Ten Deep 04.15.09: Top Ten Movies That Could Possibly Make Men Cry

Posted by Lucas Huddleston on 04.15.2009

This week, 411's Lucas Huddleston admits to crying over movies...and he's a man. How gay is that?

Hello, and welcome to Ten Deep: Week 27! As usual, let's get to some comments from last week's column on my own personal favorite childhood cartoons, of which there was a veritable ‘shitload' of comments left for me to peruse…so many, in fact, that I'm kind of at a loss as to where to actually begin in addressing them. As such, I'll just mention a few them …

iomis brought up the Animaniacs. This one would've actually been listed on last week's column, but I chose to name its devil-spawn (Pinky and the Brain) instead. I'd put it as an Honorable Mention, though, no doubt. Chicken Boo is awesome.

H260 was the first to bring up Bobby's World. My first initiations with that particular show were always somewhat limited in my youth, and I really can't recall why. I just don't remember watching it a whole lot, though I do somewhat remember the few shows that I did indeed watch (like the one with a Jason knock-off called Mason? I think, but I'm not sure).

The Rev brought up Dangermouse (I've never seen it), Ren and Stimpy (I didn't have cable until 1999, so I didn't watch it in my childhood), and Inspector Gadget (which I forgot about…if the list had been extended to 25 as G-Walla suggested, it might have been on there).

Guest#1665 brought up Gargoyles, which was another that I never checked out in my younger days for some reason (perhaps there was something on another channel that I was watching). However, I was able to check it out years later as it aired late at nights after I got off work, and I do indeed agree that it was a great show.

80s kid brought up Exo-Squad (I've never heard of it) and MASK. MASK is a show that I only vaguely remember, and mostly because I have a few coloring books based on the show, as well as an old tin lunchbox. I'll have to check it out in retrospect, as I've known several people who've laid their praise on it.

rubenberendo brought up Robotech, which I've never seen, though I do remember hearing about it as a kid, as my friend Jason was really into the show and the D&D-type game it had. Another I'll have to check out…even if it is anime.

guest#3799 brought up Beavis and Butthead. I was mostly focusing on Saturday morning cartoons or before/after school shows. And besides, I didn't get to check out that particular show until I was in college.

Former C.W.D.U. brought up Frank Welker and how he seems to be the ‘everything' guy when it comes to lending his voice to ‘toons. I know; when I was doing the list, I looked up casts and stuff for the shows, and I swear he was on two-thirds of the shows I was looking up. Versatility at it's finest.

Shockmaster brought up my damning of the first Turtles game, and how he hates it when people moan about it. I would agree, except that I'm one of those that moan about it! I just remember it being so infuriating as a kid, because I couldn't get past the level where you have to extend a rope to cross over the roof of a building…and I could never get the rope to extend. Dammit! And I have indeed talked about the live-action He-Man movie before in Ten Deep; needless to say, I'll defend it to the death.

Ok, that's it for the comments from last week; sorry I couldn't get to them all.

TEN FILMS THAT COULD POSSIBLY MAKE MEN CRY

I'm sure those of you that read my Top 50 Fantasy Films list know exactly where the idea for this list came from. For those that don't, well, you should go back and read those columns! Oh, what the hell, I'll tell you anyway; in said Fantasy lists, I listed a film called Big Fish, and in my little write-up on the film, I stated that the film stood as being one of ‘those' films that actually caused me to tear up a bit at the end of the picture. After having said that, most of the comments left at the bottom of the page were comments that dealt not with Fantasy films, but with films that had made them (I'm assuming most of those that left comments were men, here) cry, or, at least, had them on the verge of crying. As such, after reading those comments, I decided that I would, at some point, do a list on such films. I've started it off and on since the day that my Fantasy lists ended, but I've never really stuck with it through the end…UNTIL NOW (drama power)!

Of course, it should go without saying that I'm not entirely like anyone else in the world, nor is anyone else in the world entirely like me. I'm sure that there were some films out there that made other men tear up a bit that had no effect on me at all, and vice versa. As such, all of these films listed are films that have actually made me tear up once or twice, or at least got real close to doing so (except for one, but that makes the list for another reason). Also, I didn't have time to add pictures this week, as time was kind of the odd commodity for me this past weekend, what with it being Easter and all.

