I'm in a bad mood - What the hell do I watch?

I’m in a real bad mood today. Awful.  Anyone who has been unfortunate enough to speak to me today will know this. Any sentence I have uttered today has either been sarcastic or just plain mean. Also when the pets avoid you with no prior contact, it gives me the impression that I am the devil incarnate – which is never a good feeling. Odd thing is I really can’t work out why I’m in such a bad mood. I had a lovely day yesterday watching Manchester United, and had a relatively pleasant evening in watching “Warrior” round my friend Daniel’s. I have just woke up in a mood where I feel that if I was to stare at anything for a long enough period of time it would spontaneously combust, the resulting flames would engulf me, and I’d be standing there, with a charred grin on my face as everything around me burned to ashes….

Pretty much how I felt

These were not particularly happy thoughts….

Which is why I thought “cor blimey guv’nor, this ain’t no way to spend your Sunday, cheer yourself up my plum, and turn that frown upside down”.

This puzzled me for two reasons.

A) Why does my inner voice sound like Dick Van Dyke out of Mary Poppins?

&

B)  Why is my inner voice speaking like it is a separate entity from myself?

My inner voice... apparently

Ignoring the early signs of schizophrenia, I decided my inner voice was right – I really should be happier today. But what to do, hmmm?

I’ll take the dog for a walk! No, that will take too much effort, besides it looks like it might rain. Being wet and outside won’t help my mood – it could cause me to snap and I’ll be found in 1 weeks’ time in Kinver woods, naked, and trying to teach French to a group of curious squirrels.

I’ll spend some time with my family! As much as I want to be happy, I have to be realistic here. I’ve just heard the phone ring slightly longer than it should and it made me want to blow up the house in order make it stop, so perhaps I should avoid other people for the time being.

Which leads us to the inevitable (and somewhat predictable) conclusion that I must once again rely on film to rescue me…

(By the way, if Word highlights a sentence in green one more time without providing me with a solution and instead, pedantically recommends that I “consider revising” - you’ll hear my resulting scream from wherever you are)

Right, the initial instinct is to go with a nice happy film. This seems like the obvious choice. I will go to the Malin’s DVD collection to see what options I have.

Right I am back; here are the options I was presented with.

“Bring it On” – Nope, all those giggly cheerleaders would make me feel overly frustrated that we didn’t have giggly cheerleaders when I was at school. Also, even if I did I wouldn’t of been in a position to do anything because of acne, shit hair and the annoying habit of when I decided I wanted to flirt I looked about as comfortable as a pigeon being  inserted anally into a constipated pig.

“Home Alone” – It’s not December yet. Plus Macaulay Culkin is apparently has a small heroin addiction now, so that’s not very cheery. I don’t think so.

“Hitch” – Will Smith decides in the end that he had nothing do with Kevin James hooking up at the end, because the girl fell in love with Kevin James . Are you mental? Will, he’d never of had the courage to talk to that girl in the first place if it wasn’t for you! Fuck off.

“Little Mermaid” – How could anyone be that happy living under the sea? They couldn’t. The whole film smacks of denial, and that would not cheer me up. The Little Mermaid that is, denial might help me…

Scary admissions aside, it’s clear that I was not in the mood for happy films. The cynical monster that inhabits my body (some would argue it never leaves) is clearly a picky and determined fellow. So what’s the other option? Put on a depressing film! Make my plight seem insignificant in comparison! Right, what have we got…

“Saving Private Ryan” – No, it would make me cry.

“Seven” – No

“Green Mile” – God no

“The Lion King” – Mufasa dying would send me over the edge.

Mufasarrrrrr

 

Often, I use escapism films to comfort me, take me out of the situation I am in, but today Gandalf, Han, or Sirius just was not going to cut it. I was in a bad mood, and I wanted to deal with it.But then I started noticing other films in the collection. Films that were not particularly happy, but not particularly sad. Well, probably more so edging towards the sad if anything –

“Lost in Translation”

 

“Adventureland”

 

“Swingers”

All these films had one common thing – a bloke who was depressed about their current situation, and went on a little journey because of it and felt a bit better at the end. Not overly better you understand – I didn’t want Hollywood to lie to me. I didn’t  want to think that despite my bad mood if I kept on going I’d have a bunch of giggly cheerleaders ( over the age of 16 of course… and female… definitely female) to massage me in wonderful and imaginative ways, and then I’d get that dream job I always wanted (male cheerleader). No, no, no, I just wanted a little recognition of my situation, and a gentle tap on the shoulder to let me know everything was going to be ok.

Any other type of film would wash over or make me feel worse. If I went for something overly happy, I wouldn’t think it would be applicable to me, and I would just glaze over it. Comfort films have to be something that identifies with you. Otherwise it would be like an annoying friend trying to convince you everything is going to be ok when they don’t have the foggiest clue what is going on with you or how you feel. Or even worse the kind of friend that tries to listen to what problems you are going through, but they really just wants an excuse to talk about themselves and wouldn’t care if you slit your wrists after you’ve given them the green light to talk about how their parents don’t really get them for 15^th time today.

Your comfort film is your best mate. The one who knows you. The friend who will let you vent and offer some advice if they can. They will try to help, but won’t bullshit you and offer you a dose of reality if you need it.  I’ve heard other people talk about music in the same way, when they are down, they will put on music that will reflect that mood, not Steps.

Sometimes I will need a comfort film to offer a cheery viewpoint when I’m feeling ill/hung over and a bit sorry for myself (step forward “What Happens in Vegas”), but most of the time my comfort film is something that relates to and what usually happens when I feel down, and I think it is important that distinction is made when it comes to comfort films – do you need cheering up, do you want to know that other people go through shit to and that’s ok, or do you just want to think "fuck it, reality sucks, take me to a galaxy far far away now".

You might even have a film type I haven't even considered. Perhaps you like to put on Die Hard, and use John McClane as a way to fight your out of depression, or you like a rom-com to let you know you are going to meet that special someone despite making a prat of yourself for the last 90 minutes... I'm more of a wallow in self pity guy you see.

 

Always interested to hear other people’s comfort films, I think, quite like guilty pleasure films, that it says a lot about someone.

And by the way I went for “Lost in Translation” in the end, Bill Murray is my hero.