Reviews of Movies About Sick People!

by: Katie Bruggeman

There comes a time in every young woman’s life when she realizes that she’s been sick for three months due to a rotten flu shot that was provided by a corrupt Bush Administration-Era pharmaceutical industry, and says to herself “Hey, this is no longer just a series of daily hangovers!”  Coughing, nausea, temporary blindness:  if you can name a symptom, chances are good that I currently have it.  For a while I thought I could just ignore my many illnesses and just get on with my fucking life, but now I have technicolored “substances” coming out of my nose and ears, and I’m starting to get a little paranoid.  Yep, this Ailment Parade that is my daily existence is getting tiresome, and I’m ready to remove all of my failing organs with a rusty hunting knife that I found in my dad’s basement.

Please note that constantly checking WebMD for diagnoses has done me no favors, and I suggest avoiding that piece of shit website if at all possible.  Two days ago I was convinced that I either had meningitis or spina bifida, which means that I could either die in roughly two weeks or suffer through a degenerative illness that slowly destroys my nervous system until my body completely shuts down and I’m bound to a wheelchair for the rest of my days.  Thanks for those awesome choices, God!  

The good thing about spina bifida is that apparently I’d be eligible for a medical marijuana prescription.  Hey, I’d even get treated by that faggot “Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman” if she gave me a little bit of weed now and then!   

Here are some reviews of movies about people that are sick, like me!

PS-  Sorry if it’s a bit incoherent—I’ve been chugging Robitussin for days.

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“The Lost Boys”

These mohawked ruffians suffer from a disease called Vampirism, which is a totally gnarly situation, you guys.  It causes them to stay up all night listening to saxophone music and cutting their jean jackets into vests.  They also bite people!  Kiefer Sutherland is the meanest of the bunch, and legend has it that if he stares at you just once, blood will start pouring out of your mouth, eyes, and ponytail.  Then they eat bugs and go bonkers and everyone around is dead meat, buddy.  Apparently this is what it’s like in the average California town.  Earthquakes, forest fires, mudslides, and vampires:  in my opinion, California is a terrible place to live.
The root cause of Vampirism is a mystery of the ages, but some specialists have claimed that you contract the disease by eating mice or something.  So, you heard it here first.  Kiefer Sutherland eats mice.  

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“Shirley Temple Movies”

Anyone in show business knows that Shirley Temple was a lousy drunk late in her career, but it’s a little known fact that she’s been an alcoholic since she was three years old.  Hers is a familiar tale of celebrity self-destruction, a budding career that was laid to waste by her terrible and tumultuous ways.  In 1939 she he was cast in her first film, “Runt Page,” and after that the job offers poured in like the copious amounts of vodka that she poured into her gaping mouth.  America fell in love with that pouting and preening little scamp; the money piled up, and before you know it the bitch passed out every day in her high chair.  Naptime took on a whole new meaning for her in those days.

The evidence is glaringly obvious in her earliest work: she staggers around on unsure footing, speaks in slurred baby-talk gibberish, and gives random, sloppy hugs to everyone in sight.  Alcoholism took her in its relentless death grip, and her unpredictable moods vacillated between giddy and manic to surly and antagonistic.  America’s Sweetheart quickly descended into a maniacal whirling dervish of madness and fright.  Her signature brunette ringlets were suddenly dripping with vomit and tears.   


 When she was seven years old, she starred in the classic film “Animal Crackers In My Soup,” and production was forced to unexpectedly halt during Shirley’s third stay at a residential rehab facility in the Utah desert.  It was there that the doctors discovered her debilitating addition to a pharmaceutical cocktail of Quaaludes, morphine, and tapeworms (to try to control her rapid weight gains and losses.)  All that they left her with was her stash of candy cigarettes and a couple of sets of tattered paper dolls.  She was released a month later, only to fall prey to the same old shit that got her there in the first place.  Wicked games, my friends.  Wicked games.

After further failed attempts to clean up her wretched life, Shirley Temple died at the age of 14 while manufacturing methamphetamines in a dumpy Las Vegas condo.    

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“ET:  The Extra Terrestrial”

Okay, I know what you’re thinking:  ET’s a sham and aliens don’t exist.  But I beg to differ and so does my Aunt Tammy, who runs a group out in Roswell called “Endtimes Space Alien Militia/Suicide Pact Club.”   It’s sort of like that Heaven’s Gate cult only they don’t all wear matching sneakers.

Anyways, ET is a little intergalactic space creature, and he has AIDS.  Or, more specifically, “AIDZ,” as they call it in his galaxy.  In this tale of triumph and woe, he and his fucked up family embark on a journey throughout the universe in order to find a cure for his deadly disease.  He lands at an orphanage in the middle of the wilderness, where he ditches his mom and dad and takes up with a sidekick that will one day become Tour De France champion Lance Armstrong.  On the way to the AIDZ Hospice, ET and Lance bicycle across the sky in a very romantic fashion.  Pretty soon, however, some Republican gay bashing chumps chase them into a space cave and their whole escape plan is shot to shit.   The Republicans stab ET to death just as he attempts to board his spacecraft and get the hell out of there and back to his home planet, where being gay is fine with everyone.

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“Lady and the Tramp”

This was my favorite movie when I was a child, and you know why?  Because it’s about animals that have sex with each other.  For hours at a time, I used to stare at the pigs and horses in their pens at my parents’ hobby farm and watch those beasts hump the afternoon away.  Then about three months later, there were lots of new baby animals to play with!  It was a happy time for everyone.

Long story short, the Tramp got mange, a parasitic infestation of the skin of animals. Common symptoms include hair loss, itching, and inflammation, all of which are caused by microscopic mites.  Gross, right?  Lady thought so too, and after an awkward and clumsy spaghetti dinner, she broke up with him and started dating a show dog that won the Westhamster Dog Show’s “Most Vindictive Canine” award.  Tramp was devastated—those mites were his only friends and he’d just wander the streets, eating rocks and garbage and crying his mangy little eyes out.  The mites tried to cheer him up by organizing a flea circus, but then the rest of his fur fell off and it was really depressing.

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Visit Katie's blog, Dancing at Gunpoint, here: www.gstringsfororphans.blogspot.com

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