and a woman watch each other, look away. In mid-focus in the near background an older man’s dangling yellow scarf like the woman’s shoulder-length blonde hair—cold colors, cool composition, exquisite rhyming elements, again. Brandon looks, watches, what does he see? What’s behind his wide-eyed vulpine watchfulness? Shame? Hunger.

9. Road to Nowhere (Monte Hellman) / Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami) Kiarostami’s film is fatally flawed by its male lead, set against the gleaming Juliette Binoche. Or was the script, co-written by Jean-Claude Carrière, built on doubling, meant to refract her charisma against his baleful inertness as another of its layers? Hellman sets a film director in the middle of his mystery, and Tygh Runyan’s performance seems wrong on first apprehension, especially against the sidling, suggestive perfume of Shannyn Sossamon’s underplayed presence. Yet… as the noir-within-noir script (written by Steven Gaydos) slip-slides between mysteries, genuine and feigned, there’s a consistent, brooding air that rises above the concern about the acting, functioning more as puzzle than game, palimpsest than straight-ahead narrative, looking-back-glass than mere structural vertigo. (Gaydos describes the meat of the meta as “a movie about a movie about a movie about a true story that isn’t true”; Hellman lists more than fifty references inscribed into the film here.) It’s a stream-of-subconscious I’ve puzzled over for months, and a shot that incorporates the fate of a small plane from an overcast sky above a dead sylvan lake is indelible: fate is a gunshot, a tumble, a story forever shifting in mind. Alain Robbe-Grillet explained his own work came through a method of precisely, accurately describing something that never happened in a place that never existed.

10. Aurora (Cristi Puiu) / Tuesday, After Christmas (Radu Muntean) Two sides of the intense contemporary style of Romanian filmmaking, trading in focused acting and extended takes. Puiu’s elliptical story of a man, wronged, wronging, is splendid mystery and as cold to its viewers as to its horrible protagonist; Muntean’s dissection of the wages of adultery is precise about another mystery: why we do what we do.

Nine finer feature films I’ll punt as 2012 releases (links to trailers):

Alps (Yorgos Lanthimos)

Attenberg (Rachel Athina Trangari)

Elena (Andrei Zvyagintsev)

Goodbye First Love (Mia Hansen-Løve)

The Hunter (Rafi Pitts)

Miss Bala (Gerardo Naranjo)

Once Upon A Time in Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

Oslo, August, 31st (Joachim Trier)

The Turin Horse (Béla Tarr)

No Sale:

The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius). Keen pastiche, a terrific trifle offering Singin’ in the Rain-variety reassurance to the modern movie industry that its origins were joyous and true and good. To appropriate Jonathan Rosenbaum’s phrase, “Goodbye, Cinema: Hello, Cinephilia!” Masses will be entertained, and rightly so. It’s not a feel-good movie; It’s A Feel Great Movie!

Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen) The splendid thing that erupts from the schematic script is how the actors are, as in most late Allen, the performer is left to become the hero of their own history, each actor left to light their corner of the frame. And so we have Corey Stoll’s Clutch Cargo-cum-Ernest Hemingway, a strong and sturdy caricature, and a good one, too; Adrien Brody’s cricket-jitter epicene-shy-of-a-sneezing-fit Salvador Dali; Kathy Bates’ never-make-eye-contact but-weight-the-room Gertrude Stein. And also Rachel McAdams’ whiny, unworthy shiksa, Marion Cottilard’s butter-croissant smile and Michael Sheen’s pettifogging fact-flogger, another Allen pseudo-intellectual to be carted out to forestall any accusations Mr. Konigsberg himself would be anything so… unworthy.

The Muppets (James Bobin). Unfelt.

