I'm Not Crying!
Posted at 6:00 AM on April 28, 2010
by Dale Connelly
(58 Comments)
Radio Heartland has tickets to the Americana Showcase at the James J. Hill Reference Library in St. Paul, this Friday night at 7:30 pm. Featured performers: Dana Cooper, Brandon Sampson, David Stoddard and Dan Israel.
Enter the drawing.
Obey the rules.
Good luck!
Late in the comments for yesterday's blog, the topic turned to tears and a couple of Trial Balloon readers identified a pair of unlikely movies that, for them, carry a sentimental wallop.
Catherine said she has cried over the science fiction spoof "Galaxy Quest," and Joanne in Big Lake admitted the tears flow when she watches "Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan".
I'm not interested in passing judgment. Weeping has always been an important part of the movie going experience. In fact, if you'd like to waste a few hours right now, you can sniffle through an exhaustive list of the top tearful moments in cinema history.
There shouldn't be any "shoulds" when it comes to crying at movies -you do or you don't and in either case, it's OK as long as the gasping and sobbing doesn't overwhelm the soundtrack and ruin the experience for everyone else.
In both movies mentioned during yesterday's conversation, the waterworks start when an important character dies. In "Wrath of Khan", the victim is Spock himself. Early versions of the film apparently offered no hint that Spock could come back, and it has been reported that people left the test screenings "in despair". So the studio tacked on a hopeful tidbit that helped make possible the character's return in later (less successful) films. Death does seem to be the most direct path to despair for movie audiences.
Sherrilee added this: "I also cry all the time at movies... even commercials on TV can get me. And, if a dog dies, then I'm a basket case!"
I would like to know which commercials make you cry, Sherrilee, and if you think the ad was intended to get that response. Pushing the potential customer to tears is an unusual marketing approach for any advertiser, but I suppose the goal is to be remembered by any means possible.
And to re-connect to yesterday's topic, if a movie makes US cry, what does it do to our potential space alien overlords who are watching all this media flow off the planet? Are they moved to tears as well? Perhaps the Spock death scene combined with Patrick Swayze expiring in "Ghost" and Old Yeller's demise could be mixed into a potent emotional cocktail that would serve as our best weapon against invasion and oblivion!
Cinema, song or story - what inspires the waterworks?
Comments (58)
oh, just about anything can get me crying if i'm in the right mood. but the most wrenching sobs came at "Dead Man Walking."
off to a busy day; will check back later to read the blog.
Ha det bra, Cynthia and all!
Help me out guys, because as I remember it, the guy in Galaxie Quest doesn't die (like the ensigns in red always did on Star Trek), he actually gets to live on and becomes a major character, and I am just soooooo happy for him.
I think it was Taster's Choice coffee that ran a series of ads that also put me over the edge-the neighbors would come and decorate an elderly woman's home for Christmas, or -and this was a big one for me-a mom gets a phone call from her son and starts crying, and the dad wants to know what catastrophe has brought on the tears, and she says-"He just called to say, I love you mom".
I'm not a big crier in "real life" but sloppy sentiment gets me every time. Let the underdog win against impossible odds and I am a mess.
All the space goats will have to do is wobble triumphantly to their feet after looking near succumbing, and I will be incapacitated.
And sure, go ahead, play the Mary Ellen Carter and let's just get it over with.
Good morning to all. I can't remember that I have ever cried when watching a film. I did faint once when watching a scene in a Bergman film where a person hurt herself. I hardly ever cry, except may be some tears of joy when hearing about something that I very much like.
Hallmark Hall of Fame commercials get me all the time. Just this weekend they showed not only did the girl thanking her aunt for being just like a mother to her, but the couple that finally was going to get their adopted baby.
Wishing only happy tears in the Heartland!
Greetings! Catherine - Quillek(?) does die towards the end. That's what spurs Alan Rickman's character to attack the lobster-head bad aliens so the good guys could overcome in Galaxy Quest. No reruns for him.
The movie "The Notebook" is a real tear-jerker -- need a full box of kleenex for that one, but it's a lovely movie. Nicholas Sparks' books are usually great romantic love stories. The book is wonderful. But the ending in the movie sent me into a sobbing mess. Have a great day, though!
When I went to see "Marley & Me" (already knowing the ending because I had read the book), I think every single person in the theatre was crying at the end. I was a little worried about a woman sitting behind us -- has anyone ever had a stroke from a crying movie.
