Movies That Make Me Cry.

There are some people that like to cry. I asked Kara one time why she was crying. "I just want to cry." (Which is a very, very stupid Keith Urban song. I wish that Hank Williams would come back from the dead and beat Keith Urban with Nicole Kidman's fake face. That is not even a country song. And Keith Urban is from New Zealand. But I digress.)

"I just want to cry." Why would anyone want to cry? I hate the way it makes your throat and eyes feel. Crying makes your face wet and when you have a beard this is not entirely pleasant. I don't like crying so I try not to.

However there are movies that make me cry every time I watch them. Every time. There are at least two that make me mist up just thinking about them. I am going to rank these in order descending.

7. Titanic. The final scene where all of the people that died on the boat or in the sea or under the smoke stack in the sea. This is the place where I normally cry. Every time. Jack is not in his tux. He is in the clothes she met him in. Very good payoff at the end of a very long movie.

6. My Life. Nicole Kidman (before she looked like the Joker) and Michael Keaton. Michael Keaton is dying of cancer. Nicole Kidman is having his baby. He makes a tape of his life so his child will know him. He dies and I cry every time.

5. Saving Private Ryan. I am amazed at the things these men went through. I could not leave the theatre for 10 minutes because I was still crying. Exhausting movie.

4. Old Yeller/Where the Red Fern Grows. You could lump these movies in with others of the same ilk. I call these "Movies where the dog dies at the end." I saw both of these movies and read both of these books. I cried like a little girl at Titanic both times. I remember when Phoebe on Friends finally saw how Old Yeller ended. This is what I was thinking. The boy had to kill his own dog. I hope that my boys never have to make that decision with me. I just hope they keep me in my cage until such time as they can release me back into the wild. These are movies I can mist up just thinking about.

3. Finding Nemo. I do not think that Pixar can make a bad movie. This one is the best. I have small children and get to see these movies over and over again. When it becomes clear that Marlin will do whatever it takes to find his son it makes me think of the love that I have for my boys. I would cross whatever needed crossing to see them found. This also makes me appreciative of the love that God has for me. He was not content to sit and let me find myself. He found me. This makes me happy. See what a good movie this is.

2. Stand By Me. These guys remind me of the friends I had when I was a kid. Just around that age too. While we didn't go out on a trek to find a dead body we did discuss the themes they had. I even fancied myself a writer back then. This was also a fantastic novella by Stephen King called The Body. It is almost exactly like the movie. The movie ends with Richard Dreyfus typing these words as he makes his own boy wait to go swimming. "I've never had friends like I had when I was 10. Jesus, does anyone?"

1. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Without a doubt the best movie in the Star Trek franchise. Also the best movie that Ricardo Montalban has been in. He died recently. This made me sad. This movie makes me cry every time because Spock dies in the end of the movie. I know that the words "good acting" and "William Shatner" rarely get uttered in the same sentence the scene where Spock is dying in the reactor room in engineering was good acting by William Shatner. When Spock gets up after having been irradiated and even though he is dying he stands up and straightens his uniform before he turns to face his captain.

Two lines stand out for me.

Spock (to Kirk) "I have been and shall always be your friend."

Kirk (as he speaks at the funeral just before they shoot Spock's body in a torpedo tube down to the newly created Genesis planet) about his friend Spock "Of all of the souls I have known, his is the most....(voice cracking) human."

And as the torpedo tube is going down the chute before it is launched Scotty is playing Amazing Grace on the freaking bagpipes which crescendos into a full orchestra as the tube races towards the planet. And to top it all off the final scene where Kirk would normally do the "Space. The final frontier speech." it is Spock delivering these lines. My dad took me to see this movie when it came out. I was in the 2nd grade. I was inconsolable after the movie and even when it comes on the Sci-Fi channel now I cry at the end of the movie. Every freaking time. Every. Freaking. Time.

So these are the movies that make me cry every time. And I hate to cry. What are some of yours and why?