2011 releases still to be seen:

City of Life and Death (Lu Chuan)
Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (Tsui Hark)
The Loneliest Planet (Julia Loktev)
Mildred Pierce (Todd Haynes)
The Mysteries Of Lisbon (Raul Ruiz)
This Is Not A Film (Jafar Panahi)
We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay)

And 33 more that offer moments of oohs and awe:

Another Earth (Mike Cahill). Cruel, selfish lead character inhabited by quicksilver Brit Marling. The fragrant conceit itself, casually decorative, so different than the second planet in Melancholia. And: the penultimate cut.

Attack the Block (Joe Cornish). “I was looking for anything in this world that reminded me of science fiction. I wanted to make a science fiction film set in this world that didn’t betray the reality, or the rules of the world. So the block looked like a spaceship. The BMXes that they ride reminded me of E. T. The architecture reminded me of Metropolis and the language did remind me of Nadsat from ‘A Clockwork Orange.’ Science fiction is full of little secret terms, isn’t it, that only cognoscenti understand. You feel like you’re in that world, you feel like you could have a conversation with them. That’s what excited me. I dunno. I just think it’s cool the way that young people invent a secret language that adults understand. I think it’s probably part of the process of language evolving, really.” [Interview.]

Beginners (Mike Mills) “It’s this idea, you’re taking all these elements that exist, it’s like reportage. I love that idea. And a lot of my writing is very much observation. But then also to me, it’s collage also in the sense of like Godard, as a collage of techniques or strategies in his essayistic form. Or to me, the other huge one is ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being,’ the book, not the movie, where there’s an essay about kitsch, an essay about misunderstood words, there’s a real love story, a history of the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia… In that way, it’s like a collage of modes.” [Interview.]

Cold Weather (Aaron Katz). The sound of a small city in the Northwest is ever in the middle ground: a freight’s horn sounds beyond the hills. Streetcars approach. A motel room’s room tone is muffled just so. An Amtrak train enters and exits. Wim Wenders once said the saddest image he knew was an unbroken shot of a horizon line in which a train enters, crosses, then vanishes from frame. Katz’s gambit with just such a shot is one character’s line to another at the bus stop as the train goes: “Where you headed?”

The Color Wheel (Alex Ross Perry). The central, extended shot where the dramatic stakes of Perry’s black comedy come to fruition: there’s an extended, unbroken take that lasts the length of a reel of 16mm film, including a bracingly clumsy reframing by the camera operator, as if the film itself had skipped a heartbeat, lurching object (and subject) into telling close-up. The scene shocks formally as well as emotionally, and it earns a scar its participants will touch fondly in memory for the rest of their lives.

Contagion (Steven Soderbergh). The chilly ending, the proof of a thesis: all the questions the world wanted answered are demonstrated, swiftly, vividly, viscerally, ending on a simple touch, as brief as photos. This is how the world works, like it or not.

Der Brand (Brigitte Bertele). The palpable chill of self-loathing: plus a revenge plot icier than Love Crimes.

The Descendants (Alexander Payne). For once, Payne didn’t seem like a character-hater, but others disagree.

50/50 (Jonathan Levine). For Levine’s eagerness to merge vulgarity and pathos while demonstrating an ability to tell stories in clean, expressive images, and for provoking Bret Easton Ellis’ surly tweet, deleted after its November 24 posting; “50/50: equivalent of seeing cute puppy beaten with stick for two hours. Most adorable actor of our generation given cancer: opportunistic.”

Film Socialisme (Jean-Luc Godard). Color, fielded. The Kino Lorber Blu-Ray captures its searing digital world, and also allows the option of proper subtitles (unlike the theatrical release).

The Future (Miranda July). The moment of transcendence, that elevates The Future into something remarkable is when Sophie, left to her own devices in a strange man’s bedroom, finally discovers and performs an expressive dance, wrapped in a sea-sized yellow t-shirt, its folds as descriptive as the billowing costumes for many Martha Graham dances, in which an entire female form is consumed, subsumed, transformed by fabric.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (David Fincher). The sound and sight of a smashed tooth spat. Letters on a hacked email spit out: “What going on with these two fucking assholes?” and strings of green computer code racing past with the most serious of search delimiters. Lisbeth’s here-unnamed hacker pal wearing a “NIN” t-shirt. Lisbeth, on the other hand, megapetite in her worn-and-all-but-chewed black “FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING FUCK” t-shirt, as broken in as a comfy, practiced scowl. The squeak of her leather jacket under a hoodie as she tenses is another matter, like the gentlest ping as she leathers with a thumb the lipstick print of her red lips off a bone-white coffee cup.

