I cry at things. Not real things so much, unless it occurs to me that I’m being watched by an audience, who might think I’m a monster if I don’t cry. But show me a single scene of pathos which has nothing to do with me, and I’m off. I cried at 7, when Metal Mickey died. And my mum said “that’s nice, it means you’re sensitive”, when my brother identified it more accurately as an example of extreme homosexuality.
I just cried for the seventh time at this:
And I’ve just made myself get a little bit wet in a Google Chat about my first dog, who died after I told him to get off my bed because he was whimpering, and I wanted to sleep. “Oh, I’ll get off your bed,” he said with a glance. “And then, I’m going to die. Eff you.” The fact he self-censored, even in that angry glance, is perhaps the saddest thing of all.
So, hearing people talk about Toy Story 3 was thrilling. These are the Top 5 things people said to me about Toy Story 3, that made me think I was going to weep myself dry.
- I don’t normally cry at films. But I cried at this.
- I do normally cry at films, but this was different. It was like having your childhood ripped out, and stuck back in with the wide end first.
- I’m an emotionless sociopath, but Toy Story 3 in many ways unlocked my soul. I’ve since been able to empathise and interact properly with my child, who no longer fears me.
- I’m a very emotional person, and this drove me to such irrational extremes of wild sentiment, that I’m scared to open my mouth, for fear of screaming.
- I didn’t cry at Toy Story 3, but it seems that stifling the emotion affected my semen. For a while, I thought I was infertile, but when my wife finally became pregnant we immediately became concerned by a small but constant vaginal discharge. It seemed like water, but on fabrics we didn’t immediately wash, it left behind a salty crust. After nine months of increasing flow, she eventually gave birth to a football sized eyeball. It couldn’t blink, having no eyelid. And it couldn’t cry in the conventional way, having no tear duct. It just span around wildly in its mothers arms, shooting a narrow jet of tear water from its pupil. Once we severed the umbilical cord, it immediately began to deflate. We’re not sure if it’s still alive – or if it ever was. But in future, I am never going to not cry at Toy Story 3 again.
Naturally, I thought something MASSIVE was going to happen. I thought we were going to confront innocence with death. I imagined a right-wing Family Concern storyline in which the toys were handed down across generations, until a childless gay relationship left them with nowhere to go. Then I imagined a series of coded jokes and eye-rolls about getting stuffed up a bumhole, culminating in Buzz ejecting his wings in ano, during the filming of a video that consequently goes viral.
I wasn’t expecting what I got, which was a pretty standard trickle down one cheek – not even a two-cheeker – and some uneven breathing when I realised that the tears were on my boyfriend’s side. The idea that he might see the trickle of tears, and gently touch my forearm nearly made me shudder a bit, but the moment was broken by the knowledge that his real reaction would have been “pfft”.
The same thing happened watching The Orphanage. I’d read a review, and knew that the child was going to go missing. So I spent the first fuck-knows minutes of the film thinking “I bet this is the bit where he goes missing! I bet an EAGLE does it and he’s in a NEST.” By the time he’d actually disappeared, after all that fannying about in a spooky cave, I was exhausted.
And getting old would be much more fun, if someone hadn’t spoiled it by telling me I was going to just die.
So, everyone. Stop talking about stuff. Stop writing about things. Stop having opinions and exposing them to people. Stop communicating ideas and thoughts unless they’re in perfect isolation from everything else. Stop all trailers and publicity campaigns. This kind of teaser campaign for psychological thrillers like Who Put The Bomp is OK:
As long as you don’t follow it up with anything that explains:
a) what BOMP is
b) who the prime suspects for putting it in the BOMP BOMP BOMP might be
c) how Barry Mann’s left hand exists in the yellow cartoon dimension, while his left thigh does not
Finally, never compare things to each other. Saying “you smell like a rose” might ruin the surprise for anyone who’s never smelt a rose, but is kind of meaning to get around to it someday.
The only exception to this is video games, because I quite like writing about those. And it’s not like I’ve ever said anything informative.
Why do Pixar market films that will make parents cry in front of their children? Are they trying to destroy the parental hegemony of being emotionally distant and vaguely superior to their children? Do they want to compromise the traditional family unit by encouraging soulless, hateful kids who would stare dull-eyed at multiple murder-by-gangrape to laugh at their ma and pa for crying at a bunch of fucking cartoon toys?
In any case, no cartoon will ever make me cry as much as Amelie did. You know; the bit where the bloke opens up the box of childhood stuff.
That and Pierrepoint. But who wouldn’t sob at the emotional turmoil of hanging folk.
