by Odienator
Society says that real men don't eat quiche, and they don't cry. Today's 5 for the Day takes issue with the latter, offering up five movies that are guaranteed to put a lump in the throats of my fellow Y chromosome owners. For the sake of "society," we can christen this piece "Five Movies It's OK for Guys To Cry At " or "Kleenex: It Isn't Just for Porn." So read 'em and weep, and if you're a real man, you'll chime in with your own choices.(Peer pressure...it's fantastic!)?
1.Brian's Song. (1971) "Ernest Hemingway once said 'Every true story ends in death.' Well, this is a true story." So begins perhaps the greatest love story between two straight men ever committed to celluloid. Brian's Song is a 1971 TV movie starring Billy Dee Williams and James Caan, both one year removed from the movies that would make them legends (Lady Sings the Blues and The Godfather, respectively). Billy Dee plays Gale Sayers and Caan plays the title character , Brian Piccolo. Caan has never been looser or more charming, and you'd be hard pressed to find him generating more chemistry than he has with Williams. It's the 60's and, despite their different races and the fact they're competing for the same position on the Chicago Bears, Brian and Gale become close friends. When Sayers is injured, Brian and his wife are there for him, helping him rehabilitate his wrecked knee. Sayers and his wife are 
able to return the favor when Brian falls ill. Since this is a true story, I can reveal that Brian is diagnosed with malignant cancer and dies. This is no disease-movie-of-the-week, though; it's a devastating and moving 74-minute celebration of a life cut short, superbly written, directed, acted and scored (by Michel Legrand). I dare you to watch Sayers' award acceptance scene, or the leading actors' final scene together, and not be moved. Just thinking about it hits me like a 2 x 4 to the tear ducts.
2. The Pride of the Yankees. (1942) Even a Red Sox fan can get choked up at Gary Cooper's portrayal of the self-proclaimed luckiest man on the face of the Earth, Lou Gehrig. Sure, it's fictionalized as hell, and sports fans harp on the fact that they used reverse photography to make Coop bat southpaw. But director Sam Wood pushes all the right buttons, capitalizing on Coop's clumsy charm and the way he looks at the lovely Teresa Wright. This is the movie that made me a lifelong Yankees fan--and made me think Ms. Wright was Miss Right. Real life Murderer's Row occupant Babe Ruth, and the House that He Built, show up for verisimilitude, but it's those echoing final words from Mr. Gehrig that do me in every time.
3. Old Yeller (1957). Guys, think about your best friend. You know the guy—the one you can trust with your life, the dude who's there for you through thick and thin, the chap with whom you have had some classic experiences, the bloke who is like a brother to you, the homeboy you can hug with impunity. Can you see him in your mind's eye? Now shoot him in the head with a rifle, and you have some idea what watching Old Yeller is like. The quintessential story of a boy and his dog, Old Yeller is yet another harsh life lesson from that sadistic frozen bastard Walt Disney. Tommy Kirk, 
Chuck Connors, Fess Parker, and Dorothy McGuire give great performances, but the heart of this movie goes to the big yellow dog who gives the movie its title and its most traumatic death scene (sorry, Bambi's Mom). Watching it today, I still hope that the ending will be different. Notably name-checked in Stripes and on Friends, Old Yeller is Chinatown for Children. For any guy who ever loved a furry, flea-bitten rascal of a canine, this is the male answer to Beaches.
4. Field of Dreams. (1989) I worked as an usher in a movie theater when this film came out, and every day, without fail, I would see the following occur after the final credits rolled: grown men exiting the theater, their eyes bigger than saucers and redder than Mars, followed by women staring at them with a "What the fuck just happened?" look on their faces. I imagined that the guy had been dragged to the movie by his Costner-obsessed better half, only to be sideswiped by the father issues he may or may not have known he had. Baseball pictures are always about redemption of some sort, which explains the mythic quality of movies like The Natural, but Dreams is more layered than that. It's 
about following one's dreams, having someone to support said pursuit, and finding more than you expected once your dream has been realized. Dreams is corny as hell--literally and in the Capra-corny sense--but when Costner says, "It's my father," there nary a dry male eye in the house. I know I'll get in trouble for saying this, but women just don't get this movie in the same way men do; it's sweet revenge for all the times men cluelessly watched dates bawl over some mushy chick flick.