The Guard (John Michael McDonagh). John Ford meets Preston Sturges with a bit of craic and Brendan Gleeson playing a clandestine Irish intellectual.

Hanna (Joe Wright). There aren’t many high-functioning Asperger’s, tongue-in-cheek, Jesus-girl, killer-child thrillers in the market, which makes even the wooziest and blowziest moments of Hanna startling. A jarring mix of tones prevails, at one moment in settings that suggest Fassbinder making a Modesty Blaise and others, the Euro-oddness of the more gregarious films by Fatih Akin, like Im Juli or  Soul Kitchen. As shot by the gifted Alwin Küchler and tethered to the serene, slightly sinister percolation of a score by the Chemical Brothers, the world outside is otherworldly, as if we, the audience, were pitched into as much strangeness as bright young Hanna.

Hors Satan (Bruno Dumont). Madness under the low clouds of rural France! A painter and his fallen flock: Bruno Dumont.

Hugo (Martin Scorsese). The heart of Méliès’ dreams, sprung into motion by the cautious insertion of a Maltese Cross into its mechanism.

The Ides Of March (George Clooney) A serene simulacrum of a 1970s American thriller, needing much higher stakes for a splendid cast to catch fire.

Incendies (Denis Villeneuve). The steely elegance of Villeneuve’s emphatic camera movements and framing are as much of the “story” as the terrors past unearthed by two grown, yet innocent children. One image: two flashlights play in blackest night across shallow water above visible stones: one of many visual correlatives for the feat of storytelling itself. (As well, the chop of water always holds amniotic potential in Incendies.)

Le quattro volte (Michelangelo Frammartino). At the final shot, which coils into the most essential and transcendent of epiphanies: the entire movie has quietly, purposely, artfully moved toward this split-second of grace and we warm by it. It’s like the slightest of nudges, the gentlest of touches, a nod that says, “Look. See? Here is the world, complete.”

Like Crazy (Drake Doremus). A thousand fleeting thoughts, of fleeing sensations of desire that come from both the first romantic flushes of love but also from the darker sensations of disappointment. From their first date, where a pillar divides the table and the camera looks at one, then the other, less like a voyeur or a spy, but rather one of their better angels seeking out a better angle. It’s Felicity Jones’ overbite peeking out just so, or their bare feet curling against one another once more. It’s a flicker of want on her face or a sudden transformation into confusion by Anton Yelchin. They’re building blocks of uncommon intimacy. Surrounded by cell phone cameras, surveillance camera and that one person, if you’re lucky, who loves you and captures that one sweet ineffable moment in flight that is somehow the essence of happiness and all you can do is smile when you’re handed the camera to look at the image on the screen.

Margin Call (JC Chandor). Men’s white, pallid, ravaged faces on a multibillion-dollar dark night of the soul. Let Jeremy Irons speak.

Meek’s Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt). Landscape, framed.

The Mill and the Cross (Lech Majewski). The protracted opening scene of dawn stirring in a succession of households, from young to elderly, from clothed to nude, starts on a nest of unnumbered boys in sworls of blanket and duvet like so many giggling mice. Their boy-doings include a duel of armpit farts, which are intercut with Breughel poking attentively at a spider in its dew-diamonded web. From deep shadows at dawn of Rembrandt dark to a town beginning to move through mist not yet burned all, there are all modest yet lavish intimations of bustling community and of the artist’s patterning of it all. The tiniest things sing, including a sword applied to an oiled whetstone wheel that pings like a bell.

