So I decided to see if I was yet again a strange guy...
The fact is, I'm a really emotional guy. Oh, I almost never cry for me, you know. I keep it most of it bottled inside unfortunately. Not that I want to, I just have a really hard time letting my personal feelings out. But I disgress.
The thing is, I'm the kind of guy who gets easily involved in any fantasy world. I'm especially a sucker for characters dying or sacrificing everything for the cause. I guess like Edington, I'm a romantic. And it's always worse when I'm really tired after a work shift. In those cases, tears roll down just *thinking* about a particulary sad movie scene.
Here are some examples:
Warning! Spoilers for a variety of shows and books!
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Cowboy Bebop (Anime): When Spike dies at the end and the final "Blue" theme plays, I always start crying and I just can't stop myself.
Gladiator: Well, I'm really not proud of that one since the tears are a bit forced out of you, but when Maximum dies at the end, with the music playing while he goes back to his family in the afterlife, well I still cry even after seeing it 5 times.
Lord Of The Rings (Book): I don't know why, but the last part of "The Return of the King" when Frodo leaves Middle-Earth and then in the Epilogue when the rest of the party of the ring leaves for the Immortal Lands of the West, I can't help but shed a few tears, since it's almost as if they were quietly dying in a way. I really get hooked up to characters like that after a few books.
Cyrano de Bergerac (French movie): Ah, the death of Cyrano, it just keeps on going and going and going. And it's just so beautiful the way he talks while his strengh leaves him...
Star Wars: A New Hope: Well, not crying, but when Luke looks at the double sunset at the beginning, with the classic theme playing in the background, well, I personally think it's the most moving moment in the entire trilogy.
La Guerre des Tuques (A small film from Quebec, my home!): Basically a kids movie where two gangs of kids fight it out in winter with snowballs and a snow fort. In the end, the dog from one of the kids gets burried alive by the crumbling fort and all the kids remai silent. It made me cry when I was a kid, and I think it would still if I were to watch it again...
Grave of the Fireflies (Anime): THE most moving japanese anime movie ever. Heck, the most moving movie ever. Just the opening music alone had me crying for 5 minutes, and the end is just the most powerful ending on screen ever. A very intense war movie about two kids forced to fend for themselves during WWII in japan.
Well, that's pretty much it. Is there anyone hre who has a similar experience to relate here?
The ones that get me most are usually on B5. "Severed Dreams," "Endgame," & "Sleeping In Light" are the 3 big ones for me.
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- Friends, "The One Where Chandler Can't Cry"
the end of "Pay it Forward."
um...
two songs do it for me, Linda Eder's "Children of Eve," and ?'s "Dust in the Wind."
Crying is one of the body's few tools of self maintenance, crying releases endorphins and other "joy" hormones, as do laughing (if it's sincere and not forced).
It also works as a psychological therapy to help mend stuff that you haven't gotten over, it's just plain healthy. Bottling things up is never good.
It doesn't have to be a sorrowful occasion to have to cry, stress often causes it as well, as the endorphins can smooth over the damage that prolonged stress (ie bad adrenaline) can do to you.
DS9"The Visitor" is strong stuff, and the TNG one where Picard lives a whole lifetime in that probe, gets the flute and plays it alone, in his quarters, that gets me right now, by thinking about it. I have that MP3 as well, I'll play it for a while now.
Has anyone here heard Pachelbel's "Canon"? That's perfect when you're feeling happy and moved, like after any of these movies/episodes listed in this thread.
Also, so many movie soundtracks have great "feelgood" songs.
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Originally posted by Mr. Christopher:
I tell ya, I cried a river when they blew up B5... *sniff*
WTF?!?!?! THEY BLEW UP B5?!?!!? WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN?!?!? Can you tell I don't keep up to date with B5?
About a year later, I'd gotten him to watch the entire series (which was a slog at first, but after Babylon Squared, he became a bit more interested, and after Crysalis, a lot more. By Coming of Shadows, he was begging for episodes). Anyway, THAT time, when he watched Sleeping in Light, his eyes did well up. As did mine, even on the third time.
ST II: Spock's death (I was only 12 though. Still, even though at that time I'd hardly seen any TOS, it was still very moving. Especially Kirk's speech.)
B5: Endgame, Sleeping in Light. I think Between the Darkness and the Light (Ivonova, almost dead, talking to Sheridan).
All Good Things. The Sixth Sense. The Green Mile (I've started crying at films more and more).
The one that got me most was Buffy: Becoming. Starting from when Angel gets his soul returned, right through to the end. It's still Buffy's (the show's) best moment. That music "Close your eyes", really gets to me, even now. Doyle's death in Angel was pretty good too. not so much the death, but the video played at the end.
The first film that made me cry was probably Transformers the Movie. Don't laugh. Optimus' death really got me, especially since I had no idea that it was coming. And after such a cool fight between Megs and Optimus.
But getting emotional about a movie or a book, never! I usually just laugh it off, that's my "macho" way of dealing with it.
For some reason, maybe it's because of my up-bringing, I don't allow myself to cry almost always in any emotional situation.
In the past nine or ten years, I've only cried twice. And those were both in the last month-and-a-half. And they were about real, personal events, not movies or anything. However, that kind of stuff does get me pretty close to crying sometimes. Offhand, I can think of...
