30 Day Movie Challenge - Day 08
Jan. 26th, 2011 10:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenGetting to work early does have its benefits. I get my class notes printed out with plenty of time to get to class, and I get to get these posts out of the way before everyone else comes in!
Day 08 - A movie that makes you sad
Goddamn it, this movie. When I was younger, say, anything south of 20, I was practically invincible when it came to watching sad stuff. My mother was a crier, though, and I teased her mercilessly. These days, she's a stone wall, and I've got more blubber than a blue whale. I don't even bother trying to pretend any more. And it's always over stupid-ass things that are sad but shouldn't immediately catapult me into tears. The beginning of Up destroyed me. I never quite recovered from that to pay even half as much attention to the rest of the movie. For fuck's sake, we were watching Independence Day this weekend, and I had to choke down tears when the president's wife died. WTF, self?
But it used to be different. And, as I said, I teased my mother about it constantly. Mostly, I think, as a defensive posture over the fact that I saw The Land Before Time when I was about seven-eight, and I cried through the entire movie. Littlefoot's mother dies in a brutal and awful way, and she's so serene about it, and he's so guilty about it, and ::WAAAAAAAILLLS::
I saw this for the first time upstate, on the couch with my mother, and I was wiping away tears with this old ratty yellow-and-blue blanket (that was less ratty at the time, this being twenty years ago). My mother, concerned that I seemed to be rapidly dehydrating from my face, asked if I was okay. While wiping away tears, I sobbed, rather unconvincingly (which I recognized at the time), "YES. I'M FINE." She tried to console me, but I got into that defensive crouch and insisted I WAS NOT CRYING, WHY DO YOU KEEP ::SOB!:: ASKING ME!?!
So what if the movie has some goddamned happy ending and no less than thirty sequels? This movie will always be the one that made little toddler TrinityVixen bawl like a total baby. Fuck you, Littlefoot's Mom. You scarred me for life!
If I had to pick a more recent example, I'd pick this one. The movie is actually quietly sweet and tender about the issue of death and life after it (for both the living and the dead). It's a three-part story with a French woman who was resuscitated after drowning; Matt Damon as a man who can speak with the dead but not the living as a result; and a little boy whose twin brother was killed in an auto accident. GUESS WHICH ONE OF THOSE STORY LINES MADE ME CRY EVERY TIME THEY CUT TO IT? The accident scene is swift and brutal, and the destruction of the remaining twin's whole world is all the more devastating for how he seems determined not to accept that his brother is gone. It didn't matter what the kid did when we returned to his story, the movie would pop into it, and I'd immediately start with the waterworks.
This is not to say this isn't a good movie. I found it very satisfying and sweet, and, despite the cliche, Matt Damon did very well with his character's often leaden dialogue about being cursed. What the words couldn't convey, he brought across with an oppressive air of suffering for this talent. But as sad as his lonely existence is, it wasn't the story of a ten-year-old searching for a way to make it without his other half. God. It's not a totally sad movie--there is closure to be had in some cases--but that kid with the giant eyes and no friends or family in his world? NIAGARA FALLS.
Day 01
Day 02
Day 03-06
Day 07
Day 08 - A movie that makes you sad
Goddamn it, this movie. When I was younger, say, anything south of 20, I was practically invincible when it came to watching sad stuff. My mother was a crier, though, and I teased her mercilessly. These days, she's a stone wall, and I've got more blubber than a blue whale. I don't even bother trying to pretend any more. And it's always over stupid-ass things that are sad but shouldn't immediately catapult me into tears. The beginning of Up destroyed me. I never quite recovered from that to pay even half as much attention to the rest of the movie. For fuck's sake, we were watching Independence Day this weekend, and I had to choke down tears when the president's wife died. WTF, self?But it used to be different. And, as I said, I teased my mother about it constantly. Mostly, I think, as a defensive posture over the fact that I saw The Land Before Time when I was about seven-eight, and I cried through the entire movie. Littlefoot's mother dies in a brutal and awful way, and she's so serene about it, and he's so guilty about it, and ::WAAAAAAAILLLS::
I saw this for the first time upstate, on the couch with my mother, and I was wiping away tears with this old ratty yellow-and-blue blanket (that was less ratty at the time, this being twenty years ago). My mother, concerned that I seemed to be rapidly dehydrating from my face, asked if I was okay. While wiping away tears, I sobbed, rather unconvincingly (which I recognized at the time), "YES. I'M FINE." She tried to console me, but I got into that defensive crouch and insisted I WAS NOT CRYING, WHY DO YOU KEEP ::SOB!:: ASKING ME!?!
So what if the movie has some goddamned happy ending and no less than thirty sequels? This movie will always be the one that made little toddler TrinityVixen bawl like a total baby. Fuck you, Littlefoot's Mom. You scarred me for life!
If I had to pick a more recent example, I'd pick this one. The movie is actually quietly sweet and tender about the issue of death and life after it (for both the living and the dead). It's a three-part story with a French woman who was resuscitated after drowning; Matt Damon as a man who can speak with the dead but not the living as a result; and a little boy whose twin brother was killed in an auto accident. GUESS WHICH ONE OF THOSE STORY LINES MADE ME CRY EVERY TIME THEY CUT TO IT? The accident scene is swift and brutal, and the destruction of the remaining twin's whole world is all the more devastating for how he seems determined not to accept that his brother is gone. It didn't matter what the kid did when we returned to his story, the movie would pop into it, and I'd immediately start with the waterworks.This is not to say this isn't a good movie. I found it very satisfying and sweet, and, despite the cliche, Matt Damon did very well with his character's often leaden dialogue about being cursed. What the words couldn't convey, he brought across with an oppressive air of suffering for this talent. But as sad as his lonely existence is, it wasn't the story of a ten-year-old searching for a way to make it without his other half. God. It's not a totally sad movie--there is closure to be had in some cases--but that kid with the giant eyes and no friends or family in his world? NIAGARA FALLS.
Day 01
Day 02
Day 03-06
Day 07
