Movies about Retirement @topretirements @LucyBurdette

Terrific blog in a second. but first:

BREAKING NEWS: TRUST ME  is $1.99! by Red Hank's psychological thriller was on all the best-of lists as one of the year's buzziest books--the starred review from Booklist said: "A knockout." Anyway! May we say: grab it now? Here's the link. 
And now back to our regular programming!

John and Lucy at Marigold Hotel

LUCY BURDETTE: I’m super-excited about today’s guest too—and not just because I’m married to him! When my husband John Brady retired from his regular job 13 years ago, he decided to try building an Internet-based website. He had the smart idea of helping Baby Boomers figure out their best place to retire. TopRetirements.com has grown to feature reviews of 4000 towns communities, and a weekly newsletter, free to subscribers. His articles are about all aspects of retirement from the serious - when to take Social Security and how to test your social security IQ or how to survive if you haven't saved enough money - to the whimsical - worst places to retire, bucket list items, and the seven deadly sins of retirement. (PS from Lucy, I won't ever forget the day I answered his phone and it was the office of the Governor of Illinois--unhappy that the state ended up on his "worst" list.) Today I invited him to share one of his favorite topics. Welcome John!

John Brady (aka Mr. TopRetirements): Coming of age movies like The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, Easy Rider, and 2001: Space Odyssey became cultural icons for us baby boomers, back in the day. Producers of these blockbusters found huge audiences among our generation. Hollywood is still making movies for us today. Many aspects of the plots and characters are the same (love and loneliness, finding yourself), everybody is just a lot older! 

Here are my top 10 movies (including one TV series) for baby boomers that touch on the topic of retirement. I hope that you will add your favorites too. I started the list with more recent movies, then go on to some oldies but goodies. Most are classics, definitely worth watching again.

The Leisure Seeker. (2018) Academy Award winner Helen Mirren and two-time Golden Globe winner Donald Sutherland star as a runaway couple going on an unforgettable journey in the faithful old RV they call The Leisure Seeker. Their destination? Key West, and the Ernest Hemingway House. (Note from Lucy: We were so excited to see one of my writer pals featured as a guide in the Hemingway Home!)

The Quartet (2012) Once-popular opera diva Jean Horton (Maggie Smith) creates a stir with her arrival at Beecham House, a home for retired performers. No one feels the uproar more than Reginald (Tom Courtenay), Jean’s ex-husband, who still smarts from her long-ago infidelity.

Cocoon (1985). An all star cast includes top-drawer stars like Jessica Tandy, Don Ameche and Hume Cronyn. Fabulous story of people in a retirement home who discover a fountain of youth – courtesy of aliens who have invaded a swimming pool. Directed by Ron Howard

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011). Great cast of retired Englishmen and women seeking a retirement haven at an Indian Hotel that is a little short of what it promised. Love and loss. Judi Dench, Celia Imrie, Bill Nighy, Ronald Pickup, Maggie Smith. The sequel is The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

In Her Shoes (2005) Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette, and Shirley MacLaine). Based on the novel by Jennifer Weiner, a lost adult daughter comes to live with her mother in a Florida retirement community. She definitely livens things up for the old guys as she finds herself. Meanwhile her relationships with her mother, sister, and grandmother go in many different directions.

The Bucket List (2007) Old guys out for some last kicks before one of them, terminally ill, checks out. The Bucket List is a 2007 American comedy-drama film directed by Rob Reiner, produced by Reiner, Alan Greisman, Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, written by Justin Zackham, and starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.

Under the Tuscan Sun is a 2003 American romantic comedy drama film written, produced, and directed by Audrey Wells and starring Diane Lane. Based on Frances Mayes’ 1996 memoir of the same name, the film is about a recently divorced writer who buys a villa in Tuscany on a whim, hoping it will lead to a change in her life.

Grumpy Old Men (1993). Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau are a pair of widowers who live lonely lives but enjoy some activities together. The character played by a beautiful Ann-Margret revs up jealousy between them. Darryl Hannah and an IRS Agent enrich the plot.

Mr. Belevedere Rings the Bell (1951). An urbane, sharp-tongued expert (Clifton Web) on how to stay young interrupts a lecturing tour to prove his theory at a dilapidated old people’s home. We haven’t seen this one but our movie expert friend Deb said: “I highly recommend Mr Belvedere Rings the Bell. It is much of a mindset on retirement years. I saw it when I was 15 and it made a huge impression on me”.

Grace and Frankie (TV). Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin are newly divorced, and their ex-husbands are a new couple. Funny and pithy in LA and Malibu. Netflix. There are at least 5 seasons.

What are your favorite movies that have some kind of retirement theme? (And another PS from Lucy, John is happy to answer any of your questions about retirement today, too.)

And you can sign up for TopRetirements free weekly newsletter here.

