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.

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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.

Sounds like a bummer (Depressing shit, Part 4 in a series)

I recommend you see Part 1 and read my original disclaimer here; now here's installment 4:

Haven't seen these movies, don't think I want to:
An American Crime
Biutiful
Burma VJ
Precious
The Sea Inside/The Dancer Upstairs (Am I confused? All these depressing-sounding Javier Bardem flicks run together for me...)
The Second Circle

The Unloved (more child abuse!)
The Walker

song (definitely depressing):
"Is That All There Is?"

And here's Part 2 of the series, in case you missed it...
And Part 3.


More coming sooner or later! Please comment if you have anything to add. I am always looking for more depressing shit to avoid.


 

even more depressing shit (Part 3 of our series)

I recommend you see Part 1 and read my original disclaimer here (if you haven't already); now here's installment 3: 

Movies:
A.I.
Capturing the Friedmans
Project Nim (haven't seen this, don't want to ever see it, I don't need to be more depressed.)
Yesterday (having to do with AIDS)

And some of my GOING COMMANDO! co-host Mae Aswell's depressing movie suggestions:
House of Sand and Fog
Midnight Cowboy
Mystic River

song: "All By Myself" (also Mae's suggestion)

...and a few other things that depress me, outside of the categories above: 
-the guitar wankers at Guitar Center
-most comments on Youtube videos (and on most other mass-viewed web sites)
-the Disneyland monorail, especially the part where you see the parking lot


And here's a bonus-- a link to the original posting of our GOING COMMANDO! podcast episode in which Mae Aswell and I do a lot of expounding on cultural consumables that depress us:

5-4-11 GOING COMMANDO! with MAE ASWELL & MAREN McC...
(At least I think that's the right episode. If not, I'll have to relisten to some episodes to figure it out, and that SHOULDN'T be depressing!  I'm pretty sure the subject comes up on more than one episode, knowing me.)

And here's Part 2 of the series, in case you missed it.

More coming sooner or later! Please comment if you have anything to add.

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.