And, of course, when Bonnie Blue bites the big on in Gone w/ the Wind, that's a biggie for me.
Right now they're running a Hallmark commercial about a mom getting a Mother's Day card and then sitting down w/ a box of all the cards her daughter has given her over the years. Gets me every time!
Catherine... I'm w/ you. Mary Ellen Carter chocks me up every time s well.
The Tom Waits song "Georgia Lee" from his Mule Variations CD. Oh, and Love Letters, of course.
Good morning, all!
Jim,
It never occured to me that someone might faint at a Bergman film. That's a badge of honor - wear it proudly (and stay away from the current crop of slasher films).
I'm pretty stable at movies, but I get a bit verklempt at the end of "Puff The Magic Dragon".
"Green scales fell like rain ... " or like tears. I'll play that one today. Any other song nominations?
when i was a kid one of the funeral quotes about the irish uncle was " irishmen go screaming into battle but they cry at the movies.
i think it was better stated than that
i will think on the movies that have gotten to me and get back later
et comes to mind
Since so many of us get weepy at the cinema, a more challenging topic might be which Radio Heartland songs get us bawling. I'm relieved to hear I'm not the only one who cries at "The Mary Ellen Carter." I regularly weep at the Cormack MacCarthy song "When My Boat is Built Again" where the former drunk sailor admires his partner's hair on the pillow in the moonlight and wonders how he could have thought he could make it without her.
As for movies, I cry at about a third of them. (Sigh) It really hurts when you can see a movie is manipulating you cynically and you STILL can't keep your composure. The worst crying I ever did was at "Whale Riders." The floor in front of my seat was dangerously wet.
I am just going to have to see Galaxie Quest again, because I feel like during the closing credits of the movie, they show the opening credits of the tv show, and the guy is in them with star billing, and I know for sure that was what got me-or maybe it is an entirely different movie-I have been profoundly wrong about such things more often than I like to admit.
sure, I could google this up, but not nearly so satisfying.
Dale, I will be glad I don't have Radio Heartland in the car today, if this is the way things are going to go. Puff is likely to make me pull over.
Feet of the Dancer is another one-thought it was a nice little song, until I became a mom.
Mom-hood has really done it for me cry-wise.
I've been crying at movies and book about animals since I read Lassie Come Home when I was in grade school. I was at my grandmother's and she caught me crying, thought I was homesick (never!). She never did believe me that it was Lassie, not my mother that brought tears.
I avoid animal stories and movies now......though sometimes the tears are good ones, if the story ends with a reunion.
Morning all...!
This is embarassing-I did google this and Quillek, him I don't even remember-Guy Fleegman is the one I get all weepy over.
He is "crewman #6" and is unknown to the fan base when he shows up at the cons, but in the revived series, he is the Security Chief.
It's just so beautiful.
OK, this geek has to get on with the day now, I am cutting myself off, but am opening a fresh box of kleenex to get me through until I leave for work.
Will check back tonight to see what happens.
Dale if you want to keep up the crying jag you can add "But I have you."
Catherine - I believe you're referring to Guy Fleegman; the fan who tagged along with the cast when they went to outer space for real. When the crew went to the planet, Guy was afraid he was the "red shirt" that would get killed on the away mission. But he wasn't.
Even in the big battle where Saris starts shooting everybody on the bridge before Tim Allen's character pushes the button to reset time for 13 seconds, Guy doesn't even get shot. But he's freaking out the entire time.
I believe Quellek is the only major character in Galaxy Quest that gets killed. I guess I've seen this movie a few too many times.
For movies, The Green Mile and Saving Private Ryan get me every time. I can't help it. They make me bawl like a baby. Others I get teary-eyed at. The song that gets me every time is "1913 Massacre" written by Woody Guthrie, but when it's sung by Arlo Guthrie, he really makes it sad, as it should be. Puff does it for me too (thanks Dale!) In high school, my English teacher sang us that song on the last day of the year. I was tearing up in class (how embarassing!). Thanks for the song from Toy Story 2 as well. That's another tear-jerker, haha. Books get at the oddest moments, haha. Often I'll be reading late at night, and find myself crying my eyes out at some sad part. I was reading at work once (we were driving from one site to the next, I had time, haha), it was Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. If you've read it, you know someone dies. I started crying in the work truck. I still haven't lived that one down! :) I don't cry much in my real life though. I did cry when we had to put our dog down. I was working here in the UP, and my mom called and let me know that they had to put him down (in MN). I still miss him.
