Arts & Entertainment

Eleanor Tomlinson and Sam Claflin in a scene from the film. Photo by Riccardo Ghilardi/Netflix

By Jeffrey Sanzel

In these dark and often challenging times, it is nice to know there are movies and television shows that can take us out of ourselves for an hour or two. It is a welcome opportunity to jump into a rom-com world that is delightful and whimsical and wholly engaging. Netflix’s offering, Love Wedding Repeat, is not that.

With beautiful scenery, a glorious sunshine filled-day, and elegance in everything from the lavish dress to the flawless table settings, it takes a great deal of effort to be this consistently abrasive and charmless. There is a difference between trying very hard and just being very trying. Four Weddings and a Funeral it’s not. Well, maybe just the funeral.

Dean Craig has directed his own screenplay based on the 2012 French film Plan de Table.  In the prologue, British Jack (Sam Claflin) attempts to kiss American Dina (Olivia Munn), the roommate of his sister Haley (Eleanor Tomlinson). They are interrupted by a boorish friend of Jack’s and there goes the kiss. Jump three years forward to Hayley’s Roman wedding to Roberto (Tiziano Caputo). Once again, Jack has the opportunity to connect with journalist Dina. The film spends the next hour and a half keeping them apart.

The thin conceit hangs on two things:  the name cards at the English table and a misappropriated sedative. The film’s gimmick is that it plays out one scenario with a brutally unhappy ending (truly ugly) and a second with a cheerier resolution. Separating the two is an interlude in fast-forward during which half a dozen possibilities are played out around the table. 

The film’s structure is not the film’s problem.  Instead, it is as if someone emptied the cliché bag of every wedding movie. “Nothing could spoil this day …” followed by the arrival of the coked-up ex-boyfriend (scenery chewing Jack Farthing). Who could see that coming? 

There is the old man who insists on kissing everyone on the mouth. A not Scottish guy in a kilt (Tim Key) — oh, those hilarious kilt jokes — whose inability to talk to women is the source of so much amusement. Of course, given the nature of the film, in the second part, he learns that it all comes down to “just listening.”  

A pretentious film director (Paolo Mazzarelli), caricatured right down to the pony tail, is being stalked by the maid of honor, Bryan (Joel Fry). To add further chaos, Bryan has only just learned that he has to give a speech. Don’t forget the obnoxious friend (Aisling Bea) who says everything she thinks but, deep down, just wants to be loved. Don’t worry: She ends up with someone who sees her for who she is, deep down. Freida Pinto is saddled with the thankless role of Jack’s ex, a gorgeous harridan who is tormenting her current boyfriend (Allan Mustafa, who must play a rather unsavory obsession).  

There are some truly gross moments that are somehow meant to be funny. There is both the expected and extraneous sex jokes. What’s less than single entendre? The whose-taken-the-sedative-and-is-falling-asleep gag seems interminable and inescapable. These “hijinks” are played out against a great deal of talk about “grabbing choices” and “finding love.” Pick a lane, please.

In theory, it is a clever idea to show two different views of the same day and the matrimonial  setting is an ideal choice. But the contrast between the two parts is not strong enough nor are the characters likable enough to root for.

Claflin has a certain warmth but the material doesn’t give him enough variety or backbone. Munn is smart as the object of his affection but seems to be suffering much of the time. Tomlinson, a true English Rose, is handed an unforgivable transgression given the context. Key tries his best to make the supportive friend less of a trope and more of a human being. It comes down to the fact that this is a talented cast who are not served by the writing’s grinding machinations and the often less-than-pleasant characters.

The moral of Love Wedding Repeat is it all depends on where you sit. I guess that’s true. I wish I hadn’t sat in front of the television.  

Rated TV-MA for mature audiences only, Love Wedding Repeat is now streaming on Netflix.

Mikala Egeblad with a blown-up image of a neutrophil extracellular trap, or NET. Photo from CSHL

By Daniel Dunaief

Mikala Egeblad couldn’t shake the feeling that the work she was doing with cancer might somehow have a link to coronavirus.

Egeblad, who is an Associate Professor and cancer biologist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, recently saw ways to apply her expertise to the fight against the global pandemic.

She studies something called neutrophil extracellular traps, which are spider webs that develop when a part of the immune system triggered by neutrophil is trying to fight off a bacteria. When these NETs, as they are known, are abundant enough in the blood stream, they may contribute to the spread of cancers to other organs and may also cause blood clots, which are also a symptom of more severe versions of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, which has now infected over two million people worldwide.