5. Stand by Me. (1986) One of the better Stephen King adaptations, Stand is a movie that works as a tearjerker if you bring an identifiable sense of nostalgia to it. The first time I saw it, I was 17 and, excepting the wonderfully gross vomit fantasy sequence (this is Stephen King), I was less than enamored of the movie, and certainly not moved by it. When I was 30, I caught it on HBO and saw it through a different prism of life experience. In that 13-year gap, I lucked into friendships with several great guys, some of whom are no longer with us. The exploits of wannabe-writer Gordie (my stand-in) and his pals evoked memories of my own adventures, and when narrator (and computer 
illiterate) Richard Dreyfuss informs us of the fates of the characters as their youthful incarnations disappear from the screen I was caught completely off guard. All the memories of the times I had spent with the guys who had passed on flooded into my head and out through my eyes. Everybody needs catharsis sometimes—especially "real men."
Good choices all, to which I will add a film I watch every holiday season, It's a Wonderful Life. Damned if it doesn't make me well up each and every time I see it.
Shit, first time I saw ET I was on the brink.
I am such a sap.
There is only one film, and one film only, that belongs on this list for me. The Iron Giant.
I defy you to witness the final flight of the Giant, and that heart exploding whisper "superman", without tearing up like a little baby.
I concur with Field of Dreams. I'd add Emma's death in Terms of Endearment. Also, if I'm in a particularly emotional mood, when Al rises to the occasion and blows Alexander Godunov away in Die Hard.
The Killing Fields. When Dith was removed from the embassy by the Khmers, and in his voiceover he says something about wanting his wife to be safe, tears flowed free. Same thing happened at the very end.
Dan, Wonderful Life and E.T. are the ONLY two movies to make me tear up consistently. I'm kind of a hard ass when it comes to giving movies tears. My wife will be disintegrating over some movie she doesn't even really LIKE, and I'll be sitting there noticing the cinematography or something.
It's the Midwestern stoicism in me.
THAT SAID. I have never seen Stand by Me. I think this makes me unAmerican.
what about "To Kill a Mockingbird" when Scout says: "Hey, Boo!"?
Shit, my eyes are wet just wrting that phrase, goddammit.
Hey don't worry todd; I haven't seen Stand By Me either…or Brian's Song…or Old Yeller…in fact, the only film on odienator's list I've seen is Field of Dreams, and I don't remember it making me cry (but then, I was very young when I saw it on TV and I haven't bothered to return to it since).
There is one film that really made me cry throughout: Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru. Heck, the bodily waterworks started flowing for me when that young writer found Kanji Watanabe hiding in his place and started talking to him—and that was, say, 30 minutes into the film. Afterwards, I'd start tearing up whenever I heard Takashi Shimura's haunting voice. Perhaps my favorite movie of all time, although maybe more for deeply personal more than artistic reasons (although it certainly isn't lacking in art, especially the daring way it's structured).
Whoa, James had practically lifted the words out of my mouth (or fingers).
I feel that I'm more easily moved by animated films than live-action films.
Graveyard of the Fireflies from Studio Ghibli is pretty much unbearable for me to watch now (even though I used to go through the entire film emotionlessly when I was a kid).
Nice post, even if it is a bit stereotypically "Dude-ish" (would this list be different from a gay perspective?). Anyway, I wanted to mention that at the end of "The Royal Tennenbaums", when Ben Stiller says, "I've had a rough year, Dad," and Hackman puts his hand on his shoulder and says, "I know, son," I cry every freakin' time. I'm practically crying right now! I don't know what it is, but it's my best example of what I like about Wes Anderson: he can have a goofy, stylized, mostly "fun" movie that has these disarming moments of extreme emotion that come up and sock you. Bastard.
Todd: Dan, Wonderful Life and E.T. are the ONLY two movies to make me tear up consistently. I'm kind of a hard ass when it comes to giving movies tears.
Both great choices in the waterworks department for people, but not for me. The first time I saw E.T., on opening day at the grand opening of the Loews Meadow Six, I didn't like it at all. To this day, I can't give my heart to E.T., though my opinion of the film has changed 180 degrees. Emotionally, I'm more moved by James' choice, the E.T.-like The Iron Giant.
You wanna talk hard ass, Todd? I cannot stand It's A Wonderful Life. I know, I know. This means I'm going to Hell. "Clarence," says Jimmy Stewart, "uh…send Odie to Hell. Merry Christmas, Harry Potter!"
