ON MOVIES ~ Sickos...

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MONDAY MOVIE MEME

Molly looked around for a weekly meme about movies and did not have any luck. So therefore she decided to start her own! Andy will play along as well - hopefully you will too. Go to your blog and create your own post on the topic, linking back to us in your post, then come back and leave a link to your post here in our Comments section. If you don’t have a blog, just share your response in the Comments section.

This week's movie topic is all about Illness...

January in New England breeds lots of icky germs that turn into colds that make everyone miserable. Even if you don't have a cold, you know someone who does and you spend all your time avoiding them so you won't get it. No wonder Northerners get a rap for being rude sometimes. #1 - it is too cold to stop and chat for half of the year. #2 - we don't want to catch whatever you've got. The movies seem to have more sympathy for illness than we do. Here are a few examples we came up with. Share on your blog movies that contain a form of illness as its theme or feature a character who is sick or diseased, linking back here at The Bumbles. And don't forget to visit your fellow participants!

• Awakenings (1990)
- A personal favorite film based on a memoir of the same name. Robin Williams portrays the doctor who uses a new drug to awaken patient Robert De Niro who has spent his adult life comatose due to an encephalitis epidemic in his teens.
• A Beautiful Mind (2001)
- Wow. Russell Crowe really CAN act. He portrays real life mathematician John Nash who battled his schizophrenia on and off medication.
• Knute Rockne: All American (1940)
- The movie was all about the famous Notre Dame football coach, but the coach's star player, George Gipp, had the most memorable line as he suffered from a strep infection gone bad. "Win one for the Gipper" said a dying Gipp to urge his coach to motivate the team to victory. The same line worked to propel Gipp actor Ronald Regan to the presidency too.
• Terms of Endearment (1983)
- Cancer is the culprit in this heartbreaking tale with an all-star cast that makes it so effective. Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger, Jack Nicholson, Jeff Daniels, John Lithgow. This is a story of relationships - and the key that love plays in all of them. Based on the book by Larry McMurtry.
• Steel Magnolias (1989)
- Shirley MacLaine in another all-star cast (Sally Field, Olympia Dukakis, Julia Roberts, Dolly Parton, Daryl Hannah, Sam Shepard, Tom Skerritt, Dylan McDermott) with the illness of diabetes at the center of what makes this circle of female friends across the generations so solid. Based on the play by Robert Harling who lost his sister to the disease. Who knew men could write women so well?!?! We both love this film - regardless of the "chick flick" label it wrongfully holds.

 Do you have a topic to suggest to the Monday Movie Meme? Or would you like to guest host? Let us know in the Comments section or send us an e-mail.