There seem to have been a lot of “list memes” floating around lately, that is, lists of book or movie titles that compulsive bloggers such as myself then feel, um, compelled to comment upon. Here are a couple I recently picked up from Jaquandor and SamuraiFrog, respectively…

The first derives from a post on Movie Crunch called “The 20 Worst Chick Flicks of All Time.” Given that I have a girlfriend, I am not inexperienced in the viewing of so-called chick flicks. I’ll admit that they’re not my fave, but it’s not because of any tired “Mars vs. Venus,” “manly-men-only-like-manly-violent-movie” cliches. Generally speaking, I have no objection to movies about relationships or romance or even primarily about women characters. The problem with most chick flicks, as I see it anyway, is that they are often impossibly dopey, so much so that I don’t understand why the women they’re targeted at don’t feel insulted by them. Also, a lot of chick flicks tend to paint men as either (a) ineffectual bumblers who would be helpless without the women in their lives, or (b) abusive and/or pathetic assholes who think with their penises. Call me touchy, but as a man who is (a) reasonably self-sufficient and hopefully not overly co-dependent, and (b) not an asshole, I find these movies highly insulting. Hey, women have griped for years about movies that depict them as brainless bimbos, so what makes it right to bash on men in movies made for women? Let me clue you ladies in on something; turnabout may be fair, but it doesn’t actually improve the situation, you know?

Anyway, enough defensiveness… on to the list!

20. Autumn in New York

Richard Gere and Winona Ryder in a May-December romance might have been interesting, if this movie had really been about the issues faced by people in a May-December romance. But it seems that she’s dying, which transforms this into a very different kind of movie. And also, conveniently, lets Gere’s character off the hook of having to make a decision about whether he can really spend his life his someone half his age. Lame. Why do so many chick flicks involve terminal illness, anyhow?

19. The English Patient

I’ll be honest, I don’t remember enough about this movie to say anything intelligent. I recall thinking that it was beautifully filmed and unbelievably frustrating, but as to why it frustrated me… well, I honestly have no clue. Other people have said it was boring. Perhaps that was it…

18. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Haven’t seen it. Doubt I ever will, since it appears to be one of those “men are stupid, so we Southern sisters have to stick together” movies. (That’s another question: why are so many chick flicks about Southern women in particular? Aren’t women from other regions of the country “colorful” enough?)

17. The Notebook

Haven’t seen it. Heard too many bad reviews…

16. Dr. T & The Women

Haven’t seen it.

15. Sweet November

Another movie where the female lead is dying, but not before teaching the man a valuable lesson about how to live life to its fullest. Do screenwriters think women want to be martyrs to a cause, rather than partners in a genuine relationship?

14. You’ve Got Mail

Haven’t seen it.

13. The Prince of Tides

Haven’t seen it.

12. Georgia Rule

Haven’t seen it. Not even sure what it’s about.

11. Crossroads

Britney Spears’ big cinematic debut. Need I say that I haven’t seen it?

10. The Bridges of Madison County

Haven’t seen it, but would actually like to. Clint Eastwood is The Man, in my book, and if he saw something redeeming in that pedestrian, sappy, and inexplicably successful novel, then I’m willing to give the movie a try.

9. Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Haven’t seen it, but have nothing against the premise of a group of friends who share a magical pair of pants. And besides, Amber Tamblyn is a major cutie. I loved Joan of Arcadia.

8. Fried Green Tomatoes

I actually liked this movie. I thought all of the characters were appealing and funny, and I love movies set in the 1930s. It was a very photogenic time period, with the hats and the cars with headlights the size of dinner plates.

7. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days

Okay, this is an example of the dopey thing, not to mention the cruel, let’s-screw-with-somebody’s-head thing: Kate Hudson is a magazine writer on a mission to, as the title suggests, lose a guy in 10 days, figuring out the most efficient means to drive him away, basically, so she can write some catty, superficial article on the subject. Matthew McConnaughey — not exactly my fave actor, as my loyal readers know — meanwhile has a bet that he can make a girl fall for him in 10 days. So these two people, who are each trying to carry out some hidden agenda for less-than-noble purposes, are supposed to be sympathetic and believable when they really fall for each other? How long would a real-life relationship built on this kind of crap survive? I hate the game playing that so many men and women think they need to do when it comes to the pursuit of the opposite sex, and I find this kind of “battle of the sexes” stuff mind-bogglingly offensive…

6. Beaches

I know I saw it. Have no memory of it aside from that damn “Wind Beneath My Wings” song. Man, did that get overplayed.

5. Sleepless in Seattle

Didn’t see it. Didn’t much care to. Long distance relationships don’t work, friends, and I have little use for the fantasy that they do.

4. Dirty Dancing

As I’ve noted before, this is one of my personal favorites. Yeah, the lead is a girl and it’s all about music and dancing and falling for a cute guy, but it’s also about finding out what you can do when you have to, and earning respect and making choices and living with the consequences, and, ultimately, about making others see you for what you really are instead of what they want you to be. The line, “Nobody puts Baby in the corner,” gets mocked in these oh-so-ironic days, but in context, it’s an affirmation that always brings a smile to my face. In a lot of ways, this movie is less a chick flick than an underdog story along the lines of The Karate Kid. Hm… I might have to develop that idea a little more some other time.

3. Steel Magnolias

Ugh. This is the movie that established so clearly for me so many of the things I hate about this genre: the strong and “colorful” (i.e., goofy and/or bitchy) women who don’t behave like any women I’ve ever met, the ineffectual and/or evil men, the fatal disease… if there is any movie in this genre that provokes in me the stereotypical male response to a “woman’s picture,” this is it.

