The Assertive Cancer Patient

Train Movies

Readers have been sending me suggestions for train movies to watch before (or during) my cross-continental train trip with Younger Son later this month.

Here's the list so far:

The Darjeeling Limited
This film was suggested by Anu. Here's what Netflix has to say about it:

Following the death of their father, three brothers (Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman) embark on a journey on the cross-India train the Darjeeling Limited and attempt to reconnect after years of physical and emotional distance. The trip also opens up some old wounds and proves that their sibling rivalry can never be completely erased. Natalie Portman and Anjelica Huston co-star in Wes Anderson's lyrical comic drama.

The Iron Horse
Amy suggested this 1924 film. She says:

John Ford's The Iron Horse was wildly entertaining, about building the Trans Continental Railroad. It was long, and a silent movie, but you should watch it!

Netflix has both the U.S. and the UK versions.

Brief Encounter
Helen, a reader who lives in England, suggested this 1946 film. She says:

It's an English romantic weepie of a film set in a railway station! It was written by Noel Coward and the theme is unfulfilled love/behaving honourably/repression. It was made during WW2 and is shot beautifully in B&W. It stars Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson, who speak with the frightfully brittle, clipped British accents that you just wouldn't hear today. It may not be to your taste, but it's a gem of an experience.
[I didn't know that these classic British accents were disappearing! Must be our fault.]

By contrast, there's always "Throw Momma From the Train" (Danny de Vito). Bad taste but funny.

I'm looking forward to reading about your train adventures--I adore train travel, and my dream is to cross North America by train. I have relatives in Vancouver, but I want to sail into New York, past the Statue of Liberty.

Yesterday I "escaped" from the Isle of Wight, and attended a conference in London with my boss, travelling by catamaran and train. We skipped the final speaker because she was disappointing and our brains felt full. On the Thames-side walk back to the railway station we had to pass the London Eye. (This would be our equivalent of the Space Needle, perhaps?) The temptation was simply too much on a sunny spring Friday afternoon, so we went for it - the views over London were awesome and I felt so happy to be alive and feeling well.

Back to me: I've read about the London Eye, but have never been to London (I know, incredible, yes? I've been to France, years ago, that's the only European country I've visited. I have standing invites from friends in Germany and England, so maybe soon ...)

Here's the one train movie I came up with all on my own:

North By Northwest
It's a classic, starring Cary Grant.

Read more:

Train Travel

Cancer Movie Reviews

A Note About Netflix
I rent movies through Netflix, and really like the service: Movies come in the mail, with a free mailer for me to return them. And best of all: No late fees!

If you join Netflix by clicking on the link below, Netflix pays me $7 for referring you.

Netflix DVD Rentals. NO LATE FEES; Free Shipping. Try for FREE!

@ Jeanne Sather 2008.

Almost Out of 'Cancer Movies'!

I've reviewed almost all the cancer movies on my list.

There are three films that I've watched but haven't yet written reviews of: "After the Wedding," "Dark Victory," and "Ikiru." These will be coming soon.

After that, the only film left on my list is "Girls' Night," which I believe was a made-for-TV movie. It doesn't pop up on Netflix, so I haven't been able to order it.

If you have other cancer movies to recommend, please shoot me an e-mail: jeanne.sather@gmail.com

Otherwise, what will I have to do on rainy Seattle Sundays?

See also: The Assertive Cancer Patient Reviews 'Cancer Movies'

@ Jeanne Sather 2008.

The Doctor, 1991

Another cancer movie classic!

Watch it when you're feeling pissed off at your doctor, your cancer center, or anyone else on your health care team--It feels good to see this arrogant surgeon get his.

William Hurt plays the surgeon, who goes from King of the Hospital to just another patient when he is diagnosed with cancer. He faces all the indignities we all know so well--backless gowns, endless forms to fill out by hand, doctors who don't make eye contact and don't wait to hear the answer when they ask, "How are you?"

Once Jack (Hurt) learns what it's like to be a patient in his own hospital, he does a 180 and remakes himself as a better, caring doctor. Hurt is a sensitive actor, and he makes Jack's changes believable, but the latter half of the movie is predictable--the cancer-patient friend dies, Jack reconciles with the wife he had pushed away, Jack wins the admiration of everyone but a colleague who wants him to lie in a malpractice suit. The new Jack, of course, refuses.

