When you cry manly tears of manliness

Gaald wrote:

Near the end of Lord of the Rings when everyone bows down to the Hobbits... dammit I can't even think about it without getting chocked up.

That one gets me each time too. Also the lighting of the beacons sequence. I blame Howard Shore.

It is the lack of musical score that does me in as well: Independence Day, when the washed out, drunk, deadbeat dad of a pilot, tries to launch his final missile. Alarms go off, warning indicators blink, dramatic music swells. And then it all falls away as he looks at the photo of his 3 kids stuck to his cockpit, knowing deep down what he has to do....

Kraint wrote:

Up. The end of the montage at the beginning, and when he took a look at the scrap book in the back quarter of the movie, got me a little misty.

QFT.

Finally saw Up this weekend. Great movie, but man, Pixar, why you gotta make me cry so much?

Too many to admit to. I'm situationally emotional, at the pictures or with a group I can man up and be fine, but if it's just me and my fiancee then I just let it all go.

Okay, I'll admit to Jurrasic Bark

Film-wise, LOTR like everyone else. Also, its soundtrack can plug me straight back into the emotions of the movies. Howard Shore really knocked it out of the park. And the evil Jurassic Bark, clearly. Actually, the end of WALL-E when you think that WALL-E has lost his independent life was a very close call the last time I saw it. It was a nice long scene, and he didn't rush it too much, kept it low-key.

The music has to be right for me.

IUMogg wrote:

The recent movie that always gets me choked up is In America.

I saw that in theaters on a date and couldn't help it and cried like a poor sob. I don't think she noticed 'cause she was crying too.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

The end of West Wing season 2 where Ms. Landingham suddenly passes away and Bartlett stands at the podium still soaking wet from the rain and stuns everyone by saying he's going to run again. That with the Dire Straits Brothers In Arms playing always chokes me up.

I have a West Wing episode too, but it's the one where Allison Janney finds out that Mark Harmon has been killed. I was going through the end of a relationship at the time and for some reason watching CJ lose control and break down helped me do the same. I'd break that episode out when I needed a catharsis for years.

Other things that will do it: watching Derek Redmon's dad come out of the stands to help him limp across the finish line in the 92 Olympics. (Damn Adidas for turning it into a commercial!)

Falchion wrote:

That one gets me each time too. Also the lighting of the beacons sequence. I blame Howard Shore.

Those damn beacons get me too.

Forrest Gump too, when Forrest sees Jenny again at the Vietnam Rally after many years, and they hug while cheered on by a hundred thousand hippies. 11 on the Scale of Corny, but gets me every single time.

Any movie where a character does some good deed unconditionally is enough to crack me up (chalk me up for Amélie Poulain). I'm a giant wussie, especially while watching something with the girlfriend.

Jurassic Bark does nothing for me though. I'm a cat person :-p

I weep nonstop for an hour each time I watch "Sleeping in Light," the finale of Babylon 5.

Actually, the end of WALL-E when you think that WALL-E has lost his independent life was a very close call the last time I saw it.

Wow, good point, my heart swells when his tread slips and there is just a crunch and Eve yells NOOOO! Oh, I got the chills right there!

Another vote here for Return Of The King - both the lighting of the beacons and the moment where Aragorn says 'My friends, you bow to no one!' Even thinking about it makes me have dust in my eyes. No, really, it's the airconditioning at work here. Honest!

I think we had a thread a long time ago about emotional movies and stuff. For me the one movie that instantly comes to mind is Immortal Beloved, watching the whole movie through, and then getting kicked in the nuts after the Ode to Joy performance, when the "immortal beloved" is revealed. Some things are wrong at 2:00 in the morning when you first see them, and this is one of them.

For some reason, the end of Life as a House hit me bad, when they tell the son that what was inevitable finally happened.

Lastly, the musical Phantom, when Christine and Eric (is that his name?) are walking in his realm, and she runs away and he's left singing "My Mother Bore Me". I must have been manstruating at the time.

I don't recall the last thing that caused me to shed tears, but the mentioning of Jurassic Bark reminded me that there were a few Futurama episodes that caused my emotion to catch in my throat. It took some google-wrangling, but The Sting and Time Keeps on Slippin' were two that I had to fight off girlish driveling.

When Optimus Prime dies in The Transformers: The Movie (1984 version).

Stupid, f*cking Hot Rod......

Since becoming a father, I've become a lot more emotional at stupid, surprising things like commercials with dads playing with their daughters, etc. But for serious movie crying, off the top of my head:

LOTR, "You bow to no one" definitely. Hell, there's at least one place in each of the movies that gets me.

The Iron Giant, "Suuuupermaaaaan" freakin' KILLS me every time.

The ending of Cyrano de Bergerac (the version with Gerard Depardieu) when Roxanne realizes it was Cyrano all along, and he charges through the trees fighting imaginary enemies and then dies.

And Dear Zachary. Holy crap. If that movie doesn't make you weep and then rage and then weep again... well, there's something wrong with you.

It actually hapened to me for the first time the other day during Dear Zachery Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father. This movie is VERY SAD.

Futurama: Jurassic Bark, the Sting, and Time keeps on Slipping... all of them

Deep Impact: when the astronauts sacrifice themselves...

UP

I'm pretty sappy, it can hit me anytime, but self sacrifice is usually what gets to me.

SpaceDog wrote:

It actually hapened to me for the first time the other day during Dear Zachery Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father. This movie is VERY SAD.

