Life Itself: Back At the Movies, The Cancer Edition

Leah 0:00

Welcome to episode 28 of the cancer pod. In this episode, we're reviewing life itself And memoir a film critic. Roger Ebert.

0:08

I'm Dr. Tina Kaeser. And when I'm at the movies, I sit just far enough, so I don't have to move my head in any direction. And I'm Dr. Lee Sherman and I sit halfway back in the theater and then I'll see. And we're to naturopathic doctors who practice integrative cancer. But we're not your doctors. This is for education, entertainment, and informational purposes only do not apply any of this information without first speaking to your doctor, the views and opinions expressed on this podcast by the hosts and their guests are solely their own.

Track 1 0:42

welcome to the cancer pod.

Introduction: Life Itself

0:56

Okay, Tina. All right, Leah, what do we got today? We are talking about that. Roger Ebert movie life itself. Yes. I just watched it last night, so it's still fresh in my mind. So this is a good time to talk about it. Yeah. So, I mean, I started watching it a few days ago and then I finished watching it last night and then I went back and watched the beginning. So, and it's not fresh in my mind, but I have notes. Yeah. I'm really curious to know your thoughts on this movie. I guess we should explain

Who is Roger Ebert?

1:27

because there are probably people out there who are like, who the heck is Roger Ebert? Yeah, I suppose that's true because we're both of an age where we have seen him over our lifetime, either in writing or on TV, Siskel and Ebert. Oh yeah. Yeah. at the movies and sneak previews, I guess sneak previews came out in the seventies, they ran for like 20 years. I think that's when I really remember watching the Siskel and Ebert movie reviews. And then they also did the show at the movies that ran in, like from the mid eighties up until 1999. So, I mean, David were around for a long time. And I've never been a movie buff, but I do remember watching them, despite the fact that I hadn't seen the movies. Right. So they were entertaining just watching them have a conversation about a movie, whether you had seen that movie or not. Do you remember watching them when I was younger and I don't know. I don't know if I was entertained. you know, if it was a movie I really wanted to know about. And then they'd just be bickering. And I was like, oh really? Oh, wow. Yeah. I have no recollection of it. I mean, the movie really emphasizes that, but I honestly don't remember it being bickering. Now. I do think that there's like, maybe it depends what you grew up around. I mean, I'm from the east coast where that's just a conversation and they just happen not to agree on things a lot. Oh, for sure. I could totally see that because. In my mind. I didn't remember. That there was that much bickering until I watched the movie and I like had a flashback. And I was like, that's my memory of the show. So yeah, it definitely has to do with I'm sure. The fact that being from the east coast, it's a much, much different and I'm from the east coast too, but my parents didn't bicker. So, or maybe they did. And I just blocked you implying mine did no, I'm just saying maybe I blocked my parents bickering the same way I blocked Siskel and Ebert. Who was Roger Ebert. He was a film critic for the Chicago sun times, and I just really, really like interested in his, his backstory. They kind of start off the movie talking about how he grew up and who he was as a young writer in Chicago and, the whole part about them talking about him in high school and working on, you know, being the editor for the high school newspaper. Yeah. He actually made up his own newspaper. First. Remember in the, very beginning he was writing his own and pretending it wasn't really all him. And he was delivering it as if it was an independent rag and it wasn't, it was just him making up something. And then after that, he went into the newspaper at the high school. I was fascinated by that. I mean, that takes a lot of confidence. Well, and I think that is definitely a theme throughout his, uh, how incredibly confident he was. But I just loved the fact that he was this, this young person who could see the world. And express himself. So well, I mean, just, you know, when he became the editor in chief of the college newspaper and you know, all of this stuff was going on around, you know, the church bombings, Kennedy assassination, like just being able to eloquently verbalize, you know, like he was so angered by the church bombings and. His attention to detail with the Kennedy assassination. You know, seeing that there was something on the opposite page where somebody holding a rifle completely unrelated to Kennedy, and he was like, you have to stop printing these. You cannot have this. Yeah. Such a level of maturity. And in the film, they were pretty clear that his parents really instilled a sense of self for him, so that his opinion counted and they listened to him and they, they gave him a lot of confidence themselves because they led him to believe he could do anything in that his opinion does count. And his father was electrician. His mom stayed at home He got all of their dedication and intended. at least the movie implied, he was a product of a very supportive environment at home and maybe even a little bit coddled and. Spoiled and some sense of getting his way most or all of the time. Yeah. And I think that carries through the film too. You know, like it comes back to him having been an only child. I don't know. I just found that, that whole aspect of him just really, like I said, learning his backstory. I thought it was fascinating for somebody who I just only knew of as he's the bickering guy on TV. So, you know, he ends up getting a job at the Chicago sun times and within like a few months he becomes the film critic. And I guess at one point he was the youngest daily film critic in the United States. Yeah. There weren't a lot of film critics at that time who had a permanent place. They said in the newspapers that was often a pseudonym or a. What was that one? Maddie matinee or something. It was like a takeoff on the word matinee. And it was just whoever would write, whoever would go to the movie and, you know, check it out. They would write under that pseudonym, Matt Tenay I don't know it was, it was clever at the time, but not enough for me to remember throughout the movie, they had, you know, different people who knew him. They had different directors, they had Martin Scorsese and Ava DuVernay. And just hearing their stories about him. It's funny, like people had this, this relationship with him that, you know, like they had his old, like drinking buddies and stuff. I mean, just people really thought highly of him, even if he didn't always say the nicest things about people. Yeah. I think he commanded respect because he was honest if he wasn't always nice, but he was honest and sometimes brutally honest, but He was never disrespectful to others. That's what I got from it. He may not have always been a nice person, but he was never disrespectful. So even when he had an opinion that was somewhat negative on a film or a performance, he still would keep it separate from the. Yeah. And so like when he talked about, cause Martin Scorsese directed the color of money and I mean, he also directed raging bull. I mean, he's directed so many fantastic films. And then he did the color of money, which was the remake of the hustler, which was a 1960s film with Paul Newman. And so this movie had Paul Newman, Tom cruise, and he didn't like that movie at all. Disappointed in Scorsese, knowing Scorsese could do better. And then do you have Martin Scorsese, you know, recounting the story about this bad review that he got and he, you know, he kind of saw that and he was like, okay, yeah, because they were already friends, good friends at that point.

