The Small One kills me everytime. Shit, almost every Christmas special does. Especially Rudolph.
My particular aversion to the scene in *Pinocchio *where the boys are being transformed into donkeys and screaming for their mother came up in a discussion with my Mom last month. I think I finally figured out what bothers me about that (besides familial separation; a state I’m in now and bothers me no small amount) is the idea of having human thoughts but being trapped in a non-human body. Reading Ovid’s Metamorphoses (and Kafka’s story by the same name) was a little troublesome for me in undergrad. I find the idea fascinating and terrifying, and horribly, horribly sad.
I cry easily at movies though. I admitted in the WALL-E thread that I’ve never sobbed so much at a damn movie (the “security cam” on EVE just *killed *me). Stupid feelings! (I still cry at the end of Terminator 2 when Arnie gives John a thumbs-up. Waaah!)
For some obscure psychological reason, the idea of young men dying in WWI makes me cry. I have no idea why WWI in particular. Movies that have young men dying in other wars don’t affect me that way.
I was watching “The Shooting Party” last week and got teary at the bit at the end where the men are walking across the field and the text comes up to tell you that
pretty much every male you’ve just seen in the film under the age of 30 gets killed in the war.
The scene in the 1930s version of “Goodbye Mr. Chips,” where Mr. Chips is reading off the list of all the “old boys” from the school who have been killed always makes me cry.
Also when Mr. Whale remembers how the boy he loved was killed in “Gods and Monsters.” There are similar scenes in episodes of “Upstairs, Downstairs,” and “The Duchess of Duke St.” that have the same effect on me. Not to mention the ending of “Blackadder Goes Forth.”
Boys on the Side just about wrecked me. The scene where she taps out “Close to You” on the piano when she first received it was bad enough. But when they went around the room when whatsherface was dying, and then they get back to where she was and it was just an empty wheelchair…keeee-rist, was that heart-wrenching.
When I was little I used to cry after Cinderella’s happy ending. (Cinderella was played by Lesley Ann Warren.) My mother kind of mocked me for crying. I didn’t know that you could legitimately cry at something happy.
I saw The Color Purple with my mother. It was an odd movie for her to want to see. On the way out was when she told me that she was raped by her real father. Wow. I knew something was really off about her descriptions of the man (I never met him) but that was really a surprise. I never watched that movie again–I just couldn’t face it. I have had no interest in seeing the musical.
God yes. I work in tech support and we had this movie running on silent at work once. I watched it with one eye. In the end,when the tank arrives and he thinks he won the contestI was in a call. And started crying. That was not an easy call to complete.
I’ll infiniteth The Iron Giant.
Also: “If you build it, he will come” and “That’ll do, pig. That’ll do”.
There are a few films that choke me up (The Iron Giant has been mentioned, and that one gets me) but no movie has ever made me sob like Grave of the Fireflies
A similar scene happens in Battlestar Gallactica when Starbuck drunkenly raises a toast to all of the pilots who’ve died so far in their battle against the Cylons. What made it so powerful to me is that up till that episode, Starbuck was the “golden child” who singlehandedly whipped Cylon after Cylon. In this episode, she can’t quite shoot the Cylon, so she sets the raider up for another pilot (blanking on the name) who shoots down the Cylon and takes full credit for the kill, ignoring Starbuck’s help. In that scene, I think Starbuck grew up a little.
JMHO
I’m quite the sniveller myself so many of the aforementioned movies are on my list but one I haven’t seen mentioned yet was “Children of Men.” I mean dayum, I was sobbing for like the last half hour of that movie.
DUDE! Un-frakkin’-believable! I was talking about this thread with the SO and we remembered that one and I was just coming in to post it–you’re right, it’s harrowing. I think the reason I didn’t fall apart too badly on “Grave of the Fireflies” was because I’d already seen this one. Yeah, go ahead, tough guys, watch this movie and see how tough you are THEN!
The SO can only recall one other movie that got his waterworks going and that was “My Girl,” when the geeky kid got stung by bees and died. For some reason that one got him. He denies it but I think “Bridge to Terabithia” got him a bit, too.
The Joy Luck Club. This movie has a lot of tear-jerkerish scenes, but there’s one that always, always makes me cry, even if I warn myself it’s coming and make an honest effort not to.
