(l-r): Charles Parnell, Kim Wayans and Sahra Mellesse in "Pariah."Here’s hoping everyone brought the New Year in on a high note…’cause this week’s Monday Movie Meme is about to get emotional!
We’re kicking off the first blog post of 2015 with a theme focused on movies that moved you to tears: Cry Me a River.
Share on your blog or in the comments section, some of the most memorable tearjerkers you ever watched. This includes films with heartbreaking scenes, underdog movies that have moments of victory or those unexpected flicks showing a turn of events that just made you cry (or want to cry).
Here are my selections for this week’s theme about tearjerkers.
Pariah
This Sundance hit drama starring Kim Wayans tells the story of a teenager struggling with identity issues while coming to grips with her sexuality. Now that I finally got around to watching “Pariah” during the holidays, it’s one of those films that has me starting to think there are times when a movie soundtrack is a huge factor in whether viewers start tearing up or not; especially during certain scenes. It's as if the producers, directors and/or editors orchestrated moments to induce tears on cue. Either way, this movie is effective in tugging at one's heart strings.
The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete
This dramatic movie starring Skylan Brooks, Ethan Dizon and Jennifer Hudson is about two boys who have to survive after their mothers are arrested. I went to a screening of “The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete” and had to catch myself during a scene in the third act that caught me off guard.
Fruitvale Station
This biographical drama starring Michael B. Jordan and Octavia Spencer is about the encounters Oscar Grant III had before being shot on New Year’s Eve. You know that Isley Brothers song about not being able to hold back tears? Well, I succeeded with well intentions when I went to see this movie in theaters, but it was damn hard.
Revolutionary Road
OMG...horrific is one of the only ways I can describe the turn of events in this sad, sad romantic drama starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. The movie is about a young married couple who move out to the suburbs and start a family with plans to live the life they dreamed of until realizing that circumstances have other things in store for them.
Blue Valentine
This romantic drama starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams is right up there with “Revolutionary Road” on my tearjerker scale. It has Love, Babies, Marriage, Broken dreams, Drunken arguments in the middle of the street, Drunken arguments in a cheesy hotel room and Fistfights in the workplace. However, it also has a dude serenading his future wife, on the sidewalk and and loading her up on mix CDs. That’s cute. Yeah, it’s one big ol’ rollercoaster ride of feel-good scenes and not-so-fun scenes and the latter can just be too much to handle if you let yourself get wrapped up in it all…which I did.
Set It Off
Although this is an action movie about female bank robbers starring Queen Latifah and John C. McGinley (gotta love this dude from the NBC comedy show “SCRUBS” tho!) that I've seen more than one dozen times, it's STILL hard to watch that heart-pounding car scene were a tough janitor faces the LAPD head on. If you’ve seen it, you know what I’m talking about. Even Dr. Dre had to look away from the screen!
What movies made YOU cry or tear up?