Moneyball (Bennett Miller) Billy Beane’s daughter, singing, “I’ve got to just let it go and enjoy the show.” The light on Brad Pitt’s face: this film is no longer about baseball, but about second chances and second-second chances and simple hopefulness.

The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodóvar). Graphomania of the highest odor.

Source Code (Duncan Jones). Explosive Chicago. Time after time.

Submarine (Richard Ayoade). “Her breath smelled of milk, Polo Mints and Dunhill International… Her tongue was blue from blackcurrant squash.”

Trigger (Bruce McDonald) A gentle two-hander for the late Tracey Wright and Molly Parker with many grace notes: a loving memorial, but also a collaboration as Wright’s last days passed. For the long-alienated rock-’n’-roll friends, Daniel MacIvor serves the words, the sullen dynamic, serenely.

Tyrannosaur (Paddy Considine). Opening with its protagonist, drunk from the pub, kicking his own dog to death? Dare to empathize now: All the lines on Mullan’s face seem earned once they teem with tears. Olivia Colman, also fine.

Weekend (Andrew Haigh) Longing: when do you see that, feel that, in the commonplace romantic comedy? And intimacy, demonstrated like this? It ought to be simple, shouldn’t it? Weekend is easy: a beautifully structured, seductive, emotional revelation.

Win Win (Tom McCarthy) Surely goodness and kindness… McCarthy gives very good actors room to amble around. Amy Ryan has one moment on her great, expressive face, where she says to the boy as his mother has come to stake a claim, “You know we love you,” and she makes a weird little expression, a sprightly moue. It’s exquisite for both precision and innate charm.

Without (Mark Jackson). A startling debut drama: A woman walks into the woods. Quiet will do her good. A little calm. Or not: Joslyn Jensen physically embodies a mind, a soul, set adrift, but it’s Jackson’s imagining of the low-cloud Pacific Northwest setting of that provides a setting for the slow disintegration of an obsessive young woman sent to care for a mute, catatonic man. Minimalist yet resplendent, shot with the Canon 5D Mark II, Without is what modern regional cinema can be, as well as cinema of blistering, pained eroticism. Without knows, shows fear.

Young Adult (Jason Reitman). Mr. Patton Oswalt. Ms. Charlize Theron.

Article source: http://moviecitynews.com/2012/01/film-2011-imagination-gangsters/

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Article source: http://archderm.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/148/1/121

‘I remember seeing some little wrinkles in my early thirties and thinking they were interesting. But you know the horror of it is that the screen image has to be perfect.” _ Claire Bloom

We may say that we embrace our wrinkles because it’s a sign of wisdom and experience, but let’s be honest, if given a choice at 50, for a face with wrinkles or the look we had at the age of 30, what would we choose? I don’t even need to state the obvious answer to that question. Without a doubt, a younger face is always a prettier face. Unfortunately, we can’t look young forever; we can’t stop the wrinkles from showing up, but let’s not be disheartened, it’s never too late to do something about it. However old we are, we can work to delay the ageing process and fix the current folds.

WHY ARE WRINKLES INESCAPABLE?

Let’s first understand that there are chiefly four types of wrinkles. The first kind is those that come if you express yourself too much, be it smiling, frowning or any kind of facial expression. The only way to escape these expression wrinkles is to not animate your face, or make any facial expressions. The second type of wrinkles appears on the surface of the skin, the epidermis, due to sun exposure. Over time, sun rays destroy collagen in your skin leading to small superficial wrinkles on the face. Wrinkles also come from dry skin and are more commonly seen in people residing in cold and dry climate areas. Finally, those that usually appear last but are inescapable, the wrinkles and folds that come with real chronological ageing. Now after we know the main causes of wrinkles and understand the big picture, we can see that even if you were to keep your skin moisturised at all times, we can’t completely avoid the sun, and if we’re able to do that, we’re still prone to wrinkles from facial expressions and of course the wrinkles from ageing.

WHAT CAN WE DO IN OUR TWENTIES AND THIRTIES TO SLOW THE AGEING PROCESS?

