DEPRESSING MOVIES

DEPRESSING MOVIES

This week, I’m going to discuss the movies that depress me and the reasons behind such depression.

SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE:  This movie depressed me because I know that no matter what I do, I will never be as cute and perky as Meg Ryan.

MOBY DICK:  This turned out to be about whales rather than the  weird sexual disorder that I was looking forward to.  Very depressing.

MARS ATTACKS:  This depressed me because, by the time the picture was over, everybody was dead.

MYSTERY MEN:  This depressed me because by the time the picture was over, everybody wasn’t dead.

DOGMA:  The only remotely interesting characters were mute.  Ten minutes into the movie, I found myself wishing I were deaf.

The TWILIGHT movies:  This was the cinematic reunion of the graduates from the Hulk Hogan School of Acting.

Kenneth Branagh’s HAMLET:  In a move that defies rational explanation, Jack Lemmon was cast as Marcellus—because, when I think Shakespeare, oh yeah, I think Jack Lemmon.  If only Branagh had cast Walter Matthau as Ophelia, we could have had “The Odds Bodkins Couple.”

A BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK:  It depresses me to think that Lee Marvin, Walter Brennan, and Ernest Borgnine were ugly when they were young, too…and that that was the best they were ever going to look.

ALL THE BATMAN FILMS:  I’m depressed that they haven’t yet asked me to play Batman.  They’ve had nearly everyone else in that role.

THAT STUPID MOVIE ABOUT ALIENS THAT STARRED CHARLIE SHEEN:  It depressed me to think that Hollywood, even for a moment, could think that Charlie Sheen would be believable as an astrophysicist, when I have my doubts that he can even spell the word.  However, I must admit that he is the very embodiment of the first syllable…

GOODFELLAS:  I find it difficult to be entertained by gunplay and bloodshed that occurs outside my immediate family.

THE BLOB:  Put glasses on it, and you have my ex-husband.  If that isn’t depressing, I don’t know what is.

BARTON FINK:  I find it really depressing that John Turturro, with his huge acting range of exactly one facial expression that I like to call “tentative dementia” received an Oscar nomination, and John Goodman, who did an astounding acting job in this film, got squat.

THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER and GROSSE POINT BLANK:  It profoundly depresses me that I’m too old for John Cusack and too young for Sean Connery.  It also depresses me that my age doesn’t make a damned bit of difference, because it’s not as if either one of them will be dropping by for coffee tomorrow…or ever.

BEING JOHN MALKOVICH:  It’s depressing, and also deeply disturbing that Hollywood was unable to set its sites any higher than a portal into an actor.  Is this really the best we can aspire to?  What about “Being Ben Franklin” or “Being Mark Twain”?  Those two are more interesting dead than Malkovich is alive, anyway.

THELMA & LOUISE:  I find nothing more depressing than when stupidity is portrayed as “cool.”

GEORGE WASHINGTON SLEPT HERE:   It is a source of ultimate depression that I’ll never get to meet Jack Benny.

IF IT’S TUESDAY, IT MUST BE BELGIUM:  True this is a much older film, but it depresses me because, in my house, if it’s Tuesday, it must be laundry.