HONORABLE MENTION -- only one Honorable Mention this week (though there's obviously many more films that I could list other than these eleven), but this single spot is given to, as far as I can remember, the one and only film that I can remember actually causing me to weep uncontrollably…

Anonymous Film I Watched as a Child: Yes, as you may have well guessed, that's not the actual title of the film…but, then again, I have never known the name of the film, nor have I ever seen it again. When I saw the film in question, I was just a little guy, and I can remember just happening to walk into the room and plop down onto the couch, and then starting to cry. So for all I know the movie could have been a made-for-television special or something. In truth, the only thing about the film itself that I can recall is the scene that made me cry; in said scene, I can remember a black man getting off a bus at a courthouse or something, where an angry mob of mostly (if not all) white people lay in wait for…something. I don't really know the details of the situation, such as whether or not the man was a lawyer, or on trial…or whether or not the building he was attempting to enter was indeed a courthouse, or if the black man was indeed entering into that particular building or just a hapless passerby. I do, unfortunately, remember the crowd turning and rushing him in a crazed frenzy at the sight of him, where several ‘gentlemen' held the man down while others beat him mercilessly, and I can distinctly recall the people standing the man up, while, with the others still holding his arms to keep him from defending himself, one man took a flag standard (with the American flag still attached to it) and ran it right into the black man's face…then the scene cut away to something else, but I don't remember what it cut away to – as I said, I only remember the brutal beating of the black man at the hands of a mass of angry white folks. Obviously, the film was based on an issue of race, which was honestly something that wasn't lost on my young mind at the time, as I easily recognized the difference between, say, the presentation of the Terminator throwing Reese around like a rag-doll as opposed to that of a crowd of one race of people setting themselves viciously on one individual merely because he had skin of a different color. I'd like to think, in retrospect, that that one particular scene in that one particular film (whose name I've never known) was the very first time that I myself became aware of just how horrid the human race can be at times.

10. Brian's Song (1971)

This seems to be one of those movies that, even if you've never seen it, chances are that you've heard of it before, as it's a movie that's been noted several times in other movies that have been produced since due to it being a ‘tear-jerker' for men (maybe it was mentioned in Sleepless in Seattle or something like that…I know that I'd heard of it before I actually watched it). At any rate, for those that don't know what the film is about, it could be summed up quite easily by saying that it's a film about football players, but that would be giving it an extremely broad generalization. The film is based on the true story of the bond formed between two friends who were both running backs for the Chicago Bears in the 1960's, the two men being Hall-of-Fame running back Gale Sayers and Brian Piccolo, and what with Sayers being a black man and Piccolo white, their friendship in the racially explosive 1960's stands as being inspirational in and of itself. The bond between the two men makes its greatest headway during a time where Sayers suffers a season-ending leg injury, after which Piccolo, Sayers' backup on the team, spurs Sayers through a period of rehabilitation. Unfortunately, the fact that the two men had built up this incredible bond in spite of the times was lost on the ebbs and flows of fate, as Brian Piccolo contracted, and eventually succumbed to, terminal cancer, in which Sayers couldn't help his friend get better despite his efforts to do so. It's a very touching story, no doubt about it…yet, when I watched, I didn't feel my eyes get moist in the slightest, probably because of the fact that when I first watched the film, I watched it in my Junior High Physical Education class in the 8th grade, and was too much of a snot-nosed little punk to do much more than act like I was bored out of my mind like everyone else in the class. However, in spite of that, this film still easily makes it onto my list for one reason: it makes it because of the one man that DID cry that day in class – Coach Hampton.

Now, Coach Hampton was, in many respects, the type of coach that you see satirized on television as being the typical gym teacher: Coach had a flat-top haircut, a thin little mustache that seemed to slink atop his upper lip, yelled a lot…the whole nine yards. The only thing that wasn't spot on in regards to the ‘spoofs' of such coaches that you see on television is that, 1.) Coach Hampton wore corduroy pants that were usually color coordinated with his T-shirts (i.e. if he wore a somewhat dim colored lime-green shirt, he would have matching corduroy pants), and 2.), he wore Roost or something…some kind of Velcro tennis shoe. However, it always seemed to me that, while those coaches on television shows were created with the sole purpose of lampooning men like Coach Hampton to the extreme, I would have MUCH rather have had those fictional coaches like Dauber (if you know who that is), as they were at least funny; Coach Hampton, on the other hand, wasn't funny in the slightest, mostly due to the fact that he was a militant hard-ass. Oh, believe you me that I have a lot, A LOT, of stories about Coach Hampton and his ‘Class of Terror', and the many, many times he meted out his wrath (such as the time that Josh Duncan pinched Leo Sanders' nipple so hard that it bled…and Duncan had to do push-ups, sit-ups, squat-thrusts, jumping jacks, high jumps, EVERYTHING for the rest of the day, despite the rest of his classes for the day…which is testament to the amount of pull that Coach had, since he had led the High School to like twenty years' worth of Track and Field championships). Needless to say, Coach's class went like this: you had to have white T-shirts and maroon shorts, with the bottoms of the shorts being no lower than the tips of your fingers when your arms are held at your sides; all T-shirts had to be tucked into your shorts; all socks had to be mid-calf; and, perhaps the most infuriating thing at the time, anything and everything that we did in class was silent (as in no talking, no grunting, no yelling, no whispering…no noise whatsoever, or you didn't play), such as ‘silent basketball', ‘silent dodge-ball', ‘silent flag football', and so on and so forth. To his credit, once you got on Coach's good side, he was pretty cool, but still…imagine being in fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade and having to play ‘silent dodge-ball'.

