The cure to my depression lies within these films
 

I feel really down right now. My copy of Star Wars A New Hope just broke. I'm not happy with my life at the moment and am having trouble sleeping. I haven't been watching as many films lately and I think this may be the cause of my sadness. So here's the cure! Behold:

Big Trouble In Little China
Back to the Future
Back to the Future part 2
Back to the Future part 3
Blade
Blade 2
The Big Lebowski
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Evil Dead 2
From Dusk Til Dawn 3
High Fidelity
The Ninth Gate
Pitch Black
Pulp Fiction
The Return of the Living Dead
Robocop
Reservoir Dogs
The Thing
True Romance
Total Recall
Wonder Boys
Face/Off
The Matrix
A Better Tomorrow part 2
Heavy Metal
Mallrats
Lifeforce
The Color of Money

Plus.. anything new that I pick up (which, if anything, will either be T2- Extreme or Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back)

Anyone else use movies to cure their blues?

When life just sucks and it won't go away, I usually turn to these classics:

Wayne's World
Blazing Saddles
Beavis and Butthead Do America
Ghost Busters
Spaceballs
South Park
Howard the Duck
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes
Evil Dead Trilogy (The best trilogy EVER!)
Cannibal The Musical
Fritz the Cat
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
Happy Gilmore
The Muppet Movie

and the ultimate in movie "Comfort Food":

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

My Blue Heaven (1990), Kelly's Heroes (1970) and Wayne's World (1992) are the best movies but a surtin aussie slapstick show called The Adventures of Lano & Woodley always cheers me up

I'm feeling a bit better now that I've seen A Better Tomorrow part 2 and eaten a bunch of pizza pockets and a ham/cheese/lettuce sandwich.

This defiantly what you should be watching if you are depressed, stay away from sad, violent, and ones about peoples emotional struggles until you feel better, and that is an order. :laugh:

Re: The cure to my depression lies within these films
 

My first forgotten post bump!! I feel like I am "becoming"...
Red dragon reference, anyone? ;)

I go the exact opposite when I'm down. Usually, I break out The English Patient, Moulin Rouge!, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Michael Clayton, Meet Joe Black, Splipstream, or some other emotional roller coaster that really sets the depressions in right. =/

As to music, I'll have Chris Cornell's Euphoria Morning, Songbook; QoTSA's Like Clockwork; Tricky's Maxinquaye; or David Bowie's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, Hours, and Heathen all on loop for days.

Iderno. It becomes like a pathway of experiences with these movies and albums acting as a guide. In a way. They magnify the emotional wave and kind of all focus the chaos. Like...just focussing on the one thing instead of the normal spastic ramblings from day to day. It's oddly comforting to slow down like that, but damn it can wear me out.

Really the only thing that clears my head is driving. If I can get a solid hour+ in highway speeds, then i can usually organize my thoughts, clear my head arguing with myself over whatever has me hung up until I can resolve it (or at least rationalize it), and just calm the hell down.

Eh. To pull this back to movies/tv, when I was a kid, late night in bed I'd have racing thoughts from one topic to another. The only way I could organize them all was to imagine each train-of-thought as a different television station. Then I could close my eyes and turn my head just so, as if I were clicking through an old 13-channel rotary dial on the old console sets. With each turn of my head, I'd visualize the mental channel changing. I would then cycle through until I found a "channel" of that classic Poltergeist white noise static. Then I'd fall asleep.

Watching the dark comedy The Cable Guy KINDA freaked me out a bit lol.

Re: The cure to my depression lies within these films
 

This might help

https://www.movieforums.com/communit...ght=laugh+matt

Re: The cure to my depression lies within these films
 

'Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain' might help a little bit ;)

As the tagline suggests...
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....82,268_AL_.jpg

In my experience, and as odd as it seems, comedic films always made me feel worse. For me, the more depressing a film is, so long as it's a great film, the less depressed I feel. Granted, a horribly depressing affair that's horrible (e.g. Deer Hunter), makes me feel worse. I watch stuff like Ran, Ikiru and My Way (2011) to feel better, among others, and feel the best. I also watch fluffy films, like Good Bad Weird and Good Bad Ugly, or deep films, such as the Human Condition trilogy.

If you have Netflix, check out Big Eyes, No Country for Old Men, Good Bad Weird, Burton's Sweeney Todd, El Dorado, and Quiz Show.

