Category Archives: therapeutic movies

April 26, 2020 · 3:49 pm

Cinematherapy: Shirley Valentine, a Finding Your Voice Movie

Shirley Valentine (1989)

Stars: Pauline Collins, Tom Conti, Bernard Hill

Director: Lewis Gilbert

Writer: Willy Russell, based on his play

 

No worries: Shirley Valentine Bradshaw (Pauline Collins) isn’t climbing the walls. She’s just talking to them, including the fourth one, which lets us into her thoughts that she doesn’t bother sharing with her husband (Bernard Hill). A middle-class British housewife, Shirley has lost her sense of who she is beyond the wife who gets eggs-and-chips on the table by six o’clock prompt. Her husband (Bernard Hill) left his playfulness and flirtatiousness back in the disco era. As for passion, Shirley grumbles, “I think sex is like supermarkets—you know, overrated. Just a lot of pushing and something and you still come out with every little at the end.”

For all her flippant comments, though, Shirley is on the brink of packing up some panties with lace and a silk kimono to spend a fortnight in Greece. But it isn’t a lover she’s seeking—although hey, a frolic with a local innkeeper (Tom Conti) might go well with that Greek wine and sunshine. No, what Shirley really wants is to jump feet first into a bottomless ocean of sensuality and reclaim a self that isn’t afraid to make waves, enjoy a meal by herself, and tell someone “no,” putting a period at the end. She’s setting new terms now that she’s found that paradise is writing your own rules and letting go of the old ideas of who you are and what limits contain you.

When you find that your unflappable younger self seems like a dream child that became lost somewhere around the time that Thursdays petrified into steak-and-potatoes night, Shirley Valentine is the perfect aperitif, a tonic that will rejuvenate you and remind you that all you are seeking is within and always was.

 

Points to Ponder:

Is there a part of yourself that you need to reclaim, and if so, what rules are going to get smashed if you do?

Do you have enough silk kimono occasions in your life and if not, why not?

Who is the you that is reading these questions and how can you help her express herself?

 

—Nancy

 

 

Shirley Valentine movie poster

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April 17, 2020 · 3:35 pm

When You Need a Catharsis Movie: Contagion, Your Cinematherapy Rx

Contagion

(Warner Bros., 2011)

Starring: Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laurence Fishburne

 

This movie was made in 2011, which makes the fact that it absolutely mirrors what we are experiencing in real life during the 2020 pandemic so chilling and so cathartic.  There is nothing like watching exactly what you’re going through, down to the period costume detail and the enforced socially distancing laws, to help you get it all out and feel better.

 

Beth Emhoff, a young, beautiful, and ambitious-in-the-twenty-tens-sense-of-the-word executive returns from a business trip only to die mysteriously of a flu before the horrified eyes of her husband Mitch (Matt Damon) and her two young children. The next morning, her son is dead as well, and it is up to Mitch, who is somehow immune to the virus and his daughter, Rory (Anna Jacoby-Heron), to stay in quarantine in their upper middle class suburban bungalow and survive the scourge until a vaccine can be found.

 

So you get the drift. Spot on. Watch this movie when you want to objectify the very real world around you, and watch from a distance as humanity struggles with a worse virus than this one and comes out okay on the other side. This movie reassures you that even though things are pretty freakish and downright surreal at the moment, at least you’re not alone. Matt Damon and even Gwyneth Paltrow are going through exactly the same thing that you are.

—Bev

 

 

Contagion movie poster

 

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March 4, 2018 · 3:52 pm

A Cinematherapy Women Behaving Badly Movie: Beyond the Forest

Beyond the Forest (1949)
Stars: Bette Davis, Joseph Cotton
Director: King Vidor
Writer: Lenore J. Coffee, based on the novel by Stuart Engstrand

It’s hard not to reach the pinnacle of hysteria when you live in small-town Wisconsin where the sawmill spews hot flames and thick smoke all night long and you have to keep your shades drawn to blot out the inferno-like reminder that “Life in Loyalton is like sitting in a funeral parlor, waiting for the funeral to begin. No, not sitting—lying in a coffin and waiting for them to carry you out….You got a drink?” Yes, the big fun here is shootin’ critters from tree unless you get lucky one night and find yourself flirtin’ with a handsome stranger who by some extraordinary luck ends up in the local lodge for the weekend.
Rosa Moline (Bette Davis) has sharpened her snark to achieve maximum effect whenever she sees her husband (Joseph Cotton), because he reminds her of just how badly she wants to take the first train to Chicago and order up a dry martini from room service. But is Rosa Moline really all that bad, a scorpion in a mad fury ready to sting herself to eternal death due to her evil and headstrong ways? Or is she just a woman with unmet needs who is misunderstood, underappreciated, and at the mercy of a narrator prone to overwrought prose?