At least, we always played something in Coach's class, as he very rarely (if ever) wasted good playing time on silly things such as ‘tests', and so, as long as nobody stepped out of his bounds and did something to anger the gym god, we could all enjoy playing dodge-ball peaceably….except one time, in the eighth grade. You see, that year was the year that the Olympics were in Atlanta, and, in honor of that, our school held its own little Olympic Games for a day towards the end of school, wherein everybody in school had to sign up for various ‘events' and participate in them (I won the 400 meter dash, and was even awarded with a little wooden medal). There was only one class period where we didn't have the ‘Olympics', and, for me, that class period was Coach Hampton's P.E. class…and it was then that I first watched Brian's Song for the first time. I don't know why Coach chose to have us watch a film rather than have class as usual (probably either because he thought we'd be too tired, or he himself was too tired to mess with it), or why he chose to have us watch Brian's Song instead of something more Olympic-oriented, but watch it we did. As I said earlier, I, like most of the other kids in the class, just kind of looked around and fidgeted during most of the movie, maybe even daring once or twice to pass a note or something when the coast was clear; however, I remember Coach was unusually quiet during the proceedings of the film, never really barking at the class to shut the hell up as he was usually want to do. When the film neared its climax, with James Caan laying in a hospital bed as Billy Dee Williams cried over him, I can remember casting a glance over towards Coach…to see him sitting in his little chair, his head drooped about as low as it could go, and his hand strategically placed in a certain position that perfectly shielded a large portion of his face from the class. Of course, I wasn't the only kid in the class to notice, and afterwards the incident became a thing that was epically debated amongst classmates: was Coach sleeping…or was he crying? Now, he COULD have been merely sleeping, though I'm somewhat skeptical of that, for as soon as the end-credits began to roll shortly thereafter, Coach was up to shut the T.V. off and run us out of class; if he had been sleeping, his timing wouldn't have been near as impeccable. I'd almost bet he was crying, and hey, if a film can make a man's man like Coach Hampton cry, then by God it deserves to put on a list such as this.

9. Field of Dreams (1989)

Unlike some of the other films here, Field of Dreams hasn't ever really done that much more to me than literally make my eyes a little moist (I've never shed a tear during it), though I can see how it could affect others in that fashion. Personally, I chalk it up to the fact that maybe because I've watched the movie ever since I was a little guy and have been familiar with it for much of my life, perhaps I've just grown to be somewhat immune to the themes of father and son over the years, thanks to repeated viewings during an era when I couldn't really grasp what was going on, and when the time came that I could appreciate it I had been somewhat desensitized by it since I knew what happened in the film. All I knew is that it was about baseball, and when I was a kid, there were few things in this life that I loved more than baseball. As such, when I was a kid, I loved all the parts that dealt with Ray plowing up his field in order to create a baseball field; I loved all the parts that dealt with the old-time disgraced players as they found the field and were playing around on it. As a kid and a lover of both Fantasy and baseball, this film was able to quite easily capture my young imagination in those days.

But then again, once I'd gotten a little bit older and a little bit wiser, I realized that it really wasn't about baseball at all – at least not altogether, as the baseball bits serve as little more than a backdrop for the plot. The film itself it more about loss and reconciliation, having dreams then having the courage to follow through with them, and, more obviously, the relationship between parents and their children. However, the part about the film being about dreams isn't just to say making your own dreams come true; it's about helping others realize their dreams, even (and perhaps most especially) when they themselves can't do it alone. In the film, Kevin Costner helps several others realize their own dreams, and he does so through no personal gaining of his own, which includes giving the 1919 Chicago White Sox a place to play after they'd been banned from playing ever again, which was Ray's (Costner) father's favorite team…which culminates in Ray and his deceased father playing a game of catch. While that scene, with grieved son and father becoming in touch again may tug at the heart strings of most, the part that I find to be the saddest nowadays is the scene with Archie, who gives up his dream in order to rescue Ray's little girl. Ultimately, I feel the same way about this film as I do something akin to Somewhere in Time: it really is kind of a strange and quirky film, yet the spirit and the heart of the film shine through strongly, making it an easy movie to latch yourself onto if you seek out sincerity in your films. Even if you don't seek out sincere movies, I'm sure that you'd still find a reason and a purpose for falling in love with this movie.

