For all of its conventional plotting about an obsessive-compulsive curmudgeon, Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson) who improves his personality at the urging of his gay neighbor Simon (Greg Kinnear) and a waitress Carol (Helen Hunt) who inspires his best behavior, this is one of the sharpest Hollywood comedies. Nicholson could play his role in his sleep, […]
A Beautiful Mind
A biopic of the meteoric rise of John Forbes Nash Jr. (Russell Crowe), a math prodigy able to solve problems that baffled the greatest of minds. The movie depicts how he overcame years of suffering through schizophrenia to win the Nobel Prize. From the heights of notoriety to the depths of depravity, John Forbes Nash, […]
Girl, Interrupted
In the spring of 1967, 18-year-old Susanna Kaysen (Winona Ryder) voluntarily checks herself into Claymoore Hospital after overdosing on aspirin. She denies that she was attempting to commit suicide, claiming that she was just “trying to make the shit stop.” Susanna tells her therapists that she does not actually want to go to college and […]
Social Anxiety Disorder and Cinema Therapy
Social anxiety disorder, also called social phobia, is an anxiety disorder in which a person has an excessive and unreasonable fear of social situations. Anxiety (intense nervousness) and self-consciousness arise from a fear of being closely watched, judged, and criticized by others. A person with social anxiety disorder is afraid that he or she will […]