Re: I remember me movie review

[Guest guest]

Many thanks for the remembrance of Kim Snyder's 2001 movie " I Remember Me " .

I remember " I Remember Me " very well, and remember very well my great

expectations of this movie, along with my remembrance of the substantial

amount of money I remember that contributed to its final production. I also

remember my disappointment in the weakness of this film, and remember

kicking myself in the butt that I contributed to it without first seeing it.

It is a cute little film, but falls far short of telling the full and tragic

story of CFS.

As for Paganetti, the high school senior totally bedridden with

CFS, the film shows a truly sad story about him, but is easy to see that

his father does not believe in CFS and thinks that his son is a mental case.

Has anyone on any Internet CFS discussion group heard anything about

? Are his entire family, and all his friends computer illiterate?

should by now be a major poster boy for CFS, via Kim Snyder and the

CAA.

I Remember Me shows three or four Florida women who seem to have fully

recovered from CFS, and are leading full and happy later middle-aged lives.

Baloney. Most CFS victims their age are now barely able to move, or dead.

These three women in the film were just too energetic to be true CFS

victims.

They must have been mis-diagnosed.

I wish I could yuk it up as well as they did for the movie. No brain fog

with

them!

My financial contribution to " I Remember Me " was via the CFIDS Association

of America, who pledged that they were going to get it shown on lots of PBS

TV stations. Maybe it was, but no schedule of this was sent to CAA members,

and none of my family nor scores of my PBS-watching friends reported it to

me. I ain't heard nothing about this film since its 2001 release, which

did get a lot of nice reviews from film

critics, such as Ebert, below. But does not have CFS, so could

not truly judge the worth of this film.

But where is " I Remember Me " now?

" I Long Ago Forgot I Remember Me " , it seems. When I gave my money for IRM's

completion, and spent months sending supporting msgs to all the CFS Internet

groups

about it, and begging their members to contribute, I thought it would be

used for years

and years as a major educational film about CFS..

Sucker..

Mort Caldwell, PE

Age 63, Biomedical Engineer. BSEE and MS in Physiology

CFS since July 16, 1994. Rapid Onset.

A rather dynamic person before CFS hit me, but now functioning at about 20%,

as compared to colleagues my age who do not have CFS.

" I remember me " movie review

>

> http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/2001/12/120702.html

> I REMEMBER ME

> *** (Not rated)

> December 7, 2001

> Featuring: Kim A. Snyder, Akers, Blake and

> Paganetti. A documentary written and directed by Kim A. Snyder. No MPAA

rating

> (unobjectionable for all). Running time: 74 minutes.

> BY ROGER EBERT

> I now believe in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I was one of many who somehow

> absorbed the notion that it was an imaginary illness. I am ashamed of

myself. At

> the Hamptons Film Festival, I met Kim A. Snyder, who was working as an

> assistant producer on a Jodie film when she contracted CFS in 1995.

For the

> last five years, while still battling the disease, she directed " I

Remember Me, "

> a documentary which does what the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta

> shamefully failed to do: connects the dots.

> Snyder begins in Lake Tahoe, where the disease struck hundreds of people.

She

> talks to Dr. L. , who first started treating CFS patients

> there in 1984, has had seven who committed suicide because of the disease,

and has

> no doubt it is real. She also talks to a spokesperson for the nearby

Incline

> Village Visitors' Bureau, who says CFS is promoted by " quack doctors and

> mostly overweight women. " This person succeeds in becoming the living

embodiment of

> the real estate brokers in " Jaws, " who don't want anyone to believe

there's a

> shark.

> Yes, Dr. sen sighs, investigators from the CDC in Atlanta looked into

> the Lake Tahoe outbreak: " They came out here and skied and looked at a few

> charts. " The conclusion was that Chronic Fatigue Syndrome was

psychosomatic, or

> hysterical, or misdiagnosed. We are reminded that until the 1950s,

multiple

> sclerosis was also considered a hysterical condition.

> Snyder is an investigative journalist who does her own detective work. She

> identifies many earlier outbreaks with the same symptoms as CFS and goes

to

> Punta Gorda, Fla., to visit five women who had the disease 40 years ago.

> Investigators visiting their community at the time concluded it was a real

disease and

> not an imaginary condition, and said so in a report--which the women never

> saw. Snyder shows one woman the report on camera. She expresses her anger;

this

> report would have informed her she was not, as many assured her, going

crazy.