Roger's cancer

8:09

Yeah. So here's something interesting. I don't know how many minutes we are into our podcasts, but we haven't brought up the topic of. No. And the movie doesn't start off with his celebration of life. Right. And scenes of him at the latter aspect of his life when he was, yeah, he's going through physical therapy. He had multiple hospitalizations, especially towards the end to me. I mean, you know that he has cancer throughout because he had multiple complications. Infections. And so you physically can see that he has had cancer, but I was so obsessed with knowing who he was, because I didn't know, I just knew the superficial version of who he was. And so, yeah, it's interesting because even though cancer is such a prominent part of the movie, It's not where I was going with it. You know, it didn't take me there. And they open up with him later in his treatments, he's had cancer for quite a few years. it was an hour and a half into the movie before we know what type of cancer he had, which of course is, you know, as curious. So, you know, it's obviously it was something that was head and neck. He doesn't have a lower jaw. And what I really found interesting was. Not only finding out that he had thyroid cancer that had, I don't know if it had metastasized. I had seen somewhere else. He also had salivary gland cancer, but they didn't mention that in the movie. But he had received radiation treatments as a child for ear infections, which most likely is why he. Eventually developed cancer radiation for urine infections. Yes. Cause that was back in the day when they used radiation on children, for all sorts of things, they used it for ringworm. So if there was an infection on the skin, they would use it. I remember some of my patients talking about, you know, the cartoons where you have a skeleton They're taking an x-ray and the skeletons moving around. Like they would always hanging out behind the x-ray machine for that long. Like now we just do a burst of x-ray and we take one really quickly. They would actually be, be back there, moving around, looking at their image, you know, the x-rays just continuously going into their body, but no one knew it was dangerous. Right. So I think it's not uncommon for people who grew up prior to the 1960s, especially to have x-rays for various reasons. That we just don't use them now. But that had me thinking about the risk factor for thyroid cancer. Radiation, radiation is high on that list and then there's, there's a few familial reasons. And then. We don't know what type of thyroid cancer, cause there's various types out there and most of them do not have this outcome. I mean the vast majority of thyroid cancers are follicular or papillary. And generally speaking, the outcomes are very good, especially when they're caught early. I surmised that he caught it. At least it was at least regionally spread at the time he you know, he felt a lump, cause he said he felt a lump under his chin that was related to thyroid cancer so you basically felt a lymph node. That's how he found his cancer. So we know it was at least a regional spread, but even then usually outcomes are decent for most of the thyroid cancers. But they're as, there's a couple that are more aggressive. So there's, megillah. Thyroid cancer is aggressive and anaplastic is the most aggressive form and very rare, but it's it's out there. Yeah. And he's pretty vocal about having

