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Since we all seem to be in a sharing mood... Also a guy -- no beard -- but (and I'm not joking here)... I watched that exact trailer just now and teared up a l

Since we all seem to be in a sharing mood... Also a guy -- no beard -- but (and I'm not joking here)... I watched that exact trailer just now and teared up a little. As for movies, I have two examples: Up (pure emotion) and The Fountain -- the scene towards the end where he talks to the high priest and Clint Mansell's music takes over. For me, I think it's generally sort of really EPIC things that do it. Really huge scales also tend to do it, for example some of the star size comparisons, or David Deutsch's talk about relativistic jets[1], or just contemplating the fact that some black holes swallow a solar mass per day. Sometimes it's just "beauty", e.g. I couldn't help tearing up when Carolyn Porco showed the "Saturn Eclipse"[2] picture in her Ted Talk[3]. Some of that, I think, was because of the realization that we humans had actually sent a thing out there to take that picture. (Btw, I think I'm generally considered a bit of a cold fish among my friends/acquaintances, FWIW. Humans are weird.) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQliI_WGaGk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQliI_WGaGk [2] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Saturn_eclipse.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Saturn_e... (WARNING: Image is HUGE!) [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5usqdjsr6Vw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5usqdjsr6Vw (I won't link you to the exact time because the video deserves to be seen its entirety. If you really want to skip, skip to 15m15s.)

