Cancer Movies: 50/50

Maybe like me, you have put off watching the 2011 comedy/drama called 50/50. I didn’t watch it for years because I thought it was either a sappy, tearjerker about cancer, or a gross, expletive-filled, Seth Rogen 20-something boy story. I didn’t know, and I didn’t realize, that it could be both.

We watched it last night and we laughed and cried. Yeah, John too. I am glad that I didn’t see this at the movies with friends though. Not because the cancer scenes cut so close to home but because there is one boy-to-boy discussion of their girl friends and certain sex acts that made me blush. If I saw this movie on a first date I’d leave the theater in sunglasses and go right home. (alone.)

But, we’re not dating, we’re married and we’ve done that sex act so I am laughing as as I type this, Ok it’s that funny.

And yes, Seth Rogen is mostly a pig but, a pig with a heart for friendship, good writing and insight into how guys talk and fight and love each other. Yeah, the movie is a love story and –spoiler alert—the love object is not Anna Kendrick. 

I would put 50/50 in my top three cancer movies. Check it out. But please, not on a first date. (And dear God, not with your in-laws.)

The Emperor of All Maladies--On PBS This Week

Last night was episode number one of the PBS TV special "The Emperor of All Maladies". This three-part special is a masterful collaboration by author/physician/oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee's best-selling, and groundbreaking book about cancer and documentary producer Ken Burns.

I loved Mukherjee's book from page one to the end. He gave us a science story, a history lesson and a very human and humane narrative of what most of us never learned about what cancer is, why it is, and what it means to treat it--and the history of those treatments. His research and writing put everything we say about cancer (including "lets cure it") into a greater context.

Add Ken Burns (The Civil War, Baseball and The Roosevelts) and you know you'll get great images and a sound track that will carry you through all of the inevitable emotions.

Suggestion: Record the series. Just in case you want to save it to share with others, or just in case you want to pace yourself, especially if you are a cancer patient, survivor or caregiver. You can also watch the series any time on the web at PBS.org.

And of course a movie is never able to capture the book--it's always the essence or the flavor of the original. So please also get your own copy of "The Emperor of All Maladies".
It is a book that will help
you understand cancer and why we all struggle with it--as we do culturally as well as personally.

Here's a tiny clip from the PBS documentary:
http://video.pbs.org/video/2365439914/

Cancer at The Movies

As I have said before,  life in cancer and caregiving is not a made-for-TV movie. Few films capture the reality of living with --and dying from-- cancer. It is true that a visual medium is challenged to represent what is so very internal and subtle: all the waiting, in inconclusiveness of diagnosis, the boredom of chemo, eating lasagna, throwing out the lasagna that someone with mouth ulcers can’t eat, the sleeping and napping, and of course the ordinariness of what cancer is.

No, movies need drama and they need visuals so the cancer movie clichés are: getting the bad news from the doctor, telling the kids, losing hair, crying –a lot of crying, the moments before surgery, the recovery room, the death bed last words and the absolute misrepresentation of what actual death looks like.

But there are movies that give us better and worse depictions of cancer and caregiving. The one we laugh at most maybe is Love Story, based on the all time best/worst clichéd Chick Flick-before –its-time: "Love Story" by Eric Segal. The story and movie would not have been so memorable except for the two young actors in the lead: Ali McGraw and Ryan O’Neal who discovered that love means never having to say you are sorry you made this movie and therefore doomed all women with cancer to feel bad for not dying beautifully—and so well-dressed.

But still….cancer is part of life. We all have cancer (see earlier blog posts for the science on that) and we all know someone with cancer, and a lot of us fear cancer so yes, it's a great movie topic.

This week we watched the latest, sweetest and touchingly new cancer movie: “The Fault in Our Stars” based on the Young Adult novel by John Green. And I can absolutely recommend both the book and the movie to you.

It did—because the cast is young and beautiful –make me think of "Love Story" but with more fun, less smarm and better dialogue.

So here are my top ten favorite cancer movies:

     1* The Barbarian Invasions

     2* The Fault in Our Stars

     3* Love Story

     4* Terms of Endearment

     5*  50/50

     6* Wit

     7* Sweet November

     8* My Life Without Me

    9* Erin Brockovitch

    10* Stepmom

What are yours?