Monday Movie Meme: Let’s Go Crazy

May is National Mental Health Month, so the theme for this week’s Monday Movie Meme revolves around characters that aren’t exactly playing with a full deck of cards, if you get the drift.

The theme is also named after one of Prince’s most famous songs: Let’s Go Crazy!

Share on your blog or in the comments section, movies you’ve watched that feature issues involving mental illness.

Here are my selections for this week’s Let’s Go Crazy theme.

Frankie & Alice

Halley Berry plays a 70s go-go dancer, a white supremacist and a 7 year-old “genius,” in this drama based on a true story about a woman suffering from dissociative personality disorder.

Shutter Island

Leonardo DiCaprio plays a U.S. Marshall whose investigation into the disappearance of a patient at an asylum for the criminally insane causes him to doubt his own sanity among many other things, in this mystery thriller that also stars Mark Ruffalo.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Jack Nicholson plays an inmate named McMurphy who is admitted to a ward for the mentally unstable after copping an insanity plea to avoid prison labor, in this drama. While serving his sentence, McMurphy rebels against the abuse he witnesses and endures at the hands of a tough nurse.   

Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the film, MANIC.Manic

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a troubled teen named Lyle whose impulsive and violent outbursts cause him to be committed to the juvenile psychiatric ward of a mental institution. There, a doctor named David Monroe, played by Don Cheadle, uses group therapy as part of the facility’s treatment for the spectrum of psychological problems affecting Lyle and other patients.

I once rented this movie on a whim because it stars Cheadle. The film made me more aware of how complex issues involving people with mental illness are, particularly given the challenges faced by the medical staff trying to help them have a better quality of life.

Forrest Gump

Tom Hanks plays a man who leads an eventful life including fighting in the Vietnam War, later opening a shrimping business and chasing his childhood sweetheart, despite having an intellectual disability, in this romantic comedy drama.

Rain Man

Tom Cruise plays an egotistical car salesman named Charlie who takes his autistic brother Raymond, played by Dustin Hoffman, on a cross-country road trip with the hidden agenda of nabbing millions of dollars in inheritance from their late father, in this drama.

Halloween

Tony Moran and Nick Castle play a mental institution escapee named Michael Myers who returns to his hometown to kill high school students in this horror thriller.

A Beautiful Mind

Russell Crowe plays a mathematician named John Nash whose struggle with paranoid schizophrenia jeopardizes his career and family, in this biographical drama.

Sixth Sense

Bruce Willis plays a child psychologist named Malcolm Crowe who dedicates himself to helping a young boy suffering from hallucinations, in an attempt to resolve his inability to help a severely troubled former patient.

Brittany Murphy and Michael Douglas star in the film, 'DON'T SAY A WORD.'Don’t Say a Word

Michael Douglas plays a psychiatrist named Nathan Conrad who, after the kidnapping of his daughter, is tasked with retrieving a secret number from a young woman with PTSD named Elizabeth, played by Brittany Murphy, in this crime thriller. It was also among my previous Monday Movie Meme picks for a march madness twist on insanity, of all things!

While writing this post, I initially forgot about a few movies -- Manic, A Beautiful Mind and The Sixth Sense. Reading the comments sections of articles published by National Alliance on Mental Illness aided in my recollection of having watched these particular films. Although I can understand how Manic didn’t immediately come to mind while thinking of movies that fit the bill for this week’s Monday Movie Meme, my family went to see The Sixth Sense twice in theaters and I grabbed up A Beautiful Mind on DVD years ago, so it’s a damn shame those two flicks were just moments away from not being mentioned in my “Let’s Go Crazy” theme selections.

What movies featuring people dealing with mental illness would YOU add to this list?

Monday Movie Meme – A Wakeup Call

Remember that early morning scene in the musical drama School Daze when Laurence Fishburne is screaming “WAAAKE UUUPP” on a college campus? Well, the Monday Movie Meme is back with a theme about flicks that motivated you to pay closer attention to one issue or another: Wakeup Call.

Share on your blogs or in the comments section, movies that provided some type of kick in the rear when it comes to you being more mindful of certain matters regarding everyday life. Maybe it was a film that actually caused you to change the way you do something. Maybe there is a movie that gave you a new perspective on a particular subject. Or, maybe it was a flick that heightened your awareness about an issue or motivate you to take action on an area of life. Whatever the case may be, list it! Here are my selections for this week’s “Wakeup Call” theme.

Million Dollar Baby

This sports drama is about a poverty-stricken waitress named Maggie who chases her dreams of becoming a professional boxer, under the guidance of a reluctant and grumpy veteran fighter. I still remember the day I went to watch this movie at the Ritz theater in Philly. It was a wakeup call to the fact that tomorrow is not promised, so there’s no better time like the present to make life worthwhile. The movie was also an example of how we are only limited by our beliefs, so the first step to preventing yourself from being full of regrets when on your deathbed is getting out of your own way.