Re: The cure to my depression lies within these films
 

Yea so this is an interesting topic. Do the more serious, darker and morbid films help? Are they easier to relate to in terms of the tone, the characters, the feel. Is it good to see a struggle different or similar to your own, as struggling is a part of life we can chose to accept. I would say, opting for a comedy when you are in a depressed mood is harder than watching something darker in my experience. Harder meaning, if I'm depressed I would feel less inclined, less drawn to a comedy. But choosing the opposite does it just continue that negative environment. No way do I think you can just put on a comedy and bam goes depression, I feel film is a very short term fix regardless but sometimes you need that a short burst of inspiration which can be attained from film. Or maybe its just returning to the movies you love, be they comedy or serious. I have a preference for the serious as you can see by my top 10. I

Even after 14 years it's still good advice.

I like good comedy movies when I'm down like There's Something About Mary and Coming To America.

They say laughter is the best medicine. I guess that's still true. Very holistic.

Loved Big Eyes. I think those are all good transitional movies for me.

Generally, I'm a silly person and love silly movies (Kung Pow is in my top 10 ffs!), but when I'm down, comedy is the last place I want to spend my time. I don't know why. It's like a weird positive feedback loop. I feel down, so I seek out downer movies/music to exaggerate the experience. Then I slip farther down that hole. Eventually I reach a point where I almost separate myself from my thoughts, and become an observer of the depression in way. The only way I can describe it is like I become a third party, analyzing my own emotional reactions to whatever stimuli I place in front of me. I'll create little mental fantasies of this or that. Odd little fictional tragedies that I'll project myself into. Most times, I get story or song ideas from the experience. Poetry, lyrics, whatever. When I clear it all I'll pull up my laptop and start writing while the anxiety is still fresh.

Eh. It reads way worse than it really is! I'm only detailing to try to translate it. I don't have local friends that can relate (at least none that will admit it), so I'm always curious how others deal with similar experiences. Whether they find it interesting, productive, or defeating.

It always seems to resolve itself and usually I come out of it inspired to create one thing or another.

Comedy though would probably irritate me in that mode.

I think that is partly the reason for me. Watching a depressing movie both exaggerates my own emotion, and at the same time it sort of helps transition the self-indulgent side of it all, helping me focus on a character's plight. From there, I start to imagine myself as a character in my own story and then the depression becomes more approachable. If that makes sense? I'm just exploring it all now as I type, trying to translate as I said in my post from a moment ago. But I do think there is something to that. The movie removes me from myself, then I can self-reflect and look at my own depression from a distance.

Thanks for the replies everyone! Really, I'm very curious about how others feel, observe, and deal with their own demons. Of course this is about movies, at its heart. A bridge. So yes. Thanks for the replies :)

Re: The cure to my depression lies within these films
 

Well said sir.

I was trying to see if we had a depression thread. This is the closest thing. Probably not going to start a new one.

I would never describe myself as someone who’s experienced depression, but dear mother has had it non-stop since I was born, maybe partly because I was born. And I’ve been kind of wondering, wait for it, whether it’s even ethical, whatever that means, or desirable to have kids if you know you are depressed for life.

They won’t make you happy, save for a short-term oxytocin boost that I think wears off and largely goes unnoticed by depressed people anyway (the kind that were really NEVER EVER HAPPY, as Chris says in one of my favourite films of all time, Resolution).

The average kid is likely to be unhappy too, because they’ll feel guilty for not managing to cheer up the permanently depressed parent - a losing battle, if there ever was one. If the kid doesn’t try to make the parent happy (read “feel better”), that’s even worse, there must be something wrong with the kid, right?

And overall, it just hit me like a ton of bricks that it’s the most selfish thing in the world to have a kid anyway, and it’s a billion times more selfish if you know you’ve always been depressed. Not post-partum, always. I just nearly wrote a very non-pc thing, but anyway.

Anyway. What I deal with through film is not depression but fear. I find watching something, as long as it’s good, not necessarily horror or morbid stuff as suggested above, usually helps keep my mind busy, and that’s kind of good enough.

As noted above, yes, it is a short-term fix, but if you do it non-stop, it works. And the reason I think I’m not depressed and never have been is that I always am engrossed in films, more so or less. When it comes to film, I’ve never experienced the apathy characteristic of depression. So I guess there’s some good news.

