LOS ANGELES, CA: Amy Alkon is the author of a powerful new book that Screenmancer highly recommends, GOING MENOPOSTAL: What you (and your doctor) need to know about the real science of menopause and perimenopause.
Exclusively for Screenmancer, Amy gives us her top 10 movies—fierce, funny, and real—that speak to women in menopause and perimenopause.
TOP 10 WATCH LIST BY GOING MENOPOSTAL AUTHOR AMY ALKON
1. BLAZING SADDLES
In perimenopause, while oral micronized progesterone is “the best medicine,” nonstop laughter from watching this nonstop comedic brilliance* isn’t far behind. (*Made before political correctness was allowed to murder comedy.)
2. KUNG FU SHUFFLE
A movie-length reminder to age powerfully instead of “gracefully.” Noteworthy for the fabulous cranky biddy with superpowers, “The Housewife,” in her housedress, curlers in her hair and a cigarette hanging off her lip, who blows ne’er-do-wells off the screen.
3. BRINGING UP BABY
A great screwball comedy, on theme with the chaos of perimenopause—perimenopause as comedic anarchy—plus there’s a leopard and Cary Grant being driven cuckoo by Katherine Hepburn as madcap socialite Susan Vance.
4. HARI OM
Because menopause isn’t the end but the beginning: Time to chart a new path. French woman goes to India with her asshole jewel dealer boyfriend. Decides he’s a huge asshole, dumps him, and travels across India with an Indian guy driving her in his motorized rickshaw—discovering the country and much about herself.
5. HELLO, MY NAME IS DORIS
Verging on being a documentary on the invisiblizing of aging women, but with Sally Field in the lead role. Because we women are judged to a great extent by our appearance, menopause often leads to a downward slide in our status and perceived importance. New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis nailed it in her review of this coming-of-older-age movie: “Wrinkles have a way of making women disappear one crease at a time.”
6. ALIEN
Sigourney Weaver is the first female action hero, paving the way 40 years back for all the movie badasserellas ever since. A movie-length Post-It note reminding us to throw off the timidity of our younger decades and go forth powerfully, confidently, as the wise older women we are.
7. WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE
Hormonal chaos can lead to mental chaos, and nobody portrays mental chaos with the extraordinary blazing intensity of Gena Rowlands in this film by her husband, John Cassavetes.
8. SOMETHING WILD
Melanie Griffith as Lulu/Audrey, kidnapping the uptight investment banker, Charles Driggs, embodies the “fuck it!” energy of midlife liberation: rebellion, reinvention, and refusing to stay in the box you were assigned.
9. KILL BILL, VOL. 1 & 2
In mental health terms, perimenopause with an empty “tank” of progesterone feels like a high speed freeway chase on rims alone. In that spirit, Uma Thurman, a woman left for dead, comes back with a sword and methodically destroys every asshole who wronged her.
10. Prêt-à-Porter
A big erect middle finger to the notion that only taut 22-year-olds have sex worth watching in a movie—with Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni as ex-lovers in their 60s getting it on.
ABOUT AMY ALKON
An award-winning investigative science writer, Amy Alkon exposes how medical care for menopause and perimenopause is the single most patient-betraying area of medicine, with almost no doctors in gynecology departments educated and trained to treat it. They treat patients anyway—a violation of medical ethics and a cause of substantial harm to many women.
GOING MENOPOSTAL is Alkon’s eight-year, deep-dive mission to change that—translating complex science into clear, everyday language so women can understand what the evidence actually says and press doctors for the evidence-based care we all expect and deserve.
Buy GOING MENOPOSTAL: What you (and your doctor) need to know about the real science of menopause and perimenopause.
https://amzn.to/4lGotaQ
Subscribe to Amy Alkon’s free twice-monthly ScienceStack, “Science Made Practical,” coming in July: (subscribers@amyalkon.net).
Site: http://amyalkon.net/
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