Sunday, May 29, 2011

Time to Reach For the Tissue: Movies that Make Me Cry

I have to admit a lot of my most recent posts come to me while I am just sitting around.  Today was a great day and I was going to write about something that connected films with memorial day, but something else came to my attention.  I sat by my pool the whole day and relaxed with my family, then had a great meal (surf and turf-yummy) but my real inspiration came after dinner when Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was on and Dumbldore had fall from the tower and I started to shed a few tears.  There are many movies that make me cry, but they are divided into several categories.  This first category in today's edition is about my go to cry movies.  Please beware there are spoilers below!



Big Fish (2003) Something about the nature of this father and son relationship and the way it unfolds at the end has me in tears.  The film deals with the relationship between a father and son and reconciling how to come to terms with a father wanting his son to be proud of him.  Billy Crudup (Will Bloom)  and Albert Finney (Edward Bloom) work so well together with their conflict.  Edward is dying, and has cancer.  The end scene when Will carries his father down to the lake in the fashion of one of his tale tales is a moment that any son would admit he could cry to.  Understanding you father, and where he has been is an important thing.

Philadelphia (1993) Tom Hanks plays Andrew Beckett a lawyer who is fired from his firm because he has AIDS.  Throughout the film we watch Andrew struggle with his court case, his disease, and balancing his relationship with his partner and family.  Tom Hanks is brilliant in this role and there are several different times I cry throughout this film: when he testifies on the stand, but also at the end after he has passed away, and they are at his funeral and you see the images of him as a child in picture and video.  The music of Bruce Springsteen also adds to the mood.  The scene below is another real tear jerker!


I think everyone (both men and women) have their go to cry sports movie sand mine is Remember the Titans (2000) at the end when Gerry Bertier dies in in the car accident without fail I lose it.  This movie about camaraderie is so inspiring.

Remember the TitansI cry in Big Fish not because of the cancer, but because of the relationship between the father and son.  The Bucket List (2007-although not a great movie) is my go to movie to cry when it comes to the big C, caner.  The whole last 30 minutes  is like one big sob fest.

Everyone also has their go to tragic love story that makes them cry, and mine is Brokeback Mountain (2005).  Watching Ennis clutch Jacks jacket at the end with his flannel shirt from their first time on Brokeback Mountain is one of the most heart wrenching scenes ever!

The first two are my official go to movies for crying, and the next two depend on my mood.  I watch Remember the Titans, if i want it to be a manly cry.  I watch the Bucket List if I want to be a real masochist, and I watched Brokeback Mountain if I am longing for love.  At the end of the day there are certain things that tug at our hearts and make us emotional, whether that be Dumbledore falling to his death in Harry Potter or something else, take the time to think about what gets you, and cherish the movies that have made you emotionally connect with a character.

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