thrwawy20160421 10y ago
Seconded for "Up". All the sad scenes involving the wife. This movie, and only this movie. Makes me cry every time. I'm a 40 year old man.
- paloaltokid 10y ago
  I have just met you...and I love you.
  - wagglycocks 10y ago
    "The first ten minutes of Up" is an incredible cliche. Everyone has that reaction to it that's not a robot.
swah 10y ago
I hardly cry (and make no attemps not to cry) but I have to concede that "Up" is very well written and its very hard to avoid getting emotional in certain parts. So, I guess the guy in this post has many triggers and I only have some, say - thinking of Up - old age and loneliness, lifelong fidelity...
- lomnakkus 10y ago
  Yeah, "Up" is really in a league of its own on the "tearjerker" scale -- not that it ever does it gratuitously, mind. It's just that it imitates life very well in that it can sometimes be very sad and also uplifting(!) at the same time.
  - verst 10y ago
    "Up" definitely triggered the strongest emotions in me of any movie to date. Perhaps it reminded me of the loss of my grandma a few years earlier. The first ten minutes made me so upset that I spent the rest of the movie fighting my body so that I wouldn't start bawling. It would have been such an intense and loud cry that I absolutely would have had to run out of the movie theater. After the movie I drove my friend home (~30 min), but I couldn't say one word to her because I was still so deeply upset that my lips were trembling. I don't cry much, in fact, I really can't cry when most people ordinarily would. But in the rare circumstances where something can make me cry (whether it's very sad, or just incredibly beautiful) it is always with maximum intensity.
    - mordrax 10y ago
      Let it out, don't hold it in. Close your eyes, focus on your intense emotions, breath in and let it out, gently and fully. I try to do this with all intense emotions be it overwhelming sadness, fury, despair. Feels better than holding back or forcing it out.
      - lomnakkus 10y ago
        Or, in so many words: Cry! Let it all out, there's nothing to worry about. Just... cry.
dclowd9901 10y ago
So strange -- I don't cry really at all, but I find I have the same emotional reaction to such large scale or "epic" visually arresting things. Amazing how often you find out something you thought only you went through was shared by others.
IkmoIkmo 10y ago
Jeez I must be dead inside :(
- ncarroll 10y ago
  Not at all. Just because you don't cry, doesn't mean you don't feel. Does it? I think what they are talking about is a certain bodily way of expressing a strong emotion. I too am "built too close to the water" as the Germans say, but often, my tears are an expression of my lack of ability to otherwise express. Maybe you express differently than I do? I'd be glad about that. If everyone was like me we'd have no love balads - only long play records with lots of sniffling. ;-)
- rpgmaker 10y ago
  Not really, neither Up nor Toy Story 3 did it for me as movies (a very unpopular opinion I know). I choke up watching a movie or TV show from time to time, maybe more than I'd like to admit, but I don't share the popular opinion about those two movies.
drawkbox 10y ago
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas[1] I should have seen it coming but it was a freight train, never did a movie hit so hard like that. War though a child's eye is worse than the adult perspective of war. [1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0914798/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0914798/
- kstenerud 10y ago
  Grave of the Fireflies http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095327/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095327/
  - ghoul2 10y ago
    I could not smile for days after watching that one. One of the greatest movies ever made, but when I recommend it to anyone, I always warn them that if they are depression prone, they should not watch it at all. So _intense_. Even years later, just reference to it gives me goosebumps.
  - a_e_k 10y ago
    Yes. That's one of the best movies that I've only seen once. It occupies a rare intersection between shows that I consider excellent and shows that I'd rather not watch again.
  - Chris2048 10y ago
    I saw that recently, expecting something very sad, based on what people told me. I wasn't all that upset with it though. The deaths weren't that traumatic..
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- wazoox 10y ago
  Charlie Chaplin's movies. Modern Times is very funny, but the end scene. I cry every time. City lights, ditto, the end scene is so strong. And Limelight. And the Gold rush...
notduncansmith 10y ago
Another guy here. I've found that as I age, I've become more emotional (and simultaneously better at dealing with it). I never cried in movies as a child/teenager, but nowadays I find myself choking up during particularly emotional moments in movies, shows, and life. Sometimes I just look at my son for a minute and the same thing happens. I try not to cry around people, even my family, but more because I'm conscious of the effect it has on them (upsetting or, in the case of other people, just awkward). My theory is that, as I've developed a stronger sense of empathy and experienced more things in my life, I have a more direct emotional connection to events I witness. From what I've read based, this seems to be fairly common.
- Tactic 10y ago
  Interesting. I too have noticed a similar thing as I have aged. I developed the theory though that when it started happening things that did not impact me directly (such as movies) that it was more a case that I was feeling emotional about something else in life and that this was emotions seeping out where they could. I especially thought this because it didn't seem to always happen. Your view bears merit though and I will have to consider it. Thank you for sharing it. And my kids still make fun of me for crying at the end of "Winnie the Pooh", but I've always done that. And I maintain that Christopher Robin leaving Pooh and his childhood behind is cry worthy... even more for Pooh than Christopher Robin.
- tfigueroa 10y ago
  Having a kid. That did it for me. I've always been an empathic person, but some chemicals changed when I had a child, and now a crappy movie trailer with the right cuts and a soaring soundtrack can get me teary.
  - jazzyk 10y ago
    This x 1000!. I can't believe how much my children changed me- and I am a pretty tough guy otherwise. Glad to hear I am not the only one.
    - 10y ago
curiousgal 10y ago
>The Fountain Oh man. Feels strike inbound.
sockopen 10y ago
[2] is less than 300KB? I appreciate warnings on terabytes.
- lomnakkus 10y ago
  Ah, I was thinking of pixel size, because actually displaying it requires that it be decompressed. If your machine is memory-constrained just having an image that size (decompressed) can be crippling. I remember it bringing a machine I had several years ago to a crawl for that very reason. Maybe I'm just showing my age here :).
julian_t 10y ago
Up... oh goodness, yes... I first saw it on a flight. Middle-aged IT consultants shouldn't be sitting on a plane sniffling over a goddam cartoon! A masterly piece of animation, that.
spike021 10y ago
Toy Story 3 for me since the summer I saw it for the first time was the summer before my freshman year of college and consequently moving out. I had some tears that time. Occasionally movies make me feel emotion, but not quite to tearing level.
- gunnihinn 10y ago
  I watched Toy Story 3 alone in my apartment and cried like a baby at the scene with Andy and the girl at the end (manly man n+1 in this thread checking in). I'm not a very emotional guy, but some emotion now and then is nice.
tpallarino 10y ago
Dude +1 for The Fountain. Cried through that entire movie and probably for 10 minutes straight when Izzy talks to Tommy after she collapses in the museum.
throwalskdjf 10y ago
40 yard old with basically the same story as the guy from `Up`. Can't have children, long term very solid relationship. As much as I cried at the opening to `Up` - and it was a whole lot, `Marley and Me` is just absolutely devastating. Can't even look at the cover to that movie.
marlag 10y ago
Sharing my cryiest ever video clip, when Stanford Professor Andrei Linde celebrates physics breakthrough: [1]. I've seen it thirty times and I cry (oh, the tears) every time. I also cried at the end of Real Steal. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlfIVEy_YOA&index=113&list=LLCm2NOc9ZUrRKRHOUscwsWA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlfIVEy_YOA&index=113&list=L...
SyneRyder 10y ago
Thank you for The Fountain recommendation. It got me too, and it's one of the few Aronofsky films I hadn't yet seen. It was due to expire on Netflix in just a couple of hours & racing to finish it before it timed out added to the experience.
washadjeffmad 10y ago
I saw The Fountain in theaters with a younger friend, and while I was moved, he "didn't really get it". Not that he didn't understand the events of the movie, but he'd never experienced the frailty and desperation the kind of personal, intense bond with another that the film evoked. He'd never loved and lost. I'm also moved by wonderment and perspectives of scope and scale, which is probably why I reread the same handful of novels every few years, including Larry Niven's Known Space series. If anyone has other suggestions producing a similar effect, I'd be interested. By reflex of my upbringing, I choke down any strong feelings by default and chalk it up to self-control. It doesn't make me hurt or feel any less, but some people recoil from emotional expression in men or can't help themselves when they sense vulnerability, and you don't find out which it is until the dam breaks. It's made me weaker as a person, a worse partner, and not as good of a friend as I'd like to be, but it's what everyone is used to. I'm expected to keep it together when others are angry, panic, or get flustered so I can guide everyone back on track. It's a big source of stress for me, but I have to find other outlets than letting flow my tears.
- lomnakkus 10y ago
  > he'd never experienced the frailty and desperation the kind of personal, intense bond with another that the film evoked. He'd never loved and lost. That's an incredibly apt and succinct summary of what the film was (to me, at least!). For me, it's really all about that very fragile bond with another human being -- whether that's a girlfriend, parent, wife, lover or just a friend. When you see that "I understand what you mean" look in their eyes... that's when you melt[1]. That's what that penultimate scene meant (to me): The high priest understood and saw that he was becoming "obsolete" in the face of the conquest... and the Conquistador saw himself reflected. (I'm not saying conquest was a good thing. Still, it happened so we need to deal with the aftermath.) EDIT: [1] I really wish I was better at explicitly saying "that moment really mattered to me" to my friends. I'll try doing that more -- maybe with a little gamification thrown in.

