Juls

Hey Nancy,

You go on wit your bad Meg Ryan lovin self girl. LOL Sorry to offend, but that's just the way I feel about her. I won't say anything more about her though. I do like Goldie Hawn, but that's not the one I'm thinking of, but it seems like they're both usually coming out with movies around the same time. I'll think of it eventually. I like Grumpy Old Men. The things they said at the end about sex were hilarious, what was it? "Park the porpoise?" No that one's from Mrs Doubtfire. Anyway I thougt Raquel Welch and the guys were great together. I didn't see number 2.

Lilya, I like Helen Hunt, and I thought As Good as it Gets was great. I also liked Holly Hunter in "The Piano," and I did like Julia Roberts in "Steel Magnolias," which brings me to Dolly Parton. I don't know if I would call her a great actress, but she is enjoyable to watch. I thought 9-5 was pretty funny, which then brings me to think of Jane Fonda. I didn't know until recently that she was known as "Hanoi Jane" and that Vietnam Vets really resent her for going over to Vietnam and speaking out against the war. I have liked many of her movies. There's one where she plays a prostitute, and someone is out to get her and it is very intense.

Juls

Lilya

Girls, we´re well over 1000 views...

I forgot about Jamie Lee Curtis. She´s wonderful, and I have to say I like Goldie Hawn. I once saw this funny movie about three women who were dumped by their husbands and formed a club to revenge themselves, but eventually did something very constructive. I was on an island in Spain when I watched it with a friend, and we laughed so much we thought we had a sunstroke. I think one of the women in the film is played by Diane Keaton, which I love in Woody Allen´s movies and adored in "Looking for Mr. Goodbar".

I love all Jane Campion´s movies and Holly Hunter was great in "Les Leçons de piano". So were Sam Neill and Harvey Keitel. I liked "Portrait of a Lady" with John Malkovitch... who is by the way MY MAN. I adore him. In "Sheltering Sky" with Debra Winger, he is the most sexy, handsome, original man I´ve seen and totally my type.

What do you say? And what happened to Debra Winger? I use to like her films.

DarkGravity

Lilya-

Your idea of watching depressing movies to help lift depression is something I have done for years! It's cool that you mentioned that! I use music, though, instead. I'll just sit and concentrate on the music for a couple hours, and for some reason the two negatives equal a positive!! heh! My favs are Tool (undertow and Aenema), Type O Negative, Manson (Antichrist Superstar), Nirvana. I never really thought about the same for movies just because music worked for me so well.. Ya'll should give the depressing music a try if the movie thing interests you!!

Take care, all!

Juls

Hi Christine,

I'm glad you came on here to share with us. I like music also, depressed or not. I can hear a song and tie it to an event in my life. A song came on the other day, and I remember where I was at what I was doing the first time I had heard that song 30 years ago. That was trippy.

Lilya,

The name of the other actress that kind of bugs me is Melanie Griffith. I saw her in Crazy in Alabama though and that was pretty funny.

Has anyone seen Bastard out of South Carolina, (or maybe it's north)? That was a very intense movie, but I can't think of the woman who played it. The same girl who played in Rush, oh I know Jennifer Jason Leigh.

I liked that girl who played in kalifornia with Brad Pitt, Juliette Lewis.

I never saw Harvey Keitel as any kind of sex symbol until I saw the Piano. Usually he plays some real mean guy.

Debra Winger I liked with Shirley McLaine in Terms of Endearment. I don't know what happened to her. Also An Officer and a Gentleman.

I think that movie your referring to with the three women, also had Bette Midler. The Wives Club?

Juls

Lilya

Christine,

Warmest welcome to you!

I used to listen to depressing music like you do, but that was some time ago. I listened to "Famous blue raincoat" and stuff like that. "The Doors" I have always liked and Jim Morrisson is buried in the Père Lachaise cimitary in Paris. I often walk by his grave. Actually, Meg Ryan was not bad as Pamela Morrisson in "The Doors" by Oliver Stone, Nancy.

Nirvana I listen to sometimes, but mostly dreamy kind of music like The Bouddha Bar, and classical music, blues and operas.

Juls, I say the same about Melanie Griffith. It´s something about her voice and mannerism that gets to me. I´m not crazy about Kim Basinger either, although I liked her in "Nine and a half week". What happened to that gorgous guy who played in "Angle Heart" with Charlotte Rampling? Now she is amazing. I think she talked about that guy in an interview in Paris that he was into drugs alot and it ruined his career.

Charlotte Rampling was institutionalized for depression for ten years after "Angle Heart". She made a come-back in Europe, in "The Wings of the Dove" and in other movies in France and got our César in 2001 for her life´s work.

Did anyone see the "Night Porter" with Dick Bogarte and Charlotte Rampling?

Yes, the movie I saw in Spain was with Bette Midler. I still laugh when I think about it.

Heavens

Hi,

I have to go to work, so I will make this quick. My favorite depressing music is Courtney Love's "Hole," especially the hit "Doll Parts." It is dark and depressing, but I frankly listen to music so much more with the left side of the brain that I can enjoy stuff that has words I don't like, but, even though the material is dark and depressing, I admire Courtney's courage for creating art that duplicates some life experiences, even those that are ugly, dark and depressing. I admire artists who have the courage to address issues in life that aren't pretty but real -- realism, art reflecting life, but it sure is unpopular and extremely misunderstood. Yet these artists I speak of put the artistic expression above their own comfort zone. I think Courtney falls into that category. She is also another quite beautiful Hollywood personality that deserves mention.

