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[swoon]

In what way? Thought it summed up addiction brilliantly.

it has the most extreme results of the addictions. and also the most obvious (and racist) results. if you become addicted you'll lose your arm, steal from your mom, have butt sex for a black pimp etc. it's all really obvious and hamfisted and tries to pass it off as this great moral tale. and it's just not. it's not what addiction about, the quiet anxiety and the private suffering that great tales of addiction that even pop movies like Ray capature with ease.

 

[demon]

ASSS TO ASSSSSS!

 

[Crazymoogle]

Not really in the same "depressing" league as the other films mentioned, but this film is great if you want to stun the audience (I really, really can't elaborate without ruining it for you). :lol

 

[Ninja Scooter]

ASSS TO ASSSSSS!

Word. Ass to ass automatically makes it one of the best movies of all times.

 

[White Man]

I personally find Requiem for a Dream to be the only other movie aside from this to capture bizarre, gray, existential depression. They're the sort of films that leave you feeling awful at the end, although you have no reason why, exactly.

 

[sans_pants]

yeah requiem is one of my favorite movies, so is taxi driver

my friends couldnt watch all of taxi driver they thought it was too boring

 

[8bit]

Not particularly depressing, but highly cringeworthy.

I hated π, I have no desire to see Requiem for a Dream, and I'm glad he isn't doing Batman.

 

[GDGF]

I loved this movie. Most of my 'addict' friends couldn't watch it a second time, but I just loved it, even when I was going through my drug phase.

 

[GDGF]

Not really in the same "depressing" league as the other films mentioned, but this film is great if you want to stun the audience (I really, really can't elaborate without ruining it for you). :lol

Now The Shape of Things really pissed me the fuck off. Violent reaction (coming from an artist)

 

[ballhog]

I thought for sure this was going to be about The Doom Generation, which really sucks.

 

[madara]

Now I'm not talking normal "bad" (as in a horribly acted, low budget piece of crap with a stroy line written by an old TNT tv movie director type bad). I'm talking bad as in the feeling I had while/after watching this movie. It was/is the most horrible feeling I've ever felt EVER felt without something sucky actually happening to me for real. I feel dirty after watching this shit. I feel like life is worthless and I should just go kill myself. I need to go play Super Mario Sunshine or some shit to shake this feeling. Anyway, just a warning for any of you fortunate enough to miss out on this movie so far. STAY AWAY FROM:

Do people actually LIKE watching this type of movie? I mean, yeah it's very well done but fuck I hated it!! =_(

Agreed. Other then day I spent attempting to watch lastest version of Chainsaw massacre and cabin fever, watching requiem was worst experience on tv I ever had. I think we are in bleak hopeless pointless faze. Cant wait until we out of it.

 

[darscot]

Man some of you guys need to lighten up. It's a movie, it's entertainment. Yes it's dark, but it's meant to make you think and feel. There are parts of it that are funny. I know there are other guys here that laughed when that dirty old bugger says "Ass to Ass". There is a clone of that same dirty old man in every peeler bar I've ever been to and he's funny as hell.

 

[Drinky Crow]

Try "The House of Sand and Fog" for a quick pick-me-up! I normally dig downer films -- loved Requiem for a Dream -- but HoSaF was just gut-wrenchingly BRUTAL in its maudlin manipulation. Jennifer Connelly: so hot; so sad.

MAF aptly described the message of that movie as "don't EVER forget to fucking check your mail."

 

[Iceman]

MAF aptly described the message of that movie as "don't EVER forget to fucking check your mail."

roofles, that's right. That's how that whole disaster began. Such a stupid way to ruin your life.. but you know what? I still ignore my mail.

Bills, ads, bills, ads, foreclosure, bills, ads, car repossessed, ads, ads, bills...

 

[Crazymoogle]

Now The Shape of Things really pissed me the fuck off. Violent reaction (coming from an artist)

:lol :lol Yeah, it's nearly impossible not to

Spoiler

hate Rachel Weisz

after that movie.