thrwawy20160421 10y ago

Seconded for "Up". All the sad scenes involving the wife. This movie, and only this movie. Makes me cry every time. I'm a 40 year old man.

paloaltokid 10y ago
I have just met you...and I love you.
- wagglycocks 10y ago
  "The first ten minutes of Up" is an incredible cliche. Everyone has that reaction to it that's not a robot.

swah 10y ago

I hardly cry (and make no attemps not to cry) but I have to concede that "Up" is very well written and its very hard to avoid getting emotional in certain parts. So, I guess the guy in this post has many triggers and I only have some, say - thinking of Up - old age and loneliness, lifelong fidelity...

lomnakkus 10y ago
Yeah, "Up" is really in a league of its own on the "tearjerker" scale -- not that it ever does it gratuitously, mind. It's just that it imitates life very well in that it can sometimes be very sad and also uplifting(!) at the same time.
- verst 10y ago
  "Up" definitely triggered the strongest emotions in me of any movie to date. Perhaps it reminded me of the loss of my grandma a few years earlier. The first ten minutes made me so upset that I spent the rest of the movie fighting my body so that I wouldn't start bawling. It would have been such an intense and loud cry that I absolutely would have had to run out of the movie theater. After the movie I drove my friend home (~30 min), but I couldn't say one word to her because I was still so deeply upset that my lips were trembling. I don't cry much, in fact, I really can't cry when most people ordinarily would. But in the rare circumstances where something can make me cry (whether it's very sad, or just incredibly beautiful) it is always with maximum intensity.
  - mordrax 10y ago
    Let it out, don't hold it in. Close your eyes, focus on your intense emotions, breath in and let it out, gently and fully. I try to do this with all intense emotions be it overwhelming sadness, fury, despair. Feels better than holding back or forcing it out.
    - lomnakkus 10y ago
      Or, in so many words: Cry! Let it all out, there's nothing to worry about. Just... cry.