> Snyder interviews two famous CFS sufferers: the film director Blake

,

> who has continued to work during remissions in a 15-year struggle with the

> disease, and the Olympic gold medalist soccer player Akers, who

walked

> off a field one day and collapsed. But Snyder's most touching the

depressing

> visit is to the bedside of Paganetti, a high school senior in

> Connecticut. He has been on his back in bed for years. The slightest

exercise exhausts

> him. He is fed through tubes. Determined to attend his high school

graduation,

> he's taken there by ambulance and wheeled in on a gurney. Few of his

> classmates had come to see him imprisoned in his bedroom; one says " you

get better--and

> we'll talk! " They give him a quilt they have all contributed patches to.

Just

> what a high school kid wants for his graduation.

> By the end of filming, is still suffering, and indeed less than 20

> percent of CFS sufferers get better, Snyder says. The disease strikes as

many

> women as HIV. There has been recent progress. J. Suhadolnik, a

biochemist

> at Temple University, has identified a blood enzyme that acts as a marker

of

> CFS, after many doctors claimed it had no physical symptoms. A whistle

blower

> at the Centers for Disease Control has revealed to government accountants

that

> $13 million was illegally diverted from CFS study to other diseases. Yet

TV

> comics still joke about the disease as a form of laziness. Ironic, isn't

it,

> that Kim Snyder wasn't too lazy to make this film--while the CDC and the

medical

> establishment are only now stirring into action.

> Note: For more on Paganetti's story, visit

> www.cfids-me.org/cfscc/bass0498.html

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Mort,

I'm not sure how you concluded this:

<<As for Paganetti, the high school senior totally bedridden with

CFS, the film shows a truly sad story about him, but is easy to see that

his father does not believe in CFS and thinks that his son is a mental case.>>

I have a copy of the film and watched it again recently, and I thought

's parents were really supportive. I agree with all of your other

criticisms

of the film though. I found it pretty frustrating overall. It seems like

the kind of film a not-so-sick CFIDS patient would make -- one that portrays

someone like as the exception (very very ill) and the recovered Florida

women as the rule (though they never definitively had CFIDS, for the record --

the filmmaker simply concludes they did by going over old medical records of a

cluster outbreak of a mysterious illness back then, which they called " The

Thing " ). Snyder is also traveling all over creation in the film, something

80-90 percent of CFIDS patients couldn't do, even the ones who are pretty high

functioning. There are so many other patients like out there, of all

ages, with very dramatic stories. I don't know why so many moderately ill

and/or

recovered patients were shown, and there was almost no representation of those

of us who are closer to 's level.

I did think some of the doctor comments in the film -- esp. those by Klimas

and and Bell -- were great.

It kind of makes you wonder though -- if Ebert was so moved by THIS

film to believe in CFIDS, how would he (or anyone) react if a film portrayed the

TRUE gravity of CFIDS patients' disability?

I think just about everything in CFIDS literature and research is biased

toward the not-so-sick patients, as those are the ones with the ability to get

out

there and be seen. It drives me crazy.

Peggy

http://www.angelfire.com/ri/strickenbk

[Guest guest]

" I Remember Me " was forgettable, I agree...was it a total waste of

film? Was it a carefully concocted smear? How good was the scientific

research? Was it incompetent filmmaking, incomplete investigation or

purposeful misinformation? Did the makers want a tear jerker or a

Bill Moyers investigative piece?

For what it is it was OK. The movie does give CFS a face and some

depth and background. Having no movie about our plight is worse.

Putting a face on the degree of suffering is important PR.

My issues with it depend upon whether or not you've read or talked to

W. , author or the Busculosis Triangle and the

Unfortunate Scull Valley Incident among others. I have spent over 2

hours in conversation with this man and he is very credible. His work

is unchallenged by facts only by name calling and finger pointing and

through guilt by crackpot association!

The CFS Punta Gorda outbreak issue was covered in the movie in

detail. The two misinformation/disinformation aspects with the

movie's account have to do with what is was really a biological

weapons test via infected Mosquitos dumped on the residents of Punta

Gorda. 's research backing this claim is convincing. The other

is the CFS history issue.

Many attempts to give CFS a history, are misguided. Making the

condition sound like its been happening all along and we just didn't

know about are really just ways to water down the truth of the recent

outbreaks and their source(s).

From a treatment standpoint, which is what this group is all about,

this information is priceless. When we all finally agree that

biological weapons do exist, when we agree that our government has

them, and when we all finally admit that we've used them, then we; as

the patient community can begin asking our government for the " keys

to the back door. " Because someone somewhere knows what those key

are...no biological weapons maker would make something that cannot be

cured. Or would they?