The cartoon dimension is a wall, the corner of which Barry Mann is leaning. His thigh is still behind the wall.
I nearly cried a little at the end of Schindlers List, but that’s about it for me. And that’s only because I fucking LOVE Jews. Otherwise I AM ROCK.
Two words.
Wall. E.
I was finished by the end of that film. Finished.
Do kids cry at Up? Or do they just think “well, old people die, don’t they, it’d only be worth crying if they were 23, with loads of unrealised potential”
I’m an emotional wreck for films and cry at the stupidest things. I think I may be autistic or a sociopath though, I only really empathise with films in which the protagonist is a robot who is attempting to become human. See AI and Bicentennial Man. I own both on DVD but haven’t watched either for years due to being unable to control my massive gay tears.
Funnily enough, I was talking about Whale Rider to a friend this afternoon and how it had me crying like an idiot child who’d lost his balloon. I also cried at the King Kong remake, The Dharmma Brothers, The Office Christmas Special and the Extras Christmas Special.
The first film my parents rented when we bought a video player was The Champ. Cunts. A brand new piece of technology in the living room and we’re all sitting round it crying.
I have never seen Up or Wall-E. But I did cry at The Green Mile when the man who didn’t molest children died. And, for some reason, I still can’t listen to Puff the Magic Dragon or watch Silent Running.
I cry at specific plot points in films. Like clockwork.
Schindlers List, when he says “This badge is worth one person!”
Edward Scissorhands, when Kim says she loves Edward and he just closes his eyes, his dreams having come true at that very moment.
Titanic, not when Jack dies, I never liked Leonardo Di Caprio so that bit I find quite pleasing, it’s when the camera pans through the ship with all the dead passengers standing smiling at the camera. I always end up weeping “Those poor, poor victorians.”
Damn you, Log. That Calvin and Hobbes cartoon is one of the saddest things I’ve ever read.
The current trend that makes me sniffle and bubble-snot like an unloved street urchin is watching surprise welcome home videos of soldiers and their families. The worst video that guarantees proper blubbering for me is when a dog hasn’t seen his owner for months and said dog goes bat shit insane with the whining and yelping.
I’m off to stuff my face with chocolate and cheese to make myself feel better.
Oh God! “I thought you were DEAD I had GIVEN UP but you’re NOT DEAD and I’m a dog so this will never turn into anger at all the lost months I’m just glad to see you because I LOVE YOU SO MUCH” :’)
That’s not an original Bill Watterson Calvin, you mocker of copy rights.
I don’t cry at films. They’re just films. Anyway, I was innoculated as a child by having a step mother who was obsessed with the film “Who will love my children”, officially the weepiest movie EVER. (Cancer woman has to give away her 10 children to homes, at some point has to split twins up and really struggles getting rid of the spazzy one).
Never said it was, Mr I KNOW THINGS. Still made me cry, though. (The image is a link to the blog of the guy who made it. There’s a shit follow up that defuses the whole thing, which is a massive crock)
Also: they’re just films? That’s like saying “it’s just the internet” to justify hate campaigns against people whose only crime is to post on a forum without fully researching how amoral and sociopathic they…. oh wait
They’re just films? You ROBOT, taste my tears, Michael…
I just almost had an emotion. It was unsettling.
I was blowing my nose in the paper napkins meant for popcorn in the first ten minutes of “Up,” but I figured it was due to the protagonist’s sweet relationship that was so unlike my own experience with the pile of rubbish I married. I, too, made plans for extensive travel in my youth with my first love, which never came to fruition. Instead of staying in love, however, the whole thing fell apart after living half our lives together and pretending that our dreams were attainable. Now, seeing images of “true love” lasting a lifetime just leave me feeling like a failure, even though I’m not the one who had the bloody affair…
Jesus TFC! Thanks for a good laugh, I now know what the dessicated eyeball at home is. I had no idea!
‘Goodbye, Mr. Chips’
Read it and weep.
very funny. thanks for your sense of humor, which I stumbled upon randomly.
Ha ha. Thanks for the ribald story. And the thankful comments.
I think we should have a “Who cries most and easiest” competition and that the winner should get a million dollars because I know I would win. I cry at Coke commercials (I could cry right now hearing, in my head, the opening bars of “I’d like to teach the world to sing/ In perfect harmony….”). When my twins (now out, proud, and emotionally VERY sturdy lesbians) were five I took them to see “Mulan.” The moment Christina Aguilera started singing “When will my reflection be/ Who I see inside?” I completely lost it and those two five-year-old girls looked at me like I was the biggest loser the world had ever known.
Metal Mickey DIED!?!