8. Big Fish (2003)

It should be fairly obvious to everybody that I'm a man; not only that, but I'm a man from a certain environment (i.e. the sticks) where men are judged by being, well, manly. So it is that I'd NEVER admit to watching a movie that made me cry…though I will admit to maybe a film or two that got me a little misty-eyed when I first watched them. Tim Burton's Big Fish here is just one of those movies. I know exactly what it was that caused me to be such a way, too – I could easily see the relationship between father and son being much like the relationship that I have with my own father. On the surface, this is really a story about a grown man whose father has a reputation for stretching the truth a little bit, stretching it to the point where the father's days as a young man as he journeys through life resembles an imaginative fairy-tale more than it an actual life. According to his father, he's battled witches, befriended giants, and all sorts of other fantastical accomplishments that the old blowhard bellows at anyone who would listen. The problem that the son has with this is that he feels like he's never even really known his father; he's just been familiar with this fantasy life that his father's been peddling for years. While not the same in the reasoning behind it, I too can relate to NOT being able to relate to my own father at times, and the final scene of the son giving in to his dad's imagination on the old man's deathbed was incredibly powerful, in my opinion.

However, that's not all that the film is about, for as the title alludes to, it's also about the proverbial ‘one that got away', referencing how a fisherman tells a tale of a humungous fish he'd caught, except for the fact that it got away. It's also a demonstration on how important exaggerations are to us as human beings. Let's face it here: nearly everything that we ‘normal' people do – those of us who aren't multi-billionaires or Presidents or celebrities – can all be construed as being quite menial. Take me, for example. I work a job for a little bit more than minimum wage, with my hours starting in the afternoon and ending at midnight. I wake up in the morning, maybe run an errand or two, and if I don't have anything to do, I write. Then I go back to work…rinse, wash, repeat. So then I ask you, what would my life be if I didn't once and awhile tell a story that may not be the whole truth but at the same time not too far from it, all the while making everything within the story to be just a little bit bigger or grander than it actually was? That's what the father in the story represents, in my opinion. He was just a family man who had once been young, who had a job that had him drive about the country…he just lived life the way that we all do. He just merely expanded upon stories of his past in an effort to make it feel just a little bit more important that it was, just like we all do. I think that this is truly a great film, and one that I honestly do love.

7. Rudy (1993)

For those that have never seen it, a quick summing up of what the film Rudy is all about would be to say that it's probably one of the ultimate underdog stories (based on a true story, of course) ever committed to film, and actually quite inspirational in its message. Now, unlike a lot of other films on this list, Rudy never actually made my eyes get a little moist because the movie was sad; no, Rudy kind of separates itself from the others on this list as it stands as being one of ‘those' kind of films…one of the kind of films that can make you (possibly) cry or get tears in your eyes not because you're sad, but because you're HAPPY about what happens, and it mostly stems from the character of Rudy himself (as played by Sean Astin).

I, as I suppose a lot of people did/can, could easily relate to Rudy and the situation that he found himself – that of having a dream, a dream that's seemingly unattainable yet you believe in yourself that you can one day attain it…and a dream that's been constantly bombarded by others as being ‘a pipe-dream'. Rudy's dream was to one day play football for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, a dream that he held onto since childhood and on into his early adulthood. Of course, all his life, Rudy heard the same thing, from both friends and family: that he's too small to play football for the University of Notre Dame, that he doesn't have the level of talent that such a school would be looking for, and that he's not smart enough to be able to get into the school via academics…basically, all Rudy's ever been told in his life is how he can't even possibly hope to ATTEND the school, much less play football there. Of course, Rudy, through his hard work and desire, proves them all wrong, and not only attends Notre Dame, but also ends up making it onto the football team, ultimately playing in an actual game. However, Rudy ended up playing for only a few brief moments in that game, but I daresay that such a thing would've mattered to the character; after all, he achieved his dream, and no matter how fleeting it may have been, he could always say that he did it. As I've stated before, I come from a part of the world where basic laborer jobs are considered work, and when I've told others that I wanted to be a full-time writer, I most usually would get a reaction along the lines of, "What kind of a job is that? You need to learn a trade, not dream about something that don't happen to most people." I consider this gig here at 411mania a step in the right direction, and if it ended up being the closest I ever get to being an actual ‘writer'…then that'd be fine by me, because at least I did it, and I wouldn't ever take it for granted. That's what I learned from Rudy.

