Monday, November 27, 2006

Get your cry on...


Since it was such a banner holiday for me, I decided that I needed to get my cry on.

Earlier during the holiday weekend I got a taste of this when I watched 'Babe' on national TV. I had forgotten about this movie, and it really is a fairly clever little film. And perfectly designed to tug on your heartstrings. I teared up at numerous occasions (Babe losing his family, the sheepdog losing her puppies, Babe nearly getting shot, and then when the damn pig wins the contest). That movie alone was nearly enough... but not quite.

Usually Extreme Home Makeover is enough to do this, what with their penchant for dying children, dying mothers, dying fathers, children with disabilities, etc. Unfortunately last night's episode left me a bit flat. The father had died a full two years earlier, so the grief wasn't as immediate; I just never bought in emotionally.

And I only had the one, glistening tear during the movie "Stranger than Fiction" so I was really coming down to the wire on this weekend without having gotten all snotty. Was I really going to have to pull out all the stops and pop in the movie "the Color Purple"??

Alas, no. I casually changed the channel and found a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie. Yes- the one with Alicia Silverstone starring as the young mother who is dying of cancer, but is struggling to find a good home for her son before she croaks.

"Now THAT oughta do it," I thought to myself.

Not that Alicia did the best acting job- but she sort of looks sickly anyway, what with her baby teeth and all, so at the very least she was believable as the cancer-riddled mother. And of course the town rallies around her. And her best friend decides to take her kid. And the town brought the famous town picnic to her because she was too sick to make it (with a candlelight processional with the candles that she helped them all MAKE for crying out loud). And then she finally dies.

It wasn't niagara falls, but it was enough to make me blow my nose repeatedly.

That'll do pig, that'll do.

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