quote:

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Originally posted by stella26:
bambi!

green mile,

saving private ryan,

armageddon,(althought i loved this film you know it just had one of those endings)

matrix reloaded-just completely the wrong sort of ending,

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Is that a dig at me?



***Either lead, follow or get out the way!***

Schindler's List

Disney's Bambi traumatised me as a child so that I won't watch it now as an adult.

May sound silly, but I always shed a tear or two at the end of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, when the Beast "dies".

Most depressing film has to be Dancer in the Dark, closely followed be Before night Falls and Irreversable.

bash

Check out COMBAT SHOCK,pass the razor blade!

quote:

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Originally posted by stella26:
i recently just saw monster and though that was rather dpressing and it struck up quite a conversation between me and my friends on the death penalty.

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Haven't seen that yet, but after watching that documentary on her really wnat to.

The Life of David Gale - Brilliant but v depressing. Tis allabout the death penalty and will deff strike up a few convo's on it. Well worth a watch tho.

xXx

How do you expect me to grow if you won't let me blow?

Everybody, rock your body right....Backstreets back, alright!!!!

The War Zone - I found it very difficult to watch at times.

Schindler's List
Saving Private Ryan
Donnie Darko
MAGNOLIA
The Crow
One Flew Over...
Powder
Born on the 4th of July
Platoon
The People Vs Larry Flynt
The Deerhunter
A.I.
The Elephant Man - makes me boo my eyes out
Last of the Mohicans

and lots of others can't remember

21 Grams and Mike Leigh's All Or Nothing, had to watch an Ealing comedy after both, great films, but total downers.

Requiem for A Dream
my brother tom

Dancer in the Dark I have watched in once and will never ever watch it again! It is the saddest thing in the world

Actually I reckon it is more traumatising than sad.....

My most depressing cinematic experience was sitting through the remake of The Time Machine! It was such an awful adaptation I had my head in my hands for most of it. It took everything I loved about the book and did a big dump over it all.

But in terms of story I'd say probably Life is Beautiful, despite its inaccuracies.

i agree with life is beautiful. that's probably the film i've cried the most in. i cried at the beginning of shrek 2 but that was not because of the film. hmmmmmm.
the son's room is also quite sad but uplifting too. and there is a fabby brian eno song at the end which makes it all better.

Faranheit 9/11

Let me explain why. For a start, good points made, I totally agree with the man, Bush has to go and is as dodgy as feck. But I think Moore stretched his rants out a little long. The film could have been half as long and made a bigger impact. While it was interesting and shocking to see and hear about the connections to the Saudis, it was trying and testing to spend a quarter of an hour listening to different American soldier boys say they like to listen to heavy metal as they shoot and kill.

I'll say it again, Michael Moore is essential, he is a great author and Bowling for Columbine was brilliant as well as moving, but having read Dude Where's my Country, I didn't think i really needed to sit through 80 minutes of personal attacks and conjuncture.

Look I hate Bush I wish Kerry the best of luck but if we are being honest there is no way Kerry will win and its depressing. Come on Michael Moore, become essential again please.

I thought Elephant Man was amazing - did bawl myself stupid though. Poor soul!

Having said that though, I sat through Far and Away [how many days did that one go on?] and was seriously depressed about the time I'd wasted on it.

theyre are a great many depressing films, but not all of them are any good! i think Platoon is depressing in a good "futility of war" kind of way and 21 grams is depressing aswell, but great

Definately The War Zone, found it excruciating to watch, but couldn't not watch it either, spent the next few days wondering 'round in a daze. Actually i'm reading the book at the moment which is, surprise surprise, much better than the film, which also means it's even more depressing and riveting, and hard to read in fact.
My other choice would be One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, which is heart-breakingly sad, especially Brad Dourif's character Billy.

Death in Venice - dire

Cuckoos Nest is superb!

Requiem for a Dream. The ever downwards spiral of abusing drugs be they pills,heroin or hash. (long term abuse of cannabis is said to cause severe mental health problems including paranoia & psychotic episodes).