Gene Siskel secretly endures cancer

11:36

cancer, which is interesting because gene Siskel, who was his partner on the TV show found out that he had brain cancer and kept it very private. I mean, not even their children. Right. And for him, it was like, he was told he had a year. And so he was going to live that year as if nothing was wrong and didn't want his kids to constantly be looking at the clock. Like how much time do I have left with my dad? And

Roger Ebert hides nothing

12:05

then Roger. Was just, was very open about it. I mean, he actually, you know, early in the film, he talks about his alcoholism and he was very vocal about that as well. And then with his cancer diagnosis and treatments, he continued to make appearances even after having surgeries. Altered his appearance until he just got too tired because he would communicate using a voice synthesizer. And I guess there was one conference he'd had gone to some sort of a gathering and he just found himself getting too tired afterwards. It was too exhausting, but he did continue to make appearances. Yeah, interestingly, it was the antithesis Of Jean Cisco's reaction, which is kind of interesting since they had so many opposing views in general. So they were such polar opposites right down to their own experiences with cancer. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that, I mean, I don't know because, celebrities, we often find out that they have cancer after they've died. And I don't know if it's this, like. Th the confidence that was instilled in him. I mean, he was just such an incredibly confident human being that. Yeah. I don't know what it was about him. I even, it it's just something so admirable. I think that, well, from what I interpreted from the film is that he was an all-inclusive person himself. He didn't see deficits, handicap, skin, color language. I don't think he saw people in categories. And so when he became. Right. So it's, it's obvious something has happened because not only has he had the surgeries, he's been disfigured by some of the surgeries pretty heavily, I honestly think because he embraced people, however they presented and he didn't use that as any kind of means of judging them. I think he kind of walked the talk. He just basically said, this is what's going on right now. And take me as I am, which I think was. Inspirational in that sense. And that kind of makes me think about how well in every aspect, each one of the movies that we've reviewed have all been inspirational and they all kind of have this same theme of life goes on. And so in this film, he continues to work. I mean, he he's a writer and so he continues to write, you know, it's like, that is not in any way, taken away from him. And. He almost becomes more prolific, right? When, when writing is his outlet for expression, his sole outlet. And he's already a prolific writer. So to have that be his sole outlet it's in, I didn't look up his blog online or his web page or any of that, which they emphasize in the movies. I'm going to link to that. I did, I did look and he still has, his Twitter page is still up. And a lot of it, I believe his wife, Chaz is the one who runs it, but I, and I looked at the blog, so I will put links to them. So that people can, who aren't familiar with him or who are familiar with him, can read a little bit more.

How about his wife, Chaz?

15:09

Speaking of his wife, they met later in life. She says they met in an AA meeting and she already had kids from a previous marriage. And. He just really like embrace the kids. I mean, just, I love seeing that whole family part where they're traveling everywhere. He's got grandkids. One of his friends commented how once he met Chaz, he'd have to move out of his apartment and like buy himself furniture, you know? And like, actually he was living this kind of bachelor life, this heavy drinking, stereotypical kind of like newspaper, right. Life. And then he meets this woman. And I think that was the first time I kind of welled up, you know, I got misty-eyed when he talked about her and her influence on, you know, her impact on him. Yeah. They definitely led us to believe that she humanized him in some ways that he didn't quite access that those parts of himself, the softer side until he met her. that was really beautiful. Yeah. I was actually really interested in that storyline and

Tina gets critical

16:20

I don't want to jump into any negatives on the film, but one thing I was, I wanted more of that storyline. I mean the Siskel and Ebert thing, I get it, we all know them. So we were given mostly the story of the, you know, both animosity and the bromance kind of the back and forth. They're complex relationship with each other, but I was actually more interested in his personal life than the Siskel and Ebert side, which I feel like was a little bit extended longer than I'd like. In other words, it's almost a two hour film. It's an hour and 55 minutes. It is a long movie.

