Depressing Shit To Avoid, Part 13

I recommend you see part 1 of my Depressing Shit series and read my original disclaimer here; now here's installment 13.

I'm only telling you about these things for your own good. Unless you have the problem of too much happiness and too little awareness of bad things, AVOID! AVOID!
 

Movies:

About Schmidt
(my man G says it's depressing; I haven't seen)

Ararat
(haven't seen, don't wanna)

Maybe:
Beasts of No Nation
(think I might actually break my own rules and watch this one, 'cause, you know, Idris Elba. Has he ever been in anything bad?)

Blackfish (have I said that one already?)

Bunny Game (Thanks to Bobby Wilks for tipping me off to this.)

Maybe?:
Harry and Tonto (mixed  reports from Netflix reviewers)

The Road
from http://www.slashfilm.com/films-leaving-netflix-november-2015:
"John Hillcoat‘s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy‘s pitch-dark novel is one of the most miserable movies ever made, but it’s wholly intentional. By stripping the inherent romance, adventure and excitement out of the post-apocalypse, this film showcases a world dying with a whimper. The whole thing is essentially plotless, following Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee as an unnamed father and son duo on a episodic quest through a dead world, which means it can drag. Some sequences are better than others. But when The Road connects, it really connects. This is the best movie to watch if you’re ever having too good of a day."
[sounds like the book's no fun, neither]

Another Maybe, for some people:
Snowtown Murders (Definitely disturbing and would probably depress a lot of people, though, surprisingly, it didn't really depress me. I guess I'm too fascinated by the dead-on filmmaking and the eery crime-y-ness of it all.)

Una Noche (didn't watch, as I was warned that it was depressing by reviews on Netflix)

Books:

The Tears of Olive Trees (autobiographical, about Palestine. Yeesh.) 


More depressing stuff: Read Part 2 here.
And here's Part 3.
And Part 4! Are you depressed yet?!
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12 


As always, I welcome your suggestions for More Depressing Shit. Please comment, and I'll include any good suggestions in a future update.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Civil War Two, Part 1

by Randall Collins

Giveaway ends May 24, 2018.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Depressing Shit, Part 12

I recommend you see part 1 of my Depressing Shit series and read my original disclaimer here; now here's installment 12.

I'm only telling you about these things for your own good. Unless you have the problem of too much happiness and too little awareness of bad things, AVOID! AVOID!
 

Essaying to watch War Witch on Netflix and not sure if I should go on. Seems very... educational, in a massively bummer-causing way.

And it reminded me-- time for another installment of Depressing Shit(TM)!

Movies:

◦Little Moth (haven't seen, don't want to)
◦Petits Frères (haven't seen, don't want to, can you guess why?)
◦War Witch (not a spoiler: young girl is forced by guerrilla soldiers to kill her parents in the first 5 minutes. Child soldiers. Had enough yet?)
◦Welcome to Me (Kristen Wiig quasi-comedy that wastes the talents of Jennifer Jason Leigh, Joan Cusack, & many others. Supposedly about Borderline Personality Disorder, but didn't show any of the scary violence that is often associated with it, though this doesn't mean it's fun, either. "Kooky," but overall a bummer.)

TV:

◦Spiral (French title: Engrenages) (another pit of joy I tried to watch because it was expiring on Netflix and they told me I'd like it; can't say it's bad, but wish I hadn't watched it. There are better ways to learn French.)


More depressing stuff: Read Part 2 here.
And here's Part 3.
And Part 4! Are you depressed yet?!
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11

As always, I welcome your suggestions for More Depressing Shit. Please comment, and I'll include any good suggestions in a future update.

What would Steve Jobs or Napoleon say about Amazon's workplace culture?

Our new book is called Napoleon Never Slept: How Great Leaders Leverage Social Energy, and has to do with the fact that great leaders get to be successful at least partly because they have so much energy. Did Napoleon really not sleep? Evidently, not much. Does this mean workers shouldn't sleep, and work night and day like Amazon employees reportedly do? Not exactly.
   Our big thesis is about how great leaders, including Napoleon, Steve Jobs, Alexander the Great, and others, are energetic people (many of whom, like Napoleon, happen to sleep considerably less than 8 hours a night) who energize the people they lead, and are in turn further energized by own successes and by the energy shared by the people they lead. So no, sleeping less in and of itself isn't the secret to great success, either individually or as an organization.
   But seriously, folks, read the book. Not just because we want you to buy it, but because our thesis can't be neatly or fully conveyed in a soundbite or even in a single blog post. This is real social science, though it makes for not a very long book, and we tried to make it easy enough for the layperson who doesn't like jargon, without talking down to anyone. Suitable for pro scholars and non- alike.

UPDATE, 9/4/15
   You can buy a pretty, soothing-to-the-eyes PDF at the Maren Ink site for about $14, or a nice new Kindle edition on Amazon for nearly $40. More formats and outlets may be available eventually, depending on demand.

Cartoon credit: Rob Rogers, August 22, 2015, http://www.dailyfunnies.us

Shit that's (probably) depressing, Part 9

I recommend you see part 1 of my Depressing Shit series and read my original disclaimer here; now here's installment 9.
 

Movies:
Everlasting Moments
Gonin(1)

How to Die in Oregon (I'm told)
12 Years A Slave (A friend told me this is GREAT and VERY DEPRESSING. I think I'll skip it because my psyche is fragile.)
Wendy and Lucy (haven't seen it, but LOOKS hecka depressing)
...and a guy @ Whole Foods said he thought Young Adult was a bummer, though I enjoyed it and it didn't affect me negatively. But I guess I can see how it might, for some.