Many thanks for the remembrance of Kim Snyder's 2001 movie " I Remember Me " .

I remember " I Remember Me " very well, and remember very well my great

expectations of this movie, along with my remembrance of the substantial

amount of money I remember that contributed to its final production. I also

remember my disappointment in the weakness of this film, and remember

kicking myself in the butt that I contributed to it without first seeing it.

It is a cute little film, but falls far short of telling the full and tragic

story of CFS.

As for Paganetti, the high school senior totally bedridden with

CFS, the film shows a truly sad story about him, but is easy to see that

his father does not believe in CFS and thinks that his son is a mental case.

Has anyone on any Internet CFS discussion group heard anything about

? Are his entire family, and all his friends computer illiterate?

should by now be a major poster boy for CFS, via Kim Snyder and the

CAA.

I Remember Me shows three or four Florida women who seem to have fully

recovered from CFS, and are leading full and happy later middle-aged lives.

Baloney. Most CFS victims their age are now barely able to move, or dead.

These three women in the film were just too energetic to be true CFS

victims.

They must have been mis-diagnosed.

I wish I could yuk it up as well as they did for the movie. No brain fog

with

them!

My financial contribution to " I Remember Me " was via the CFIDS Association

of America, who pledged that they were going to get it shown on lots of PBS

TV stations. Maybe it was, but no schedule of this was sent to CAA members,

and none of my family nor scores of my PBS-watching friends reported it to

me. I ain't heard nothing about this film since its 2001 release, which

did get a lot of nice reviews from film

critics, such as Ebert, below. But does not have CFS, so could

not truly judge the worth of this film.

But where is " I Remember Me " now?

" I Long Ago Forgot I Remember Me " , it seems. When I gave my money for IRM's

completion, and spent months sending supporting msgs to all the CFS Internet

groups

about it, and begging their members to contribute, I thought it would be

used for years

and years as a major educational film about CFS..

Sucker..

Mort Caldwell, PE

Age 63, Biomedical Engineer. BSEE and MS in Physiology

CFS since July 16, 1994. Rapid Onset.

A rather dynamic person before CFS hit me, but now functioning at about 20%,

as compared to colleagues my age who do not have CFS.

" I remember me " movie review

>

>

><http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/2001/12/120702.html>http://www.sun\

times.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/2001/12/120702.html

> I REMEMBER ME

> *** (Not rated)

> December 7, 2001

> Featuring: Kim A. Snyder, Akers, Blake and

> Paganetti. A documentary written and directed by Kim A. Snyder. No MPAA

rating

> (unobjectionable for all). Running time: 74 minutes.

> BY ROGER EBERT

> I now believe in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I was one of many who somehow

> absorbed the notion that it was an imaginary illness. I am ashamed of

myself. At

> the Hamptons Film Festival, I met Kim A. Snyder, who was working as an

> assistant producer on a Jodie film when she contracted CFS in 1995.

For the

> last five years, while still battling the disease, she directed " I

Remember Me, "

> a documentary which does what the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta

> shamefully failed to do: connects the dots.

> Snyder begins in Lake Tahoe, where the disease struck hundreds of people.

She

> talks to Dr. L. , who first started treating CFS patients

> there in 1984, has had seven who committed suicide because of the disease,

and has

> no doubt it is real. She also talks to a spokesperson for the nearby

Incline

> Village Visitors' Bureau, who says CFS is promoted by " quack doctors and

> mostly overweight women. " This person succeeds in becoming the living

embodiment of

> the real estate brokers in " Jaws, " who don't want anyone to believe

there's a

> shark.

> Yes, Dr. sen sighs, investigators from the CDC in Atlanta looked into

> the Lake Tahoe outbreak: " They came out here and skied and looked at a few

> charts. " The conclusion was that Chronic Fatigue Syndrome was

psychosomatic, or

> hysterical, or misdiagnosed. We are reminded that until the 1950s,

multiple

> sclerosis was also considered a hysterical condition.

> Snyder is an investigative journalist who does her own detective work. She

> identifies many earlier outbreaks with the same symptoms as CFS and goes

to

> Punta Gorda, Fla., to visit five women who had the disease 40 years ago.

> Investigators visiting their community at the time concluded it was a real

disease and

> not an imaginary condition, and said so in a report--which the women never

> saw. Snyder shows one woman the report on camera. She expresses her anger;

this

> report would have informed her she was not, as many assured her, going

crazy.