I have 2 songs that I can think of right now if we're keeping the tears flowing. One is Turn Around. I think that's the name of it, where the girl grows up, they used it in a Kodak commercial back in the 70's and it would make me cry whenever it came on.
The other song that gets me everytime is Jacobs Dream...Oh my, I can cry just thinking about it.
I sometimes found myself in tears as I played in the concert band in college when passages were particularly beautiful or if i found the music moving. It's hard to maintain one's grip on the reed when that happens. Nancy Griffith is on now-my dad was always singing that song when he walked around the house when I was small-what are you trying to do to me this morning!?
I'm like Catherine - mom-hood did me in as a crier. Used to be a good, stoic Scandinavian...then I had a kid, and I was done for. Puff the Magic Dragon now makes me cry openly.
One movie that I should have known was going to make me weep, but didn't know enough about the movie to bring kleenex, was Shadowlands. That's a weeper of a movie. Apparently a lot of the people seeing it when I did were also caught unawares as the sniffs and snuffs when it got truly sad were sort of stifled from here and there until pretty much the whole theater was crying. The line to the women's room after the movie was long - but only 'cuz we were all waiting to get something to blow our noses on...
Dale - I now see you've already played "Puff" this morning...guess I'm safe for one more day. Unless it sneaks up on me at work during the rebroadcast. :)
Nice 3 song set Dale! If there's a parent with a dry eye they have nerves of steel.....
Happy tears....
Oh, thanks a lot! Just got in to work and logged on to Radio Heartland, and I had to turn the volume down to keep from crying all my makeup off! It doesn't help that my daughter is going to be married this summer. I'm forced to work on spreadsheets just to get the right brain working and turn off the emotion! Okay now, the Beatles will help. Have a great day.
Identify the movie:
Sam Baldwin: Although I cried at the end of "the Dirty Dozen."
Greg: Who didn't?
Sam Baldwin: Jim Brown was throwing these hand grenades down these airshafts. And Richard Jaeckel and Lee Marvin
[Begins to cry]
Sam Baldwin: were sitting on top of this armored personnel carrier, dressed up like Nazis...
Greg: [Crying too] Stop, stop!
Sam Baldwin: And Trini Lopez...
Greg: Yes, Trini Lopez!
Sam Baldwin: He busted his neck while they were parachuting down behind the Nazi lines...
Greg: Stop.
Sam Baldwin: And Richard Jaeckel - at the beginning he had on this shiny helmet...
Greg: [Crying harder] Please no more. Oh God! I loved that movie.
Along the line of parent songs, the September Song from the Fantastiks gets to me every time.
Too late for today, perhaps, but might I ask Jasper to play it sometime soon...perhaps, please?
The classic sad song about a dog: Old Shep. You couldn't find a sadder song.
One song that's always gotten me to tear up is Ewan McCall's "farewell song" (can't remember the name---eeek!) and a dog song that gets me is Old Blue sung by Joan Baez. She really cranks up the tears!!!
The song that brings tears to my eye is The Summer Before the War, because the song is really about the happy part of the past, and the sad part is unspoken, but you can imagine how it goes.
The movie that makes me cry hardest is Fiddler On the Roof - not the Sunrise, Sunset sequence, though - it's the scene where Tevye turns away from the third daughter who marries the Christian. I go to pieces every time.
Alanna, thanks for the reminder about 1913 Massacre...I love Arlo's version of that.
Cynthis, Lassie Come Home was the first book I read as a kid in which a dog dies, and I was upset for days about it.
And speaking of dogs, I haven't seen that Pedigree shelter dog commercial for a long time, but that would always choke me up...the one where the dog is thinking "I don't know what I did wrong..."
Watched in two days ago:
"The Best Years of Their Lives."
I don't discrimate, everything gets my waterworks going if my mood is right. Life is tough, too fast and often grand! It all gets my tears...
Great music though I can't accomodate tears today!
The end of "Bang the Drum Slowly"
Dale: by "Bang the Drum Slowly" I meant the movie,but the song can get to me too. Got it by any chance?
Just got into my cube... Clyde, doesn't look like anyone else answered your question.
Sleepless in Seattle. (love that scene).
You've already played some of my favorite tearjerkers including "I have you" which I used to request for my now 22 year old daughter's birthday every year (on the Morning Show)Here are 2 that make me weep that I dont think you have played yet this A.M.