When you’re about to scream from boredom and ready to reconnect with your bad girl self and start misbehaving, head to your liquor cabinet, shake or stir as you prefer, and check out the Cinematherapy Women Behaving Badly movie Beyond the Forest. Girl, do not apologize for your need for self-care right now, ‘cause we know your urge is killer.

BeyondtheForest Women Behaving Badly Cinematherapy Movie

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March 16, 2017 · 2:51 pm

Rebecca, A Cinematherapy Martyr Movie

Wishing you could be whisked away by a loving man who sets you up financially, renders irrelevant your lack of career or personal direction, and gives you your own English country mansion to rattle about in? Rebecca, a Cinematherapy martyr movie, is a great reminder that abdicating responsibility for your life decisions and letting some guy steer the boat is never a wise idea, even if it does make you feel cozy on a cold autumn morning.

 

Our shy heroine (Joan Fontaine), whose sense of self is so minimal that the screenwriter never reveals her name, is thrilled when wealthy Maxim deWinter (Laurence Olivier) deigns to marry down and rescue her from a life as a paid companion to a most disagreeable busybody (Florence Bates). However, for all Maxim’s patronizing promises to care for his new bride, and his silly little flirtatious remarks about how she ought never to grow up, our gal is going to have to face reality. Frankly, her new knight in shining armor has something hidden deep in the darkest waters of his soul that is going to surface one day and demand to be dealt with. And until the new Mrs. DeWinter stops with the apologetic bowing and scraping before the servants and starts getting a reasonable sense of entitlement, she’s going to be haunted by the late Rebecca DeWinter’s reputation as the hostess with the mostess–and by Rebecca’s favorite freakishly devoted maid, Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson). Honey, we know you hate confrontation, but here’s a good rule to live by: When the hired help starts fingering the carefully preserved lingerie of its late owner and suggesting that you focus on your inadequacies and lean a little further out that third-floor French window, it’s time to put your foot down and speak up.

 

Feeling the need to go below deck and let someone else take over? Watch Rebecca (1940), a Cinematherapy cautionary  tale about avoiding responsibility so you can be glad you won’t someday have to pay the price for someone else’s cowardice.

 

Rebecca Cinematherapy martyr movie

 

 

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Quote

“You always pass failure on the way to success”–Mickey Rooney

“You always pass failure on the way to success”–Mickey Rooney

Mickey Rooney has died at age 93. Many of his performances were in great Cinematherapy movies, including the Love Is All Around You movie The Human Comedy, which is truly “Cinematherapy for the Soul.”

 

The Human Comedy (1943)

Stars: Mickey Rooney, Frank Morgan, Van Johnson, Fay Bainter, Donna Reed

Director: Clarence Brown

Writer: Howard Estabrook, based on a  story by William Saroyan

 

Sometimes it’s nice to curl up with one of those unapologetically sentimental classics and escape to a world where people always speak in a loving manner, pray simply and eloquently when they are afraid, and seem to exist in a perpetual state of grace. But be forewarned: You’ll either let forth a waterfall of tears when you watch this one or get antsy with its old school pacing. Take a breath and consider it a meditation, and you’ll be able to truly enjoy Mickey Rooney’s Oscar-nominated performance as a boy on the verge of manhood trying to make sense of the rhythms of life and the madness of war.

Many of the residents of Ithaca, California, know that music brings comfort to the poor of spirit: The Macauley girls and their mother play the harp and sing to harmonize away the pain of losing their father. Their brother (Van Johnson) plays “Danny Boy” on the concertina to his army buddies as they wait to ship out, knowing many of them won’t return. And when middle son Homer (Mickey Rooney), a telegram messenger, is aching to inform a Mexican-American mother that her only son has died in action, she comforts him and herself as she plaintively sings a folk song from the old country in a musical thread weaving birth, life, and death together in the space between them.

Now, you know that with a main character off at war, and another who is the town’s bearer of all those “The War Department regrets to inform you” telegrams, and a small town quiet that goes on for reel after reel, the war is going to bust in like an unwelcome guest. And it does, injecting a harsh dose of reality that can only be alleviated by a reminder that at these times, unexpected visitors show up to remind us that from death comes life, from despair comes gratitude, from loss comes renewed hope, and from slow-moving 40s movies comes a reminder that moving slowly alerts us to what really matters in life. So open the door to Homer and his family when you’re feeling cynical and reconnect with the force of love that joins lonely melodies in harmony.

 

Mickey Rooney, Master of Putting on a Show, Dies at 93

 

 

240px-Mickey_Rooney_still

 

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April 7, 2014 · 12:37 pm
April 3, 2014 · 1:09 am

Happy 90th Birthday Doris Day!