Mr. Copeland, I had an emotional reaction to the Die Hard scene you cite, but it wasn't tears. I remember jumping out of my chair, like half the guys in the audience, and screaming "YEAH!!!" Emma in Terms does it for me, though not as hard as that scene between Jessica Lange and Charlie Korsmo in Men Don't Leave.
Kenjfuj: Perhaps my favorite movie of all time, although maybe more for deeply personal more than artistic reasons
That's the best reason to love a movie.
A great list. I can't disagree with a single one.
Now I prepare for slings and arrows.
The first time I saw For Love Of The Game, I desperately wanted it to be a great movie. A fitting bookend to Costner's "baseball trilogy". Needless to say I was disappointed. I didn't think it was a bad movie. It just wasn't what it was supposed to be.
Maybe it was Sam Raimi. He's a great director but when he gets into the wrong arena things just don't click.
Anyway, it was on cable the other day and I watched it again.
Maybe it's because I'm now approaching Billy Chapel's age but as he is desperately trying to close out that perfect game, I found myself welling up.
I doubt the movie has gotten better with time. Maybe it's just my perspective that's changed.
Still not a great movie. But it's good enough.
Dead Man Walking for me. He's a despicable character, sure–and less so than in the book; the movie combined killers and eliminated some of the more heinous crimes–but there's just something in that true "tough love" Sister Helen has that gets me every time. Never mind Robbins raising him up to make use of that ridiculous Christ imagery (ridiculous because it's ham-handed and that's not what they do in an execution chamber anyway); it's all Helen–knowing what he did, accepting him for it anyway, urging him to admit his crimes and still holding out hope for his redemption.
Stand by Me is a great choice, and one I'd leave on the list. Another King adapation (one of the few good ones): Shawshank Redemption–starts with the store job, on to the rock with no business in that field, and proceeds to Zijuatanejo. (Say it.) Ends with the manly hug. And of course Brooks' time out does it for me too.
Leaving Las Vegas is another one. The smiling cruelty at the hotel, after the broken glass/"prickly pear" scene, makes my throaten tighten up a bit and from then on it just intensifies. By the end it's like a waterworks home ru There's so much despair in that film–I don't agree with all the characters' choices, but then I'm not required to, either.
Great idea for a Five, Odie.
The Elephant Man.
Even my 13-year old says that it's OK for any guy to cry watching that.
And speaking of Lynch, how about THE STRAIGHT STORY?
BIG FISH – when Billy Crudup carries Albert Finney down to his "past" at the end.
In THE FISHER KING, when Robin Williams turns around at the end, looks at Amanda Plummer and says, "Are you still my girl?"
And in the improbable category, when Jack Black finally "sees" the little girl in the burn ward in SHALLOW HAL reduces me to a mess every time. Damn you Peter and Bobby Farrelly!!!
tuwa: I'm in sync with you on Shawshank, one of my favorite endings. Unfortunately, I can't get with you on Leaving Las Vegas, but I understand about Dead Man Walking.
griftdrift: Maybe it's because I'm now approaching Billy Chapel's age but as he is desperately trying to close out that perfect game, I found myself welling up.
Interesting choice. This isn't about a movie's greatness, but about how it affected a person. With that said, may I substitute a different baseball "over the hill" moment? In The Rookie, the scene where Dennis Quaid finds out he's been called up always gets me. I mean, I knew it was coming, but Quaid does some of the best acting I've ever seen him do in that scene. Along with Far From Heaven, this guy got robbed of Oscar nods.
Great Swifty, Graveyard of the Fireflies is the saddest animated movie I have ever seen.
Kevbo: Despite my numerous problems with TKAM, I always got a little misty when they told Scout "Stand up, your father's passing."
Steve: Nice post, even if it is a bit stereotypically "Dude-ish"
That was the entire point, actually. If I hadn't established that "restriction," if you will, I might have put on some of the following things that also made me teary eyed:
1. The entire funeral scene of Douglas Sirk's Imitation of Life. (This may be the hardest I've ever cried at any movie.)
2. Dora's bus ride (the last scene) of Walter Salles' Central Station.
3. The Bicycle Thief
(would this list be different from a gay perspective?).
They didn't sprinkle enough gay seasoning in my mold before they dropped it, broke me, and sent my glued-together body to Earth. So anyone who's properly seasoned wanna chime in on that question?
