Chloé Cooper Jones. Easy Beauty: A Memoir. Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster, 2022. ISBN 9781982151997. Book Review by Samuel Freeman A baby is born “a ball of twisted muscle and tucked bone […] bent in half” with an unexpected medical condition that turns out to be sacral agenesis, a congenital absence of the […]
Category: Reviews
Reviews of media other than books, e.g. exhibitions.
Confronting Toxic Memories
Film review by Professor Robert Abrams, Weill Cornell Medicine ‘Curfew’ (written and directed by Amir Ramses, Egypt, 2020). Spoiler alert: this review reveals significant plot details. Curfew is a stirring drama about parental sacrifice and the dynamics of reconciliation between a mother and daughter. Along the way, the clinical picture of childhood sexual abuse, its […]
Daring to Hope
Review by Professor Robert Abrams, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York Review of ‘This Little Life’ (directed by Sarah Gavron, UK 2003) ‘This Little Life’ explores several timeless themes; it focuses on parental attachment and mourning in the specific circumstances raised by the birth of a premature infant and shines no less a revealing light on […]
The Best of Intentions
Film Review by Professor Robert Abrams, Professor of Old Age Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medicine ‘Papa’, directed by Natalie Labarre (2016, USA) Papa is a bright, fast-moving animation, delightful to watch, but in just over 6 minutes more complex and nuanced than one realizes at first. The film is an autobiographical take by the director Natalie […]
A Parable for Our Times
Film Review by Professor Robert Abrams, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York ‘Daughter’ (Daria Kashcheeva, Czech Republic, 2019) “Daughter” was the 2019 winner of the “Student Oscar” for the best animated film created by a student from an international school, an award bestowed by the U.S. Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. “Daughter” has a […]
“The Eyes of Others Are Our Prisons; Their Thoughts our Cages” (Virginia Woolf)
Film Review by Franco Ferrarini, gastroenterologist and film reviewer ‘Prisoners’ directed by Denis Villeneuve (USA, 2013) Warning: the review contains plot spoliers! Villeneuve’s film, as clearly stated by its title, deals with the theme of captivity, not just physical but also, and perhaps mainly, psychological incarceration. ‘Prisoners’ is not just a compelling thriller with beautiful […]
‘Born to be’ (Tania Cypriano, USA, 2019)
Film Review by Keerthi Gondy, B.S., a fourth-year medical student at the University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Mi. Born to Be is Tania Cypriano’s remarkably moving documentary about New York’s Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery, where for the first time, transgender patients have access to transition-related health and surgical care. […]
Who Am I To Stop It
A documentary film on isolation, art, and transformation after brain injury directed by Cheryl Green and Cynthia Lopez (USA, 2016) Review by Karina Sturm, filmmaker and journalist Who Am I To Stop It is a feature-length documentary portraying three artists in the US who live with brain injuries by following them through their lives and […]
A Beautiful Act of Separation
Film Review by Khalid Ali, film and media correspondent ‘The Disappearance of My Mother’, Beniamino Barrese, Italy 2019, showing at the London Film Festival 2019. Benedetta Barzini is a 76-year old retired lecturer who taught fashion studies at the University of Urbino in Italy. She has strong opinions about the exploitation of women in the fashion industry: ‘’Photographers […]
Conquering Death
Film Review by Khalid Ali, film and media correspondent ‘Hope frozen’, directed by Pailin Wedel, Thailand, USA, 2019 Showing at the BFI London Film Festival, 6th and 7th of October Breakthroughs in medicine and advances in technology such as ‘Thrombolysis’ (clot busting treatment for strokes caused by blood clots in the brain) and ‘Thrombectomy’ (mechanical […]