But I’ve definitely been very much off since COVID began (fun fact, I started writing “since depression began”, speaking of Freudian slips) and I find I don’t have anything to watch that will hook me. I guess this sort of stuff doesn’t strictly belong here, but what can you do. I do feel acute resentment towards my depressed parent, which I’ve never noticed before, or at least never let myself acknowledge.

Re: The cure to my depression lies within these films
 

The two things that destroyed my life in 2019 and 2020 (and that I'm unlikely to survive) also destroyed a huge, long-term cinephilia project. So I've been watching much fewer movies since then than I did all my life before, despite a solid corpus at hand. Films don't represent a help in my case, they have become a symbol of... loss ? For lack of better terms. Like movies come too late, or even new movies represent/belong to the past.

That's why I don't really post in new-movies-you've-watched or last-dvd-you-bought kind of threads. I don't really have a present-and-future approach to films. I'm more here in a weird retrospective inventory mindset.

In the light of this, I’m sorry if I sounded harsh during recent exchanges. You never know what people are going through, and blah, blah, blah. I guess what I can say is a retrospective mindset has its benefits.

I used to discuss film with someone who died in 2018 and it has never been the same. I think that’s partly why I came here, because I no longer had that. It does create a refrain of “They would have thought xyz, but Run came out too late for them to see it.”

Anyway, I don’t think what people usually say in such cases is worth ****, so I’ll just say I hope you keep going.

You didn't, and the issue may be the opposite : i've lost a lot of sensitivity, have become a bit of a galaxy quest rock monster, so i'm in danger to getting too harsh myself. Which i dislike (especially as this process horrifies me in other people). A bit of nostalgia for my humanity and fear to lose my convenient moral high ground.

I’ve had that a lot after trauma. But then, I’m generally an uncaring person, I say that as rationally as possible. Inasmuch as I’ve tried to “fix” my mother’s mood, that was mainly for my own comfort and benefit.

In general, I find it incredibly difficult to have any kind of contact or interaction with human beings when it’s not to do with film/books. But I remember periods of time when I was totally desensitised to everything. I used to like it, actually, really wish it came back. But it’s out of your hands.

I don’t know, what scares me a bit is I’m not exactly looking forward to the future. That’s the sort of understatement I’d make. I’m not suicidal, if anything, I find myself thinking a lot that I’m afraid of dying, but overall, I kind of don’t want to wake up in a sense.

I just changed jobs, I have an unbelievable salary that I haggled for, rationally speaking, I should be fine, but it’s getting worse. I don’t know what I’ll do with any of it in future, even the savings in my bank account scare me. I’m thinking of investing it all, which I do anyway, but in reasonable monthly amounts. I’m also very aware I’m not in the right headspace to make that kind of decision.

And yeah, I just feel an immense amount of resentment at the idea that it’ll only get worse with both her and myself, seeing as this stuff tends to be hereditary.

Be very very grateful you’ve never been depressed.

I certainly am, and I have seen it up close. Hence I’m very careful to never say I have.

Then again, I was mainly exploring the effect someone else’s depression has on those around them. That should also be “allowed” and I’m sure I don’t need to tell anyone that this can be equally devastating. The depressed people, understandably, couldn’t care less. But I don’t see why someone who doesn’t suffer from depression can’t discuss it.

Nobody said you couldn’t discuss it!

I am very very grateful I haven’t contracted the coronavirus. I started the coronavirus thread here & I discuss it all the time.

Fair enough. I actually do feel apprehensive about discussing it, hence the reaction. My mother is having a new episode, or bout, or whatever, and it’s pretty horrible. I recently paid for a holiday for her and she’s been sending increasingly crestfallen messages regarding the meaning of life and whatnot. It affects me very much, largely in the sense that I start to hunt for signs of this in myself, and it’s been like this for decades.

At this point I’ve sort of withdrawn and am secretly glad I didn’t go with her. But the whole thing is bringing back the feeling I had as a child that I wouldn’t have knowingly chosen to be born to someone with depression. I’m beginning to consider genetic testing and such to determine how likely my kids are to have it and go from there. I say very consciously, aware of all the implications, that I think it’s extremely selfish and unfair on the child.

My father, luckily, is a very upbeat man, so there’s some balance there.

I probably shouldn’t discuss it anyway, because I don’t have a “point”. At this stage I am out of things to do or say, and though I suspect I’ll keep throwing money at her, that doesn’t sound like a great solution, either.