“I always felt an urgency about cancer, but this has an urgency on steroids,” Egeblad said.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory reached out to numerous other scientists who specialize in the study of NETs, sometimes picking up on the tweets of colleagues who wondered in the social networking world whether NETs could contribute or exacerbate the progression of Covid19.

Egeblad started by reaching out to two scientists who tweeted, “Nothing about NETs and Covid-19?” She then started reaching out to other researchers.

“A lot of us had come to this conclusion independently,” she said. “Being able to talk together validated that this was something worth studying as a group.”

Indeed, the group, which Egeblad is leading and includes scientists at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research and the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, published a paper last week in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, in which they proposed a potential role for NETs.

“We are putting this out so the field doesn’t overlook NETs,” said Egeblad, who appreciated the support from Andrew Whiteley, who is the Vice President of Business Development and Technology Transfer at CSHL.

With a range of responses to the coronavirus infection, from people who have it but are asymptomatic all the way to those who are battling for their survival in the intensive care units of hospitals around the world, the biologist said the disease may involve vastly different levels of NETs. “The hypothesis is that in mild or asymptomatic cases, the NETs probably play little if any role,” she said.

In more severe cases, Egeblad and her colleagues would like to determine if NETs contribute or exacerbate the condition. If they do, the NETs could become a diagnostic tool or a target for therapies.

At this point, the researchers in this field have ways of measuring the NETs, but haven’t been able to do so through clinical grade assays. “That has to be developed,” Egeblad explained. “As a group, we are looking into whether the NETs could come up before or after symptoms and whether the symptoms would track” with their presence, she added.

To conduct the lab work at Cold Spring Harbor, Egeblad said her team is preparing to develop special procedures to handle blood samples that contain the virus. 

As the lead investigator on this project, Egeblad said she is organizing weekly conference calls and writing up the summaries of those discussions. She and the first author on the paper Betsy J. Barnes, who is a Professor at the Feinstein Institute, wrote much of the text for the paper. Some specific paragraphs were written by experts in those areas.

At this point, doctors are conducting clinical trials with drugs that would also likely limit NET formation. In the specific sub field of working with this immune-system related challenge, researchers haven’t found a drug that specifically targets these NETs. 

If the study of patient samples indicates that NETs play an important role in the progression of the disease, particularly among the most severe cases, the scientists will look for drugs that have been tried in humans and are already approved for other diseases. This would create the shortest path for clinical use.

Suppressing NETs might require careful management of potential bacterial infections. Egeblad suggested any bacterial invaders might be manageable with other antibiotics.

NETs forming in airways may make it easier to get bacterial infections because the bacteria likes to grow on the DNA.

Thus far, laboratory research studies on NETs in COVID-19 patients have involved taking samples from routine care that have been discarded from their daily routine analysis. While those are not as reliable as samples taken specifically for an analysis of the presence of these specific markers, researchers don’t want to burden a hospital system already stretched thin with a deluge of sick patients to provide samples for a hypothetical pathway.

Egeblad and her colleagues anticipate the NETs will likely be more prevalent among the sicker patients. As more information comes in, the researchers also hope to link comorbidities, or other medical conditions, to the severity of COVID-19, which may implicate specific mechanisms in the progression of the disease.

“There are so many different efforts” to understand what might cause the progression of the disease, Egeblad said. “Everybody’s attention is laser focused.” A measure that is easy to study, such as this hypothesis, could have an impact and “it wouldn’t take long to find out,” she added. Indeed, she expects the results of this analysis should be available within a matter of weeks.

Egeblad believes the NETs may drive mucus production in the lungs, which could make it harder to ventilate in severe cases. They also may activate platelets, which are part of the clotting process. If they did play such a role, they could contribute to the blood clotting some patients with coronavirus experience.

Egeblad recognizes that NETs, which she has been studying in the context of cancer, may not be involved in COVID-19, which researchers should know soon. “We need to know whether this is important.”

Photo from METRO
Immune system regulation is complex and involves over 1,000 genes

By David Dunaief, M.D.

Dr. David Dunaief

Autoimmune diseases affect more than seven percent of the U.S. population, most of them women. More than 80 conditions have autoimmunity implications (1). Among the most common are rheumatoid arthritis (RA), lupus, thyroid (hypo and hyper), psoriasis, multiple sclerosis and inflammatory bowel disease. 