 

[dammitmattt]

How did Sideways leave anyone feeling depressed?

Also, here are some other movies that leave you feeling depressed at the end:

Arlington Road
American History X
Hotel Rwanda

and there was a certain Oscar-winning movie this year...

 

[Kung Fu Jedi]

Leaving Las Vegas needs to be added to the growing list of films here.

A watched RFAD a year or so back on a Sunday night all by myself. It was like a train wreck, I couldn't take my eyes off of it.

And for the person who added Kids to the list, Bully (by the same director) should be there too.

 

[cubicle47b]

Sideways had plenty of sad moments in it, mostly related to the main character's ex-wife. It was also a very funny movie, though, so I guess it depends on what you concentrated on.

Requiem for a Dream was a great movie (and book). I'm not sure how effective it is as a statement against the American Dream but it's fascinating on multiple levels.

 

[cubicle47b]

Hubert Selby Jr.:

"The truth is sooner or later I have to face my demons so I can discover how they can be rendered powerless over my life. This, I believe, is true for all of us whether we are avoiding them by writing or pursuing the American Dream. The problem is we are told, and taught, that there is no reason for us to feel bad, to be depressed. If these things occur in our lives we should take a pill and feel good again. Better living through chemistry is the motto of America. To put it as simply as possible, the American Dream, in all its manifestations, cuts my awareness off from the Divine Nature of my life, and all Life. I must find a way through the madness of my demons, and the American Dream to uncover that Divinity within me, and I certainly can not do that while pursuing the Dream or using the chemicals it prescribes."

 

[Drinky Crow]

I didn't think Sideways was depressing -- it's pretty clear that Paul Giamatti's character had finally decided to move on with his life at the end, and that he hooked up with Virginia Madsen's character. It was a nice, thoughtful piece on a guy who, at middle age, had grown really uncomfortable in his own skin. It had some really great laugh-out-loud human moments, too, like when he -- a forty-something man -- steals the money from his mom's dresser, or the, er, "trailer love scene". Lowell from Wings gave a really nuanced performance as an unhateable narcissist, too; seriously, he was a prat, but how can you hate a dude who picks up fat chicks just because he unashamedly needs the validation? The unlikely friendship between him and the self-loathing Giamatti character was really well done.

Sideways was a really well-assembled, thoughtful movie that didn't try to play up the idiosyncratic nature of its characters, but instead balanced comedy and human drama quite well. Payne knows how to direct movies about outsiders in a sensitive, affectionate way without compromising their anti-social, often self-destructive natures.

 

[Che]

How did Sideways leave anyone feeling depressed?

Also, here are some other movies that leave you feeling depressed at the end:

Arlington Road
American History X
Hotel Rwanda

and there was a certain Oscar-winning movie this year...

Tell me about it. I was crying like a baby whole ten mins after the movie in front of my friend. And since I'm not familiar with crying I couldn't breathe. The sonofabitch still makes fun of me. But it wasn't depressing Requiem of a Dream style. More sad than depressing.

 

[Iceman]

At the screening last night for Crash, Paul Haggis said that he feared Million Dollar Baby would never be purchased because it, as he described it, was like Leaving Las Vegas.. but depressing.

 

[AssMan]

Ass to ass. Can someone enlighten me? I haven't seen the movie, but I hear Jennifer Connelly uses a vibrator in the movie or some shit like that.

 

[cubicle47b]

I didn't think Sideways was depressing -- it's pretty clear that Paul Giamatti's character had finally decided to move on with his life at the end, and that he hooked up with Virginia Madsen's character.

There's no doubt the ending was a positive one but if you've been in the same position Giamatti's character was in and don't have a Virginia Madsen character in your life it's easy to just concentrate on the pain.

Of course a romantic comedy could have a similar effect...

