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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Crying Shame

18:36 / 20.09.01

Despite my stature as the Underground's token swaggering man-beast, there are a fair number of movies that make me bawl like an itty, bitty baby.

King Kong. The original version. Made me ashamed to be a person.

Captains Courageous. Spencer Tracy reassuring the kid even while hiding the fact that the lower half of his body has just been ripped off.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. God Bless The Duke.

Iron Giant. "Superman." Anytime anyone goes off about how worthless old-time superheroes are, I just remember this film.

Babe. The movie that sparked the thread. If I even think about the scene where Hoggett is singing to the pig I break down. I had to wait until the theatre cleared of children before I could leave so I wouldn't upset them.

Anyone else?

18:48 / 20.09.01

I'm an awful weeper, me.

The Mission. DeNiro and most of the brothers take a final, doomed stand against the Portuguese while Jeremy Irons celebrates the Mass with the mission burning around him... each knowing what he does is futile but doing it because he must...
O, Lord, I am not worthy.

More recently, The Cup. Made in India by Tibetans-in-exile: bunch of novice Buddhist monks want to watch the World Cup finals, with heart-wrenching results. Honest.

20:09 / 20.09.01

I second both The Mission and Iron Giant .

I’ll add Magnolia . Probably my favourite film. Every time William H Macy
pulls up in his car has me blubbering. Julian Moore breaking down in the chemists.

Profoundly moving movie.

20:14 / 20.09.01

The ending of Jacob's Ladder.

20:25 / 20.09.01

Dead Poet's Society...I stil can't watch the whole thing all the way through.

E.T.

Dr.T and the Women....soo bad it brings tears to my eyes.

22:33 / 20.09.01

The end of The Elephant Man, when Merrick methodically dismantles the mountain of pillows on his bed that keep him upright - and alive.

The Man Who Would Be King, when Sean Connery marches out onto that rope bridge and starts singing. The tears never ever fail to well up.

More when I think of them.

The Damned Yankee

00:13 / 21.09.01

*BUFFY SPOILERS FOLLOW*

I know it's not a movie, but the season finale of Buffy was a kick in the gut for me. What really got me was seeing Spike - Spike! - crying over Buffy's death. Of course, she's back in the season premiere and now I feel like a sap, but at that moment . . .

Anyway, ahem! Movies, right? Despite my swaggering, manly exterior, I'm something of a sucker for romantic movies. The two real weepers that stand out for me are White Palace with Susan Sarandon, and Ghost.

The end of The Crow, the original with Brandon Lee, also gives my heartstrings a solid tug.

[ 21-09-2001: Message edited by: Mazarine ]

00:52 / 21.09.01

Yank: you might want to edit that post or SPOILERS, for the benefit of the Brits on the board, who are two seasons behind us on Buffy.

01:30 / 21.09.01

Please do it quickly before they go absolutely apefuck on your ass.

06:46 / 21.09.01

Gah, I can't believe I'm admitting this but The Lion King gets me all choked up (particualrly the opening scenes with Cirle of Life playing)

And An American Tail.

*sniff*

07:26 / 21.09.01

Beat me over the head for saying so, but Benny & Joon gets me every time......oh, and by the way, F**K F**k F**K on the Buffy thin g - gah, I hate spoilers - I have to tread so carefully around the View Askew site over the last few weeks - and I still have another couple of months of walking on ice to get through before J&SBSB hits the UK....and now I get fut spoilered here...oh sad day

The Return Of Rothkoid

08:07 / 21.09.01

CameronStewart: you're fuckin' right. The Elephant Man is amazingly sad. Using Barber's "Adagio for strings" probably helps a bit, but - *sniff*.

Jack; ditto to The Mission. If I'm wanting to purposely fuck myself up, the soundtrack to that sucker is put on. Amazing.

The last ten minutes or so of Koyaanisqaatsi is spellbinding in its awfulness. Very sad, which is odd, when you consider what it is that's happening.

I found myself getting a bit choked up watching The Truman Show last night. And I fucking hate Jim Carrey. Sigh.