In all autoimmune diseases, the immune system inappropriately attacks organs, cells and tissues of the body, causing chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation is the main consequence of immune system dysfunction, and it is the underlying theme tying these diseases together. Unfortunately, autoimmune diseases tend to cluster (2). Once you have one, you are at high risk for acquiring others.

Drug treatments

The mainstay of treatment is immunosuppressives. In RA, where there is swelling of joints bilaterally, a typical drug regimen includes methotrexate and TNF (tumor necrosis factor) alpha inhibitors, like Remicade (infliximab). These therapies seem to reduce underlying inflammation by suppressing the immune system and interfering with inflammatory factors, such as TNF-alpha. Disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs), a class that also includes Plaquenil (hydroxychloroquine), may slow or stop the progression of joint destruction and increase physical functioning.

However, there are several concerning factors with these drugs. First, the side effect profile is substantial. It includes the risk of cancers, opportunistic infections and even death, according to black box warnings (the strongest warning by the FDA) (3). Opportunistic infections include diseases like tuberculosis and invasive fungal infections.

It is no surprise that suppressing the immune system would result in increased infection rates. Nor is it surprising that cancer rates would increase, since the immune system helps to fend off malignancies. In fact, a study showed that after 10 years of therapy, the risk of cancer increased by approximately fourfold with the use of immunosuppressives (4).

Tangentially, there is also concern that these drugs might make those who contract COVID-19 more susceptible to severe symptoms and consequences. On the flip side, some are being studied to determine whether they can improve outcomes for others by suppressing immune system overreactions. 

Second, these drugs were tested and approved using short-term randomized clinical trials, but many patients are prescribed these therapies for 20 or more years. 

So, what other methods are available to treat autoimmune diseases? These include medical nutrition therapy using bioactive compounds, which have immunomodulatory (immune system regulation) effects on inflammatory factors and on gene expression and supplementation.

Nutrition and inflammation

Raising the level of beta-cryptoxanthin, a carotenoid bioactive food component, by a modest amount has a substantial impact in preventing RA. While I have not found studies that specifically tested diet in RA treatment, there is a study that looked at the Mediterranean-type diet in 112 older patients where there was a significant decrease in inflammatory markers, including CRP (5).

In another study, participants showed a substantial reduction in CRP with increased flavonoid levels, an antioxidant, from vegetables and apples. Astaxanthin, a carotenoid found in fish, was shown to significantly reduce a host of inflammatory factors in mice, including TNF-alpha (6).

Fish oil

Fish oil helps your immune system by reducing inflammation and improving your blood chemistry, affecting as many as 1,040 genes (7). In a randomized clinical study, 1.8 grams of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) plus docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) supplementation had anti-inflammatory effects, suppressing cell signals and transcription factors (proteins involved with gene expression) that are pro-inflammatory, such as NFkB.

In RA patients, fish oil helps suppress cartilage degradative enzymes, while also having an anti-inflammatory effect (8). When treating patients with autoimmune disease, I typically suggest about 2 grams of EPA plus DHA to help regulate their immune systems. Don’t take these high doses of fish oil without consulting your doctor, since fish oil may have blood thinning effects.

Probiotic supplements

The gut contains approximately 70 percent of your immune system. Probiotics, by populating the gut with live beneficial microorganisms, have immune-modulating effects that decrease inflammation and thus are appropriate for autoimmune diseases. Lactobacillus salvirus and Bifidobacterium longum infantis are two strains that were shown to have positive effects (9, 10).

In a study with Crohn’s disease patients, L. casei and L. bulgaricus reduced the inflammatory factor, TNF-alpha (11). To provide balance, I recommend probiotics with Lactobacillus to my patients, especially with autoimmune diseases that affect the intestines, like Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis.

Fiber

Fiber has been shown to modulate inflammation by reducing biomarkers, such as CRP. In two separate clinical trials, fiber either reduced or prevented high CRP in patients. In one, a randomized clinical trial, 30 grams, or about 1 ounce, of fiber daily from either dietary sources or supplements reduced CRP significantly compared to placebo (12).

In the second trial, which was observational, participants who consumed the highest amount of dietary fiber (greater than 19.5 grams) had reductions in a vast number of inflammatory factors, including CRP, interleukin-1 (IL-1), interleukin-6 (IL-6) and TNF-alpha (13).