I was trying to think of the most recent movie I saw that teared me up, and you said it my good man. What an amazing piece of film making, and the fact that it's a true story is what really does it. It made me both incredibly angry and really sad at the same time.

lostlobster wrote:

Since becoming a father, I've become a lot more emotional at stupid, surprising things like commercials with dads playing with their daughters, etc.

Exactly. Only for me it's my son.

Dr._J wrote:

When Optimus Prime dies in The Transformers: The Movie (1984 version).

Stupid, f*cking Hot Rod......

IMAGE(http://i.zdnet.com/blogs/nelson-muntz.gif)

Grubber788 wrote:

Marley and Me...

+1

Agemmon wrote:

*Why, yes, I did get lucky that night. Thank you for asking.

Well played, sir. Well played.

lostlobster wrote:

Since becoming a father, I've become a lot more emotional at stupid, surprising things like commercials with dads playing with their daughters, etc.

Same here. And those damn country songs about a father and their little girls. I hold my Lil'Bean and cry. She's all confused and says, "It's OK daddy."

Then I have to go beat the dog or something to reinstate my manliness.

Dr._J wrote:

When Optimus Prime dies in The Transformers: The Movie (1984 version).

Stupid, f*cking Hot Rod......

Don't worry. If I remember correctly, Hot Rod himself knew just how unworthy he was of the Matrix of Leadership. In the tv series that continued after the movie, he was always second-guessing his leadership decisions. As such he was a lousy leader and he knew it.

Even back then it struck me as something that I later found to be actually true in life: that being a leader is not easy and it won't just work by taking on the title as such. But that a real leader has a great responsibility and while can be learn, it takes a special spark to be truly great at it.

But, back on point, yeah that death scene was hard. But the streaks of tears stopped when Galvatron blew up Starscream to ash. That's when I knew that f*ck! this is serious sh!t.

Mentioned before in the previous thread, but:

Ending of Dances with Wolves when Wind in his Hair is shouting from the top of the cliffs that he will always be Dunbar's friend.

Ending of Stay because I was in a similar accident, albeit alone. Freaked my wife out badly when I started bawling at that.

There's a lot of others that will make me tear up a bit, but thanks to the nice battery acid scar over my right eye I can make like they're manly acid tears of...manliness.

The Iron Giant "I Supermannn" part was sad. My older sister watched exactly 3 minutes of it and was balling because she hates it when people pick on people because they're big. Laughing at her was the only thing keeping me from losing it.

Disney movies can tug at the heartstrings, but every once in a while they make a movie that I consider to be emotional terrorism. It culminates with The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Seeing that beautiful soul croon about not being good enough for heaven's light because he's deformed will kill me every time.

As far as TV, yeah, Jurrasic Bark. Then there's The Body in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A show about ridiculous, fantastic death where no main character is safe, dealing realistically with the death of a loved one. And without any soundtrack for that episode. First saw it in my dormroom when it premiered on tv. Thankfully, my roomate was out and didn't see me start to lose it. I ended up taking a shower so I could fully commit to it because who hasn't heard a college kid crying in the shower at least once a week?

Band of Brothers. When Buck Compton comes across Toye and Garnier crumpled on the ground and practically the entire liberation of a concentration camp episode.

You know that part near the beginning of the new Transformers movie, where people are standing at the box office, paying actual money for tickets? That makes me cry.

Seriously, though I try to appear cynical and curmudgeonly, I'm pretty much a total sap when it comes to forms of entertainment and stories (be they movies, plays, television, or even particularly well-done commercials) that involve animals, old people, dreams fulfilled or dreams lost, relationships mended or torn apart, and I often get a little teary during particularly technically brilliant films or theatre, just so proud I am of our species' ability to create beauty. (there are plenty of times when I'm not so proud) I'm a sucker for chick flicks. "Love Actually" has three such moments for me: when the guy is standing silently outside Kiera Knightley's door on Christmas eve with the placards (though the final one should read, "for the love of God, eat a cookie, Kiera"), the scene at the airport near the end when the little boy goes after his girlfriend, and finally, Colin Firth's halting marriage proposal. On further reflection, kill me now.

Battlestar Gallactica had a surprising number of these moments.

But you know what almost NEVER does it for me? Games. Can't think of more than three or four times in 25 years of gaming when the story, acting, and music came together effectively enough to turn on the waterworks. I love games, but I wonder why they are emotionally less compelling for me. Because death is often treated so casually? Because, although there is often excellent music in games, it is rarely used effectively to underscore more subtle emotion? Has anyone been moved to tears by a game's story or characters (tears of frustration don't count)...I would suspect it happens, but far less frequently than in other forms of entertainment.

When I was a young pup, in my late teens, four of us went to see Glory.

When we left, not one of us said a word for the entire drive home, about thirty minutes. Not one word.

Up definitely had me shedding some tears: I just wanted to go in my car and weep for 20 minutes by myself. 'Sleeping in Light' from Babylon 5 did it as well. I remember that Space (the Canadian version of the Sci Fi channel) was airing all of Babylon 5 in order, one episode a night. After investing that much in the characters and the setting, that episode really got me.

Ranger Rick wrote:
Kraint wrote:

Up. The end of the montage at the beginning, and when he took a look at the scrap book in the back quarter of the movie, got me a little misty.

QFT.

Finally saw Up this weekend. Great movie, but man, Pixar, why you gotta make me cry so much?

I'm sorry to say that I'm right there with you. Both the wife and I had the water works going. Then you get to "Squirrel!" and it's all good.

Pretty much anything with dogs gets me going. But the biggest was listening to the audiobook "Merle's Door" about a guy's dog. The last chapter had me bawling in my car.

I also get a little choked up when someone heroically sacrifices himself.