Also, sometime sniffly-inducing is Jude Law's last scene in Gattaca. For something so clinical as that production, it was surprisingly involving.

I can't remember crying, but the end of Das Boot had me completely drained. Utterly.

Oh yeah. And bits of The Piano and even Muriel's Wedding get me going, too. Though that could be familiarity.

08:07 / 21.09.01

I'm not even admitting to the films that make me cry..

11:17 / 21.09.01

Grave of the Fireflies made me bawl like a baby. Twice.

11:52 / 21.09.01

I think I win...I have been known to cry at the occasional tv advert, and not even just the ones for charity. But, unsurprisingly, I am a sucker for films too. I bawled my eyes out at 'Titanic'. 'Bicentennial Man' sent me into floods (literally) *in* the cinema. 'Boys on the Side'. I second 'The Crow'...and I've always avoided 'The Iron Giant' 'cause I know I couldn't take it. I've never even seen E.T. all the way through.

12:30 / 21.09.01

quote:Originally posted by Rothkoid:
I can't remember crying, but the end of Das Boot had me completely drained. Utterly.

oh yeah. no shit. if that film ever makes people want to go to war, they are fucking sick in the head. i went to see it with two guys i used to work with when the director's cut came out at the cinema, and they were quite surprised that my normally cheerful self was so down afterwards...

i cry about the most pathetic things on screen. never used to. used to be hugely cynical, but now it doesn't take much to set me off. as i recently mentioned both on my blog and in conversation with several different people, one of the things that bugs me at the moment is the fact that i well up so easily. i find myself doing it as soon as the emotionally charged music starts, and i hate that i can't tell if it's genuine empathy for the acting, or if my brain impulses have been conditioned by so many years of cinema soundtracks to feel that way.... i really hate feeling emotionally manipulated by soundtracks like that. i think that's why i always used to be so cynical and refuse to feel anything, but i don't know why i've changed now...

Doctor Sax

12:44 / 21.09.01

It's A Wonderful Life. Every time.

Dead Poets Society, too. And The World According to Garp, although it certainly isn't a Robin Williams thing. That's probably more the book, mind, than the film.

I always feel pretty melancholy at the end of Withnail and I, too.

And that episode of the Simpsons where Homer grows hair and gets promoted, and hires Karl, his obviously gay personal assistant who loves him to bits.
Karl: "My mother told me never to kiss a fool. >mwah< Go get 'em, tiger."
Homer: "Ooh!"

13:00 / 21.09.01

Rizla, give us a hug. C'mon, open up lad.

I second It's a Wonderful Life. Add to that A Miracle on 34th Street and the Pinky and the Brain Christmas special. No, really. I hate Pinky and the Brain, but this one had me in tears.

And I'll throw in for TV adverts. Especially the Canadian Heritage commercials. And the one where the kid calls his Grandad on the phone from France.

"Oh, what a surprise, Grandson! Are you having fun in Paris?"
"I'm not in Paris. I'm at Normandy. I just wanted to say... Thanks, Grandpa."

I'm such an easy mark.

[ 21-09-2001: Message edited by: moriarty ]

Carmilla Von Uberwald

17:56 / 21.09.01

Oddly enough the end of First Blood where sly is describing his friend being blown up by the bootshine boy upsets me.
And the ending of Spinal Tap where the band are discussing what to do after the breakup is not a tearjerker but is, toughing.

18:22 / 21.09.01

I usually don't cry in movies (too shallow), but I did cry during Snoopy Come Home when Charlie Brown sings that totally sad song about saying goodbyes.

I also cried at the end of American History X,

also (total embarrassing sap confession time), in i"It's a Wonderful Life" when George and Mary are talking to Sam Wainwright on the phone and he says "I don't wanna get married or ANYTHING! And you're, and you're..." and then he grabs her face and they start making out (or whatever passed for it back then), that makes me cry.

Also when the cop comes to find Melora at the end of Magnolia, bawl city...

00:42 / 22.09.01

Iron Giant... yeah, "Soooperman" indeed. that's exactly how I felt about heroes when I was too young to believe in anything else.

And Gattaca was like stealth pathos, at the end there.