Booker’s Place: A Mississippi Story

This documentary recounts the controversy surrounding a Mississippi waiter named Booker Wright who worked in a whites-only restaurant, where he maintained a positive attitude despite enduring racist treatment from some of the patrons. He also managed his own restaurant named “Booker’s Place” and later purchased a school bus to help children in his community get access to an education.

Yet Wright’s appearance in an NBC television segment about racism in the American South resulted in him being pistol-whipped by a police officer, losing his job following customer outrage and losing Booker’s Place to a firebomb attack. There is a more to this documentary, so I would recommend watching this film but it was a wakeup call on many fronts; such as the fact that so many minorities who blame opposing sectors of society for keeping us down don’t seem to realize that we’re already doing their jobs for them when we fight each other.

As if that wasn’t sad enough, chances are that some battles within our communities have been orchestrated by third-parties, to turn one person against the next. The political landscape, as well as our country’s legal systems, are no stranger to such practices. We must do better and not squander the opportunities that people like Booker Wright have strived for and died to protect. Booker’s Place: A Mississippi Story is also a wakeup call in the sense that you must always strive to do your best and find a way to maintain your own dignity, even when surrounded by people who see you only as a thing, rather than the man or woman you really are.

I’m Fine, Thanks

This documentary follows the journey of businessman named Grant Peelle who chucks a successful real estate career to pursue his childhood dream of making movies. Similar stories of women and men who made drastic career or lifestyle changes are weaved through his narrative, including a nomadic family, a former lawyer who now teaches Yoga, and a woman who lives on a boat. The points made in Peelle’s documentary are a big a wakeup call to figure out what The American Dream means to you. I’m finding that asking ourselves whether we really want something or is it what society or our families or friends tells us we should want or should have, has a profound effect on the level of statisfaction we have with our lives. 

I’m Fine, Thanks reminds me that life is like a movie in the sense that we can either be authors of our own screenplay – determining what happens in the next scene(s) – or we can merely play the starring role in one that someone else wrote. One way gives us a lot of choices while the other doesn’t really provide much room to change course when we come across a path that doesn’t suit our interests, skills or capabilities.

Speaking of writing your own script…

Mona Lisa Smile

This movie is about an art history professor named Katherine Watson who risks her job to help students at a prestigious, and conservative, all-girls school realize their full potential. I loved watching Mona Lisa Smile because it teaches an important lesson about daring to be different. The main character in this film went out of her way to show young women that they are capable of more than what is generally expected from them. What transpired in the story is a wakeup call in the sense that we play a vital part in shaping the future, based on the type of role models we are for younger generations who will determine how the world turns when that future arrives.

Katherine Watson defied societal norms while using her power and influence to show other women that they mattered, they had a voice and they could change the world. Mona Lisa Smile is the epitome of something comedian and actress Mo’Nique said in her speech when she won an Oscar for Best Performance in a Supporting Role, in the drama Precious – “sometimes you have to forego what’s popular to do what’s right.”

Pariah

This drama, about a Brooklyn teenager named Alike who endures an identity crisis while coming to terms with her sexuality, was a wakeup call on many fronts. Watching this movie had me thinking about how organized religion is a bitch at the root of a lot of society’s problems and the ways in which acceptance, being judgmental and having someone in your corner – or not – can affect a person’s overall well-being and the choices they make. Pariah was also a wakeup call in the sense of realizing how important it is to be true to yourself and stand up for what you believe in, even if that means you stand alone. The alternative is not worthwhile because trying to be something that you’re not is exhausting, stressful and lonely.

What are some movies that gave YOU a wakeup call?

Related posts: Monday Movie Meme: The Big Impact

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Monday Movie Meme – Keeping up with the Kindliness

(l-r): Eddie Murphy and Louie Anderson in "Coming to America."We never know how much even the simplest gestures such as a smile or “hello” can alter the course of someone’s day, for the better. So, this week’s Monday Movie Meme is all about highlighting the good deeds that create a ripple effect of positive vibes and hope for those around us: Random Acts of Kindness.

Share on your blog or in the comments section, movies featuring kind gestures involving the main or supporting characters. This includes scenes where a movie character is either the recipient or the giver of some type of unexpected deed that had a positive impact on one or more people in the film. Here are my selections for this week’s “Random Acts of Kindness” theme.

• A fast food worker gives a pair of ruby earrings to a random subway passenger, after his girlfriend breaks up with him, in the comedy COMING TO AMERICA starring James Earl Jones, Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall.

• An abused and bashful housewife does grocery shopping for her partially blind daughter-in-law who was released from prison only to work a maid for the town’s mayor, in the drama THE COLOR PURPLE starring Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover and Oprah Winfrey. Although the housewife’s act of kindness was intentional and done for family, her good deed wasn’t exactly planned, so I still consider the gesture in this scene to have a level of randomness to it.

• Townspeople pool their funds to save a local business from folding after $8,000 in missing deposits put a distraught father at risk of going to jail, in the family drama IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE starring James Stewart and Donna Reed.

K is for Kindness

What movies, featuring scenes where random acts of kindness are being performed, would YOU add to this list?