Please forgive me, but do you ever feel your mother is manipulating you?

Hell, yes.

But not consciously, you know what I mean?

She’s a natural manipulator. A real full-blown Scorpio, couldn’t have been anything else. So, as Norman Bates said (I’m paraphrasing), “But she can’t help it!”

Sounds “consciously” to me. You poor thing - a Scorpio mother. They’re the worse & I know this because my late mother was Scorpio. My younger sister is too & she’s just like our mother.

Grudges, grudges & more grudges! Can’t imagine dealing with her if she had been prone to depression. Fortunately, she wasn’t.

I’m gonna sic myself into a bad mood if I drag my nutty family into this so I will stop now.

On a lighter note: living in England I thought my family very dysfunctional. But when I came here & saw real dysfunction, I realized we weren’t that bad. Several friends had the same sibling issues I had, for example. My physicist bro I mentioned more or less walked away from us when he went to uni in London & friends here had the exact same experience with a sibling.

There’s always someone worse off than oneself. :p

Heh, you totally got me there. And you’re right. I mean, what a pathetic statement, “not consciously”.

You’re right, let’s leave it. Very glad to know, for some reason, that you understand the Scorpio mother conundrum. And indeed, I imagine the London kind of dysfunctional is a tad neater, so I have that to console myself with. Thanks for discussing this, really helped me, actually. I feel better.

Re: The cure to my depression lies within these films
 

Quickly, regarding the "not discussing something I've never experienced (paraphrased)," I feel the point of discussion is to gain perspective on some topic. Perhaps it's just a slightly different perspective from what one has, or it could be a brand new perspective into a topic that one never knew existed. Discussion, if used properly and without the intent of judgment, is good. Maybe more so for a topic that you might not have direct experience in. How else would you learn about the topic? Or to empathize with others experiencing what may be foreign to you? I don't mean to shift my direction to "you" personally, but you the universal.

Aside from learning of other's experiences, those other readers might gain insight into how to better manage depression (pulling this back to the thread's current topic). I mean, as people share glimpses into their worlds and their processes of dealing or not dealing, new information trickles in for other readers here. Maybe something of all that becomes inspiring. If nothing that grand, then perhaps just knowing others go through something similar can be at least comforting on some level. I mean the assumption of isolation, which can be overwhelming. Adding to that, just the act of participating in the conversation regardless of knowledge or experience suggests interest. That, in and of itself, can be a weird reassurance to others in a moment of despair. That's all assuming users come here in despair to post or read along, but the point is still valid.

Anyway. Bumping an old thread.

I would instinctively agree with you. Then again, there is nuance to this, as I suppose in many ways depression is a health issue, and I know from experience that it’s incredibly frustrating/exhausting when people make comments about a medical condition one has and those making the comments don’t, no matter how well-intentioned these comments are, so I can understand why that might not be perceived as a good idea.

But to me on a personal level, the act of partaking in the conversation is something of an acknowledgment, so perhaps that does help.

Re: The cure to my depression lies within these films
 

This fellow vampire fan just watched Blade 1 and 2 two days ago, and Trinity last night.

I agree with a lot of what you said.. I would just say no matter how annoying it can be, sometimes judgement can be good. I guess a lot of it depends on the discretion of the one who judges, and the sensibilities (reader, mostly)... I must say I get a bit bugged when someone will say, "Well, that's just like, your opinion" -- well, of course it is. Who else's opinion would it be?

On another site, there's a similar thread, and it's interesting to compare what everyone is talking about. This woman said she'd be available for anyone who wanted to talk, so I got in touch with her, talked for 4.5 hours, which I really enjoyed, but felt worse once our conversation was over. I wonder if it was because I googled her number and saw what I saw, or if it was something else that happened on that site (that I don't wanna get into because it might give someone some bad ideas).

One day, LSD will be used for depression, since I think it's the only thing that will work.

In a chat room, I read this older (but dense) woman say, "Depression is weird. It doesn't make sense, but maybe it's because I haven't gone through it".

I'd like to add, I think if you asked 100 people what "depression" meant, you'd get a hundred different answers. I also think if you take a handful of people who say they are always depressed, that the feeling itself can be quite different.