The Damned Yankee

23:14 / 22.09.01

quote:Originally posted by Jack Fear:
Yank: you might want to edit that post or SPOILERS, for the benefit of the Brits on the board, who are two seasons behind us on Buffy.

Really? I was not aware of that. Really and truly.

Two YEARS behind? Whassupwitdat? The Atlantic Ocean ain't THAT wide!

I sense the hand of George Bush in this. Something sinister is afoot . . .

Anyway, apologies to all, and I hereforth resolve to avoid any mention of current Buffy storylines without proper annotation, up to and including Buffy's new infant son and recent election to Congress (Kidding! I'm kidding!).

[ 23-09-2001: Message edited by: The Damned Yankee ]

11:57 / 23.09.01

No film has ever made me _cry_ cry, but the ones that bring me close to it have already been mentioned - Gattacca's surprisinigly moving, Das Boot is just like a knife to the chest, but it was probably American History X that shook me up the most - I found the whole film really, really powerful, but after that ending, was shaking. And just wanted to curl up. And tell the people I loved that I loved them. Had a most bizarre effect, but I think it was mainly because it was so shaking.

autopilot disengaged

12:49 / 23.09.01

king kong made me cry, too. locked myself in the bathroom and wouldn't come out for ages. that (probably shit) film about the guy in the biosphere-type spaceship, and his robots. honest. there is such a thing.

don't really cry anymore, but the end of cyrano de bergerac moved me almost beyond tears. and the end of dancer in the dark made me very claustrophobic and suddenly - quite - difficult to - breathe.

real-life death: supermassochist was similiarly affecting - oh god - and some footage i saw from sierra leone, where a mob bludgeoned some teenager to death. which reminds of day of the lizard - that pretty much did it too.

14:32 / 23.09.01

quote:Originally posted by autopilot disengaged:
...that (probably shit) film about the guy in the biosphere-type spaceship, and his robots. honest. there is such a thing.
Silent Running. Bruce Dern. Directed by Douglas Trumbull, if I'm not mistaken...
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0067756
...and I'm not.

And--holy shit!--written by Michael (The Deer Hunter) Cimino and Steve (NYPD Blue) Bochco! What the fuck?

[ 23-09-2001: Message edited by: Jack Fear ]

16:57 / 23.09.01

I. Closet Land. It was a film sponsored by Amnesty International and starred Alan Rickman and Madeline Stowe. Synopsis from IMDB:

A young writer is interrogated by a sadistic secret policeman. She is accused of embedding political messages in her children's stories. The entire movie takes place in one room, with only the two actors. The movie is set in an unidentified, modern police state.

Wow.

II. American Beauty. Before you jump all over me on this think about it - the reasons that the film ended the way it did - the fucked up suburban attitudes, the anti-gay sentiment, the repressed sexuality (Chris Cooper as Ricky Fitts father scared the shit out of me), the bizzare expectations we have of one another. It was a scary view of the undercurrent attitudes in modern life.

23:42 / 23.09.01

i cried at "while you were sleeping". it was a strange time in my life, okay?

14:12 / 24.09.01

Fly Away Home
(little girl flies ultralight to guide baby geese on their first migration)
October Skies
(dirt poor West Virginia boys build rockets, go to big science fair)
Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan
(Very hokey, and despite myself: when Scottie breaks out the bagpipes.)

...and many, many more. It happens more often now. And I'm especially susceptible to extreme sap. I'll scoff at it while sniffling.

Man, there was one recently that was so sad it was hard to breathe. Can't remember what it was for the life of me, though.

(oh, and just thinking of that big damn robot going "Superman" is enough to get me misty even now, a full year after the last time I saw the dern thing.)

Lately, though (and I don't just mean post-Tower Day), it happens while I'm listening to the NEWS. NPR ran this thing a while back, high school kids reading aloud this correspondence between an American schoolboy and this girl in Yugoslavia that was just heartwrenching.

Jamieon

16:39 / 24.09.01

Buffy made me cry too.

I am the nance.

And I think you'll find we're only one season behind. We're on 5, you're on 6. And loads of us have already seen it on video, anyway.