Roger wrote WHAT?

Track 1 16:54

Oh, I guess we could explain a little bit about how, when he was younger, he wrote the screenplay for a movie of Russ Meyer's film. Russ Myers did a lot of these kinds of sexploitation films back in the, in the sixties. Um, very large breasted women, just very, I don't know, very campy films and Roger Ebert, this Pulitzer prize winning. You know, writer wrote the screenplay for that

Tina 17:26

Valley of the dolls

Track 1 17:28

beyond the valley of the dolls,

Tina 17:30

beyond the valley of the dolls.

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Roger. Wrote the screenplay for this very campy film yet, it was kind of like the antithesis of what his writing as a film critic was and asked why do you think he did it? And it was because his friend, his friend says because there's a big boom. Yeah. So what was interesting is that there was clearly an immature aspect to him that row aspect that you're talking about, right? Yes. Like when the manager or producer of Siskel and Ebert said that they were. Like young boys, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was like, well, what you're saying is they were both immature and his friend said, this is the only time he saw him become petulant is with gene Siskel. So they, they kind of devolved into less than mature adults.

Track 1 18:28

Well, what I've

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thought was funny was when they briefly kind of went into the background for douchey and Siskel. He actually lived that life that I think Roger Ebert wanted to live. Like he was taken in by Hugh Hefner. He hung out at the mansion and on the plane and he lived that sort of life that probably. Aspired to at one point, you know, it was just so talk about opposites. There's this one person who tries to put across this, this image and there's this other person who actually had the image. And he was very quiet. He was not, I mean, comparatively, you know, where they were comparing them to like, like Laurel and Hardy, you know, like the kind of the opposites. So I don't know. I just found all of that. Fascinating.

Leah's favorite part of the movie

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So the part that I think I really enjoyed the most was when Ava DuVernay was talking about when she first met Roger Ebert when she was a little girl. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And for those who don't know, she directed the movie 13th and Selma and, uh, wrinkled. So she talks about how she went to, I guess, where they, where they screenings or premiers or something. When she, her aunt would take her. And she went up to meet Roger Ebert and they had a photograph taken together. And then I guess a years later, she like sends him the photographs. Oh, I wish I could remember this part better. Cause I really did love it. And I was totally crying, like listening to her, tell this story. She sends in this image of them together, her as a little girl and he ends up publishing a blog post about it. Talking about arts. Yes. Not, it's not the six letter kind, the two legged kind of ant, not the 600. Right. And so it turned into this beautiful post and I meant to look to try to find that too. I just thought that was incredible. Yeah. this goes back to his kind of, I don't think he saw Martin Scorsese any differently than he saw that young film director or filming. Who made an indie film. In other words, I think he just saw people as people. I don't think he had a, any kind of judgment. He just saw them for whatever they were presenting right in front of him. And so he enjoyed this young woman and inspired her at that moment. I forget what he said to her, but it was inspirational. Yeah, I think he did that with the other, the other there's that other independent filmmaker. Yeah. I don't think he saw them as like filmmakers. I think he saw them as artists and probably saw their art first. You know? I mean, they had that famous German director, Verner, Herzog. I mean, he reviewed like Ingmar Bergman films. I mean, these are like heady films. These are like art theater type films, and then he'd review what was the three Amigos in Chevy chase? That was a really funny scene, but Chevy chase scene was actually really funny. They do a lot of clips of him, like on the Johnny Carson show and you know, all the talk shows at the time, but yeah, the, the Chevy chase one, I actually laughed out loud. That was pretty good.