First and foremost, you need to prevent wrinkles by staying away from the sun, making sure your skin is always well nourished, and minimising unnecessary facial expressions such as frowns and scowls. In terms of skin products, choose those with peptides and vitamins A and C, as these can help improve or slow down wrinkles, but obviously skin care products will not work, as well. When you begin to have wrinkles, which are usually after you reach your mid-thirties, you could try soft laser treatment for collagen stimulation. Another treatment that is suitable is microdermabrasion which scrapes off dead skin, stimulates new skin, improves blood circulation and also fuels collagen.

IN OUR FORTIES, WHAT SHOULD WE DO TO REDUCE THE FACIAL FOLDS?

Although initially cold laser treatment does the job, when you are in your forties, injections and resurfacing is more suitable. Botox fillers smoothen the expression wrinkles by paralysing the muscles in the injected area. Within a couple of days the muscles responsible for expressions such as frown lines lose their ability to contract, so you can’t frown even if you try. The effects of botox injections last for approximately six months after which you’ll need to re-inject.

For the more superficial wrinkles, resurfacing can be done by chemical peels or by laser. Since deep chemical peels are hard to control in terms of depth penetration, we usually prefer laser treatment for increased degree of precision and safety in treating delicate areas. Laser treatment in the past meant burning the whole face so for about a couple weeks your skin is left looking raw and burnt. But today with fractional resurfacing, you won’t need to burn your skin and there’s no downtime, just a little bit of redness that can be covered with makeup. And with the latest technology, radio frequency resurfacing, you’ll get even more effective results from resurfacing and also benefit from collagen stimulation and skin tightening at the same time.

WHAT IS RECOMMENDED AT AGE 50 AND ABOVE?

You may need to intensify the treatments of fillers and fractional resurfacing you started in your late forties. Another noticeable issue at 50 is volume loss. For this you can volumise the face with nano prime radio frequency needles. Even the Juvederm injection works well to add volume and bring back youth.

FINALLY, WHAT ARE THE COMMON BELIEFS ABOUT WRINKLES THAT ARE MERELY MYTHS?

It’s a misconception that using good anti-ageing creams are enough to prevent wrinkles. It is usually not the wrinkle creams, but mostly just the moisturising effect of creams in general that delay wrinkles. And while creams improve the skin, there are many other things that play an important role in the skin’s overall appearance.

It’s also a myth that collagen-filled drinks can prevent wrinkles. Although it’s often claimed that by ingesting foods and drinks containing collagen, customers can minimise the signs of ageing and benefit from younger-looking skin, but really, the way collagen breaks down in the body does not transfer to your skin. Since collagen is a protein, it breaks down into amino acids during digestion. This process prevents the collagen you eat from natural sources and collagen-enhanced foods from passing along benefits to your skin in the form of less wrinkles or improved elasticity. So although these products don’t cause any harm, if you really want to delay signs of ageing, you’ve to just avoid the sun, frequently apply lotion, invest in maintenance treatments and finally, frown less

Dr Nantapat Supannachart is an American Board-certified dermatologist and laser surgeon. Call 080-500-0123 or visit www.apexprofoundbeauty.com.

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Article source: http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/health/274781/formulas-for-fewer-folds

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A help line for anti aging products is quite an unusual thing so it is perhaps no surprise that this move has caught the attention of many related blogs in the anti aging sector.

Houston, TX. (PRWEB) January 11, 2012

Freefacecream.net has just set up a face wrinkles help line for their customers. Customers of the site will now be able to log onto the site and have the option of emailing in questions about wrinkles or talking to one of the customer service team directly.

Even though freefacecream.net has set up a number of different departments for different products over the years this is the first time that they have set up a helpline for a range of products.

