Wishing the happiest of birthdays to our favorite Latin Lover, Howie! Howie is featured in Chapter 88 of The World Will Be Waiting, which is now online for your reading pleasure. I finished this chapter a few weeks ago, shortly before going on vacation and getting ready for the school year, which started for me this past week. I have a solid start on the next chapter, but it’s not yet finished. This is a busy and tiring time of year for teachers, so it may be a few weeks before I’m able to update again. Thanks for being patient with me!
Before I wrap up this post, I have a slightly related story and movie recommendation to share with you. I started rewatching one of my favorite shows, Breaking Bad, while on vacation and have continued watching it since coming home because BB is the kind of show you can’t just start and not finish, even though I’ve already watched it in its entirety at least three or four other times by now. Anyway, while watching the Season 3 finale the other night, I found myself wondering what Aaron Paul (Jesse Pinkman) has been up to lately, acting-wise. I looked him up on IMDB and discovered (or re-discovered?) a movie he starred in called Adam, which came out in 2020 but was actually filmed in 2010. Based on a true story, it’s about a salesman who breaks his neck in a diving accident and becomes a quadriplegic. Now, as part of my research process, I have watched a lot of movies with quadriplegic characters in the five years or so that I’ve been writing this series. I was pretty sure I had watched Adam, but after watching the trailer, I couldn’t remember any details about the movie, so I decided to watch it… again? I literally sat through the entire movie, trying to figure out if I had seen it before or not, and I still don’t know. Is this the result of perimenopause brain fog, or did all the disability movies just start to blur together in my mind at some point? Who knows. What I do know is that this movie showed one of the most realistic portrayals of quadriplegia out of all of them, and Aaron Paul is an incredible actor! Absolutely worth the watch. Interesting, his Breaking Bad co-star, Bryan Cranston, also played a quadriplegic character in a movie called The Upside, which is also pretty good, although I’ve always heard that the French movie it was based on, The Intouchables, is even better.
For the record, my favorites of all the disability movies I actually remember watching over the past five years are Penguin Bloom and Monkey Shines. Penguin Bloom, starring Naomi Watts, is based on the true story of a recently-paralyzed mother and an injured magpie. It’s sweet and touching without being too cheesy, as this type of movie tends to be. Monkey Shines is also about the bond between a disabled human and an animal companion: in this case, a capuchin monkey who becomes a service animal for a quadriplegic man… and (spoiler alert) starts killing people. It’s a silly ’80s horror movie, but as a fan of ’80s horror movies, I found it quite entertaining. You know I love me some killer monkeys! So, if you’re looking for something to watch this weekend or while you wait for the next chapter of TWWBW, there are a few recommendations for you!