Never Fail Cry Fest

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I can't say for sure what has inspired this post. Perhaps the blame belongs to my hormones, or, perhaps to my stunning lack of vitamin D (don't worry Dad, I stocked up today). Most likely, though, I think it's fair to place the blame squarely on this article that I happened upon today. Thanks a lot, awesome girls at The Frisky. Despite the length of this list, I must assert that I don't melt in to a useless pile of mush with every movie I watch. Usually. Almost not all the time. Whatever, movies get me - in everyday life I promise I'm a stone cold bitch.

Be warned, spoilers ahead.

Saving Private Ryan

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Two words: "Earn this." When a babyfaced Matt Damon suddenly morphs into the elderly Pvt. James Francis Ryan and desperately looks at his wife, pleading with her to tell him he's a good man...well, that's just 'game over' for me. Luckily, it's 'movie over' too, so I get to sob uninterrupted through the credits. Until my roommate comes in and tells me that the movie's "been over for an hour now" and it's "time to turn off the dvd". Such a buzzkill, that one.



Schindler's List

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The little black dress of weeping uncontrollably. You're the worst kind of person if this film doesn't just wreak havoc on your soul. Seriously, if you don't cry during this movie...you belong in a mental institution. Don't you understand? He could have got more out.


Dumbo

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I can't even think of the words "baby" and "mine" without a little lip quiver. This one goes back a long time, folks. I literally used to go over to my grandmother's, plunk myself down in front of her television and demand Dumbo. And then I would cry. Like a lot. And Ninny would just laugh and shake her head (and, you know, comfort the crying child in her living room). It was a weird little ritual...but it was our ritual. She still brings it up and laughs and I still think, "It was SAD, woman!"


Up

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The first five minutes of this movie are impressive in that they managed to just decimate me. Like, really, Pixar? I came into this thinking, "Oh, balloons on a house! Cute little chubby Asian kid! Grumpy old man! Cute cute cute!" and you just have to punch me right in the soul nuggets. Blindside me with all that emotion. So rude. Yet so so beautiful.


It's a Wonderful Life

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Ok, these are happy tears, but tears are tears. George Bailey is a good man. I may or may not have machinations to name all of my hypothetical future children after him. I know that hardcore movie critics are all "Oh, Frank Capra is too sentimental - this movie is so sappy snoot snoot snoot." What I say to that is this: I will fight you. Physically. This is an incredible movie and everyone can learn something about being a human being by watching this. And I should know, I've forced all of my friends into watching this and now they're much better humans.


Atonement

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The end of this movie sucker-punched the hell out of me. I was all, "Oh good she made amends. James MacAvoy is pretty." and then Vanessa Redgrave has to be all "Psych! Everyone died horribly and I never got to make it right." Ugh, I was just not expecting that...or the onslaught of overwhelming sobs.


Children of Men

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The entire plausibility of this starkly gorgeous movie is enough to make one weep for the future. But what got (and continues to get) me is when Clive Owen's character walks through a war zone - hunching over this tiny crying baby and everything goes silent at the sound of that cry. At this point I'm mostly bawling from sheer lack of oxygen because it takes my breath away every time.



Free Willy

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WHY ARE THESE NETS SO STRONG?! HE JUST WANTS TO BE WITH HIS WHALE FAMILY YOU HEARTLESS BASTARDS! (sidenote: baller theme song)



The Pursuit of Happyness

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When Homeless Will Smith is in Homeless Church, and everyone else around him is swaying with Homeless Religious Rapture and he just scoops up his little precocious son and hugs him and hugs him and hugs him and then later he finds out that he got the job he's been working so hard on and he just sheds one manly tear and claps a lot in public. Also, when Little Precocious Son drops his Captain America and they can't go back for him because they won't be able to get a room in the shelter for the night? Just stop it.

Titanic

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Oddly enough, I don't really cry when Jack dies. I mean, that is sad. Like really really sad. And I don't, like someone I knew growing up, cry at the beginning when everyone's waving goodbye at the docks because as she tearily explained to everyone in the theater "WHAT?! You know what's gonna happen!". No. It's the little Irish mother's last bedtime story to her children. And the old couple that hug each other tight as water fills their room that makes me dissolve into tears. Damn you, Cameron.



Life is Beautiful

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Life is beautiful, but my sob-face when I'm watching this movie is not. Not to sound like a snob, but if you've only seen this movie dubbed, you haven't actually seen this movie. There's a reason that Roberto won the Oscar for his role (sidenote: holy strong best actor field, Batman!). I hate/love that this movie is also so damn funny, because once I'm done laughing and then bawling I feel significantly bipolar.

Lilya 4-Ever

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This movie could easily be named Hard to Watch: Based on the Novel "Stone Cold Bummer" by Manipulate. The story of a 16-year-old Estonian girl who lives a shitty life in Estonia and then gets tricked into being sex trafficked by her "boyfriend", then shipped off to Sweden to have unwilling sex with gross old men and then throws herself off a bridge. I should have been tipped off when it was required viewing in my Gender and Women in Communist and Post-Communist Societies class (Yeah. I took that - what's up?)


Which movies reduced you to tears?