S&D- you're down on drugs discussing RFAD- fact is that film (& book) focuses on an un-named addictive drug & juxtaposes that with so-called legal-drugs (the diet pills the mother takes). Not sure where cannabis, or the relatively minor problem of cannabis-psychosis comes in to it. Remember, alcohol creates far more problems in terms of addiction & violence. I think the point of RFAD is that of ambition- Leto's character just wants to make enough money to go off to Florida, his mother wants to reach her target weight, Leto& Connelly want to open a cafe etc. Ambition & desire combine with drugs & a downward spiral follows. You might also see RFAD as showing a system, people beneath those entitled in US-society who exist in ghetto-life (no coincidence that the book came out in the late 70s, mirroring the urban-misery captured by singers like Curtis Mayfield & Gil Scott Heron). I've taken most things & have qualifications etc- I have 'abused' cannabis et al since 1990- so let's not be so pious about rockin' the ganj?

I go along with Wise. Alcohol is a far more dangerous and addictive drug than cannabis and it's legal. And the whole issue of prohibition clearly doesnt and never has worked hence the massive drug problem in this country engineered by a so-called anti-drug state which instead of solving the problem exacerbates it by creating the conditions for a criminal underworld to exploit the drugs black market and produce drugs of variable quality,which in some cases, can be lethal.

Balls, all drugs give mental-illness? What, like the ones doctor's prescribe? Do sober-people never lose self control? People who consume alcohol? Do sober-people, or drunks make decisions? George W. Bush is a sober person and his decisions suck. Do people who never take drugs never get mental illnesses? That, I'm sure, will be news to many...

I'm aware the intellectual-debate is a bit lacking across some of these forums, but the level of debate here is depressing.

There is no epidemic of cannabis-related psychosis- which some give the impression there is. There IS and HAS BEEN long-term problems in this country relating to a legal-drug: ALCOHOL. Go and see some people you know in cities and towns across the country: drunk & disorderly arrests, vandalism, violence (domestic violence frequently hand in hand with alcohol)- take a look at casualty-wards & note the instances of alcohol-related injuries/trauma. Go & meet someone in their 30s who's had cyrosis of the liver, or other renal-dysfunction as a result of alcohol-abuse. Recall that alcohol-sales were down in the early 90s as a result of the ecstasy-culture/rave scene- the alcohol-companies came up with alco-pops! & then there has been the glut of reports that have revealed that many people have had sex where perhaps they shouldn't have, as they were under the influence of booze (a far greater problem that date-rape-drugs). STDs and unwanted pregnancies often an indirect result of alcohol-consumption- so I'd point out that a perfectly legal-drug (alcohol) is a far greater problem than drugs (which is a psuedo-war the UK have copied from the US). As J-99 notes, certain drugs are illegal (to a degree- there is a classification)- as a result they exist in the black-economy. Perhaps legalisation would destroy this black-economy- & bring in huge-revenue equal to or greater than that which companies & government make from arms-sales, cigarettes, & alcohol- which are three-things that seem morally-dubious to profit from?

It's nice to see such intellectual descriptions of mental illness, "I know someone on Cannabis who is a pyscho [sic] & is out of control." What a sensitive diagnosis! Still, not as if anyone who's ever got pissed-up has ever got out of control, is it?

RFAD is depressing- so what, if you want happy or idiotic, watch Crap Actually or Legally Blonde. It's an interesting film as it juxtaposes certain people from class/racial background against the drug-trade/black-economy (both of which associated with another illegal trade: prostitution)& then contrasts that with a woman who is initially addicted to junk-food & then to a diet-pill (a legal drug). I can assure you that people who are alcoholics destroy themselves- I work in social-housing & an alcoholic-tenant killed herself after setting her house on fire (for the 5th time). She got 50% burns & died a week or so later in agony- "a pyscho &...out of control"?

& let's note that people with diseases such as MS and cancer have found that cannabis helps where legal-analgesics do not. Do people feel so extreme towards paracetemol, aspirin, solphedeine, codeine, morphine, valium, prozac & the array of legal-drugs you can get perfectly legally? More people consume alcohol, so I'd say that is "far more dangerous" than the pseudo-bugaboo that is drugs.

"The drugs don't work" (nice someone quoting a band who were drug-addled to the max!- on an LSD, dope & William Blake-trip!)- well anything has problems (the Atkins diet, prescription-medication, coca-cola, mcdonalds, cigarettes...throw a rock in the air & you'll find something that is bad for you and/or addictive), but I'd direct you to Bill Hicks, who pointed out that a lot of great art was created because of drugs. Here's a know-all/pretentious list of art/artists who consumed drugs- I'd recommend the book Artificial Paradises by Mike Jay (ed, 1999, Penguin) on this theme:

