talladega nights: the ballad of ricky bobby

ricky bobby is one of the most (fictional) prolific nascar drivers of all time. ricky has it all, a beautiful wife named carley, two unruly sons, walker and texas ranger (lmao), and his best friend from childhood, cal jr, who is also a nascar driver. he is incredibly close to ricky but has always lived in his shadow. seemingly leagues ahead of everyone else, ricky starts getting arrogant, and soon there's a new driver in town: french formula one driver jean girard, who has retired from f1 to start a career in nascar. jean quickly begins to outperform him. ricky, who has never known a place other than first his entire life, pushes the limits as hard as he can before he suffers a huge wreck at lowe's motor speedway and is hospitalized. after his hospitalization, his performance gets worse and worse before he is kicked off the team. carley leaves him for cal and ricky takes his two sons to go live with ricky's mom. ricky gets a job as a pizza delivery driver. ricky's estranged father, reese, who also had a passion for racing, comes into his life again to try and help him regain his skills and passion for the sport by having ricky drive blindfolded and putting a live cougar in the car with him. eventually reese causes a scene at applebees and disappears again. ricky's former assistant, susan, persuades ricky to join nascar again, reminding him of his greatness and saying that she has always admired him. ricky begins spending more time with her, developing a romantic relationship, and decides to take susan's advice, racing once again at talladega superspeedway. during the race, ricky is able to climb from last to second, just behind jean. cal uses a "slingshot" technique that ricky and cal were once known for to help ricky pass jean. on the last few laps, a giant wreck takes out almost the entire grid behind ricky and jean, and on the last lap, the two crash into each other. they get out of their cars and run toward the finish line, but they are both disqualified for exiting their cars. cal ends up being the driver who finishes the race. afterwards, ricky and jean make up,

welcome to the quiet room (quiet room ni yokoso)

young journalist asuka sakura is way in over her head. she's a magazine journalist, absolutely slammed with work and hit with a wall of writer's block as she is approaching the deadline for a hugely important article. her boyfriend, tetsuo, is a tv writer and personality who tends to be way more goofy than serious. asuka wakes up one morning admitted to a psychiatric ward, strapped to a bed and hooked up to an IV and catheter, 3 days after an accidental drug overdose with no recollection of what happened. as time goes on she meets and forms relationships with several other women on the ward: miki, an anorexic girl who helps asuka learn the ways of the ward, eguchi, the stoic, straight-laced nurse, yamagishi, the kind, uplifting nurse, nishino, a bulimic swindler who emotionally manipulates asuka and others on the ward, sae, the quiet, meek anorexic girl who has been in the hospital the longest,

i first saw this movie when i used it as material for my capstone project for a japanese literature+film class i was taking in college. it immediately spoke to me as someone who has been on inpatient psych units myself. i loved the frank and honest way asuka's story was told, sometimes goofy and sometimes serious, without making light of the situation.

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