It is certain that most of us would rather not have any advance notice when its our time to leave this world. Many would probably pay for this privilege, knowing that the fear of knowing they have some kind of terminal illness, might very well be worse than the illness itself. At the top of this list is Cancer, the disease that has both ravaged and terrified the population of the world for centuries.

The new movie “Ordinary Love” is all about Cancer and a couple in their 60’s , Joan, played by Leslie Manville and Tom, played by Liam Neeson coping with Joan finding out that she has breast Cancer. This story is not for the faint of heart because it shows all of the ups and huge downs of being diagnosed with life’s most devastating disease. We all know the main recommended cures; removing body parts and chemo therapy that ravages the human body and reduces the immune system to almost nothing. This barbaric method of treatment can kill cancer cells, but it also kills other cells as well, and this weakening of the body can cause other diseases and bring the cancer back in the future. Then add the constant worries that include, “will the insurance company cover this treatment?”.

It is so hard to believe that after many years and trillions of dollars of research, that a real cure to Cancer has still never been found. Considering the world wide economy that includes cancer treatment, does the world ever really want to cure this dreaded disease, considering the financial loss? Most difficult to watch are scenes where Joan and Tom are the waiting for test results or encouraging news, followed by bad news, then nausea, loss of hair and non stop terror caused by this terrible disease. The worry and the terror weakens any person as much as the Cancer itself.

Ordinary Love is one of the very few non-action movies that Liam Neeson has made in the last 15 years, and his performance in this real-life movie as well as Leslie Manville is outstanding. I agree with the very high 93% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and strongly recommend this well acted movie.

As a movie blogger, based on a very high opinion poll on Rotten Tomatoes, sometimes I am obligated to see a movie that I ordinarily would not see.

The movie “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” has 98% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, so out of curiosity, and even though it has subtitles, I decided to see it. This movie is about a woman in her early 30’s who paints portraits of three other women who are living with her. One woman is older, another who is her age and another in her mid teens. Other than that, there is no story, no direction, no plot and no reason to understand why this non-movie was ever made. I have no idea why the ratings are so high, other than the well done photography of a surrounding ocean, house and cliff, somewhere in France.

For this film, I decided to leave early because the mindless boredom was so unbearable. As I left the theater I thought of a purpose for this very bad movie, with no story. One day while on cable, it could cure insomnia for hundreds of thousands of people, who just cannot get to sleep. Run from this extremely boring waste of two hours.