What was with the second half of November? A good 80% of my friends are going through a whole mess of awful, ranging from break-ups to burglaries to deaths in the family, and it all seemed to happen in one fell swoop over the last two weeks. Very weird.

I've got my fingers crossed that December will bring a fresh clean start for everybody and turn things right around. In the meantime though, for that last round of moping on the couch, I'd like to prescribe my favorite movie of all time: What About Bob? (1991), starring Bill Murray as the hilariously neurotic Bob Wiley, who "terrorizes" his psychiatrist, Dr. Leo Marvin (played by Richard Dreyfuss) while on vacation.

OK, I've gotten a lot of slack for my longtime devotion to this movie, but I always pull out my worn VHS copy whenever I am sick or depressed, and it never fails to cheer me up. Bill Murray's portrayal of the anxiously well-meaning yet lonely Bob who is lovingly taken in by everyone in the Marvin family except for Leo, who Bob slowly drives insane, is nothing short of genius. It starts out innocently enough, as you can see here in Bob's initial consultation with Dr. Marvin.



After Dr. Marvin leaves town to take his family on vacation is when things really get ridiculous (and so good). It was difficult to track down clips online, but here is a sampling of some of the silliness at the lake house.





I know Murray's gotten a lot of praise for his more recent roles, but I still stand by this 1991 flick as his most genius role ever. What About Bob? honestly never fails to lift my spirits when I'm feeling down. Just as Dr. Marvin prescribes for Bob, the movie really does act as a little "vacation from your problems" -- always a good thing when the world's not going your way. And -- I just checked -- the DVD is going for under 4 bucks on Amazon!