 

[Drinky Crow]

Point taken, but I think he'd already moved on before Madsen's character took him back -- he'd woken up to the fundamental absurdity of life and his own life in particular. When he finally starts laughing after the bungled car crash and the trailer park Solid Snake antics, that's the time that he discovers the strength to confront his ex-wife's new life -- he's accepted that in the end, life is just fucking screwed up as hell, and the only way to truly live it is to move on and discover new experiences rather than dwelling on the failures of the past (represented by his novel). Thankfully, that angle made it appropriate for him to get back with Madsen's character, rather than making it a tacked-on feel-good ending.

 

[cubicle47b]

Hmmm, I missed that change. I thought he'd moved on when he raced home after the wedding and drank the bottle of wine he had been saving (still) for her. Or rather, because of his meeting with her. I want to watch it again now.

 

[Foreign Jackass]

MAF aptly described the message of that movie as "don't EVER forget to fucking check your mail."

I thought it was "sometimes things go wrong for the most ridiculous humane reasons, but humans have the habit of not trying hard enough to get them right again, and then they just get worse, and then shit hits the fan and everybody dies."

Seriously though, before I get lectured by anyone, I thought the movie was more about conflicting dreams than about anything else. Loved the movie, hated the way I felt after seeing it.

 

[Drinky Crow]

Well, he had to have the strength to confront his ex-wife and drink the bottle. After the crash, he realized that unlike his poor deluded friend, he had real control over his life and could choose to take that step into his future, rather than absurdly spinning in the same cycle of stupidity. The look on Thomas Haden Church's face when Giamatti starts laughing/screaming was perfect; Giamatti saw a dude that didn't get it and would never get it, despite all the advantages he had in his life.

I mean, seriously, we all know folks like the Haden Church character: someone who, when it is revealed that he left his wallet at his lover's house after getting caught by her husband, wants someone to sneak back in and get it rather than accept the consequences of his mistakes. It was a great little moment of pure contrast: one man accepting the consequences of a life lived badly and deciding to move on, and another refusing to accept any consequences because he's always been sheltered from them.

 

[Drinky Crow]

Foreign: it WAS about conflicting dreams. I just think MAF's observation was funnier, especially given how utterly frickin' maudlin the movie was. It was probably the weak point of the movie: the utter avalanche of calamity that stems from one small event often overwhelms the audience emotionally, drowning out any subtext.

 

[Foreign Jackass]

Foreign: it WAS about conflicting dreams. I just think MAF's observation was funnier, especially given how utterly frickin' maudlin the movie was. It was probably the weak point of the movie: the utter avalanche of calamity that stems from one small event often overwhelms the audience emotionally, drowning out any subtext.

I haven't let it distract me from the overall experience, but I sure agree with you on this point. I remember saying to myself : "My god, those people sure aren't getting any lucky streak." I think it's very effective emotionnally, but you might be right about your opinion that we react so harshly to the emotion part that it might be drowning the subtext. In fact, when I wrote my response, I had to think for a whole minute to really remember what it was really about, as all I could think was sadness, sadness, sadness.

 

[BuddyC]

Well, he had to have the strength to confront his ex-wife and drink the bottle. After the crash, he realized that unlike his poor deluded friend, he had real control over his life and could choose to take that step into his future, rather than absurdly spinning in the same cycle of stupidity. The look on Thomas Haden Church's face when Giamatti starts laughing/screaming was perfect; it was a dude that didn't get it and would never get it, despite all the advantages he had in his life.

I mean, seriously, we all know folks like the Haden Church character: someone who, when it is revealed that he left his wallet at his lover's house after getting caught by her husband, wants someone to sneak back in and get it rather than accept the consequences of his mistakes. It was a great little moment of pure contrast: one man accepting the consequences of a life lived badly and deciding to move on, and another refusing to accept any consequences because he's always been sheltered from them.

Odd as it may sound, that's the core of why I found the film to be so depressing.