> Snyder interviews two famous CFS sufferers: the film director Blake

,

> who has continued to work during remissions in a 15-year struggle with the

> disease, and the Olympic gold medalist soccer player Akers, who

walked

> off a field one day and collapsed. But Snyder's most touching the

depressing

> visit is to the bedside of Paganetti, a high school senior in

> Connecticut. He has been on his back in bed for years. The slightest

exercise exhausts

> him. He is fed through tubes. Determined to attend his high school

graduation,

> he's taken there by ambulance and wheeled in on a gurney. Few of his

> classmates had come to see him imprisoned in his bedroom; one says " you

get better--and

> we'll talk! " They give him a quilt they have all contributed patches to.

Just

> what a high school kid wants for his graduation.

> By the end of filming, is still suffering, and indeed less than 20

> percent of CFS sufferers get better, Snyder says. The disease strikes as

many

> women as HIV. There has been recent progress. J. Suhadolnik, a

biochemist

> at Temple University, has identified a blood enzyme that acts as a marker

of

> CFS, after many doctors claimed it had no physical symptoms. A whistle

blower

> at the Centers for Disease Control has revealed to government accountants

that

> $13 million was illegally diverted from CFS study to other diseases. Yet

TV

> comics still joke about the disease as a form of laziness. Ironic, isn't

it,

> that Kim Snyder wasn't too lazy to make this film--while the CDC and the

medical

> establishment are only now stirring into action.

> Note: For more on Paganetti's story, visit

> www.cfids-me.org/cfscc/bass0498.html

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

I was just thinking about this.

I really don't " remember me " anymore. My memories of the person I

was before this happened are disconnected as if from a movie of

someone elses life.

I clearly remember telling Dr Cheney what carnage there will be if

this horrific illness spreads around the world as easily as it did in

Incline and being extremely concerned about my responsibility for

spreading it. I was a patient of Dr Cheneys in 1984 before he knew

about this mess so for all I knew, I was the person who brought it to

Incline.

I remember that my concern for my fellow humans was at the very top

of my priority list.

But after the way CFSers have been treated, I see the spread of this

illness as only fitting.

Perhaps if enough people get their lives totally slam dunked by this

illness it will be a lesson that humans very badly need to be taught.

To start acting as if they possess humanity.

-

[Guest guest]

,

The past and present of your life are well worth living. Thanks for

all you do.

" If I can stop one Heart from breaking

I shall not live in vain

If I can ease one life the Aching

Or cool one Pain

Or help one fainting Robin (or kitty)

Unto his Nest again

I shall not live in Vain. "

Dickinson

> I was just thinking about this.

> I really don't " remember me " anymore. My memories of the person I

> was before this happened are disconnected as if from a movie of

> someone elses life.

> I clearly remember telling Dr Cheney what carnage there will be if

> this horrific illness spreads around the world as easily as it did

in

> Incline and being extremely concerned about my responsibility for

> spreading it. I was a patient of Dr Cheneys in 1984 before he knew

> about this mess so for all I knew, I was the person who brought it

to

> Incline.

> I remember that my concern for my fellow humans was at the very

top

> of my priority list.

> But after the way CFSers have been treated, I see the spread of

this

> illness as only fitting.

> Perhaps if enough people get their lives totally slam dunked by

this

> illness it will be a lesson that humans very badly need to be

taught.

> To start acting as if they possess humanity.

> -

[Guest guest]

>My issues with it depend upon whether or not you've read or talked to

> W. , author or the Busculosis Triangle and the

>Unfortunate Scull Valley Incident among others. I have spent over 2

>hours in conversation with this man and he is very credible. His work

>is unchallenged by facts only by name calling and finger pointing and

>through guilt by crackpot association!

Don lost a bit of credibility with me after his distorted

description of the " suspicious modifications to the HVAC at Truckee

High School " as a posssible means of dispersing some biological agent

through the school.

The modifications were done because the south side of the school was

unbearably hot during the summer months and the cooling system had to

be modified to treat those rooms separately. The reason the windows

were bolted shut is because some fool would always try to open them

even though it was blazing hot outside. First tried metal louvers

were tried to shield the windows before they resorted to customizing

the air conditioning system.

The biology classroom was on the south side in the " hot zone " and I

don't think my old biology teacher, Mr Santa, would have taken

kindly to being a test subject for any experiments.

-