Speaking of animated films, the original version of Charlotte's Web. Also, I'm sure that I'm probably alone here, but I cried at the Robert Downey Jr. comedy Heart and Souls, and Spielberg's A.I.
All three for basically the same reason.
You had a gay perspective already.
1. The Great Santini Even more than the end, it was the death of Toomer that made me miserable and had me sobbing for weeks.
2. Where the Red Fern Grows It's not Old Yeller, but with two dogs you double the heartbreak, and the fact that the second dog dies from loneliness after the first one just adds to the heartbreak.
3. Mr. Roberts Out titular hero has big unfulfilled dreams, and never realizes how important he already is in this great american play. I think of the naval Mr. Roberts as a counterpart to the civilian George Bailey.
4. Going in Style It's been a long time since I've seen it, but at the time it had me bawling.
5. Goodbye, Mr. Chips The original is still the best. Take that Mr. Holland!
Another film I had a tearful reaction to: the ending of Alexander Payne's About Schmidt: after Warren Schmidt feels despair at his perceived wastefulness of his life, he opens up Ndugu's letter, reads it, and starts to cry. And damned if I didn't cry too. Actually, About Schmidt was the film that inspired me to finally watch Ikiru.
Someone also already mentioned E.T.. Man, it's been a while since I saw that film! But I remember the ending getting to me every time as a young kid—even the closing spaceship rainbow.
Tuwa, I'm a little offended at your remark.
Jeff, I can't tell if you're being serious. Are you offended? If so, why?
Because I don't consider my love of those three movies I mentioned to be 'gay', at least in the pejorative sense.
Unless you weren't responding to my posting, perhaps.
Kenjfuj: Another film I had a tearful reaction to: the ending of Alexander Payne's About Schmidt
Great last shot, kenjfuj! I thought Nicholson really sold that last scene. It's the kind of catharsis I'm talking about in this post.
Jeff, Tuwa had directed that comment to me, not you. I think it ties back to my response to the "stereotypically dude-ish" comment. What I got from Tuwa's comment was that the movies I chose can be enjoyed (and wept at) by men of any persuasion.
Jeff: Unless you weren't responding to my posting, perhaps.
He was responding to mine, Jeff, and with no malice intended I am sure.
I wrote this piece for a reason–to challenge the notion that it's a "societal no-no" for guys to get choked up at movies. I don't want this to turn into a barfight. I know we all respect each other here at the House.
Without consciously intending to, Odie's opened up a can of worms here. But that's not a bad thing. Fact is, he and I had a pretty intense back-and-forth while he was working on this piece about the underlying assumption that men aren't comfortably crying at movies, or crying generally. I think men's willingness to openly express emotion in public varies greatly depending on which man you're talking about; I know heterosexual men who are much more deeply in touch with their emotions than I am, and gay men who are more stoic than "Deer Hunter" characters. I do agree, though, that there's a societal prohibition — even now, post Dr. Phil — against men crying at movies, that it's somehow interpreted as a sign of weakness or some such shit. That's why there is still a distinction drawn between so-called "chick flicks" and so-called "male weepies." It's a false, arbitrary, and in many ways limiting distinction, one that actually hampers the evolvement of the species, in my opinion, but it's an unfortunate fact, and in his own lighthearted way, I think Odie addresses it in this post.
For whatever that's worth.
Also, for what it's worth, I think this list might be slightly different from a gay perspective or a female perspective, but it's hard to know, because as I keep saying, your mileage may vary. I'm probably not a good control subject, because I cry at the drop of a hat, and I never know what movie's going to do it for me. Tear-inducers include "Close Encounters," "The Best Years of Our Lives," "Northfork," "Son Frere," "Moulin Rouge," "Terms of Endearment" and "On the Waterfront." I've also unleashed the waterworks at "Hero," "The Passion of the Christ," "Toy Story 2," and of all things, "The Incredibles." So there's no telling with me. I suspect the same is true for everybody else. This stuff is so personal it's tough to hang labels on it.
Yes, I was responding to odienator's comment. No, I didn't mean anything pejorative by it.
We were already on the subject of a) stereotypes and gender roles and b) what gay men like. My comment was strictly factual and amused, and meant to point out c) stereotypes of gay men, that is, an incorrect assumption based on the content of posts here that no gay man had voiced his opinion on odienator's list.
I'm not into barfights either–or, for that matter, fights outside of bars or bars without the fights–so if it's all the same, I'm going to bow out of this conversation now.