Be warned, however, that while you are laughing at Jack, the film may also bring up painful memories. It did for me.

As I was watching, I remembered my first visit to the University of Washington Medical Center's breast cancer multidisciplinary team. I already knew that I had breast cancer, and I was there for a second opinion.

I got up extra early the morning of my appointment to fill out the packet of medical history forms that had come in the mail from UWMC. I filled these out carefully and took them with me to the appointment.

I handed the forms over when I checked in, and that was the last I ever saw of them. When I was in the exam room, a resident came in and started asking me the same questions. When I told him I had filled out the forms, he went out to look for them, unsuccessfully.

Those forms just disappeared into thin air, never to be found again. I was so annoyed that I nearly walked out.

But I didn't, of course. Like Jack, I was powerless to make more than a token protest.

The film also reminded me of a really bad moment with my breast cancer surgeon--a moment that I would rather leave buried.

Just a few months after my first round of treatment--mastectomy followed by 12 weeks of chemotherapy--I found a lump on my chest. It was a local recurrence.

When I went back to see my surgeon to have him remove the lump, he said, glibly, "Ooops, missed a bit!"

Then he proceeded to cut out the lump.

What was ignored by my surgeon is what this meant for me: that my cancer was not cured. He never acknowleded this painful fact, and I never asked him to.

Another review of: The Doctor

See also: The Assertive Cancer Patient Reviews 'Cancer Movies'

A Note About Netflix
I rent movies through Netflix, and really like the service: Movies come in the mail, with a free mailer for me to return them. And best of all: No late fees!

If you join Netflix by clicking on the link below, Netflix pays me $7 for referring you.

Netflix DVD Rentals. NO LATE FEES; Free Shipping. Try for FREE!

@ Jeanne Sather 2008.

The Family Stone, 2005

Let me say, first of all, that I didn't like this movie.

I think the critic who called "The Family Stone" "a feel-bad holiday film" got it right, with the exception of one scene, and this scene made the movie for me. Heck, this scene made film history, as far as I'm concerned.

I'm amazed that the critics didn't comment on it, but no--deafening silence about the historic "breast cancer survivor sex scene."

What happens?

Sybil Stone (Diane Keaton), the matriarch of the clan, bares her chest to show a mastectomy scar before having sex with her husband, played by Craig T. Nelson.

As a one-breasted woman, I stopped breathing at this point. Look, Ma, that's me!

To make it even better for those of us living with cancer, Sybil Stone is not really a breast cancer SURVIVOR--her cancer has returned, and she will die before the end of the film (off camera, however, for which I was grateful. I didn't need another "Terms of Endearment" death-bed scene).

So we have a woman with active disease actually having sex, and clearly enjoying it.

This is revolutionary. This is historic. This goes against what most people think they know about cancer, and sexual attractiveness, and sexual desire. Too bad the scene had to come in the middle of an otherwise annoying film.

Read more:

Sex and the One-Breasted Woman

The Assertive Cancer Patient Reviews 'Cancer Movies'

Netflix DVD Rentals. NO LATE FEES; Free Shipping. Try for FREE!

@ Jeanne Sather 2008.

Terms of Endearment, 1983

I saw this film years ago when it first came out, and I had forgotten how dang funny it is.

Yes, Debra Winger's character, the daughter, gets cancer at a very young age, and dies, and those scenes make it a real tear-jerker--that was the part I remembered.

I had forgotten the chemistry between Winger and Shirley MacLaine (although they apparently didn't get along at all on the set) and the crazy scenes between MacLaine and Jack Nicholson, who plays the astronaut-next-door.

My favorite is a drunken drive down the beach in the astronaut's sports car that ends with both MacLaine and Nicholson in the surf.

One other thing that strikes me now that I didn't remember is the two little boys who play Winger's sons. Their performances were so true that they brought me to tears every time they entered a scene.

Even though in many ways Terms of Endearment defines the genre of weepy cancer movies, it also rises above the genre with its great acting and the quality of the script. It is a cancer movie classic.