Nancy

Juls

Oh man, Nancy - I haven't had my coffee yet, and when I started reading your post I thought you said "My favorite depression music is Courtneys "Love Hole," LOL - I was thinking "what in the heck is that about?" I re-read it and saw it was Courtney Loves "Hole."

Juls

Lilya

Courtney Love was astounding in "The People versus Larry Flynt" and is truly beautiful. I saw a documentary about her by and Kurt Cobain, but it pictures her as this murdering witch. Her father was interviewed and said that Courtney drove Kurt to suicide. Dysfunctional family, no? Seems he´s writing a book about Kurt and his daughter´s implication in his death. I thought my family was weird.

Juls

Lilya

I thought that part must have been perfect for her, because in a way she was acting out what her own life had been.

Juls

Lilya

True. She seems to have a very original personality. I think I prefer her brunette to blonde.

I loved that movie. The dialouges are hilarious. Like the courtroom´s scenes and the whole thing with Ruth Carter Stapleton.

Did you see any films with Charlotte Rampling, like the "Night Porter" and "Angle Heart"?

Juls

Lilya,

I think you must be meaning Angel Heart. I'm pretty sure I've seen it. Or may I'm thinking of Angel at my Table.

I don't know the name Charlotte Rampling, and I'm sure I've never seen Night Porter. Are they French films? What goes on in Angel Heart?

Juls

Lilya

Juls,

It´s my silly French spelling. "Angel Heart" with Mickey Roorke came out in the late eighties. It´s a horrifying film with a twist. It´s about a detective who keeps getting strange, horrible flashbacksabout his own life. Robert De Niro asks him to look for a missing man and he goes to New Orleans where he meets Charlotte Rampling and more... It´s all about woodoo and hell, but it has an interesting twist.

Charlotte Rampling is English, but lives in France. She speaks both languages without an accent. Her most famous film is the controversial "Night Porter" by Liliana Cavani. A film that opens in Vienna in the seventies. Dirk Bogarte plays a night porter whoi can only work at night because his memories as a Nazi in the World War 2 keeps him awake. He meets a beautiful woman, married to an American who is there to conduct at the Opera at the hotel. Turns out it´s his mistress in the concentration camps and they cannot stop loving each other. It´s an amazing film.

Juls

In Angel Heart, is he having flashbacks of a murder scene and then finds out he is the killer?

Nightporter sounds very interesting. I'll have to see if I can find it. Nosferatu is the name of the vampire movie I was trying to think of awhile back. I also liked Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I don't think I realzied until then that Frankenstein had been written by a woman. Talk about symbolism. Man vs beast, Man vs beast within himself, the man in the beast that makes him human, etc.

Juls

Lilya

Yes, Mickey Roorke finds out he is in fact the soldier he keeps seeing in a flash-back, a soldier who was sacrificed in order to become a famour singer. I don´t remember it all too well. He kills everyone in his ways without knowing towards the end.

I also like "Frankenstein" because of it´s symbolism. It´s the classic Beauty and the beast and the beast versus human, like you say, Juls.

I´m hoping and crossing my fingers that my fellow Europeans of the war generation will forgive me for mentioning "The Night Porter". It was a terrible scandal when it came out because of it´s controversial subject, but is now a classic because of it´s beauty. A love, stronger than everything, blossoms between a Nazi and a prisoner in a concentration camp. It´s supposed to be in Austria, but it´s never mentioned. They meet again in Vienna and start living together, but are sieged by the Nazi´s former SS officers, who previously formed a support group. I think it tells us that even in the craziest of circumstances, love can blossom, but it´s an unhealthy kind of love, some kind of Stockholm syndrom from her part, but he needs her just as much.

Another film dealing with a similar subject is "Death and the Maiden" with Sigourney Weaver and the guy who played Ghandi. It´s by Roman Polanski and it´s based on the famous play by Ariel Dorffmann. It´s about a couple who has survived the South American reign of terror and one night a man comes to their house because of a flat tire. Sigourney Weaver recognizes the voice of the man who tortured her, but she never saw him. So we never find out until the end if he´s guilty.

I think we learn from these films about human nature at it´s lowest or highest, and it somehow helps us to deal with our own issues.

Juls

Lilya,

I remember "The Death and the Maiden," that was a very powerful movie. I think it kind of leaves you hanging a little, because I don't recall that he admits it, or does he? I remember she pushes him off a cliff or something at the end.

Juls

Lilya

Actually you know at the very end he was guilty. She pushes his car over a cliff and then stages a trial at the house. Her husband think she´s crazy and tries to help the man. She takes him to the cliff in the morning but she cannot throw him over. He then admits he was her jailer and explains why he started doing it.

It´s a very strong film and in fact the tension between the woman and her husband surface during this crisis. Turns out he was the leader of some kind of resistance movement against the Sout American reign, but she was the one who was captured and tortured. When she finally got out of prison camps and went home to him, she found him in bed with another woman. She has never really forgiven him and when he rises to power in their country she starts to despise him and he is afraid of her power over him, plus he feels guilty. This is why he is in denial of the man that comes to their house and is in fact her jailer.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109579/plotsummary

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071910/combined

Mamabear

So....Roman polanski....what's my favorite Polanski film. Now don't make fun of me. I really like this. Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Mamabear

Oh, and Christine, the depressing music just makes me much more depressed. I actually feel locked in the depression when I listen to darker music. For some reason a sad film doesn't do that to me. It relieves me. Hmmmm
Mamabear

Juls

I don't think I like depressing music much, or maybe that there's some music I find depressing. I remember when my mom was depressed whe would always have this certain radio station on. I don't really know to say what kind of music it was, but it was defnintely depressing.

Juls

Heavens

I think Thomas Hardy is a beautiful romantic. Thanks for chiming in. I like his books.

Nancy