My Favorite Spring (Tom Paxton)
My Old Man (Steve Goodman)
sherrilee--when Nora Ephron is on, she pulls strings very well and is willing to risk making fun of pulling the strings as in this movie and "You've Got Mail." But when she is off, wow is she off.
Dale, well, this is too late by now, but "Bang the Drum Slowly" as a song is "Streets of Laredo" if that's name.
Oh yes, cynthia-the Fantastiks in general, and that song for sure.
and then there is Out of Africa-I look at it on the shelf in the library and just have to walk away.
There is also a song that I think is about Galliple (no clue how that is really spelled) that has the line," I'll go no more waltzing Matilda" and ends with the line, "and I ask myself the same question"
My choir sings the Eliza Gilkeson song she wrote for the tsunami victims (Holy Mary), but, I don't know how or who is acutally singing-it is too hard.
Going to work now-really.
I always cry at midnight cowboy.
Clyde... I agree completely about Nora Ephron, either on or off and not much between. I was just talking to someone a few days ago about the scene in Heartburn in which Jack Nicolson and Meryl Streep are heading to the hospital to have their baby. He's being comforting "Keep breathing... you can do it" and she replies weepily "I don't want to do it. Can't we get somebody else to do it."
AND, many years ago my now-ex and I had a very very small (can you say "two plus judge") person wedding ceremony and then the next week followed it with a big party for our friends with a multi-layered coconut cake w/ the chocolate sauce on the side! (Extra points to anyone who can name the movie reference!)
I'm suprised by all of this crying. I do get emotionly involved with movies, but not to the point of crying. I thought men didn't cry about things like this, but I guess thry do.
Apparently I am a little excessively rational and don't become emontional enough to cry very often. Scarey movies some times catch me off guard, causing me to jump out of my seat.
Thanks, Dale. Duh, I own that CD because of hearing it on TMS.
For those of you who do not know "The Best Years of Their Lives," it won most of the Oscars for its year (46). William Wyler required all members of cast and crew possible be WWII vets. It's about the experince of coming home to normal life from war. One actor and one of his scenes really get to me --Harold Russell, the only person to win two oscars for the same role--best supporting and special for courage (lost his hands in the war). I knew quite a few maimed WWII vets . . .
My sister says that I cried myself out by age 9. In all fairness, I was a very spoiled and emotionally sensitive kid. Perhaps that set the stage for my somewhat detached, cynicism today.
Movies don't get me weepy much. Dar Williams's babysitter song on the other hand...
Making people cry through ad campaigns means that you've achieved an emotional bond. Which, in marketing terms, is a really good thing to have. It means you have a better chance of by-passing logical decsion making.
sherrilee--"Wehn Harry Met Sally" Opening scene filmed at U of Chi, but actually not at a place where a car is supposed to be.
Jim--I get strongly emotional, not weeping as such. Not the Noterbook and such. Both of the two movies I named are about men dealing with death and life, who do not really deserve what is happening to them.
TGiTH.. I think you're partially right about the emotional bond that marketing wants us to have with their products. My all time big commercial tear-jerker is an Iams ad that ran several years ago. Irish setter (of course) from puppy hood to adulthood, in the last scene the young woman is calling the older dog as it slowly comes up the steps (Come on, Casey.). I had to turn the tv off sometimes when the ad came on. I was already an Iams customer at the time, but have to admit all these years later, that's still what I'm feeding my current pooches!
However, on that same note... I haven't been in a Hallmark store in years!
Just remembered this story—and tell me who of you will not be strongly moved by this if not cry. The H. S. biology teacher of a college friend of mine, like Harold Russell in “Best Years of Our Lives, “lost both hands. He was in Tennessee at a hospital with several other men, about a dozen, who had lost both hands, where they were learning to use their artificial hands. After a few months, the instructor decided it was time to take a big step forward and break them of their self-consciousness about the hands. So he said that at 7 p.m. on a coming Friday night they were going to go out to eat in a fancy restaurant in downtown Memphis or another city in TN. The men, who were still in the military until the completion of rehabilitation and thus subject to orders, were all planning what to order, safe and easy foods to eat. When they arrived they found a long table set up with white linens etc right in the middle of the full restaurant. The teacher announced that he had ordered for them. The waiters brought out fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and corn on the cob. He announced that they were not leaving until they had all eaten what was on their plates. By the end the men were all covered in food, the linens were a complete mess, and everyone in the place was crying, the men, the teacher, customers, and staff. The teacher told his students that was the most important lesson he ever learned—that it was time to get used to the hands and the stares and move forward.
