It’s embarrassing how easily manipulated I am by movies, songs and books that are intended to make me cry. :o And most of the ones above are on my list.
Three more: God Only Knows at the end of Love Actually.
I’m not sure it’s considered an “entertainment” but **Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address **does more than choke me up a little. Reading it is bad enough, but hearing it recited does me in. I’m slobbering by the time I hear "conceived in liberty . . . "
The impact of seeing Monet’s Waterlilies at L’Orangerie in Paris for the first time was so moving, I could only sit and whimper for several minutes. They are surprisingly HUGE, beautiful beyond my ability to express, and sparely displayed in the spaces for which they were created.
Bill Pullman’s rah-rah speech in Independence Day, especially the part where he says, “We will not go quietly into the night!”
The bit in Air Force One where the fighter pilot looks at the damaged plane and then tells Harrison Ford it’s not possible to land it, and then says, “You did great, sir” and salutes him.
When Helen Keller breaks out of her silent darkness by finally understanding the sign language Annie Sullivan has been teaching her, in The Miracle Worker.
The last supper in Godspell, as the song “On the Willows” is sung, when Jesus silently says goodbye to his each of his apostles, each in a different way.
The country songs “The Baby” by Blake Shelton and “Love, Me” - forgot the artist, but I’m afraid to look it up because then I’ll look up the YouTube clip and start crying.
The Spanish song “Mi Nina Bonita,” which is traditionally played at quinceaneras. It makes me think of when my daughter turns 15, and how much older she will be. (I know, it’s another 6 1/2 years, but it makes me emotional anyway.)
2 episodes in the anime series Fushigi Yuugi, when Chiriko dies, and also Nuriko’s death a few episodes later.
Another anime: Naruto Shippuden: (major spoilers if you haven’t seen it!)
the death of Asuma, and the scene in the next episode when Shikamaru, Asuma’s pupil, notifies his sensei’s pregnant girlfriend, Kurenai. There’s also Asuma’s funeral, when his nephew, Konohamaru, begins to cry, and Naruto consoles him, and later when Shikamaru’s dad tries to talk to him over a game of shogi and Shikamaru finally knocks down the shogi board and begins to cry inconsolably. Hell, that whole episode is nothing but crying for me. And I still haven’t seen the one where Jiraiya dies.
Oh, yeah, I forgot that most of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows made me cry. I cried every time someone died, so that by the time I got to Lupin and Tonks’ death, I was all cried out. But then Snape got killed and I started crying again
I just saw another one. In The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, the old blind man makes me unutterably sad, and when he asks Tommy Lee Jones to shoot him so he can die, I bawl like a baby.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - Amos Diggory’s reaction to his son’s death. The actor absolutely nailed the anguish a father would feel. It is the moment I peg in the books and the movies that the tone changes and the weight of what has happened and is going to happen falls on the characters.
Agree about Cash’s version of Hurt and the beginning of Up
General Woundwort: Why throw your life away?
Bigwig: My Chief ordered me to guard this run.
General Woundwort: [Stunned] YOUR Chief?
and of course:
Black Rabbit: Hazel… Hazel… you know me, don’t you?
Hazel: I don’t know.
[the apparition reveals himself to be the Black Rabbit, and Hazel gasps]
Hazel: Yes, my lord. I know you.
Black Rabbit: I’ve come to ask if you’d like to join my Owsla. We shall be glad to have you, and I know you’d like it. You’ve been feeling tired, haven’t you? If you’re ready, we might go along now.
[Hazel looks at all the younger rabbits of Watership Down]
Black Rabbit: You needn’t worry about them. They’ll be all right, and thousands like them. If you come along now, I’ll show you what I mean.
Oh, man. Have to second, third and forth a lot of the previous nominations. I’m a big grizzly bear of a guy who isn’t ashamed to cry (okay, maybe I’m in denial), but I very rarely do. Here’s what carries me to the brink.
The opening montage of Up, and the “scrapbook moment” near the end.
Several moments in LotR: The Return of the King. Pippin’s Song, the “Far Green Country” reverie, and “You bow to NO ONE.”
The Iron Giant I consider to be my generation’s Ol’ Yeller. I don’t care HOW much testosterone is coursing through your body. It is perfectly okay for a guy to bawl his eyes out at the end.
Gorécki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. In my opinion, the greatest piece of music of the 20th century. My visualization of it is a scene of complete post-war devastation, like Warsaw in The Pianist, with a single rose sprouting from between the shattered cobblestones. Hope in the face of near-annihilation.
The finale of Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 brings tears to my eyes as well, but tears of joy. I got to sing it a few years back with my local symphony, and the intensity of the emotion is…damn, I haven’t the words to express it.
My song is You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive as done by Patty Loveless or Brad Paisley. Between the haunting melody and the way that the lyrics evoke images of desperation and abject poverty, I don’t stand a chance.
If I’m in the right mood, I’ll cry with the Dixie Chicks’ You Were Mine.
What can I say? My own life is too cheery, so I listen to country music.
