I’ve mentioned a few times that there are only 2 movie moments that have ever made me cry… yes I’m man enough to admit it. I’ve never gotten choked up at the normal things that get others emotional over. Romance scenes or scenes of sadness never get to me… don’t get me wrong, I like and appreciate those scenes when they work for the movies they’re in, but on an emotional level they don’t actually get me choked up.
No, the things that get me choked up, or even make me cry (remember, just two times ever… grrrrrr… I’m a manly man) are the scenes in films that effectively portray or show amazing acts of kindness. Yeah, i know that sounds weird, but it’s true.
For example, one of the movie scenes that made me actually cry (grrrrr… manly man) was one of the last scenes in “My Best Friend’s Wedding”. No, it wasn’t the wedding that got to me. No it wasn’t the fact that Julia Roberts didn’t get to marry the man she loved. It was the scene where Roberts is at the wedding and is on the phone with her gay best friend (played brilliantly by Rupert Everett) who lives across the country because she’s hurting a bit and needs to talk to him. The catch is she realizes that he was there at the wedding too. He traveled across the country to be there just in case she needed him. Yes international friends, a friend flying across the country to be there for his friend made me cry. Shut up.
What can I say. The things that really get to me are acts that show the capacity of humanity to show beauty and kindness. Not romance. Not sadness. Not puppies.
The reason this sort of came up today is because last night I was up late and flipping through the TV stations when I came across a TV show called “Extreme Home Makeover”. You know the show? It’s the one where Ty Pennington (used to be on that “Trading Spaces” show) and a team of people find a needy family, tear down their house and build them a brand new one.
Ok, here’s the story of the episode last night. This family of a mom and 4 kids had their father suddenly die 6 months earlier unexpectedly. Apparently the whole community just loved this guy and he was a great husband and father. The thing is, the house was terrible and ready to fall apart, and with the dad suddenly gone, the family was also in a bit of a financial crisis. You had a mom at her wits end who was trying to support, raise and comfort her kids all while still dealing with the grief of losing her husband and trying to make ends meet at the same time. It was a moving story.
So in comes the “home makeover” team, send her and her kids on a week long vacation, tear down her house, get hundreds of volunteers together, tear down their house and build a completely brand new BEAUTIFUL house fully furnished with sentimental pieces from the old house scattered throughout the new house including a big portrait of the family when the dad was still alive. When the family was brought back “home” and shown their new house, they all just broke down into tears. Not the stupid annoying happy dance that people with money do when they win some game show… real tears. Tears from a family that had been though so much, struggled so much, lost so much… and suddenly out of nowhere where shown an incredible act of kindness that was really going to change their lives.
I won’t lie to you… I cried like a freaking chick watching Leo sink at the end of Titanic. I hated myself for crying… but I cried (shut up, I’ll punch you in the face).
Now here’s the thing. There are a lot of movies with heroes. Movies with characters showing acts of bravery or heroism or doing good. But where are the films that show the random acts of kindness that display the best in humanity? I for one would like to see more movies that center around these types of things. Granted, it’s not as exciting as Iron Man taking out tanks or the Joker pushing a guy’s face down on a pencil (which are both awesome by the way), but it’s still something that I think there is a lack of in movies today.
Off the top of my head (and I’ve only thought about this for a few minutes) I can only really think of one example of this sort of thing in a movie. In “As Good As It Gets” Helen Hunt plays a mom with a sick son who can’t afford to get him the sort of medical attention he needs and his condition seems to just get worse and worse. Then, along comes Jack Nicholson who arranges for a top notch doctor to personally go and care for her son and cure him. Now granted, Jack had an ulterior motive because he wanted Hunt to be at work to serve him breakfast (he has a mental illness that makes him NEED routine), but still it was sweet. A woman trapped who was set free by an act of unexpected kindness. I love it.
So where are these movies? I’m sure there are SOME others out there that have this type of theme that just aren’t coming to me off the top of my head. So tell me folks… what are some other movies that have this type of theme or scenes in them that you think might choke me up (Grrrrrr).
