A perfect blend of hilarious one-liners and tear jerking moments makes ‘50/50’ every moviegoer’s dream dramedy.

Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a 27-year-old who lives a healthy lifestyle and has his whole life ahead of him. He enjoys his job as a writer for radio programs and is working towards taking the next step with his girlfriend. When Adam starts to have back problems, he does the right thing and gets it checked out. Adam’s world is completely turned upside down when an unsympathetic doctor tells him he has a rare form of spinal cancer and even after surgery, only has a small chance of survival. The rest of the film takes the audience through Adam’s struggle to fight cancer.

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This movie could have been just a sad, slow-moving story if it weren’t for its star and supporting cast. Seth Rogen successfully plays joking, but well-intentioned best friend, Kyle, who interjects the most hilarious and witty one-liners throughout the film. Anna Kendrick tops her performance from ‘Up in the Air’ taking on the role as the young, awkward, but cute therapist, Katie. Katie is working on getting her doctorate by ‘practicing’ patient therapy and Adam is one of her first patients. Bryce Dallas Howard nails the manipulative but sexy girlfriend, Rachael, and Angelica Huston plays the lovable, worried mother who is scared to death for her son’s life.

**Some Spoilers Ahead**

Since Adam can’t drive, he has to rely on the people around him to get to his treatments. Rachael agrees to help him through everything, although quickly we see she isn’t up for it and their relationship falls to pieces. Kyle tries to cheer him up by getting Adam to concentrate on two things: sex and smoking pot. Things turn sour when Adam’s condition worsens and everyone realizes he could die during surgery.

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I was watching a Giants football game when I noticed that an opposing player’s chin guard was pink. Then I noticed his pink socks and other uniform parts were this god-awful color that I have always despised. My daughter told me that October is Breast Cancer month and I groaned at the idea of having to put up with seeing that awful shade instead of the glorious colors of autumn. 

I come from a cancer riddled family. My father died of stomach cancer; my sister of leukemia, a niece of pancreatic cancer; another of ovarian cancer. I would dearly love for us to find a cure but I wonder why it is that Breast Cancer has become the darling of Hollywood celebrities. AIDS research is another disease that gets more attention from Hollywood than any other.   

John Stossel reported back in 2009 on the Fox Business Website- “In 2001, AIDS research got $4,439 per patient from NIH, breast cancer $290, Parkinson’s $175.  Diabetes, which killed more people than AIDS and breast cancer combined, got $41.  Heart disease, the number one killer, got $58.”  (more…)

Not much information to go on, but according to People Magazine, the great Michael Douglas is expected to make a full recovery after a couple months of chemotherapy and radiation. 

Here’s to a full and speedy recovery…

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“You know, do I hope that those people die screaming of rectal cancer? Yeah, you know, but I’m not going to spend a lot of energy on it.” – Sean Penn (when addressing his detractors)

No, I’m not making it up, you can even view the video here. O’Reilly, feel free to examine his body language, though to be fair, there isn’t much of a body to work with. For those too lazy to watch the video, let me recap it for you: **Spoiler alert!** Sean Penn has decided to take the life-plunge and go full-retard. Honestly, I don’t even know what to say anymore. Clearly, his statement was made in the poorest taste possible. Even more appalling however, is that the media doesn’t seem upset about these remarks in the slightest.

Is it just me, or do the “outrageous” quotes from Limbaugh, Coulter, and Beck that send the mainstream-media into a tizzy pale in comparison to the vitriolic hatred of Penn?

If Sean Penn were to tell his detractors to take a hike, that would be fine. If he suggested that they jump off a bridge, I’d be cool with that. But to describe in vivid detail, a torturous, agonizing death (one from which many cancer-sufferers were likely suffering while watching the interview from their hospital beds) in which his detractors should perish, is evil, pure and simple. The worst part about it is that we all know Sean Penn isn’t quick enough to think on his feet, which leaves no doubt that the man had spent “a lot of energy on it” in order to craft the graphic mental imagery beforehand. What a sick, twisted, vulgar, knee-high little minikin. (more…)

