6÷17÷10
CALLING IT QUITS
2008
NEW DVD RELEASE
Written & Directed by ANTHONY TARSITANO
Dennis Boutsikaris
Finnerty Steeves
Jessica Hecht
Kristen Bush
86 minutes
City Squirrel Films
You’ll soon be able to own this film for and about Baby Boomers. It is a darling of the Festival Circuit and has won 7 times already in the ‘Best of’ category.
You should reserve your copy now.
If you have not already, you will soon face the dilemma of retirement. For Dante, that day has come. He looks about him at his life and finds it is no longer ‘enough’.
His wife and he are no longer together due to a terrible incident. His successful career as an ad agency executive has become his torment instead of his salvation. He is bored, no longer challenged, dissatisfied on many levels and finally indifferent to the life he led for 30 years.
So one day he walks into the boss’s office and says, ‘I’m done.’
I remember the day a friend of mine told me he’d been retired for 10 years already. I began to wander at that point what kind of dumb ass I was still toiling away in an unsatisfying job. [Not the acting, the ‘cash’ career.]
But Dante soon learns it is not all that it’s cracked up to be. There are 24 hours of every day to be filled with something besides sleeping late, reading books and Chinese takeout.
His journey is tracked through a series of unannounced flashbacks that find him beginning in art school, meeting ‘the’ girl, deciding to scrap his art career in favor of a job in advertising [I’ll paint in my spare time… yeah, remember when we thought that existed?] and finally becoming the career driven perfectionist A-type new York is littered with.
He attempts to reconnect with his art but is blocked. He sinks further and further into a morose morass. His doctor assures him that his suspicion that medical reasons are the cause is unfounded. He is left with no hope.
Then one day he confronts the one cheerful person in his life to learn his secret.
His feet are placed on a spiritual path to self awareness through the ‘finding the quiet’ technique. Once he finds the silence in his mind and heart, he is able to begin to reclaim his life.
I might have found this Mystical BS had I not stumbled across the technique quite by accident decades ago at Virginia Beach. I gave up smoking, sugar, booze and electronic media all at the same time.
The electronic media was the toughest. But after a month or so I could begin to hear the teachings of my own heart. I know that sounds nuts to those of you who haven’t tried it, but in the silence you can hear from within.
Think about it for a moment. You don’t see dark anymore. You don’t hear quiet. There is always a streetlight, ‘safety light’, and some kind of background music/noise … it can’t be escaped. They are distractions that prevent you from thinking and only you can put them away by taking positive action so to do.
I challenge you to watch this boomer’s journey and see just how many times you relate to his problems. In the end you’ll have to find your own path to the waterfall, but his is one option.
Regardless, it is a fine film, beautifully and masterfully acted and sensitively and lovingly produced. You owe this one to yourself.
–
Douglas H. Fitzgerald, Ed.D
Phone: 215 361‑0779
Fax: 215 361‑1501
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