6. Lonesome Dove (1989)

Now, I'm going to keep this little section on Lonesome Dove fairly brief, as it will no doubt appear somewhere on my Top Westerns list, if indeed I ever get around to completely assembling it. As such, I don't really want to say too much about my thoughts on the whole film here, as I'd rather save such things for later on down the road…so forgive me if this section comes off as being rather paltry compared to some. I WILL say that, in my opinion, Lonesome Dove stands as being one of the greatest Westerns ever made, as it's not only a truly epic masterpiece (and we all know how much I love epic stories), but it also contains what are, hands down, some of the greatest characters to ever grace a Western film (or even the pages of a Western novel) in the history of cinema. What's even more is that the producers of Lonesome Dove did their part by going out and getting a cavalcade of truly great actors to give said great characters life on the small screen, including Robert Duvall as Gus McCrae, and Tommy Lee Jones as Woodrow Call.

For those that don't know, Call and Gus are older gentlemen, former Texas Rangers turned ranchers, and lifelong compadres…even though their friendship at times seems to exist in a more grudgingly fashion on the surface, the appearance of which is mostly fueled by the stark differences in the two men's personalities. Call is stern, stoic, and approaches all things to a certain extreme degree of seriousness; Gus, however, is the exact opposite of Call, as he's much more light-hearted, a bit lazy, charming and easily endearing to everyone that comes into contact with him. Now then, I hate to ruin the ending of the epic film for any of those that haven't seen the picture, but, unfortunately, I must, as it's because of that ending that the film makes it onto this list (though I won't go into too much detail about it). As I said, the film is veritably stacked with great characters portrayed by great actors, and there are several moments throughout the film where a character would die and leave me feeling more than a little saddened (such as when Deets is killed, or even Jake Spoon's death)…yet, as great as the supporting cast of characters are, their deaths or misfortunes really can't hold a candle to Gus' death. For you see, Gus is one the central characters for the film, and as such (and through Duvall's excellent performance as the character, which was a performance that set the standard for future portrayals of Gus, as any and all who've taken on the part of the character since have basically just imitated Duvall in the role), Duvall and the film spend all eight hours of the movie trying their damndest to get the audience to fall in love with the character, so that when he died, you could literally feel the same emotion that was wracking Call over Gus' death…and it worked for me, obviously.

5. Old Yeller (1957)

What can I say? I have a soft spot in my heart for dogs. Old Yeller stands as being another one of those films that I really can't recall the very first time that I watched it for the first time, but, needless to say, I DO know that I've watched the film quite a bit during my lifetime (though I haven't watched it once in this decade). As I've stated numerous times in the life of this column, I come from an overly rural area, and, as such, there really wasn't a time in my childhood that we didn't have a dog, whether it was a pup that was given to us by a neighbor, a stray, or a dog that we bought from the local shelter. As such, I've always grown up with a strong affinity for dogs; they are, after all, man's best friend. That being said, the story of Old Yeller, the story of a young boy and his dog and their time together which culminates in the dog getting rabies and having to be put down by the boy, has always been a heartbreaker for me, as well as for most other dog-lovers, I'm sure.

However, if I was to actually watch the movie NOW, I'm sure that the transpirings in the film would get to me even more than they did when I was a child. You see, when I was in my late teens/early twenties, I had a dog named Waldo. Now, I know what you're probably thinking, but I didn't name him that; that was his name when we picked him up from the animal shelter…and he wasn't even the dog that we were wanting. My parents are always on the look-out for a certain kind of dog – a basset hound, which just so happens to be their favorite breed of canine. As I recall, my mom, on a whim, called the local dog shelter in curiosity as to whether or not the place had a basset, and, much to her surprise, the woman on the other end of the line said, ‘Yes.' Almost immediately, my mom hurried me into the car, and I drove her to the shelter in order to get the dog before Dad got home, as Mom wanted to surprise him with it. After we got to the shelter and Mom specified that she had been the woman that had called earlier in search of the basset, the woman nodded her head in acknowledgement and directed us to some small, cramped pen…in which sat a dog that had a coat of white, brown, and black fur. Now, those are indeed what you'd call ‘basset colors', but as we drew nearer to the pen, it became more and more obvious to my mother and I that what we walking towards WASN'T a basset hound; once we had made it to the pen, our suspicions were confirmed, as what sat patiently in that pen truly wasn't a basset hound, but, essentially, your basic mutt. My mother tried to tell the woman that she had changed her mind and that she was on the hunt for only a basset and nothing else, but the woman largely ignored and opened the pen anyway. Well, it worked…once my mom and I saw the little guy running around, jumping up on us, looking as though he was the happiest dog in the world to be out of that pen, we couldn't say no. So, we paid fifty dollars to be his owners, and took him home to the country, where he could spend the days not being penned up, or chained up, and would be free to roam the surrounding forestland at his heart's desire.