Read more: The Assertive Cancer Patient Reviews 'Cancer Movies'

@ Jeanne Sather 2008.

Out of Time, 2003

I would pay good money to watch Denzel Washington brush his teeth for an hour and 45 minutes, so I was prepared to enjoy a thriller in which Washington plays a small-town Florida chief of police with a complicated love life (Sex scenes with Denzel? Better than toothbrushing!).

However, even with Washington in the lead role, Out of Time flops as a thriller. It also flops as a romance--just who is the police chief in love with, anyway, and why are there no sparks between him and the woman he's smooching as the closing credits roll?

Out of Time doesn't really qualify as a cancer movie either, except that the plot hinges on a lie: the police chief believes that his girlfriend has cancer and her only hope is an expensive alternative therapy only available in Europe (Of course). So he hands over the almost $500,000 that happens to be in the safe--evidence in a drug bust.

As a cancer patient, my mouth was hanging open at the audacity: Who would claim to have cancer when they don't?

A scam artist, obviously.

Which then raises the question--how often does this kind of thing really happen?

Every so often I get wind of an urban legend about a cancer or AIDS scam. And I've heard stories second- or third-hand about people claiming to have cancer when they don't in order to attract attention and financial help, but these were people who were mentally ill.

So, if you know of any good cancer scams, send the details my way. I'd like to know.

And what happens, in the real world, when these folks are exposed?

Read more: The Assertive Cancer Patient Reviews 'Cancer Movies'

@ Jeanne Sather 2008.

Brian's Song, 1971; Brian's Song, 2001

Last night, I treated (or tortured) myself with a double feature—“Brian’s Song”—the 1971 version—followed by “Brian’s Song”—the 2001 version.

You might wonder why anyone would want to remake this film. I certainly wondered why anyone would remake this tale of two football rivals, Chicago Bears running backs Gale Sayers and Brian Piccolo.

It would seem that once was enough.

But the interesting thing about the two versions is that they are so much alike—much of the dialogue and many of the scenes are EXACTLY the same in the two films, giving the double-feature viewer a weird déjà-vu-all-over-again feeling —and yet at bottom they are very different.

The 1971 version was a made-for-TV “movie of the week” starring James Caan (he played Sonny in “The Godfather” the following year) and Billy Dee Williams (with an afro—remember those?). It’s a guy’s take on life, football, and cancer. A buddy film.

You know what I mean: sports as a metaphor for life. The Brian character never admits he’s afraid and never cries, in this version. The buddies progress through all the usual stages: from rivalry and distrust to close friendship.

The newer film is a chick-flick version of the same story. The two wives bond (and bitch about life as football wives), and get more scenes; the kids (Brian had three daughters) actually make it onto the screen. And the story of Brian’s series of grueling treatments for a rare cancer, embryonal cell carcinoma, is told in much more detail and with greater realism.

The second version also benefits from a sound track that includes music of the era (alas, my childhood is now an era) and some social context, shown primarily through shots of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Vietnam War on TV screens in several scenes. The football players marvel at what’s happening outside the stadium.

The actor who plays Brian in the 2001 version (Sean Maher) is much more believable and sympathetic, even when he’s being a smart aleck. James Caan, about 32 when he starred in “Brian’s Song,” feels too old to be Brian, who was only 26 when he died in 1970.

This double feature left me wondering: Would a guy watch either of these movies if he weren’t hog-tied to the couch by a female? Surely the football footage isn’t enough, is it?

Cancer note:

The cancer that killed Brian, a rare form of embryonal cell carcinoma, used to be incurable; today, it has a cure rate of better than 50 percent, according to the Brian Piccolo Research Fund.

Read more: The Assertive Cancer Patient Reviews 'Cancer Movies'

@ Jeanne Sather 2008.

Life as a House, 2001

When I watched this film, I cried.

Of course I cried. The entire film was designed to make me cry.

I did, however, identify with George’s desire to build his dream house before dying of cancer. I think most of us who have this disease discover that we want to leave a legacy, be it a dream house or a blog.

A couple of things that will annoy real-world cancer patients:

It is clear that George has cancer and is not expected to live more than a few months. But the film never makes it clear WHAT KIND of cancer. And of course we want to know.

