Category Archives: Gloomy

2011, Could Be Hard To Watch, Crude Talk, Drama, Gloomy, Mayhem, Medical Theme, Psychological Drama, Sex Scenes, Unusual, Violent

Perfect Sense (2011)

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From NetFlix:

After sparks fly between a newly single epidemiologist and a charming chef, a puzzling patient — a truck driver who’s lost his ability to smell — drastically alters the couple’s budding relationship in this sci-fi thriller.

To call this science fiction is entirely misleading. Basically it is a meditation on the importance of our senses and a “what if” assuming we lose those senses one by one.

Humanity without exception experiences an epidemic in which each person goes through a series of sense loses and negative emotions. Central to this story is the experience of a woman epdemiologist Eva Green and a chef Ewan McGregor as they go through these stages. Our hope is that they can withstand all these personal disasters and still succeed as a loving pair. I cannot give away the ending, but getting to that end could be somewhat harrowing.

Not for everyone, but a very original film.

2012, B-movie, Dark, Gloomy, Horror, Mediocre, Supernatural, Suspense

The Woman in Black (2012)

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From NetFlix:

Dispatched by his boss to an isolated seaside village to tie up a recently deceased client’s affairs, a young London lawyer finds himself in a community grappling with dark secrets — and a haunting presence with a sinister agenda.

Yet another haunted house arises to waste our time. Despite good, mostly dark, production values, there is nothing special to recommend this mildly horrible horror film.

Ciarán Hinds (Aberforth Dumbledore in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”) was the only actor I recognized. Ciarán has put on a lot of weight.

Expect a slightly surprising ending if you do actually bother to watch this movie.

2010, Bad high school, Drama, Drugs, Flirting, Gloomy, Love Story, Mediocre, Sad small town, Serial Killer, Sex Scenes

Daydream Nation (2010)

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From NetFlix:

City girl Caroline Wexler (Kat Dennings) feels like she’s spinning her wheels when she moves to a small rural town, where she’s got nothing in common with anyone — except her disarmingly handsome teacher, Mr. Anderson (Josh Lucas). But when Caroline tires of their clandestine affair, Mr. Anderson isn’t ready to let her go. Andie MacDowell co-stars in this humorous dark romance from writer-director Michael Goldbach.

One more entry in the list of films with the two characteristics “sad small town” and “bad high school”, this film you have seen before with different names. Unpleasantly realistic, you can only feel sorry for the characters.

As unexciting as this film was, the acting was good. Unfortunately the girl played by Kat Dennings just could not make up her mind what she wanted and dragged us along in her uncertainty. Josh Lucas did a good job as a lonely, mediocre, confused, writer wannabe, somewhat clownish high school teacher who is stupid enough to have an affair with one of his students.

Reece Thompson (22 years old at time of filming and without many credits in his resume) did a good job as a sad, drug using, insecure high school student who has lost a friend and searching for something solid to hold onto. Are our high school students (at least the males depicted in this film) really so drugged out?

While not a complete waste of time, you could find a better film to watch. In this category of film you might choose the classic “The Last Picture Show” from 1971.

2010, Drama, Gloomy, Religious Theme, Sex Scenes

Lebanon, PA (2010)

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From NetFlix:

Urbane Philadelphia ad man Will (Josh Hopkins) heads to small-town Lebanon for his father’s funeral, and the road leads not only to closure but to a revelation when the 35-year-old meets his precocious teenage cousin, CJ (Rachel Kitson), and her winsome teacher, Vicki (Samantha Mathis). As his friendship with CJ deepens and his warmth for the married Vicki grows, Will comes to realize that life can’t always be summed up in a catchphrase.

It probably can’t get any more real than this film that sadly captures the difficulty of living in a small town. Almost a feel-good film because of the way in which characters help each other with their problems, it is just those problems that are all too real and present in today’s world. You learn about those problems early in the film, so listing them is not a spoiler. But you will have to watch the film to discover what, if any, are the resolutions for those problems.

  • Will is a lonely 35-year-old dissatisfied with his life and finding it difficult to come to terms with his memory of his deceased father.
  • Vicki is in a troubled marriage and sees life and opportunities passing her by.
  • CJ is pregnant in her last year of high school and wants desperately to go to Drexel University for college. She suffers at the hands of her spiteful school mates, her conservative Catholic father, and others in the small(-minded) community.
  • Will’s mom faces poverty in her old age

Seems like a microcosm of today’s world, wouldn’t you say ? But it is NOT a downer film. Stay tuned for the good parts.