I'll also say, that watching a great movie makes me feel like I did something productive. Even though I don't have a "smart" phone, I must admit I've fallen victim, despite having experience (I had my own cell phone store 17 years ago, and was in the business since my teens) and observations -- seeing how people go nuts when they're phone doesn't work for 10 seconds. Reminds me of someone who never had a phone, got one, and after a week of having it, he accidentally put it on airplane mode, but wanted to "cut" despite other customers there sooner.... I constantly need stimulus --- laptop, music, video, online conversation, etc... Every night, I tell myself, "Tomorrow...." but I usually revert to my regular habits.

Re: The cure to my depression lies within these films
 

I think there are different types & degrees of depression with different causes.

Usually, I suffer from what I call "direct link" depression - this means I can link my bad feelings to particular events going on in my life. I'm assuming this is "normal" depression everyone experiences from time to time - it's what we call the blues, but it is based on situational occurrences - once negative occurrences resolve (or enough time goes by that we either do something about them or accept them), the feeling lifts.

Then there are people for whom everything is going fine (or at lease normally for them) who are suddenly overwhelmed or immobilized with feelings of sadness or grief for no apparent reason. And this form can persist for long periods of time. I guess this type is closer to "clinical depression."

I remember feeling something like this on occasion as a kid - everything would be normal - I'd be playing with my dinosaurs when I'd go into an almost hypnotic-like trance as feelings of incredible sadness & despair would wash over me. I never knew what it was about or what triggered it (maybe I had some form of telepathic empathic sensitivity?).
The only thing I knew to do at that age was just wait until it passed, then resume life as normal. I do remember calling it, in my head, "the bad feeling."

I kinda work backwards... Feeling miserable, and then thinking of all the negative shit. I wish I could compare, because it always feels... miserable, but there must be levels. It seems like the older I get, the more I can't just ... let it slide off a duck's ass or whatever the phrase is.


I also wonder/think/believe that the constant talking about it makes me think about my problems constantly. Years ago, I never heard the term "depression", and now I read it every hour, so it can to serve as a reminder, like a spark, where you ask yourself this stuff, and constantly reminded of the negativity.

I had never heard this phrase until my internist used it when I saw him in 2016. I needed a recommendation from him as to who would remove the cast on my broken wrist. In addition, my husband had filed for divorce (later withdrawn) & my kitten had died under anesthesia. I was amazed when my doctor referred to these events as “situational occurrences” as though this ameliorated their impact.

"situational occurrences" geez that's an understatement by the doctor, he should've said it was "serious sh**" Definitely a trying time for you.

Question: if you could get a new kitten or a new husband which would it be🙂

One marriage has been plenty for me. I would love a new kitten, but haven’t come across one yet. Usually I find them outside in distress & rescue them.

:)We've found two abandoned cats and gave them a home, both wonderful additions to our family.

I don't often feel depressed to be honest, but I have two films that help me when I'm troublesome:

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Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for East

This one helps me to put my feet on the ground, to think about how absurd it is to value the state I'm in.

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Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring

This is the most relaxing film I've ever seen in my life. It helps me understand there are different ways people live and lived, and all of them have pain.

I have been wanting to re-watch “The Ninth Gate” recently.. interesting to see that on your list, not often talked about movie but I remember liking it

I am back here feeling worse than at the time of my last post in this thread, and yes, mainly motionless watching films all day long, even during working hours. I wish there was a genre that reliably “worked” for me at such times, but there really is not, though horror is the natural first port of call.

Must say that Resurrection with Rebecca Hall, peculiar as that is, did a pretty good job distracting me for a few hours last night.

I’m sorry you’re going through such a hard time, Agrippina. I wish there was more I could say, but just know, I actually like reading many of your posts. May not be much, I know.

Thank you, appreciated.

Have you thought of volunteer work? If you need distracting helping others is a great way to forget your troubles for a few hours.

When I’m feeling sorry for myself (not suggesting that you feel this way) I look around me at the many sick & desperate people there are on the streets. Our weather is brutal now & after church I always see a little tent pitched under the highway. How does the occupant keep warm? Then there are sick people & drug addicts & all kinds of unlucky people. My problems are usually ones I create for myself, but in many ways I am lucky.

Ha. In many respects which I won’t go into, all I do is charity of some sort; I sort shit for other people, including my mother, for free, for a living. But enough about that.

I did work with children a lot in the past but that was a while back. It’s an interesting thought, but I don’t have the energy.

I’m not feeling particularly sorry for myself, actually; this whole situation and my state of mind are entirely of my own making.