dclowd9901 10y ago

So strange -- I don't cry really at all, but I find I have the same emotional reaction to such large scale or "epic" visually arresting things. Amazing how often you find out something you thought only you went through was shared by others.

IkmoIkmo 10y ago

Jeez I must be dead inside :(

ncarroll 10y ago
Not at all. Just because you don't cry, doesn't mean you don't feel. Does it? I think what they are talking about is a certain bodily way of expressing a strong emotion. I too am "built too close to the water" as the Germans say, but often, my tears are an expression of my lack of ability to otherwise express. Maybe you express differently than I do? I'd be glad about that. If everyone was like me we'd have no love balads - only long play records with lots of sniffling. ;-)
rpgmaker 10y ago
Not really, neither Up nor Toy Story 3 did it for me as movies (a very unpopular opinion I know). I choke up watching a movie or TV show from time to time, maybe more than I'd like to admit, but I don't share the popular opinion about those two movies.

drawkbox 10y ago

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas[1] I should have seen it coming but it was a freight train, never did a movie hit so hard like that. War though a child's eye is worse than the adult perspective of war. [1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0914798/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0914798/

kstenerud 10y ago
Grave of the Fireflies http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095327/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095327/
- ghoul2 10y ago
  I could not smile for days after watching that one. One of the greatest movies ever made, but when I recommend it to anyone, I always warn them that if they are depression prone, they should not watch it at all. So _intense_. Even years later, just reference to it gives me goosebumps.
- a_e_k 10y ago
  Yes. That's one of the best movies that I've only seen once. It occupies a rare intersection between shows that I consider excellent and shows that I'd rather not watch again.
- Chris2048 10y ago
  I saw that recently, expecting something very sad, based on what people told me. I wasn't all that upset with it though. The deaths weren't that traumatic..
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
wazoox 10y ago
Charlie Chaplin's movies. Modern Times is very funny, but the end scene. I cry every time. City lights, ditto, the end scene is so strong. And Limelight. And the Gold rush...

notduncansmith 10y ago

Another guy here. I've found that as I age, I've become more emotional (and simultaneously better at dealing with it). I never cried in movies as a child/teenager, but nowadays I find myself choking up during particularly emotional moments in movies, shows, and life. Sometimes I just look at my son for a minute and the same thing happens. I try not to cry around people, even my family, but more because I'm conscious of the effect it has on them (upsetting or, in the case of other people, just awkward). My theory is that, as I've developed a stronger sense of empathy and experienced more things in my life, I have a more direct emotional connection to events I witness. From what I've read based, this seems to be fairly common.

Tactic 10y ago
Interesting. I too have noticed a similar thing as I have aged. I developed the theory though that when it started happening things that did not impact me directly (such as movies) that it was more a case that I was feeling emotional about something else in life and that this was emotions seeping out where they could. I especially thought this because it didn't seem to always happen. Your view bears merit though and I will have to consider it. Thank you for sharing it. And my kids still make fun of me for crying at the end of "Winnie the Pooh", but I've always done that. And I maintain that Christopher Robin leaving Pooh and his childhood behind is cry worthy... even more for Pooh than Christopher Robin.
tfigueroa 10y ago
Having a kid. That did it for me. I've always been an empathic person, but some chemicals changed when I had a child, and now a crappy movie trailer with the right cuts and a soaring soundtrack can get me teary.
- jazzyk 10y ago
  This x 1000!. I can't believe how much my children changed me- and I am a pretty tough guy otherwise. Glad to hear I am not the only one.
  - 10y ago

curiousgal 10y ago

>The Fountain Oh man. Feels strike inbound.

