I'm watching Sex and the City as I write this, and if a broken heart counts as an illness, I'd be happy to include it here. But instead I'll be true to the Bumbles' intent and go with more conventionally-defined diseases.
One True Thing. Renee Zellweger plays the successful daughter of author/professor William Hurt and housewife Meryl Streep. She moves back home to care for her cancer-stricken mother and learns some hard truths about the reality of her parents' life together and discovers how strong and resolute h
er mother really is.Love Story. The Orca of the disease-weeper genre. I cried over the book and had this poster on my wall and could not wait to see the movie with my junior high girlfriends.Oliver begins the film by asking, "What can you say about a 25-year-old girl who died?" Therefore everything that follows -- including frolicking in the snow and being carried across the threshold -- is deliciously tinged with impending tragedy. I haven't seen it as a woman and have no interest in doing so. It was so perfect for me when I was 12, I don't want to wreck the memory by discovering it's really not very good.
Pride of the Yankees. Lou Gehrig was the perfect hero -- he respected his parents, was both a loving husband and one of the greatest ballplayers ever, and accepted the cruel fate life handed him with ultimate grace. When he declares himself "the luckiest man on the face of the earth," I bet even those passionate Red Sox fan Bumbles choke up a little.