Books:

The Beautiful and Damned
A CHILD OF A CRACKHEAD II (#1 was fine, I'm sure, but II...)

DEFINITELY Depressing song:
"Is That All There Is?"  I mean, GEEZ. Save a little depressing for something else, why don't you.

I have to go lie down now.

More depressing stuff: Read Part 2 here.
And here's Part 3.
And Part 4! Are you depressed yet?!
Part 5.
Part 6.
Part 7.
Part 8.

And as always, I welcome your suggestions for More Depressing Shit. Do comment, and I'll include any good suggestions in a future update.

"How do you get motivated to run?"

I recently watched a video in order to earn some pretend money from the internet, a video called something like "How do you find the motivation to run?" But I already had lots of answers, and maybe some of them can help you or others. (There are others, aren't there?)

 --Go run out in one or more busy streets, preferably where the moving vehicles are moving.
 --Commit a crime in front of a cop. Go, go! You're getting in shape now!
 --Speaking of violent people, find some violent people who are fast on their feet and work on making them suddenly unhappy.
 --Get some people really angry at you, maybe by taking something of theirs... while they're watching, of course.

This is too easy. Maybe people should pay me extra money to come up with these useful tips for life. I take cash, direct deposit, and even fakey internet "bucks."

Depressing Shit: part of an ongoing series (though not too ongoing, Allah willing)

   This is an installment of an ongoing list I've been keeping for several years, and now I feel the need to share. I am only including things like movies, books, TV shows, and songs on here-- if I included actual events and phenomena from reality, this list would never end and I'd never stop thinking about depressing shit. Unavoidably, some of the items on this list touch on depressing stuff from reality, and that's part of what makes them so depressing. I am also not devaluing the quality of any of these artifacts; many of them are quite good, even great: touching, well-made, intelligent, and so on; but nonetheless, they bum me out. I'm sure it's at least partly because of the high quality that they depress me so.
   And these choices are all subjective, of course. If any of these things happen to not depress you, maybe you're just having a less depressing life than I (wink, wink). Lucky you! Also, some of the items on this list were suggested by friends (Thanks, Larry!).
   I've alphabetized the items in each sub-list. If I tried to rank them some other way, that would depress me further.
   Maybe this list will help you avoid some things that could depress you, too. Or maybe not. Enjoy.

Some depressing movies:

◦Bordertown
◦Darwin's Nightmare [didn't even see this, but just reading a review put me in a tailspin.]
◦Edge of Darkness [UK version-- I haven't seen the other]
◦Frozen River [sad, but a great movie-- no need to avoid this one!]
◦Gattaca
◦The Girl Next Door [2007 child abuse flick; my Netflix review: "An honest-to-God nightmare, and I don't mean the quality of the production or anything like that. This purports to be the true story of a mom who tortures young girls and teaches little boys to torture and rape the girls while a bunch of other kids watch. Maybe people who have no clue about the realities of child abuse should see this movie (or even just part of it) to get an understanding of the things people do. Having a mom who worked in juvenile court, I have heard countless stories about real cases of child abuse, so I REALLY didn't need to see this. If you have a shred of conscience, this movie will make you ill. My husband got angry that I picked this movie for us to see. But we both had a little brandy afterwards and now we're going to watch some light comedy, so maybe we can recover someday. You have been warned."]
◦Kids [had to turn it off after the first 5 minutes; was already at a low point in my view of male-female relations, and this just made it worse]
◦Letters from Iwo Jima [didn't make it through the whole thing here, either; made me too sad]
◦Heater [don't actually remember seeing this, but on rereading the Netflix description, figured it was on the list for a reason]
◦Panic in Needle Park [haven't seen this; a friend suggested it for the list]
◦Requiem for a Dream [This damaged me forever; or at least I haven't recovered yet, all these years later]
◦Savage Grace [Julinne Moore drama]
◦A Single Man [didn't see it; a friend warned me it was depressing]
◦Sneakers [maybe more irritating than depressing, but it brought me down one way or another]
◦The Squid and the Whale [great movie and even has some laughs, but still]
◦Tideland [like a nightmare with great production design]
◦A Time for Drunken Horses [my Netlfix review: "This movie is beautiful but VERY upsetting, especially if you have a soft spot for children or animals. After watching this, I'm going to have to stick to light comedies for a while."]
◦Wiseblood
◦The Wrestler

 ---

Some depressing music:

◦Elliott Smith [a friend's suggestion; I personally don't know his music well]
◦Failure [a Larry suggestion; I don't know their stuff, either]
◦The Replacements and/or Paul Westerberg [not all their music, but a lot of it; I nominate "Here Comes a Regular" one of the most depressing songs ever]
◦a lot of 70s and 80s schlock [I'll post some specific examples later]

---

Some depressing TV shows:

◦Cops
◦Hoarders
◦Intervention
◦Nancy Grace
◦Showbiz Tonight [on CNN; the commentary could kill a person or horse]
◦16 and Pregnant/Teen Mom
◦any show about storage units or pawn shops

---

To be continued and added to later! I welcome your suggestions, because I'm always looking to avoid other things that could depress me (instead of actively looking for things to make me more depressed, like I used to)... though I hope we won't find TOO many more depressing things. I hope.

EDIT: I thought of more depressing stuff! Read Part 2 here.