Happy 90th birthday Doris Day! Here’s a great subversive comedy of hers that falls under the category of Finding Your Voice or The Power of One. It’s called It Happened to Jane, and it’s about a single mom/entrepreneur who goes all out to fight a nasty corporation and rallies her entire town around her to boycott the company. Her chutzpah inspires an insecure Jack Lemmon to follow her lead and find his own courage to stand up for himself. Oh sure, she looks wholesome and sweet as pie, but don’t. mess. with. Jane. Or Doris Day, animal rights advocate.

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November 5, 2012 · 10:42 pm

The Power of One Movie: Gandhi with Ben Kingsley

The Power of One Movie

Cinematherapy for When You’re Feeling Cynical

 

Gandhi (1982)

Stars: Ben Kingsley

Director: Richard Attenborough

Writer: John Briley

 

Thanks to this movie, Gandhi was “the man” back in ’82. As Martin Sheen said, “Everyone in Hollywood wanted to be just like Gandhi—thin, tan, and moral.”

This epic movie presents Gandhi (Ben Kingsley) as a moral beacon in the darkness of colonialism, the simple voice of reason and integrity that falls on the deaf ears of a bunch of white guys in fussy uniforms whose civilized exterior belies their potential for cruelty due to a bloated sense of entitlement. While riding a train one day, Gandhi is thrown from the naivete of privilege into the dingy reality of prejudice and realizes he’s got to use his newly earned law degree to help his fellow Indians. Ovr the coruse of several decades, he manages to unite Hindus and Muslims against the tyranny of the British, whose façade of politeness is quickly shattered when their subjects stop bowing to them. One look at the British officers whacking he heads and shoulders of hundreds of quietly protesting Indian men in order to bully them into submission and it’s clear that maintaining oppression requires a high level of denial or the admission that shiny boots and clipped mustaches aside, you’re just another thug. Gandhi’s protests may have required more years and more bloodshed on his side’s part than he had hoped, and his coalition may have fallen apart quickly after his death, but his message of human dignity triumphing over the lust for power is enough to keep us hopeful even when it’s clear that yet another regime didn’t get the memo and the same old battles for human rights have to be fought all over again in some other corner of the world.

If you’re feeling cynical, insignificant, and in need of some can-do spirit, check out Gandhi and see if it doesn’t get you off the couch and raring to make a difference in the world.

 

When you’re feeling cynical and insignificant, watch Gandhi, a Power of One movie, for cinematherapy.

“An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”—Ben Kingsley as Gandhi

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July 21, 2012 · 7:25 pm

Indiscreet with Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman: Happily-Ever-After Movie Rx

Are you in need of a Happily-Ever-After movie to fill your mind with bliss and erase all traces of rational thought, so that you can stop thinking and just ENJOY? Here’s a prescription for a perfect Happily-Ever-After movie that will serve as chocolate mousse for the soul and smooth every ruffled feather and frayed nerve.

Indiscreet (1958)

Stars: Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Cecil Parker, Phyllis Calvert

Director: Stanley Donen

Writer: Norman Krasna, based on his play Kind Sir

You know you’ve stepped into a different era when a flustered Ingrid Bergman is advised by her sister (Phyllis Calvert) to put on a girdle so she’ll feel better. In fact, this whole movie has a surreal quality that makes one wonder if there was ever a golden era in which girdles boosted serotonin levels or if, perhaps, the screenwriter of this delicious 50s morsel spent a little time in an alternate reality.

The male love interest, Phillip Adams (Cary Grant), is not just suave, sophisticated, and charming: He has a glamorous, high-paying job, is single and straight, and can drink Scotch and sodas morning, noon, and night and never show the slightest hint of inebriation or under-eye puffiness. The female love interest, Anna Kalman (Berman), is an actress living in London, who never seems to have a role yet can afford designer dress-and-coat ensembles to don on casual evenings out. Plus, she has a sympathetic sister and brother-in-law (Cecil Parker) living conveniently close by and no loser boyfriend hitting her up for his half of the rent money.  Like Phillip, Anna has the extraordinary capacity to drink Scotch and soda morning, noon, and night yet still walk straight and look fabulous without any sign of bloat. Even more implausibly, she can carry off a hat consisting of a huge black feather that wraps around her entire head—without looking like an alien.

Of course, there are all sorts of cute little twists to keep the couple apart, and an outrageously daring act on Anna’s part that shows she’s plucky as well as beautiful, and it all ties up in one neat little package requiring no restrictive foundation undergarments. Too delightful!

Watch this when you’re harried to the max and tell yourself that a half bottle of wine and a handful of Ferrero Rochers won’t go straight to your thighs and belly, ‘cause at this point you’ll believe anything.

Happily Ever After Movie Indiscreet with Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman is a cinematherapy movie guaranteed to whisk your troubles away

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