I think your whole life shows in your face and you should be proud of that.

–Lauren Bacall

The idea is to die young as late as possible.

–Ashley Montagu

What do screen ac­tors Dame Judi Dench, Robert Duvall, Hal Holbrook, Peter O’Toole, Christopher Plum­mer, and Gena Rowlands have in common? They’re all older than 75, still working... »

Humor is odd, grotesque, and wild,

Only by affectation spoil’d;

‘Tis never by invention got,

Men have it when they know it not.

– Jonathan Swift, To Mr. Delany, Oct. 10, 1718 Nine in the Morning      <[ql]>

… comedy, like lunacy, is the expression of the unaccommodated man.

– Robert Brustein, Arthur Miller at 87, “The... »

As we poise to exit 2010, here's a list of the best films I saw this year that have prominent psychiatric, psychotherapeutic, or broader mental health themes (what I call a “psych flick”). Regarding such lists, Harvard cultural historian Louis Menand, in a 2004 humor piece about “Best” lists in The New Yorker magazine, had this to say:

“Everyone acts... »

As video equipment prices spiral downward, more documentary films are being made about diverse subjects and events. Low budget “docs” most likely succeed when the focus is simple, such as films that examine the life and circumstances of a single individual, who may be an unusual character or have an extraordinary story to tell. For example, the number of... »

www.Psychflix.comcpnews@elsevier.comIf I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will. –Mother Teresa“Reporter,” Eric Daniel Metzgar's absorbing if poorly titled new feature documentary film about the New York Times op-ed columnist, Nicholas Kristof, opens with the words above from Mother Teresa. Metzgar then intones (he... »

www.Psychflix.comcpnews@elsevier.comGood to go,Lock and load.I don't know,But I've been told.(Sound Off)…Quatrain for a marching cadence, attributed to Army Pvt. Willie Duckworth, 1944.“The Hurt Locker” tracks a three-man Army bomb squad that disarms improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in a squalid Baghdad neighborhood. It's 2004, about a... »

cpnews@elsevier.comLinks between art and mental illness never cease to tease one's imagination, and psychiatrists hardly stand alone in their fascination with this theme. Sometime before the mid-century, the French surrealist painter and sculptor Jean Dubuffet began to visit mental institutions to witness the world of art made by self-taught patients.In the... »