Immune system regulation is complex and involves over 1,000 genes, as well as many biomarkers. Dysfunction results in inflammation and potentially autoimmune disease. We know the immune system is highly influenced by bioactive compounds found in high nutrient foods and supplements. Therefore, bioactive compounds may work in tandem with medications and/or may provide the ability to reset the immune system through immunomodulatory effects and thus treat and prevent autoimmune diseases.

*Especially in this time of COVID-19, do not alter your medications, in other words, stop or start medications, without discussing it with your physician first. It is much more important to control the autoimmune disease than tot worry about drug effects on the immune system. 

References:

(1) niaid.nih.gov. (2) J Autoimmun. 2007;29(1):1. (3) epocrates.com. (4) J Rheumatol 1999;26(8):1705-1714. (5) Am J Clin Nutr. 2009 Jan;89(1):248-256. (6) Chem Biol Interact. 2011 May 20. (7) Am J Clin Nutr. 2009 Aug;90(2):415-424. (8) Drugs. 2003;63(9):845-853. (9) Gut. 2003 Jul;52(7):975-980. (10) Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek 1999 Jul-Nov;76(1-4):279-292. (11) Gut. 2002;51(5):659. (12) Arch Intern Med. 2007;167(5):502-506. (13) Nutr Metab (Lond). 2010 May 13;7:42.

Dr. Dunaief is a speaker, author and local lifestyle medicine physician focusing on the integration of medicine, nutrition, fitness and stress management. For further information, visit www.medicalcompassmd.com.

Andy

MEET ANDY!

This week’s shelter pet is Andy, a 5-year-old male domestic shorthair who was brought to the Smithtown Animal Shelter by way of a happy accident. A resident was attempting to locate their beloved feline family member and accidentally trapped Andy. 

This mustached boy was brought into the shelter, where he received a health and well-being checkup and microchip search. He is now looking for a purrfect home with a loving family. This little guy loves to lounge around and get attention from everyone he meets. 

Andy is FIV+, and still has some scars from his time in the streets. However, this little ham has his nine lives to spend furrever with his special person. 

*Due to the health risk presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, there will be limited public access to the shelter. If you are interested in meeting Andy please fill out an adoption application online. 

The Smithtown Animal & Adoption Shelter is located at 410 Middle Country Road, Smithtown. For more information, call 631-360-7575.

Photo courtesy of The Heckscher Museum of Art

The Heckscher Museum of Art’s board of trustees and staff join me in wishing you good health and hope you remain in good spirits during these challenging times.

Like many cultural organizations across Long Island, and around the world, the museum has found new ways to engage the community.

Although the museum is physically closed, the new Heckscher.org is a vibrant resource full of wonderful art experiences. Through the “Heckscher at Home” initiative, virtual exhibitions, fun Kids Edition video art projects, and additional ways to interact are at your fingertips. I invite you to browse Heckscher.org and let art be a respite.

Every year at this time we celebrate talented high school students in the exhibition Long Island’s Best: Young Artists at the Heckscher Museum. The 100 students chosen for the 2020 exhibition are featured online and on social media, including students representing the communities of Huntington, Northport, King’s Park, Smithtown and many others across Suffolk and Nassau Counties. Among the rewards of being a Long Island’s Best artist is the chance to see their own work of art in a professional museum setting. Although that opportunity is delayed, it is a promise we are committed to keeping.

When The Heckscher Museum opens — with proper guidance from public safety recommendations — enjoy two wonderful exhibitions, Long Island’s Best: Young Artists at the Heckscher Museum, and Amanda Valdez: Piecework.

Thank you to all who support The Heckscher Museum of Art at this time. Enjoy all of the online and social media content that the museum is providing.  We look forward to a bright future and to inviting everyone back to the museum.

Michael W. Schantz

Executive Director and CEO

The Heckscher Museum of Art

SPRING GARDEN

Stony Brook Camera Club member Pam Botway snapped these gorgeous photos to share with our readers  in perfect timing with Earth Day. The East Setauket resident writes, “Here are some cheery photos of spring. Reminding people to look for the good or be part of the good, during these scary times.”