...Titanic, when the boat's sinking, and that priest is standing there reading something, and all the people are scrambling around at his feet...
...the end of the book Where the Red Fern Grows (I think I was in sixth grade at the time), when the dogs die and all that...
...ST2, Spock's funeral. Not Kirk's speech, though. That "human" bit strikes me as incredibly stupid. But the part when the bagpipes are playing and Spock's torpedo is sliding down the track past everyone...
There are also some songs that'll do it to me, but that's usually because they'll remind me of something else, not just because they're sad in and of themselves...
The part of Titanic that gets it for me is when the old chick dies and goes back to the people that died.
And the bagpipes and torpedo scene in STII did the same thing.
And I bet you if I ever heard the song "Old Rugged Cross" again I'd cry, because they played it at my nan's funeral.
[ June 19, 2001: Message edited by: Mr. Christopher ]
The Inner Light (TNG): That was simply the most emotional episode of the whole series. Especially when Picard start playing his flute at the end. It's like that simple tune caries with it the lives and history of those people who died so long ago.
What You Leave Behind (DS9): The last half-hour, when we see the crew about to part ways and remembering their best memories of the last 7 years, was quite moving. But when Kira and Jake look out the window and the camera pulls back with the original DS9 theme playing, well I cried for half an hour. Really!
I don't think any Star Trek series, heck ANY series or movie ever made me like a cast of fictional characters like these. I really like TNG and the end was good quite, going full circle with Q and Picard finally joing the gang for poker. But I knew they would be back in movies and unfortunately, the last 3 movies completely bastardized those characters I had grown to love.
But for DS9, those were friends I would never see again. The chemestry among the crew is by far the strongest in my opinion. There wasn't a character I liked less than another, compared to TOS were some were expandable (Sulu, Chekov, Uhura and even Scotty feel like secondary characters most of the time to me) and TNG were everyone was polite and friendly with one another but no more.
On a side note, I'm the kind of guy who likes to leave a finished story alone. I know Pocket Books will make books of a "Season 4" but I don't even want to get near those. The crew is going on with their lives, so just leave it as that.
I do occasionally cry at real-life stuff, but usually by my self, when I'm in bed at night. And that's rarely. Not because I bottle stuff up, but because bad stuff that makes me want to cry doesn't tend to happen to me. I am very stress free. Which is why I've bucked a family trend and managed to keep all my hair into my twenties.
[ June 19, 2001: Message edited by: Daniel ]
I, too, find Spock's death scene in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan to be very emotionally potent. Watching the exchange between Spock and Kirk in engineering as well as "Amazing Grace" being played is just too much.
The ending scene of The Ghosts of Mississippi. Following the trial and conviction, Mrs. Evers (Whoopi Goldberg) talks to the audience and tells her husband that she's "gone the last step of the way."
Optimus Prime's death scene in Transformers: The Movie hit me hard. I was, like, 7 or 8 when I saw that movie in the theaters. Depressed the hell out of me. Also, there's the scene where Mary Tyler Moore walks out on her family in Ordinary People.
As for episodes, TNG's "The Inner Light," DS9's "The Visitor," and Voyager's "Drone" make me very teary-eyed. South Park's "Chef Goes Nanners" is another one. The last scene where Wendy dumps Cartman and Cartman leaves deflated, that is me more times than I care to recall. Add to that South Park's "Helen Keller! The Musical" because of the scene where Timmy must let Gobbles go. And, while not quite a series, any time the "In Memorium" comes up on the Academy Awards.
There's really only one song that gets to me: Ricky Martin's "She's All I Ever Had." I fell really for a woman a while ago, and this song reminded me so much of how I felt about her. Now, this song reminds of how torturous love can be. I hate this woman with every fiber of being now; I had to find out the hard way what a bitch she is.
No books really get to me now, but when I first read Where the Red Fern Grows the death of the hounds teared me up pretty well. The closest that comes now is the service desk manual I wrote last year for our residence halls information/security desks. Everytime I see it, I'm reminded that I may never get my job back because the one person in the department who hates me is now solely in charge of my employment. Depending how things go, I may be drunk and writing a rant in the flameboard this weekend.
That's about all for me. Next?
Books and movies DO get me though. Hell, I even cry at those really old touching phone commercials. And when I see a commercial that reminds me of something... like my mother and I went to disneyworld together, we watched the fireworks together and stuff, and the beauty of all of that (I'm easily moved by beauty), made us cry. Every time we see a disneyworld commerical now, we cry. Of course titanic got me, I cried through the last hour and a half. The scene that really got me was the little children, you know.. where the mom is telling them a bedtime story while the ship is sinking... and the rich old people who just lay in bed and hug eachother - they're old, and they know the boats should go to the younger people.
Sacrifice gets me. I cried watching Mighty Joe Young because the big monkey sacrifices himself for the young child. And of course romance. And Disney movies. I don't know why, I think it has something to do with the combination of music and art (music really moves me too)... within the first 5 minutes of The Lion King, I was balling.
And music. There's this song by a group called Poe, called "Fly Away".... the lyrics, and the way she sings it, like she's at the end of the rope.. the song is a catharsis for her... she's already cried everything she can cry.... and she's just like "It makes sense that it should happen this way - that the sky should break, and the earth should shake".
I'd post all the lyrics but you'd get annoyed.
So there you go.