2010, Crime, Drama, Drugs, Gloomy, Grim, Not Feel Good, Sex Scenes, Spanish, Supernatural, Unusual, Violent, Vulgar

Biutiful (2010)

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From NetFlix:

Diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer, Uxbal (Javier Bardem) — a divorced father raising two children — is determined to atone for his life as a black marketeer in this engrossing character study that unfolds in the slums of Barcelona, Spain. Co-starring Maricel Álvarez as Uxbal’s estranged wife, director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s haunting tale received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for Best Foreign Language Film.

Why do you watch a film ? My most honest answer is “I want to be entertained”. “Entertainment” usually means “escape” or “relax” or “laugh” or “solve a puzzle” or “be excited by action (or sex)”. Therefore, this film, which is probably the most grubby film I have ever seen, might not qualify as “entertainment”. One possible subtitle for this film might be “Watching Javier Bardem Die” because there are an awful lot of shots that linger on his unshaven, haggard, unhappy face.

Another reason for calling the film “grubby” is that it takes place in the slums of Barcelona. Of course, every great and beautiful city has its slums. If all I knew about Barcelona was this film, I would avoid at all cost visiting the city. There is even a beautiful shot of a sunny clear sky into which ugly black factory smoke is pouring. Another view of the sea has dead Chinese immigrant bodies floating into the beach. Are you starting to get the picture ?

At least we get an honest view of how horrible life is for third-world immigrants (legal or otherwise) trying desperately to scratch out a meager living. Do you really want to watch that ?

One sub-theme centers around Bardem’s supposed ability to communicate with the dead for which services he charges a fee. Keep the initial snow scene in mind. Eventually you figure out what is happening.

Only Javier Bardem was familiar to me. However, the woman who plays his wife, Maricel Álvarez, has an unforgettable face. Because of the disproportionate size of her nose, she reminds me of another Spanish actress (whose name I could not find) favored by the director Almodóvar possibly for her striking looks (meaning her nose).

For some of you this film might be 2.5 hours too long.

2009, Could be boring, Could Be Hard To Watch, Dark, Fantasy, Gloomy, Grim, Quiet, Religious Theme, Revenge, Slavery, Slow, Unusual, Violent

Valhalla Rising (2009)

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From NetFlix;

After years of slavery, Viking warrior One-Eye (Mads Mikkelsen) escapes from his captors and seeks refuge on a Norse ship bound for his homeland. When a storm throws them off course, the crew lands at a mysterious realm inhabited by invisible demons. As the bloodthirsty creatures claim one sailor after another, One-Eye rediscovers his fighting spirit but begins to wonder if they have arrived in Jerusalem or someplace much more sinister.

Slow to the point of glacial, you might want to skip this one. After reading the Wikipedia article you get the impression that this is one of those film critic’s specials, although one critic called the film “unbearably self-important”.

After waiting 93 minutes for the lead character “One-Eye” to speak, he never utters a word. Instead he telepathizes to a young boy (yes, that really is an English word).

For some reason or other there are six parts none of which make a lot of sense:

Part I Wrath
Part II Silent Warrior
Part III Men of God
Part IV The Holy Land
Part V Hell
Part VI The Sacrifice

So did I waste 93 minutes ? If nothing else the film is a quiet, mysterious, SLOW “happening”. In a “happening” you just wait to see what will “happen” next. I am still waiting.

2010, Could Be Sad, Drama, Flirting, Gloomy, Not Feel Good, Quiet, Wonderful acting

Another Year (2010)

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From NetFlix:

Over the course of a tumultuous year, contented medical counselor Gerri (Ruth Sheen) and her geologist husband, Tom (Jim Broadbent), see their friends and relations through a series of happy events and heartbreaks — including a birth and a death. Imelda Staunton and Oliver Maltman co-star in this character-driven ensemble dramedy from writer-director Mike Leigh (Happy-Go-Lucky, Vera Drake, Secrets & Lies).

British in every sense: quiet, perfectly acted, not a pretty or handsome face to be seen, miserable teeth, and downright depressing.

More than anything, this film is a study in faces. Have you any idea how difficult it is for an actor when the camera stays fixedly focused on that actor’s face ? Just watch Lesley Manville’s character Mary tell the whole story with the mere movement of her eyes. I could have watched her for the entire film’s length.

Another theme here is loneliness.

What is really scary is that we all know people just like the characters in the story. Mary is an aging lonely neurotic alcoholic who never managed to reach a sensible maturity. Ken is a lonely overweight man who is slowly but surely drinking and eating himself to death. Tom’s widower brother is a zombie who has no idea how to go on living after the death of his wife and whose estranged son is a real mental case.