'Nature's Best Hope'

Reviewed by John L. Turner

Author Doug Tallamy Photo by Rob Cardillo

Authors have differing goals for writing. For some, the motivation is to entertain, for other’s it’s to illuminate some slice of life, and for others still it’s to explore some fascinating historical event. In rare cases, though, the author writes with the not-so-modest goal of changing the world by presenting a new and novel way of looking at things, the result being a change to a person’s perspective on an issue, concept or their set of values.

Changing the world, or at least a part of it, by shifting our collective mindset is Doug Tallamy’s goal in his highly insightful book Nature’s Best Hope. The target of this change? The front and backyards of suburbia, dominated as they are by grass lawns and non-native shrubs. As Tallamy makes clear our yards are a virtual dead zone, biologically speaking, requiring vast amounts of water and chemicals and which provides little to no food or shelter for wildlife, large and small.

In its place, Tallamy sees a suburbia vibrantly alive with wildlife — butterflies and moths, pollinating bees, and abundant birds — all sustained by widespread plantings of native, life-sustaining plant species — white oaks, willows, and black cherry trees; elderberry, arrowwood and spicebush shrubs interspersed among beds of wildflowers including goldenrods (not the producers of hay fever!), asters, evening primrose, blazing stars, and milkweeds. He sees residential landscape design incorporating new values beyond just aesthetics to include the needs of the local ecology by providing species that help maintain, and to a large degree enhance, local food webs. 

What does he call this interconnected webs of land with interconnected native plant and animal species flourishing within? Homegrown National Park, a place every bit as diverse as any national park existing today and “Nature’s Best Hope” for restoring highly important ecological relationships.

‘Nature’s Best Hope’

As Tallamy makes clear, the spread of “sterile suburbia,” dominated by turf grass and exotic trees, shrubs, and wildflowers, is not a small problem. Collectively, lawns take up approximately forty million acres of land in the United States, equivalent to the combined size of the states of New York and Massachusetts. And it is growing daily.

And as Tallamy further makes clear, this growth has come at a high ecological cost. Forests and fields, filled with native plants that sustain caterpillars, bumblebees, squirrels, and Scarlet Tanagers, are replaced with exotic and sterile plants — Callery Pears, Arborvitae, hostas, and English Ivy, to name but a few. These plants and other exotics are fed upon by very few species, causing food webs to fall apart, a trend that portends an ominous future.

Here’s but one example — butterfly and moth caterpillars are the major source of food that songbirds feed their young — and oak species sustain 557 caterpillar species! If there are oaks, and other native trees, then the local food web is intact; remove and replace them and other native plants with non-natives and it unravels — insects decline followed by birds and mammals.

And this unraveling, happening quietly before our eyes, means that Tallamy’s idea isn’t just an interesting one — it is vital to our survival! Birds are not the only group of animals dependent on insects for their survival — we humans depend upon insects too. If we were to do away with all insects, human society would soon collapse and humanity would simply not survive long-term for there would be no replacement agent to pollinate the nearly 90% of all plants that they currently depend upon insects for.

Many insects are in trouble, a trend which scientists have labeled the “insect apocalypse.” Several North American bumblebees have already gone extinct and 25% of our other native bumblebees risk extinction. Many other of the continent’s 4,000 bee species are in trouble too, not to mention countless moths, butterflies, and beetles. Even the workhorse European honey bee is in trouble.

Tallamy is a fine writer with an interesting and clear style and he presents subjects and concepts in logical sequence. Color photographs of numerous plants and butterflies (and their famous larvae-caterpillars) fill the book and there’s an informative question and answer section in the back of the book. Also, an extensive bibliography is available if the reader is interested in digging deeper into some concept covered in the book.

And the most important chapter in the book? Chapter 11, entitled “What Each of Us Can Do.” The chapter includes a bunch of common sense ideas: shrink the size of your lawn; remove invasive species; plant native plants that are ecologically important like the aforementioned oaks and goldenrods and be generous with these plantings; talk to, and team up, with your neighbor to coordinate plantings; install bee hotels; place covers over sunken window wells that can serve as death traps for small mammals and amphibians; use motion-sensing security lights that only go on when needed (security lights that stay on all the time can kill hundreds if not thousands of moths attracted to the light); and do not spray or fertilize — native plants don’t need it.

Each of us can do some or all of these things. If we do any of them, we are helping to expand Homegrown National Park!

Released in February through Timber Press, Nature’s Best Hope is available online at www.timberpress.com, www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com. For more information on the author, visit www.bringingnaturehome.net.