sockopen 10y ago

[2] is less than 300KB? I appreciate warnings on terabytes.

lomnakkus 10y ago
Ah, I was thinking of pixel size, because actually displaying it requires that it be decompressed. If your machine is memory-constrained just having an image that size (decompressed) can be crippling. I remember it bringing a machine I had several years ago to a crawl for that very reason. Maybe I'm just showing my age here :).

julian_t 10y ago

Up... oh goodness, yes... I first saw it on a flight. Middle-aged IT consultants shouldn't be sitting on a plane sniffling over a goddam cartoon! A masterly piece of animation, that.

spike021 10y ago

Toy Story 3 for me since the summer I saw it for the first time was the summer before my freshman year of college and consequently moving out. I had some tears that time. Occasionally movies make me feel emotion, but not quite to tearing level.

gunnihinn 10y ago
I watched Toy Story 3 alone in my apartment and cried like a baby at the scene with Andy and the girl at the end (manly man n+1 in this thread checking in). I'm not a very emotional guy, but some emotion now and then is nice.

tpallarino 10y ago

Dude +1 for The Fountain. Cried through that entire movie and probably for 10 minutes straight when Izzy talks to Tommy after she collapses in the museum.

throwalskdjf 10y ago

40 yard old with basically the same story as the guy from `Up`. Can't have children, long term very solid relationship. As much as I cried at the opening to `Up` - and it was a whole lot, `Marley and Me` is just absolutely devastating. Can't even look at the cover to that movie.

marlag 10y ago

Sharing my cryiest ever video clip, when Stanford Professor Andrei Linde celebrates physics breakthrough: [1]. I've seen it thirty times and I cry (oh, the tears) every time. I also cried at the end of Real Steal. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlfIVEy_YOA&index=113&list=LLCm2NOc9ZUrRKRHOUscwsWA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlfIVEy_YOA&index=113&list=L...

SyneRyder 10y ago

Thank you for The Fountain recommendation. It got me too, and it's one of the few Aronofsky films I hadn't yet seen. It was due to expire on Netflix in just a couple of hours & racing to finish it before it timed out added to the experience.

washadjeffmad 10y ago

I saw The Fountain in theaters with a younger friend, and while I was moved, he "didn't really get it". Not that he didn't understand the events of the movie, but he'd never experienced the frailty and desperation the kind of personal, intense bond with another that the film evoked. He'd never loved and lost. I'm also moved by wonderment and perspectives of scope and scale, which is probably why I reread the same handful of novels every few years, including Larry Niven's Known Space series. If anyone has other suggestions producing a similar effect, I'd be interested. By reflex of my upbringing, I choke down any strong feelings by default and chalk it up to self-control. It doesn't make me hurt or feel any less, but some people recoil from emotional expression in men or can't help themselves when they sense vulnerability, and you don't find out which it is until the dam breaks. It's made me weaker as a person, a worse partner, and not as good of a friend as I'd like to be, but it's what everyone is used to. I'm expected to keep it together when others are angry, panic, or get flustered so I can guide everyone back on track. It's a big source of stress for me, but I have to find other outlets than letting flow my tears.

lomnakkus 10y ago
> he'd never experienced the frailty and desperation the kind of personal, intense bond with another that the film evoked. He'd never loved and lost. That's an incredibly apt and succinct summary of what the film was (to me, at least!). For me, it's really all about that very fragile bond with another human being -- whether that's a girlfriend, parent, wife, lover or just a friend. When you see that "I understand what you mean" look in their eyes... that's when you melt[1]. That's what that penultimate scene meant (to me): The high priest understood and saw that he was becoming "obsolete" in the face of the conquest... and the Conquistador saw himself reflected. (I'm not saying conquest was a good thing. Still, it happened so we need to deal with the aftermath.) EDIT: [1] I really wish I was better at explicitly saying "that moment really mattered to me" to my friends. I'll try doing that more -- maybe with a little gamification thrown in.