Sunday, January 17, 2016

Concussion

I really did not want to see this movie, but my wife did, and I am glad that I saw it.  I had previously seen the Frontline documentary on this subject and felt that was probably enough, that was why I did not have a desire to see a dramatization.  The thing I liked about this movie was that it was so riddled with bullshit that it made me revisit the documentary and the interview of Dr. Omalu.

I have been so beaten over the head by movies that should not be love stories turned into love stories that I am inventing a name that will make a good acronym like the great Dr. Omalu did with CTE.  Let's see, retarded love story, RLS?  Hmmmm.  Maybe, but don't want to offend people with that retard word.  Maybe repetitive meaningless lovestory injury, RMLI.  Too long.  Well, I'll keep thinking about it.  This story did not need a love story.  And also a completely fictional love story at that in a movie based on a true story, so many falsehoods.  A miscarriage that did not happen.  Do they even know how terrible it is to have a miscarriage, of course they do, they want us to have feelings for these characters, instead of learning something real about concussions and the game of football.  Ugh.  

The FBI going after Dr. Omalu?  Really?  Because of a concussion medical theory concerning NFL players?  Going after Dr. Wecht because of this theory?  And Dr. Omalu not giving testimony against his mentor when Omalu did, and he sought Wecht's job and left for a better job offer in California.  Just a terrible disservice to reality. 

 A real Doctor with ambitions, a great immigrant story and they turned it into some strange paranoid thing where this great man is not rewarded for his hard work, until a weird end when the NFL starts listening.  And it is obvious that the NFL is not really listening in the real world when players are suffering concussions still, this season an offensive lineman for the Chargers suffered a concussion on Wednesday during practice, then played in the game on Sunday and suffered the worst concussion of his life to date.  The NFL concussion protocol is a joke.  But Dr. Omalu's work is not.  

Hollywood bullshit.  Hey, maybe that is the acronym, HBS?  Hmmm.  Or HBSS?  Hollywood bullshit syndrome?  No, that does not work.  Yet another reason why Dr. Omalu is amazing, coming up with a great memorable name to help market this disease, CTE, a disease that Dr. Omalu says over 90% of NFL players have some degree of, yet in the movie they say 28%.  Why did they even make a movie about this subject?  I am glad that I watched it because it forced me to revisit that reality of this subject and look over it again.  I have much less respect for Will Smith, et al and much more respect for the real Dr. Omalu and other doctors like him.  

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