Most liberals claim to be more “compassionate” than the rest of us. Currently, the “health-care crisis” has topped the left’s “Top 10 Moral Outrages” list. Suddenly, cries to free the latest victim class du jour  (“the 47 million”) from their uninsured bondage can be heard from lib lips coast to coast. Whipped to a frenzy by Barry “the sky is falling” Obama, the MSM, ACORN and Nancy Pelosi are pushing hard to change the face of American medicine before their political capital evaporates. Why more people aren’t wary of a President who, with every (daily) speech, reveals himself to possess a disturbing tendency towards exaggeration, distortion, and outright lie, is beyond me. Bush may have practiced lying as a science, but this man does it as an art. This is the guy, after all, who – with enough hoden to make even a Stasiland apparatchik blush – dubbed 2010’s bloated, pork-laden, crony ass-kissing, $3.55 trillion budget as “a new era of responsibility.”

Yes, I know. Our current system IS unquestionably in need of reform and there are several excellent ideas out there for accomplishing this. But reform is not what this administration has in mind. While our transparency-reneging officials regroup for the next assault on our individual liberties, Americans need to ask themselves one, simple question: WHAT THE HELL IS THE RUSH? We are, after all, dealing with something that will eventually impact the lives of every single man, woman and child in America. And yet, Congress is being pressured to pass legislation – a kind of ‘gateway drug’ to socialized medicine – in the form of an unread bill roughly the size of Atlas Shrugged minus any of that distinguished novel’s wisdom. (more…)

In May of 2004 the New York Times published an article entitled “Health Care Leads Other Issues in Canadian Vote.” The substance of the article was that in the elections that were upcoming, the future of the Canadian health care system was the predominate issue. On the one side were liberals seeking to reverse the trend of privatizing diagnostic services and increase federal aid to provincial governments. On the other conservatives were trying to increase private sector involvement as a way to lower costs and increase service. In spite of the Canadians patriotic zeal for their system, the article makes it clear that there was a growing recognition among citizens and politicians that the system was in the words of the Times, “ailing.” The waiting times for care were growing longer not shorter, the availability of doctors and nurses was becoming sparse especially in rural areas, opinion polls during the previous decade indicated a rising dissatisfaction with medical services and most significantly the cost of delivering medical care had grown so expensive that many provinces were being forced to “trim their budgets for education and other vital services.” Mind you this information came not from the Heritage Foundation but the New Liberal paper of record: The New York Times. (more…)

So within days of the death of the great Jack Kemp, the living embodiment of Montgomery Burns, Arlen Specter, found a way to blame his death on Republican policies. He claimed that “if we had pursued what President Nixon declared in 1970 as the war on cancer…Jack Kemp would be alive today.”

To which, I can only add as a side note to the Democratic Party: “Enjoy, he`s all yours.”

Which leads me to my next point: As a fan of Kemp, I`m always on the lookout for someone like him. On tv, I keep seeing Joe the Plumber, a pretty average guy who seems decent – except, you know, he doesn’t want the gays near his kids. Speaking of kids, there`s that Jonathan Krohn tyke on talk shows – reciting the conservative party line better than most dithering white haired weenies crawling the halls of the Capitol. He’s smart, but he weirds me out. Maybe because at 13 he’s already taller than me – or maybe because he just comes off as a novelty act, like a hairless cat reciting the alphabet (which is kinda cool). (more…)

Cancer is no laughing matter. AIDS on the other hand, can be hilarious…. But I digress.  A friend of mine went in for a prostate cancer operation this weekend. The whole ordeal lead me to a painful realization: If you get a disease, you’d better hope that it’s one with a celebrity “march for the cure.” Chances are that if Bono isn’t singing about it, you’re probably dying from it. Is anybody else as sickened by this as I am?

AIDS is still the most funded disease around (by the American taxpayer) despite its insignificance on the fatality radar and the fact that in the industrialized world it’s entirely preventable. AIDS doesn’t just “happen” to you here in the U.S.A.  You sort of have to seek out those high risk…activities.  While countless people die of other more prevalent, non-communicable sicknesses, Hollywood has made AIDS benefits trendier than torn Levi’s. (more…)