Another theme is kindness and love.

Tom and Gerri (OK, laugh it up) are an older couple in love and very kind people who try to help Mary and Ken. Mary desperately flirts with the couple’s much younger son Joe and acts like an abandoned lover when Joe gets a wonderful girlfriend Kate. Even then Gerri can forgive Mary’s outrageous behavior.

Although I have done my best to paint a really depressing picture, do not miss this pitch perfect production.

1986, Dark, Drama, Explicit sex, Gloomy, Grim, Mystery Film, Nudity, Religious Theme, Suspense, Torture, Violent

The Name of the Rose (1986)

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From NetFlix:

In this adaptation of Umberto Eco’s best-selling novel, 14th-century Franciscan monk William of Baskerville (Sean Connery) and his young novice (Christian Slater) arrive at a conference to find that several monks have been murdered under mysterious circumstances. To solve the crimes, William must rise up against the Church’s authority and fight the shadowy conspiracy of monastery monks using only his intelligence — which is considerable

Umberto Eco wrote his first novel The Name of the Rose in 1980. Eco is a well-known modern scholar.

Jean-Jaques Annaud, the director, has assembled a cast of the most unusual, distorted, exaggerated, cretinous faces I have ever seen. These faces are perfectly in tune with the dark, forbidding atmosphere of the Benedictine monastery in northern Italy. To keep all the characters straight, try reading the Wikipedia article on the film. Besides Sean Connery and Christian Slater, Ron Perlman as Salvatore is particularly memorable. Salvatore is the retarded hunchback whose garbled speech is a mixture of several languages. Whoever restructured and tonsured all those heads was a genius in the art of actor makeup.

Thanks to my Italian teacher ,Vincenzo Santone, for recommending this film. Of course, Vincenzo would like me to read the original Italian version, which is a challenge. Because I have not read the book, I do not know if it is so condemning of the Catholic church of the early 14th century as is the film. Certainly the film makes the church hierarchy into a pack of sadistic, ignorant, self-indulgent, greedy, superstitious cretins. Naturally, the Inquisition is cast as the fundamentalist, intolerant Taliban of the 14th century.

Here is one film that I could not stop watching.

2010, Drama, Drugs, Gloomy, Grim, Occasional gore, Violent

Winter’s Bone (2010)

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From NetFlix:

In director Debra Granik’s unflinching noir drama set deep in the Ozarks, resilient teen Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) goes on the trail of her missing, drug-dealing father when his absence jeopardizes the family’s safety. Her deadbeat dad has a key court date pending, and Ree is determined that he show up — despite the objections of the insular Dolly clan. The film earned an Independent Spirit Award nod and won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.

Jennifer Lawrence superbly lets a light shine in a grim Ozark setting in which the standard livelihood is cooking crystal meth. Compared with all the other characters she is just too healthy looking, too normal size, too responsible, really too attractive. But she is not Hollywood, she fits right in.

In one sense you might describe most of the film as Ree’s searching and visiting one strange character after another looking for her dad Jessup. Even so, the journey is never boring, probably because every second feels so authentic (but then, I’ve never been in the Ozarks and, from what the film shows me, I will NEVER visit the Ozarks).

One odd fact: there is absolutely no reference to sex in the film.

Without giving anything away, please stay with the story and I promise you a happy ending.

2009, Black and White Film, Child Molestation, Dark, Explicit sex, German, Gloomy

The White Ribbon (2009)

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From NetFlix:

At a rural school in northern Germany in 1913, a form of ritual punishment has major consequences for students and faculty. But the practice may have bigger repercussions on the German school system — and maybe even on the growth of fascism. Celebrated Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke helms this Golden Globe-winning, sumptuously photographed black-and-white drama that stars Susanne Lothar, Ulrich Tukur and Theo Trebs.

Quite possibly the gloomiest, most depressing, hopeless, and exasperating film I have ever seen. The gloom is aided and abetted by the fact that it is filmed in black and white with an emphasis on black. In fact, the houses in this pre-electric period were probably quite dark.

If you believe this film, pre-WWI rural Germans were beasts. What a wonderful collection of men who commit incest, men who treat their sex partners like dirt, undiscovered villagers that maim horses, torture retarded children, kill house pets, burn down buildings, etc. The pastor is such a strict disciplinarian that he canes his children, forces them to wear white ribbons (which mean that they are bad people who need to reform), and ties his son’s hands each night to the bed lest the boy masturbate. Need I continue ?

If you can stand this atmosphere, then as an art film it is excellent. Assumedly you really get a feeling for life in that era. I just hope it is historically accurate.