To give you an idea on what we’re dealing with,
· Billy Caufield is a tad delusional.
· Henry Sikorsky believes he's a doctor.
· Jack McDermott is an ad executive who believes Jesus is speaking to him.
· Albert Ianuzzi is an adult who occasionally wets himself.
The four crazies find that Weitzman will be murdered as a witness and no one believes four mental patients. They have to both use and overcome their delusions in order to save their doctor while dealing with both the police and the killers looking for them. The group is stranded in New York City, forced to cope with a place which is often more bizarre than their sanitarium. In a sense, they woke up in the morning, were playing pin
g-pong in the hospital recreation room, and next thing they know, they're lost in New York City and framed for murder. This was never covered in group therapy.
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Although, come to think of it, if an alien walked into my home on most days, I think their first conclusion was that if this is representative of the planet, it’s time to get the ICBMs out of the bullpen and clean up this mess……But, back to important reviews of 1988 movies……
But were these people crazy? Relatively speaking, who knows?
We live in a world where attorneys general and governors slither away under the cloud of crimes or extramarital affairs, crying on TV as they apologize for their “sins” while most of those who remain in office have little solace other than themselves having the good fortune of never having been caught (yet), or, in some cases, simply getting away with (Mary Joe Kopechne, RIP).
[great article by Peggy Noonan of the WSJ where she asks: "Something about the steely-eyed rocket men of the Mercury and Apollo programs: They weren't criers. Now, on TV every day as people remember some trauma or triumph, they stop as if on cue—they know this is expected of them—and weep. They think this shows sincerity and sensitivity. But they feel too much about their struggles. I sometimes watch with fascination those shows where people lose weight. They often begin to sob as they fall off the treadmill or remember the Twinkie they didn't eat. This is now the national style. It makes Europeans laugh. When they're about to be mawkish or overly emotional they say, "I don't mean to get American on you." The men who took the moon will be all over TV the next few days. I bet they don't cry as they remember "Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed." How moving their dry eyes will be.]
I think that I don’t actually know what the word “crazy” means any more after learning about autism spectrum disorders over the last few years through the experiences, both joyful and tear-filled , with my son. Some of you may have read this a couple years ago:
I am a parent of an autistic 4 year old boy who currently attends a school for autistic children in Massachusetts. While on vacation in Washington, DC during the 4th of July vacation week, I took the attached picture of my son at the Lincoln Memorial. While it wasn't my goal in taking the picture, I think the picture wonderfully illustrates autism in way that I've never personally been able to do.
The words on the wall are the Gettysburg Address, one of the most beautiful speeches ever written by an American citizen. If you haven't read his speech lately, please try - it words are truly moving. Shown below the speech's text is my son. At 4, with the help of some amazing teachers, he has taught himself to read and to write and is more than capable of reading the speech. Yet, notice that below these most beautiful words, my son is choosing to examine the cracks in the wall rather than the words on the wall. As the words on the wall so often describe the challenges our country faces, this picture of my son studying the cracks in the wall, to me, defines the challenges my son, and so many other autistic children, face.
A lot has happened since I wrote this several years ago.
My son is about to start kindergarten and wants to learn Italian (he’ll be translating for diplomats by January – as long as they can tell the difference between what the ambassador actually said and Spencer’s occasional “sonic the hedgehog” sidebar, we should be good) and is excited about both and so am I. The country chose a president whose election, in some ways, may signify the end of The Civil War and the country is/was excited about it. Personally, I’m not excited about it one iota – about the president, that is, not the end of The Civil War. Go North.
But, even with all those changes – quite a bit for two years - my son is still autistic and racial narratives still dominate the news.
Is that sane?
Is that the back drop by which we measure “crazy”?
Well, I guess, like Billy Caufield’s delusional tendencies, my son isn’t quite “normal”. And, like Henry Sikorsky belief that he’s a doctor, I’ve been calling myself an accountant for years and my wife believes that she is the head of a major corporation (with its world headquarters located in our kitchen). My daughter, like Albert Ianuzzi, occasionally wets herself, but unlike my faults and my wife's, I suppose hers can be forgiven as she is only three.
So, maybe once again, my life has begun to mirror The Dream Team and I’m living the Dream Team, Part Deux. But, if that is the case, I feel for the poor bastard who is going to play the role of Dr. Weitzman in this drama and if I am forced to go to New Yankee Stadium, can I sit in one of those really good seats that no one is sitting in?
Footnote: Text of Gettysburg Address
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate...we can not consecrate...we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.