Nice to see all the new (or just not often posters') names here today.
You're right, Clyde, you got me.
Many of the movies and songs mentioned above will bring tears, as well as:
Krista Detor's Icarus always breaks me up.
Metamora's Morning Time, which I request every May for our anniversary.
Liza Minelli singing Cabaret - she changes the words slightly so they refer to her mother Judy...
Barbara Streisand's I'm All Smiles - we had it the dorm room my first quarter of college.
...I'll be remembering others all day!
And probably once or twice a week Dale will play something that will unexpectedly push me over the edge - it doesn't take much.
My husband is a bit of a "sensitive, new-age guy" and loves sad, romantic movies -- and yes, he cries at each and every one of them. He loves "50 First Dates" which is a delightful movie and probably the only movie I actually like Adam Sandler. Plus, he watches them over and over again -- not me, though.
is it too late for a little judy collins...."since you asked", or "i think it's going to rain today"?
yours,
weeping in indiana
Judy Collins used to cry with me in high school. She was the official sponsor of my personal Cry Fest 1992 when I found out my boyfriend was gay.
And now, what about Patty Griffin. Jesus -- she'll make you cry.
It's been several decades since I happily learned that the tears we're talking about here have a completely different makeup than the tears that flow from irritations in the eye. Different proteins, I think it is (or is it chemistry?). Anyway, the speculation is that, more than just the general relief of tensions that a good cry provides, there is also a biochemistry of those tears, whatever their makeup, passing over the only exposed nerve in the body, the olfactory; it is a direct administration of the body's own medicine.
As for a song to cry over, I will never not tear-up over Brandi Carlisle's "The Story," for my partner and I both know we were made for each other, and came to our discovery in our late fifties, (and thus were shocked to discover how few lines were on Brandi's lovely young face, once we actually saw it). You can play that song any time you like, Dale, starting tomorrow.
Thanks,
jimck:
Hi Kristofer, Andrea and Heather,
Thanks for the suggestions! We've moved into rebroadcast territory now, so I won't be able to add new songs to the mix today, but I'll work Judy Collins and Patty Griffin to the schedule on Thursday. Try to stay sad until then!
Oh this is my topic! I am the premier crier at movies and TV. I watch Hallmark movies for the commercials, especially the Christmas ones. I mean who can resist crying when the dad walks to the ridge that he always walked with his daughter to so they could welcome Christmas and opens her Christmas card there? My kids just watch the Hallmark movies with me so they can laugh at me (a friendly laugh mind you). And of course there are the Kodak ones with "my mother is the gentelest person I know" as he is looking out over the sea and the one that the song Turn Around was on (I have three grwon daughters). Today's series of weepers was so appropriate. It is my daughter's wedding anniversary and playing the wedding song from Fiddler was beautiful. We had that song at our own wedding 35 years ago. A good cry is good for the soul.
Laurie... at least your kids are giving you friendly laughter. My daughter told me this morning (when she asked what we were talking about on the blog) that I cry at EVERYTHING, with no friendly laugh!
Ever since I became a father (almost 20 years ago now) and was introduced to chronic sleep deprivation, I have become a sentimental fool and cry at the drop of a hat. So go ahead and play what you will.
My question is, does anybody know what ever happened to the Mary Ellen Carter? Does she still sail?
ME Carter appears to be a purely fictional ship made up by Stan Rodgers for the song, unlike the Reuben James.
I too hope all of hte new and rare bloggers will stay with us, fill my slot if you will.
Erick -- I googled the Mary Ellen Carter and it looks like she was never a real ship. I just assumed all these years that she was!! Just makes my respect for Stan Rogers shoot up a bit more.
just checking in - thought of "You Are My sunshine" the way Peter O. sang it at the last Morning Show. uffda!
who woulda thunk this would be the key to new guys chiming in?
try to figure that one out and duplicate it.
great new participants but clyde don't be cashing in your chips too soon . 60 something was old when i was a kid but your just a pup today
my movies in addition to et would be to kill a mockingbird, good bye mr chips, harvey, sophies choice, i did remember a tear at midnight cowboy,
tunes were harder you are my sunshine was one and the dutchman was another but no the steve goodman version as much as i like the guitar licks but by michael smith or one of the soulful covers.
then to keep from getting too verbose a little tie me kangaroo down sport will put it all in perspective.
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