We especially want to know because George does not undergo cancer treatment, and he says at one point that his doctors did not offer him treatment. Just some really good pain killers.

What kind of cancer was that?--I can’t help but wonder, and it does spoil the movie for me. Because in the real world, even when the prognosis is not good, doctors pretty much always offer treatment.

Other annoying things: The house that George builds, of course, is on a lot overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Orange County. Kind of unrealistic that he can afford to do this after being fired from his job.

Everyone in the film is beautiful.

As one critic wrote: "No worse than any disease-of-the-week TV movie, and no more moralistic than any Lifetime drama."

Except, and this is a big EXCEPT: the film buys into the cultural myth that all you need to do is get a terminal illness to fix all your family relationships: ex-wife falls in love with you again; estranged, drug-using son ditto … even the neighbors (with one exception) love the new George.

Those of us who are living with cancer know that it’s not that simple.

Read more: The Assertive Cancer Patient Reviews 'Cancer Movies'

@ Jeanne Sather 2008.

The Bucket List, 2008

I'm not going to review this new release myself, because Ebert, a cancer survivor, did such a great job.

After reading Ebert's review, I certainly have no desire to see the film, much as I love Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicolson, the two actors who play aging men who meet in a cancer ward and bond.

"'The Bucket List' is a movie about two old codgers who are nothing like people, both suffering from cancer that is nothing like cancer, and setting off on adventures that are nothing like possible," Ebert writes. "I urgently advise hospitals: Do not make the DVD available to your patients; there may be an outbreak of bedpans thrown at TV screens."

And the best paragraph in the review:

"The movie, directed by Rob Reiner, was written by Justin Zackham, who must be very optimistic indeed if he doesn't know that there is nothing like a serious illness to bring you to the end of sitcom cliches. I've never had chemo, as Edward and Carter must endure, but I have had cancer, and believe me, during convalescence after surgery the last item on your bucket list is climbing a Himalaya. Your list is more likely to be topped by keeping down a full meal, having a triumphant bowel movement, keeping your energy up in the afternoon, letting your loved ones know you love them, and convincing the doc your reports of pain are real and not merely disguising your desire to become a drug addict. To be sure, the movie includes plenty of details about discomfort in the toilet, but they're put on hold once the trots are replaced by the globe-trotting."

Don't see this film, but do read Ebert's review.

Read more:

The Assertive Cancer Patient Reviews 'Cancer Movies'

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@ Jeanne Sather 2008.

Thank You, Michael Moore

Michael Moore's new film, "SICKO," won't be released in the United States until June 29, but I'll be standing in line when it hits Seattle theaters.

The documentary was shown at Cannes, where Moore was quoted as saying that the U.S. health care system is driven by greed. I couldn't agree more. (See The True Cost of Herceptin. See also Kickbacks on Aranesp: Boycott Amgen and Johnson & Johnson.)

A report from Reuters says that in the documentary Moore asks why 50 million Americans, 9 million of them children, live without health insurance, while those who are insured are often driven to poverty by spiraling costs or wrongly refused treatment at all.

But the film goes further, Reuters says, by portraying a country where the government is more interested in personal profit and protecting big business than caring for its citizens, many of whom cannot afford health insurance.

At Cannes, Moore apparently was asked by journalists why he painted such a rosy picture of other countries' health systems, including Britain, France, Canada, and Cuba.

This is a point that comes up often when I talk about national health insurance--I've lived in Japan, so I have first-hand experience of one country where everyone has health insurance, and it works. But many Americans believe that medical care in this country is as good as it is because it is private, with a profit motive to develop new cancer drugs, for example.

But why do Americans persist in thinking we have such great health care? We don't.

That's what a recent report from the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit that studies health-care issues, found. The report said that Americans get the poorest health care and yet pay the most, compared to five other rich countries, Germany, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.

"The U.S. health care system ranks last compared with five other nations on measures of quality, access, efficiency, equity, and outcomes," a statement from the nonprofit said.

From my experiences as a cancer patient, and those of others I've come to know, I would certainly have to agree.

Moore film attacks U.S. health care

U.S. healthcare expensive, inefficient: report

@ Jeanne Sather 2007.