Tina's favorite scene

21:45

You know, I'm trying to think if I have a favorite scene, I liked that they included a moment where there's some frustration between Chaz and him when he comes home from the hospital and he's trying to get up the stairs or he wants them to move the chair closer and in front of the stairs. So he doesn't have to take a few steps because he's, he's in recovery. He does not have the ability to walk easily. Trying to express himself, but he didn't have pen and paper and it was a moment of frustration and she got frustrated then too. And you know, you can do this. And I thought that was. It's challenging on both sides and it can be frustrating to be both the patient and to be the caregiver, but that was a really authentic scene. And I wondered how many more there were that one made it into the movie. You know, I'm always wondering what's on the floor. You know, what gets cut out of the films as much as I'm watching them, I'm always thinking. So they selected that one. I'm sure there's there were other moments too, but that one was, it was a good moment where he was getting frustrated. He couldn't express himself because he had no way of doing it because he wasn't speaking at that time. And she was getting frustrated because she felt like he could take the three steps. And he had just finished rehab. To be able to do that. And she says that she's like, you know, you, this is what you've, you know, kind of like worked your way up to or whatever, right. And he was coming home after what, two months in rehab. So there's also another line right after that, where they go upstairs, they have this really nice home and, uh, forget how the actual verbatim, I don't remember it, but she said, you know, welcome home. It's, it's hard to be home after two months away. And he writes. Especially for you. And then he laughs and you know, you take those moments in a relationship where, you know, that could be taken two ways. So I did just have a little frustrating moment, especially for you. He's being authentic. He's being his authentic self. He's always telling the truth. And sometimes it's a brutal honesty he uses without malice and completely respectful. And she laughs because it is funny. So I thought that was probably my favorite moment because I feel like it was. Really genuine and very authentic and maybe they got used to the cameras at that point. I don't know. It seemed more authentic to me than a lot of moments. Yeah. as I pointed out earlier, does his relationship with her? It just was really, it was really beautiful. Yeah. Another thing that

The Great Gatsby

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stuck out was how he would have his friend recite the last page of the great guy. Where basically it's talking about how you can be anything that you want. And just knowing that, you know, this is something that he really believed. Yeah. That was pretty cool. Yeah. And I don't think it's a spoiler at the, at the end of the movie, he leaves on his own. He says to his wife while he's in the hospital for the umpteenth time I'm done. Yeah, I'm done with this. I'm not going to do this anymore. And you know, she's supportive, but as most caregivers, she doesn't want him to go yet. I would say that's often the case. And so he signs a, do not resuscitate order without her presence, knowing that she probably. When condone it, but he wanted to leave on his terms, which I thought was also in keeping with his character because he was very dictatorial and liked to get his way from the time he was a little kid all the way through his life. And, you know, it was kind of nice. He got to call that last shot, you know? So I thought that was actually really well done too, because it's a delicate time for everybody. Right. And in her retelling it because she was there. they didn't take any measures to bring them back when they know that they were losing him and she had to just accept it. Yeah. That was, that was, that was pretty intense. And I think this is why I want to know more about her. I found her to be the most interesting aspect of the entire movie. Oh, funny. Yeah. I mean, he's interesting because he's a character in the movie is about. I'm not saying he's not interesting, but I really, I found her compelling in a way that was inspirational to cause she sure. For sure. And you know, I mean, you can find her on Twitter. I'm sure she's, you know, it seemed that she's very active and I think she's just kind of promoting, it seems that she's promoting his legacy. You know,

The 3rd act

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there was one quote where. I think he may have said it. Someone said this is the third act and it's an experience talking. I think it was him talking about his life. Yeah. So he equated his life with an ongoing movie the entire time. Cause I think he says that in the first five minutes of the whole thing where he says, we're all born into a, a character and we each have our own ongoing. Movie of life, movie of my life or something like that. I think one of his friends says he was not only the chief character and star of the movie. That was his life. He was also the director. And then there was another, the very beginning when it's him speaking to movie, playing at his celebration of life. And he's talking about movies and he says, movies are a machine that generates empathy. And I thought that. I think it was just such a huge state. And I wonder if that was who he was later in his life compared to his earlier days. Like, he seemed to have more empathy after the age of 50 or so after being married and having a family with her, having a lot of step children and grandchildren. So I wonder if that was like, His mature self saying that as opposed to his, you know, 25, 35 year old self who's, getting drunk and wrote beyond the valley of the dolls. Yeah. I mean, I overall, I really enjoyed this film and I'm glad I watched it. Yeah. It was a little longer than I anticipated, but yeah, I guess that moves us

