Artivels Undescribable Perfection

SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

ThrillMessage There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

spikeshome-05684 I watched my Momma pass away in our childhood home as she was at the age of 69, just one day after Thanksgiving 2015. She had been a survivor of ovarian cancer and 8 years after that diagnosis, she had another scan and they found cancer in her tight lung. She had a surgery for that. In a quick time cancer metastasized to her liver. She endured many months of chemo. My Mom was quite the fighter through and through. I was with her for the most of this. Cancer grew in her liver despite the chemo and then had metastasized again into her brain where two tumors were found in the back part of her brain and one smaller one in the front.She endured radiation on her brain. The chemo had been stopped after a trial of the newest chemo type medication that helps the immune system fight against cancer. But by that time, her immune system was terribly damaged by the chemo and cancer so the medicine was useless. She had headaches. She slept a good bit of the time. She had less and less of an appetite and became weaker. She needed help to walk to the bathroom. Her body ached in ways I don't ever want to experience. She took pain medication but when things became so bad, even the strongest pain medicine didn't touch the pain. I was there during the doctor telling her, my father and my sister and I that there was nothing else that could be done and he recommended hospice. That meeting was the sentence before the last small chapter of her life. She passed in her sleep. I tell all of this because I experienced the horror of what cancer can do. I watched the documentary and found a big missing link in it. Where in all these stories was God? The sadness in watching the family at the end seeming so utterly lost in connection was due to the lacking of God in their lives. It was a terrible sadness. In most of the folks, there was no mention of God. THAT is a huge missing piece to 'dying with dignity'. Without our Creator being involved in our lives, my mother's situation would have been hopeless like many in this film. I feel sad for these families and so many are in the same loss. Why in the world would one try and navigate this uncertain life in all it's many evils without the never ending love, compassion, omnipotence and comforting assurance of God? Even with the support of doctors and family and friends, there is a profound emptiness, fear, and in conclusion to ending one's life in this manner. God must be the One directing this story. In Him, this missing piece of the film can be found.

makeartnotwar1 I have never seen any sort of film that has made me cry as hard as this one. I have always supported physician assisted suicide, but after watching this, my support has grown ten times stronger. After watching ten minutes of this documentary, I became completely focused on it. I only paused it because I became overwhelmed with emotion with the many stories told. I felt like I personally knew Cody Curtis after watching this, and felt deeply disturbed after watching her spirits be crushed by the cancer that haunted her every day until her last breath. I expected to become annoyed with the story because I've seen too many documentaries where they were milking for support by only showing the emotional aspect, but this one was different. After the film ended I felt as if I had just left a friend's funeral. Nothing could have prepared me for this film, but Im so glad that I sat down and watched it. I suggest watching this with a roll of tissue, you will most certainly need it.

Michael_Elliott How to Die in Oregon (2011) **** (out of 4) This emotionally draining documentary talks about the 1994 Death with Dignity law that was passed in Oregon, which allows people the choice to pick when they want to die. The documentary talks with several people who have decided to share their stories, which has most of them dealing with a terminal illness that has no cure. The question becomes if they want to spend the last few months of their lives in pain or if they would prefer to end their lives through physician-assisted suicide. The topic of this has been a hot debate item for a very long time but thankfully director Peter Richardson doesn't try to turn this film into some sort of political debate. I think the film is a very honest and open look at all sides of the debate but thankfully we never get to any childish bickering between the sides. I had read a few reviews of this film and it one said that you'd be crying within the first five minutes of the picture and there's no question that these opening moments are some of the hardest I've had to watch. We basically see a man surrounded by his family getting ready to die, which to me leads to some of the most honest moments where you the viewer have to ask yourself what you would do. What would you say to your loved ones in the final minutes of your life? Would there be a final word that you'd want to get out? We also follow another woman, Cody, who is suffering from cancer and she's given six months to life but keeps the pills it takes to end her life is she decides to. Her issue is not knowing when to say she's had enough or if she'll know the moment when she wants to die. We follow her as her case gets better but then takes a drastic and fast turn. We also see things from the other side, which is a man whose health insurance says they won't pay for him to try and fight for life yet they will pay for him to end his life. All of these stories are just emotionally draining and although this film is a masterpiece, it's easy to see why it's appeal would be quite limited. I can sit here and say that the people here are inspirational and I can say that the director handles everything with such dignity and class but in the end the viewer is really going to have to ask themselves if they want to sit through watching people die. As depressing as some of these stories are, at the same time they are quite uplifting seeing people appreciate the life they do have and the importance of having people you love around you. HOW TO DIE IN OREGON is a very powerful, extremely well-made picture that is certainly worth viewing if you can put up with the graphic drama.

JustCuriosity How to Die in Oregon was screened at Austin's SXSW Film Festival where it was very warmly received. This is a powerful, intimate film that closely examines the process of death and how it is carried out in the first state in the nation to legalize physician-assisted suicide, which Oregon did when it passed the Death with Dignity Act in 1994. Director Peter Richardson spent four years on this film which is tender and moving as it profiles several people in the process of contemplating their own mortality and seeking a means by which they can gain control over their own deaths.The film is difficult to watch at times because it touches on the raw nerve of dying. While the film is clearly sympathetic to the agenda of those seeking to expand access to physician-assisted suicide, it is not, by-and-large, about the political debate. While one section does focus on a widow in Washington state working on a Death with Dignity referendum to fulfill her husband's last wish, even that section is really about her husband's death and her effort to achieve closure. This is mostly a narrative of the human pain of the dying process and the struggle to gain control by deciding how and when to choose one's own death.The filmmaker does a wonderful job of presenting the case studies, particularly of the central story about liver cancer patient Cody Curtis and her family. Her story forms the backbone of the film and its emotional heart. Richardson manages to present extremely intimate picture that will allow many people to confront and deal with this extremely difficult issue. Our society has not yet figured out how to deal with this extremely difficult issue and films like this are extremely powerful tools for allowing us to begin to have that much-needed conversation.The film is expected to run on HBO in the near future.