It’s the “best quality” scene when June and her mother have a confrontation/connection while washing dishes, and her mother tells her that she “sees her” and knows that she has the “best quality heart.”
Oh, just watch the clip. Especially from about the 4:00 minute mark.
I think this scene gets to me because I would love to have a conversation like this with my own mother. I identify strongly with June.
The wife cries easily at movies. The two strongest examples, though, since we watch them fairly regularly and they can bring a tear even to my jaded eye is the ending of It’s a Wonderful Life (of course) and the part in *Casablanca * where they sing the Marseillaise against the Germans in Rick’s.
Another one the wife always cries at is Tom Hanks’ death in Saving Private Ryan. She finds that incredibly moving. I think because it’s all wrapped up in his being just a high-school English teacher who only wants to go home to his wife. Thailand having largely sat out the war as a nominal Japanese ally, it really brings home to her, in ways most Thais simply do not understand (her nephew is a big Nazi fan, because they had spiffy uniforms), the true sacrifices that went with that war.
I must admit to not relating to the outpouring of admiration for the “When She Loved Me” montage from Toy Story 2. I find it gets mentioned a lot but it simply does not register for me. Maybe it’s a chick thing?
Conversely, I think the only Pixar sequence that turns the water works on for me is the “It’s Our Town” montage and the “Sh-Boom” sequence from Cars, a film that’s been almost universally panned by so-called Pixar fans … a fantastic irony when you consider that the film was a labor of love at Pixar and a pet project of John Lassetter’s for a very long time. I guess it makes sense that it gets slotted at or near the bottom of the Pixar totem pole. It’s at the very top of mine, and not just because of the attention to detail for those, like me, who are into cars. Those sequences illustrate the extinction and resurrection of an element of yesteryear that we will never get back … things have gotten faster and more efficient and progress has been made, but are we the better for it? The way they captured our loss of a classic part of Americana through our own westward expansion is poignant and moving.
Also seconding Scissorjack’s strong testimony for the conclusion of The Iron Giant. That one gives me a great big painful lump in my throat any time I see it. The concept is quite similar to that of Terminator 2 or Short Circuit … a machine designed for war making a conscious decision to understand and value life rather than destroy it, making us look within ourselves on a primal level to question our own humanity. This animated feature delivers that message on a colorful, emotional, and epic scale. The Giant’s struggle to be recognized as an agent of life rather than death is profound for what appears to be such an innocent little animated film. It’s nothing short of tragic how poorly the film was marketed and distributed, but it has gained considerable status as a modern classic over the years despite all that. I consider it required viewing.
I also find myself struggling to hold it together at the end of Big Fish … I never would have imagined a Tim Burton film doing that to me.
Dead Poets Society - end scene in classroom Letters from Iwo Jima - final letters are read by narrator
Cry at each screening:
Schindler’s List - end scene when the survivors are laying stones on the monument Stand By Me - when the narrator is telling us what happened to each friend after that day My Life - most of the second half of the film Cinema Paradiso - the ending montage Au Revoir Les Enfant - scene when the young boy is finally taken away
I know we’re doing movies but I think an honourable mention should go to the TV show Six Feet Under. I had a lot of weepy moments watching that, often not for reasons you might expect (very few of them related to death). The end sequence of the finale, of course, destroyed me (even if it was the only way the show could end).
The Remains of the Day is my weakness; the scene towards the end where Mrs. Benn (who was previously Miss Kenton) leaves Stevens at the bus stop and rides away on the bus through the rain always leaves me misty-eyed and wobbly of voice.
I can’t remember if the song is reprised, but it appears first when Hazel has been wounded by gunfire and is missing, and everyone thinks he’s dead until Fiver goes into one of his trances (which I think the song is the music-over for).
*Forrest Gump * - I become a sodden mess from the point where Jenny runs through the Reflecting Pool until the end.
*Schindler’s List * - I can’t even listen to Itzhak Perlman playing the theme without tearing up.
I cried like a baby at the end of the Quentin Tarantino episodes of CSI. My estimation of George Eads acting skills went through the roof in those final scenes.
Hoosiers - not least because a schoolmate who later committed suicide was in the movie.