Movie rating/ Tissue rating

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to our rating system. We are using our. Our Lotus pods as rating with five being great. And zero being, you turned it off halfway through, not even you turned it off after the opening credits. Right? So, Tina, what would you give this movie? Um, teetering between three and a half. And I think it's because I've watched him when I was young. And I remember it. So it is nice to see the storyline of someone who you felt like you knew at the time, you know, as much as, you know, any person who's in some 30 minute show, but you know, there's that familiarity. So that was built in interest, but I think I'll settle in at three and a half. Yeah. I would say three and a half. And some of that docking is because I think it could have been about 15 to 20 minutes short. Oh, interesting and not have lost anything. Yeah. You know, I really, really enjoyed this film. I found it incredibly inspirational. I found that, learning more about a person who in my mind was the sneak previews at the movies guy and just like learning the depth of his life experience, especially his, his cancer life experience. Yeah. I'm going to give it a five. So you're not arguing with me. Oh, yeah. Right. I'm supposed to that's when you come in and you're like, you're wrong, people won't get that. Unless they've they grew up watching themselves. Right. Exactly. We, you know, we did talk about, you know, going at each other's throats because then we'd be mimicking the movie. But, um, yeah. Only the people who watched it would understand that and everyone else would turn us off. Yeah. So tissue rating, what, what is your, your, your tissue rating? How, how many tissues? I think I get a half again, half a tissue. Oh, wow. Yeah. I probably went through three tissues. And then for some reason, at the end, as the credits were rolling, I just broke down and started sobbing. So I'm not sure where that came from, but something in the movie. Oh, I know where it came from. Yeah, it was towards the end. I mean, it just, I became very emotional at the end and then the movie ends with his passing and then the Memorial, right. The Memorial. Yeah. And so it, and it, but it wasn't related to, I think the movie just brought stuff up. That makes sense. Yeah.

Thumbs up? Thumbs down?

30:09

So we're going to have a third rating for this movie. Thumbs up or thumbs down. And this is basically, you know, what I liked about thumbs up thumbs down is like, so it's very black and white. Simple. Yes or no. So I would give a thumbs up yeah. It'd be worth a trip to the movies. Sit through it. Sure. And the movie is available on canopy. Once again, if you have. A library card, but you can watch it for free. Um, and I'm sure you can pay a few bucks to watch it and other places. So I'm going to give it a thumbs up as well. So life itself, the memoir of film critic, Roger Ebert, the cancer pod is giving it two thumbs up, two thumbs up, and you know what? I'm going to go back and read some more of a staff. Casa. I didn't realize he was such a good writer until this movie. Oh, I have to mention, because this part is really confusing. You hear his voice narrating the film, and it's a voice actor who is doing an imitation of him. And so it's a little, I don't want to say off putting, but it's a little jarring where you're like, He's reading from his memoir called life itself in his voice, but he doesn't have a voice anymore. And so just to let people know, like, it is a voice actor who was doing the voiceover imitating him, but yeah, he would read excerpts from. His book or articles or whatever. And yeah, I mean, eloquent is the word I keep thinking of, but eloquent and prolific are the only two words I can think of to describe him. I think that's accurate. He won appeal, Pulitzer surprise, as he mentioned story. I mean, you know, yeah. So. I love movies where yeah, you have a little bit more insight into somebody they're not portraying who they think you want them to see. You know, he was a very authentic person. And I think like, it kind of takes my image of him as a child in the seventies, and just adds a whole new dimension that I wish I was aware of when I was younger. Right. It's appreciating somebody for who they are while they're still around. All right, that's our review. And then after this, we're going to go back to our old format. Yeah. And if you want us to talk about more movies, I think we have more movies on our list. We can always come back to this at some point, but we also will be talking about, supplements and side effects and kinds of things. Yeah, we take requests. We do take requests. So shoot us an email, the cancer pod@gmail.com or leave a message through Twitter or Instagram, where we are the cancer pod. And let us know if there's some sort of topic you want us to cover and remember to hit that subscribe button. Follow us wherever you found us, wherever you found us. So that, you know, in the next episode is coming out, get your finger on the pulse and as always feel free to share this with people you think might enjoy it. So on that note, I'm Dr. Lee Sherman and I'm Dr. Tina Kaeser, and this is the cancer pod until next time.