Tuesday, September 15, 2009

the medicine show




this just randomly came on the other day, and due to the main characters attitude i decided it might be worth watching.

the story is about a cartoon writer, taylor, that gets prostate cancer. he tries to keep it a secret but his friend blabs and he gets annoyed by all the sympathy he's getting.
well he goes in for surgery and gets to hang out in the hospital for awhile, there he meets lynn, the girl with leukemia. they quickly become close, taking care of eachother, they even hook up, in a romantic and awkward scene. some good times, some bad times, eventually taylor gets released and lynn takes a turn for a worse. so in a unrealistic romantic comedy style taylor and his friends pose as hospital staff and break her out, so she doesn't have to spend what time she has left in the hospital.

the story of lynn and taylor is a basic romantic comedy, however the way the main character reacts to his cancer is pretty unique and refreshing, as is lynn's attitude to everything. so i decided to look up the writer/director wendell morris, and as it turns out, he himself is a cartoon writer, not just any writer, he actually wrote for animaniacs, freakazoid, and pinky the brain, some of my favourite cartoons growing up (knowing what cartoons he's written for makes a note him and his friend get near the beginning more interesting). so finding out this fact it's easy to put together this is based on wendell's own experiences with cancer.

so obviously the writing is good, the story is interesting, the characters a well thought out, it's fun, it's sad, it's just generally pretty good. worth the watch if you're into a quirky dark comedy, and love basic romantic comedies.

three out of five

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