The poetry of William Blake
Confessions of an Opium-Eater
The Beatles & The Stones (from 1965 onwards, yes that means no Revolver, Sgt Pepper, I am the Walrus etc! Likewise, could you imagine Keef minus chemicals?)
Peak-Dylan (the electric period to The Basement Tapes)
The Stooges
David Bowie (Ziggy to Scary Monsters)
William Burroughs (Naked Lunch, The Soft Machine, Junky etc)
Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting)
Van Gogh (absinthe...)
Oscar Wilde
Hunter S Thompson
Pink Floyd
The Velvet Underground/Lou Reed
Jerry Lee Lewis
Little Richard
Elvis (though he favoured legal-drygs prescribed by the parasites who he employed)
The Band
Miles Davis
Sly & the Family Stone
Aldous Huxley (The Doors of Perception/Heaven & Hell)
Sartre (mescaline!)
Soft Cell in the 80s (ecstasy key here)
New Order (ditto- Blue Monday, Confusion etc as a result of ecstasy in NY- a substance that was only made illegal in the States in 1985. A substance that is related to the legal-drug Sudafed)
Taxi Driver (Scorsese had problems 'till a breakdown during Raging Bull)
Guns'N'Roses/Oasis (their debut LPs were great & made amid a hail of chemicals)
Robert Altman (likes a toke...)
Queens of the Stone Age
Human Traffic (I think it sucks, but lots of people liked it!)
The Prodigy
U2 (when they were interesting- Achtung Baby! to Passengers)
The Stone Roses/Happy Mondays/Madchester
The Punk scene (propelled by alcohol & amphetamines)
Gram Parsons
The Byrds
Neil Young
Suede
Depeche Mode
Primal Scream
The Orb
Easy Rider
From Hell (the graphic novel, rather than the film)
The Invisibles (without Grant Morrison caning the acid you wouldn't have got to The Matrix!)
The works of Philip K Dick (Ubik, A Scanner Darkly- an excellent anti-drugs novel from a grey, rather than black & white area, Do Androids. etc)
Natural Born Killers/Scarface (Oliver Stone with mushrooms & after cocaine-addiction)
Drugstore Cowboy
Johnny Cash (pills & substances both legal/illegal)
...you know, this list could go on and on- so clearly "drugs" are great for culture! Drugs have negative-qualities, sure, but let's get over the black&white/hypocritical hysteria. Have a look at the things you like & wonder if they're connected to drugs- if not, stop being so conservative & pious.

There are reasons why people want to escape- whether booze, drugs, or food- which is another message of RFAD & the works of its writer Hubert Selby Jr. I'd address those issues before merely pointing to drugs, I mean, would you prohibit certain foods due to obesity?

I hardly ever take drugs- I have taken most things & manage to hold down jobs, gain qualifications, & other forms of citizenry-function. I found smoking much harder to give up than the nasty-drugs you folks gripe-about. The one great thing about drugs is the ability it gives you to transcend previously held philosophies. It's an accelerator, it aids the mental-evolution of the human-species (as the above list demonstrates)- perhaps if you're straight-edge you can win this argument, but I severely doubt that. On the whole, I'd say "Just say Yes"- drugs clearly work, why would people have taken them for centuries if that's not the case?????

pinkerton- "get a brain you moron"- excellent level of debate!



- would people who like any of the above list be happy that it didn't exist, as the artist avoided drugs? "Take out your record-collection & destroy it..."

Prat. Nobody said ALL drugs,nobody said ALL mental illnesses were caused by drug abuse,nor that prescribed drugs were wrong. Cant you read??? You aint even worth arguing with you are so obviously pro-drugs. Sad..[/QUOTE]

carmel- didn't you say above "Drugs are shitty, don't tkae [sic] any..."- sounds to me like you're lumping all drugs together, if not, please be specific. "...you will get mental illness in the long-run"- any evidence for that? So after taking "Drugs...[non-specific]...you will get mental illness"? That's what you're saying! See, I can read! (my first-class degree in English kinda proves that- I managed to pass, despite having take drugs from time to time in the years before!!!).

I hardly ever take drugs- a weekend in August I had a smoke. Then a year or so before that- so I'm hardly "pro-drugs" sitting sucking on a crack-pipe. I just think your stance is a bit simplistic and hysterical. Many people who hold down jobs & create consume these illegal drugs- while people with ailments gain relief from a drug like cannabis. Why physical-pain is less important than mental illness is beyond me...

Are you not even worth arguing with as you're so obviously anti-drugs? Closed minds are depressing...

Sad? Hey Carmel you can't get any sadder than your sig or BB5.