However, Waldo didn't do that. Oh sure, we didn't keep him in a pen, and we didn't tether him to any trees or spikes or nothing of the sort; he just didn't go anywhere. Waldo was simply content to stay around the house, and that was that. He didn't run through Mom's garden, destroying fledgling crops before their time. He didn't chase the cats, or raccoons, or possums, or the various birds that came around to peck at the sprinkles of bird-seed that my mom would fling out into the yard for them. Whenever I would walk outside, there was Waldo, and the only time that Waldo would venture off the property would be when I would – he'd follow me wherever I went. If I was to sit down in the tall grass – and just sit there – Waldo would just plop down beside me, not on top of me, and stare off into the brush patiently. Waldo was about the best dog that I ever had, and he never done anything wrong the whole time he lived with us…until the end. There was this big dog that lived up the road from us named Chucky, a dog so wild and reckless that his owner really couldn't control him, so he merely allowed the dog to roam around the area, perhaps halfway hoping that someone would get tired of the bastard and shoot him. Oh yes, Chucky was indeed a bastard, the kind of dog that I hate…a destroyer of everything he sees (he even tried to attack me one night when I got home from work, but Waldo, much to my surprise and gratitude, came flying out of nowhere and barreled into Chucky, protecting me from the bastard). At that time that Chucky started coming around, one of our cats had had kittens…and it just so happened that one day we woke up to find Chucky sitting outside on the porch with one of the babies in his mouth. I took my baseball bat to the S.O.B., and he stayed away from the house for a few days, but, eventually, he came back, and, eventually, we found him with another kitten in his mouth…and all the while, Waldo was eyeballing him, and running around with him. I suppose that's why Waldo one day decided to try and eat the kittens, as, I assume, he'd gotten the idea of it by watching Chucky attempt to do so, but I really don't know. Of course, Waldo essentially bit the heads off all the baby kittens and then, some time during the night, went up to my uncle's house and killed quite a few of his chickens…which was all odd behavior for Waldo, and not like him at all. I mean, he'd been around cats and kittens and chickens for YEARS before that time, and never bothered them; hell, he was even known to let previous kittens crawl all over him while he lay there as still as could be.

Still, we couldn't have a dog that ran around and killed chickens or kittens, so my dad decided that very day that Waldo had to be put down – and he wanted me to do it, but not out meanness…but because he knew that Waldo was MY dog, and that I'd want to be the one to do it. Now, I've grown up with hunters all my life, as my entire family hunt; I, however, have only been hunting three times (the last time I went, my cousin Jeremy blew his pinky toe off), and I've learned over the years that I, perhaps unfortunately, just don't have the heart to kill animals. And, perhaps unfortunately, I didn't have the heart to kill my dog…so my dad did it. The whole ordeal truly upset me at the time, and it was a shame that Waldo had to do what he did, a chain of events that seemingly negated the good things he had done for so long. So, knowing all that, now you know why I haven't bothered to watch Old Yeller since then…there's a very high possibility that I would cry like a little girl.

4. The Godfather Part II (1974)

I've noted it before, but I'll say it again: there was a time when I was younger when I discovered the ‘mafia' movie and became somewhat obsessed with it. Not that I've ever wanted to live that lifestyle; far from it, actually, as I'm pretty sure that I could NEVER bring myself to deal in matters such as the mob deals in. However, I found movies about the subject to be endlessly intriguing, particularly those that dealt with organized crime in the ‘Golden Era' of such things – namely films set in the 1920's to the 1950's. And, of course, you simply can't truly be a fan of mafia movies without ever having seen The Godfather Trilogy. Now, I will say that, overall, the story that spans the Godfather trilogy is indeed kind of a sad one, as it doesn't depict life in the mafia as being a very happy one. However, I also wouldn't necessarily say that the story of Michael Corleone and his family is a tear-jerker, and it doesn't make ME sad to watch it. Yet, with that being said, there is indeed one scene in the second installment that really got to me when I was younger, and it's still a scene that gets to me to this day, and that scene is, I'm sure you can guess, the scene where Fredo, Michael's brother, gets ‘whacked'…by the order of Michael himself.