Lunch with Mr. Top Retirements (aka John Brady)

Lucy and John

LUCY BURDETTE: In 2007, my sweet husband retired from his regular job and moved home to start a website for Baby Boomers trying to figure out where to retire. As most of you know, I’m a writer. And I had grown accustomed to having the house to myself, except for the pets. In other words, lots of space—and peace. 

On that first day, he clattered up from the garage with boxes crammed with file folders and photographs and mementos from trade shows--all the junk packed up from his previous office, which he proceeded to unload in the dining room. 

his desk, I kid you not!

I caught him spreading his computer and piles of other miscellany out on the dining room table—the first thing every visitor to our home would see.

“Oh no you don’t,” I said. “You can’t set up your office there.”

“It has to be somewhere,” he said. “And don’t think I’m going to be eating lunch with you everyday, either.”

“I wouldn’t dream of having lunch with you.”

Mr. Top Retirement's summer office

After some more heated discussion, we agreed that he might enjoy sitting out on the porch—a nice view for him and out of sight for me.

“But what will I do when it gets chilly?” he asked.

“Think layers,” I said.

Nine years later, things have settled down quite a bit. He still has his spot on the porch, but he also has a perfectly nice office upstairs out of view. And sometimes when he sees what I’m making for my lunch, he asks if he can join me.:)

Besides that, he’s developed his idea into a major retirement website (with 20,000 subscribers to his weekly newsletter), having written thousands of articles about every aspect of retirement ranging from all kinds of best places to retire lists (best towns for bookstores, best places for walkability, etc.) to when to start taking Social Security, over 4,000 reviews of places to retire. I’m very proud of what he’s done and thought you might like an inside look.

LUCY: When you started out, how were you imagining the shape of the project? Are you surprised at how far you’ve come?

JOHN BRADY:  I wanted it to be a project available on the Internet and pertinent to baby boomer retirement, since I am a Boomer and I had just retired from my longtime job. My initial goal was a little vague: Get it started and see what happened.  The process of conceiving it and watching it become a real website with real people coming to visit has been really fun. My financial goal was that if it made enough money to pay our taxes that would be great.  It turns out that lots and lots of people found it useful. We get over 140,000 visits a month and sometimes close to a half million page views - that is pretty good. And the revenue is a lot better than I ever imagined. Pretty lucky.

LUCY: how about sharing some advice about the process? What were some big turning points? Or ideas you had that didn’t pan out?

JOHN: My previous experience in online publishing was a big help.  Without a disciplined process of putting down on paper what each web page would look like, and how each page would lead to the next in the navigation, the project never would have gotten anywhere. To save money I outsourced the technical development to a firm in India. I had to imagine and write down every detail very precisely, because they, or no one really, can read your mind.  It was a great exercise in imagination and in follow-through. Of course sometimes I was way off, but the team was able to either interpret or suggest a better way.

I thought that most of my revenues would come from active adult or 55+ communities purchasing enhanced listings. Turned out that Google Adsense was a much more important revenue source, and easier.  I also had a lot of ideas for developing other sites - BestAssistedLiving.com, BestPlacesinUSA.com, etc.  Although I thought they were great ideas, not many visitors agreed!  They still exist, but they are only marginal compared to Topretirements. What I learned from that is that getting a big idea is lucky  - enjoy it if you are fortunate enough to get one!

Hackers are a problem I didn't foresee. Having been hacked several times, I’ve learned there are people in Russia and China whose full time job is trying to hack into successful websites, either to steal traffic or plant malware. Finding a web developer who can successfully defend against these villains is absolutely critical (I have been lucky to find one, this time in Connecticut, not India).

LUCY: I know this is impossible, but can you give some quick tips about how to figure out the best place to retire?  And maybe some links to a few of your favorite articles?

JOHN: I am always getting asked, what is the best place to retire? And I always try to respond that it is a very personal decision.  It is all about knowing the criteria that are important to you - do you want to be near your grandchildren; how cold can your winters be; how important is culture, town size, walkability; how important are taxes and what is your budget. The answers to all of these questions and more help you narrow the possibilities and point you to some good choices. Lucy helped me write this free Ebook, which has been probably been downloaded 1 million times by now –
  

It contains short checklists which are designed to help you (and your significant other) narrow down the other possibilities.
In 10 years I and some faithful contributors have written a lot of articles.  Here are some all-time favorites:

Best Places to Retire for 2016 

Worst States for Retirement 

Dueling Carolinas: North vs. South Carolina for Retirement 

11 Affordable Places to Retire on theWaterfront 

Wow, Your Bucket Lists are Amazing 

What You Think You Know About Social Security Could Hurt You 

Thanks for having me. Jungle Red Writers has given me a lot of reading pleasure over the years, keep up the good work!

LUCY: Reds, John will be around today to answer your questions about retirement or even starting a business…and ps, I'll tell stories about him too. Like the time the Illinois Governor's office called his cell the day after Illinois made the #1 spot on the "Worst States for Retirement" list...

And if you'd like to sign up for the FREE Top Retirements weekly newsletter, here's the link.