<?xml version="1.0" ?><html> <head> <title></title> </head> <body> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> > There is an extremely contrived and badly written</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> end (although there are many decent things about</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> the movie otherwise) to MDB that limits her apparent</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> scope of "choice". [Jim]</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> How is her choice limited?  She can choose to live or</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> choose to have her life ended.  It is much the same</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> choice faced by  Ramon Sampedro in "Mar adentro."</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> What was your reaction to that film which faces the</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> same question? [Brian Dauth]</span></font></div> <div align="left"><br/></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:10pt">It is extremely contrived. She faces problems in the short term that only afflict people bedridden over a long period of time. It is unrealistic in a film that is not supposed to be complete fantasy but rather "gritty and realistic". This makes her choices seem more limited than they are in order to support the premise. In "Mar Adentro" the story plays out over a longer period of time. Most people who become quadriplegics want to die in the first year but </span></font><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:10pt"><b>most</b> then move beyond that grief. Ramón has both time and opportunity to move beyond that grief and it is realistic in that film when he does not do so. In MDB no such opportunity is present because that would not support its contrived ending.</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt"> </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> >They did not even show ONE scene of physical</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> therapy. [Jim]</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> And?  Eastwood didn't include a scene you wanted.</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> Bad Cllint.  No Oscar.  When you go to hear a concert</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> of Schoenberg do you complain that you cannot find</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> the harmony?  At a museum do you gripe that Pollack</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> doesn't have horses and children and trees in his</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt">> paintings?  [Brian Dauth]</span></font></div> <div align="left"><br/></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:10pt">Physical therapy to a disabled person is hardly the equivalent of horses in a Pollack painting. The lack of physical therapy undermines the realism. Physical therpay gets to the heart of the matter. That with rehabilitation she can lead a much more fulfilling life rather than face the false choice of lying in bed with sore or dying with "dignity" that the film contends. There are people in such a position but this film did not deal with that issue. No quadriplegic story that is absent physical therapy can be taken seriously and I assume Mr. Eastwood does intend his audience to take his story seriously. Maybe his film is really a cartoonish fantasy instead.</span></font></div> <div align="left"><br/> </div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:10pt">I'm not that tweaked by the film but I think that the criticisms gain validity because of Eastwoods animosity towards ADA regulations. If he had produced the film in a vacuum the criticisms might be less pointed but the reality is Eastwood has an axe to grind with the disabled and so anyone using this film as a springboard for those concerns is cool with me.</span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial" color="#7f0000"><span style="font-size:10pt"> </span></font></div> <div align="left"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:10pt">John Thornton</span></font></div> </body> </html>