Of course, in mobster movies, a lot of people get killed, whether they deserve it or not, and there's almost always a scene or two in such films that kind of get to me (such as the scene in Donnie Brasco where Donnie instigates his mob buddies into beating the hell out of an oriental maitre de so that the wire that Donnie wears won't be revealed by taking off his shoes, which the maitre de insists he must do due to tradition), so why would Fredo's assassination be any different (other than the fact that his brother was the one that orchestrated it)? Well, to understand that would call for one to know the character of Fredo himself. In the films, Fredo is pretty much portrayed as being more-or-less a ‘man-child', an eternal screw-up that the family doesn't truly let ‘in' on the bigger picture of things due to his incompetence and general stupidity. However, despite the fact that Fredo is in figuratively in bed with a group of people that make a living by doing some pretty bad things, Fredo's existence in the mob is in a capacity that makes him seem almost totally oblivious to what's going on around him, and it is due to that fact, the fact that Fredo is indeed an oblivious man-child that stands out as being perhaps the most innocent and pure of all the criminals (for Fredo is indeed still a criminal), that Fredo stands as being far more endearing than most other characters in the films, in my opinion. Of course, it's no doubt due to that ‘oblivious man-child' aspect of him that spurs Fredo to betray the Corleone family for some unspecified amount of money (and what he did was a bit unclear, as well), as Fredo just doesn't have the capacities to truly realize what the consequences of his actions will be. But perhaps the most heartbreaking aspect of the scene depicting Fredo's assassination is the scene itself, as Fredo goes out onto the lake with his ‘bodyguard' (in truth, Michael's assassin tasked with the order of killing Fredo) to fish; before he casts, Fredo says a Hail Mary, which he says is something that he did as a child in order to help him catch fish…and, in the process of saying the prayer, he's shot by the assassin (as Michael looks on). Perhaps Fredo knew that it was coming, considering that he knew that Michael knew that he had betrayed the family, but, considering the innocent nature (all things considering, since he WAS a member of an organized crime family) of Fredo, I'm more inclined to believe that he had no idea. Regardless, Fredo's death scene was a very touching one, very nicely done, and perhaps one of the most emotional ‘whack' jobs in the history of Mafioso cinema.

3. Forrest Gump (1994)

I don't think I've yet mentioned it in this column, so I'll finally say it here: if I was to ever construct a list of my own personal all-time greatest films list, Forrest Gump would easily crack into the top ten. In my opinion, it's truly one of the greatest ever created, and one of the few movies that I could never get tired of watching…and I'll keep my entire thoughts on the film overall to myself, just in case I get the notion to talk about the film as a whole in the future. At any rate, to me, what makes the film so heartfelt is the fact that, in Forrest Gump, you have a man that, against all odds, succeeds in all things, achieving great success and respect despite whatever limitations or restrictions that's placed in the man's way…and yet, at the same time, he really doesn't achieve all that, as there's really only one thing in the world that he truly wants, and that's Jenny, of course. When Forrest finally gets that one thing that's he longed for his life…well, that's where the truly sad part comes in.

In case you don't know, Forrest spends his whole chasing after, and getting rejected by, Jenny, who, if I was to delve into her character a bit, I believe feels as though she's not good enough for Forrest, that he's too pure and innocent to bear to be with someone such as her. Anyway, Forrest does indeed finally get the girl (who had given birth to his child before they ended up as a couple), but it turns out to be exceedingly bittersweet, as shortly after she calls Forrest to him to show him his previously unknown son, Jenny reveals that she's dying from what I presume to be the AIDS virus. Still, Forrest marries her, and shortly thereafter, Jenny dies…on a Saturday morning. That whole scene with Forrest speaking to the headstone of Jenny's grave is a pretty moving scene for me, actually, and not just because Forrest lost the love of his life, but that Forrest actually GOT the one thing that could make him truly happy, only to lose it shortly thereafter. However, that thought stands as being bittersweet, as well, because Forrest DID in fact attain the one and only thing in life that he truly wanted, and, really, how many of us can say that?

2. Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Now, I'm a fan of a bunch of War movies, as most of those movies get on my good side (which is my human side) by glorifying not the act of war itself, but by glorifying the men and women who fight for lives for the sake of the country; if a War movie was indeed to simply glorify war in and of itself, it'd more than likely make me sick to watch it, as most of the wars fought in human history (of which I believe a large percentage of have been largely unnecessary) are utter acts of despicability. Of course, I believe that World War II was indeed one of those few wars that HAD to be fought, as no human being should stand for the eradication of entire people, and that, coupled with the fact that my grandfather took part in WWII, has led to me accepting War movies that depict that particular war as being ‘grand', moreso than movies that depict, say, Vietnam as being a glorious crusade (movies like The Green Berets for instance, and not films like Apocalypse Now or Platoon, which I like). Of course, when Saving Private Ryan was first released, there was a big ‘to-do' about the film's opening sequence, and how that particular sequence was perhaps the most realistic depiction of a war zone to ever be recreated in a film. As for me? Sure, that sequence (and the other battle scenes) does its job and gets my adrenaline pumping…but the fighting isn't what's caused me to hold the film in so high regard over the years. It is, of course, the human element that's endeared the film to me over the years, the human element that truly causes to allow me to get more emotionally involved in the picture…and there were two scenes in particular where that ‘human element' caused me to get almost more than a little bleary-eyed.