Roger Ballinstein, the organizer of this new project said that “I have wanted to see something like this on the site for some time now. Setting up a face wrinkles help line was an obvious choice for us because we know that wrinkles are one of the main things that people are concerned about as they get older. It is also the topic that we receive the most amount of mail on. People are always looking for a better way to treat existing wrinkles and prevent new ones from appearing. When people ring through to the helpline they will be able to talk to professional about their issue and the professional will be able to recommend some of our best products for treating face wrinkles”.

A help line for anti aging products is quite an unusual thing so it is perhaps no surprise that this move has caught the attention of many related blogs in the anti aging sector. People are by and large looking forward to checking out the new help line according to many of the comments on the site.

There is also something in store on the site this week for people who would like to have the experience of having a face cream actually on their face for free.

The site is currently facilitating the giveaway of a face cream sample on their site.

People can take advantage of the offer by going here http://freefacecream.net/face-wrinkles/.

###

Share:

Article source: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/1/prweb9094861.htm

Freefacecream.net has just set up a face wrinkles help line for their customers. Customers of the site will now be able to log onto the site and have the option of emailing in questions about wrinkles or talking to one of the customer service team directly.

Even though freefacecream.net has set up a number of different departments for different products over the years this is the first time that they have set up a helpline for a range of products.

Roger Ballinstein, the organizer of this new project said that “I have wanted to see something like this on the site for some time now. Setting up a face wrinkles help line was an obvious choice for us because we know that wrinkles are one of the main things that people are concerned about as they get older. It is also the topic that we receive the most amount of mail on. People are always looking for a better way to treat existing wrinkles and prevent new ones from appearing. When people ring through to the helpline they will be able to talk to professional about their issue and the professional will be able to recommend some of our best products for treating face wrinkles”.

A help line for anti aging products is quite an unusual thing so it is perhaps no surprise that this move has caught the attention of many related blogs in the anti aging sector. People are by and large looking forward to checking out the new help line according to many of the comments on the site.

There is also something in store on the site this week for people who would like to have the experience of having a face cream actually on their face for free.

The site is currently facilitating the giveaway of a face cream sample on their site.

People can take advantage of the offer by going here http://freefacecream.net/face-wrinkles/.

###

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/1/prweb9094861.htm

Article source: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/545833

Botox injections will diminish brow lines; frown lines and crows feet disappear. It is amazing to see the return of a youthful appearance in just a few days. Over the years, Botox has proven to be very safe in comparison to other procedures.

A friend wh? was apprehensive b?for? receiving her Botox injections shared with me h?w quickly the procedure w?s completed ?nd th?t it w?? virtually painless. She w?s ?ven mor? pleased w?th th? results she received. What ?h? thought wa? a permanent frown h?d bec?me ? v?r? nice smile. She a?tu?lly looked prettier and younger. She fell in love with h?r n?w look. Botox has many benefits, but there ?r? a f?w risks y?u should b? aware ?f ?? well. Although n?t s?r??u?, th?re are som? common side effects.

After an injection, one may experience mild flu lik? symptoms, a light headache, or nausea for a day or two.
Some people experience tingling, bruising, or light swelling in th? area of the injection. A less common side effect is eyebrow ?r eyelid drooping due to a type ?f allergic reaction.

Choosing a surgeon or physician wh? ?? w?ll qualified t? administer the Botox injections can prevent or reduce side effects by the us? ?f proper injection techniques. You will w?nt to schedule ?n appointment with y?ur physician who will be administering th? Botox injections to review y?ur medications ?nd ?ny health conditions you ma? have.
Your physician w?ll n?ed ?our medical history information to determine ?f Botox injections are ?n acceptable treatment ?n y?ur specific situation. If you think you are pregnant ?r are nursing, it is not advisable to have Botox injections. Usually the benefits w?ll outweigh th? risks a?s???ated with Botox injections ????ciall? ?n comparison ?f the risks ass?ci?ted with plastic surgery. Look younger w?th Botox injections and enjoy the benefits of this procedure.

Article source: http://www.equicknews.com/is-botox-right-for-you/854740/

Article source: http://paper.standartnews.com/en/article.php?d=2011-12-04&article=37867