The first ‘incident' that I'd mention would be the fatal battle between the Jewish-American soldier and the German, as they fight to the death. Now, the fight between the two men is perhaps one of the most intense moments of combat between two men ever committed to celluloid, as it's a very ‘dirty' fight (meaning that it's not glorified in any way, shape, or form), and it also ends on a very heat-rending moment as, just as he realizes he's going to die, the Jewish-American soldier quickly begins to beg for his life, despite knowing that such mercy will never come. That is indeed heart-rending as I said it was; however, the truly sad part of the scene (sad AND infuriating at the same time, interestingly enough) is the fact that right outside the room where the Jewish soldier meets his end sits a fellow American serviceman, a man who's too terrified to come to his comrade's aid at his hour of most need. Knowing that there's a person who needs help badly and that there's another who can't (or even won't) bring himself to help the other is truly sad, and it's a somewhat depressing scene which, as I said, causes me to both loathe and feel sorry for the terrified soldier in the hallway.

As for the second ‘incident', it's really just a small moment that doesn't last too long, but it stands as being perhaps the one thing that's stuck with me more than any other part of the movie since I first watched it, even moreso than the previous scene that I mentioned. In this particular scene, the small group of soldiers led by Tom Hanks' character decide to try and handicap a German machine gun outpost; in the ensuing fight, the group's medic is fatally shot. As he's laying there dying in a part of the world that's unknown to him, the man calls out for his mother with his last breaths…and THAT'S a truly sad scene, and one that almost makes the thought of watching the movie unbearable to me, for whenever I see that the movie's on, I always think, ‘well, I don't know, I'll have to watch THAT scene…'

1. Life is Beautiful (1997)

When I was in college (perhaps even the semester prior to when I dropped out, actually), I took a class titled Film Appreciation. As was kind of my modus operandi for my short-and-sweet college career, I was prone to take classes that I didn't need, and Film Appreciation was one such class (like Bowling, for example…yes, I took Bowling…when I had a Criminal Justice major). If I remember correctly (and I might not), I believe that the Film Appreciation class fell into the category of an Arts credit, and, even though I had already earned all the mandatory credits that I needed in that particular category, I still found myself signing up for Film Appreciation after a friend of mine took the class and told me that the class was little more than sitting around and talking about movies, then watching movies. A class where all the students did was talk about AND watch films for credit? How could I not sign up for such a thing, regardless of the fact that I was paying over three hundred bucks for a class that I didn't need (or, rather, my parents were paying for)? What's more is that during that much blighted fourth semester of my college career, I failed almost every class for the sole reason that I didn't attend them…except for this class. I was there everyday. I got an A.

Even though all that happened about seven years ago, I can still remember the movies that we watched in that class: I can remember watching The Graduate in the class, which the professor detailed to us just how crappy ‘fit to screen' versions of films were as opposed to widescreen ratios; I can remember having a special assignment to watch a film and then write an essay on said film, and the movie that I was ‘saddled' with was The Maltese Falcon, which, of course, was awesome; and, of course, I can remember watching Life is Beautiful in the class (there were others, too, of course, rather than just those three films). I had never seen the picture before that day, though I did indeed know who the star of the film was (Roberto Benigni) from one of his earlier films called Son of the Pink Panther. As such from that particular film, I knew that the guy was (pardon me for saying this) rather goofy-looking and could play the part of a clown quite well, so, with having no idea what Life is Beautiful was truly about, I went into that initial viewing with the mindset of what I was about to watch was a comedy film…and, after the first thirty minutes or so of the film had elapsed, it seemed pretty clear to me that the film was set on being that of a Romantic-Comedy set in the uncertain climes of German-occupied Europe, with what I assumed the ending would be the typical ‘guy-gets-girl' against all odds finale, and the moral of the story would be something along the lines of ‘love prevails no matter what'. Well…I actually wasn't too far off base with the assumption that that ending theme would be the ‘love prevails no matter what' thought, but it didn't come about in the manner that I assumed it would, for in the last half/third of the film, the story and setting switches to that of a Nazi concentration camp, where Guido (Benigni's character) and his young son are sent.

And THAT'S where the film began to tug on my heartstrings far more than any Romantic-Comedy could ever hope to achieve. Whilst detained in the camp, Guido, being no fool and knowing exactly what will most likely become of them in such a place, paints the whole situation as that of a game to his son in order to protect his young boy from the Nazis as well as the bleak truth of the camp, and, despite their hellish surroundings and almost certain impending doom, Guido is able to put on a cheerful face, all for the sake of his son. While what happens at the end of the film is indeed sad (while also being a bit of a happy ending…the proverbial silver lining), it's always been the scenes that depict the concentration camp that gets to me, if only for the reason as to how Guido shields his boy from the Hell that it truly is.

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Well, that's it for this week. Hope you liked it! As usual, if you haven't already, remember to bookmark 411mania so you can just zip right here, instead of messing with typing in crap. But that's only if you really, really want to. See you next week!