2. Ghost

I remember loathing this flick back in the day, but I think it’s because I was working at the theater when it came out, and it was such a huge deal and it just wouldn’t go away… it played for months and months, night after night of sell-out crowds all gushing about how romantic it was, and how sexy the pottery scene was, yada yada. I think I just got royally sick of it. But you know, I caught part of it on TV recently and was surprised by how much I enjoyed what I saw of it. I’ve never thought Demi Moore was all that sexy, and the ultra-short haircut she had in this movie made her look like a boy, but the movie itself, eh, I got no problem with it.

1. Titanic

Man, I so do not understand the backlash that has risen up against this movie. Everybody liked it the first three times they saw it (and you know everybody saw it; it wasn’t just teenage girls that pushed its box-office numbers so high). It’s a grand spectacle, and the love story at its heart is no more or less dippy than most other film romances. Sure, the star-crossed lovers from different worlds thing has been done many times before, but in recycling that particular trope, James Cameron was able to show us the social stratification of that great ship through two single characters, rather than the sprawling cast other movies on the Titanic have been forced to employ. The dialogue isn’t as bad as many people claim. The only part of this movie that really doesn’t work for me is the frame story; yeah, I know it’s there to provide exposition, and I do like the very end with Old Rose, but all the scenes with Bill “Cardboard” Paxton are just painful…

One title I think I’d add to this list is Serendipity, a movie that literally angered me with the ridiculousness of its premise: oh, I’ve met someone I really click with but I want to be sure it’s real, so let’s pull some kind of stupid little stunt and if Implausible Event A ever occurs, then we’ll know It Was Meant to Be. And if that wasn’t offensive enough in its stupidity, when Implausible Event A does occur, our two leads are involved with other people who seem to be perfectly nice, but they get dumped on their asses because of this magical fate-thing left over from years before. Gah. It’s awful in so many ways…

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Anyway, moving right along, we come now to a list of Top 20 Movies That Make Men Cry, the handful of movies that supposedly acceptable for men to show emotion while watching. Are these the movies that make yours truly emotional? Read on for more unsolicited insight…

20. It’s a Wonderful Life

I have a love-hate thing with this movie… for a long time, it was my annual tradition to view it with my mom at Christmas time, and yes, I teared up when George Bailey begged Clarence to reverse his wish and when the entire town came to his rescue. But then later on, when I started realizing my own life had come to resemble George’s in ways I wasn’t very comfortable with, I started to despise it. I refused to watch it for a few years… but last year, I caught the last half-hour or so on TV, and well, I cried right on cue. Go figure. It’s sappy, but it’s a nice fantasy, to think that a single man can mean so much to his neighbors…

19. Schindler’s List

Liam Neeson’s breakdown at the end — his near-hysterical wondering how many more lives he could’ve saved in exchange for the value of his car, or his coat — just kills me. He did so much, and yet still didn’t feel like he’d done enough… that’s tragic, in my eyes.

18. Frequency

Haven’t seen it.

17. Dead Poets Society

Jaquandor and SamuraiFrog have both written convincingly on why this isn’t a very good movie, and not having seen it in a very long time, I can’t really refute their arguments except to say that 20 years ago, when I was a college student working part-time at a multiplex and dreaming of something more than a mundane life in the ‘burbs, I was moved and inspired by the film. Whether I would still be today is an open question…

16. Forrest Gump

God, I hate this movie. What’s the message of it supposed to be, anyhow? That in order to be happy and successful, it helps to have a room-temperature IQ? Forrest never learns anything, never evolves in any way during this movie — he’s the same character at the end as at the beginning. Is that supposed to be inspiring? Or amusing? Why does no one else see how friggin’ pointless this movie is?

15. The Natural

Haven’t seen it, although it’s on my list.

14. The Shawshank Redemption

I’m surprised by how this movie has been elevated into such a classic in the last decade. I liked it, and I did mist up at the end, but I never saw it going on to become such a favorite of so many people.

13. Big Fish

I saw it and remember liking it. I don’t remember any specifics, though, including whether I cried.

12. Seabiscuit

A good movie that I enjoyed very much, but I did not cry.

11. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Yeah, I bawled several times during this one, but I think I actually had a stronger reaction to Fellowship: Bilbo’s sorrow at inadvertently setting everything in motion, Boromir’s death while defending “the little ones,” Sam’s headstrong determination to stick with Frodo no matter what, and most of all, the final scene, when there is so much ahead of them and all they have on their side is friendship… well, those are the scenes that stick with me from the LOTR trilogy.

10. The Passion of the Christ

Never saw it and have no intention of ever seeing it. A sacred snuff film holds no appeal for me, and in fact strikes me as a little bit perverse. Not to mention the fact that, in my mind, the real significance of Christ’s life is in his message, not his suffering and death. But then I’m an agnostic; what do I know?

9. E.T., The Extra-Terrestrial

Of course! Only the truly heartless could not shed a tear in this movie… although what gets me isn’t E.T.’s death and resurrection, which seems to be what everyone else responds to, but his farewell, the “I’ll be right here” line.

8. The Green Mile

Good movie. Tears? Not that I remember.

7. Saving Private Ryan

No, no tears. The frame story is a lie, you know. That undermines the whole thing for me…

6. The Pride of the Yankees

Haven’t seen it.

5. Rudy

Haven’t seen it.

4. Braveheart

Seen it, no tears that I recall.

3. Brian’s Song

Haven’t seen it.

2. Old Yeller

Not sure if I saw it as a kid, or if I’ve just seen so many clips that it feels like I did. I probably did cry, if I actually saw it.

1. Field of Dreams

Oh, yeah. Grown men and their dads is almost always guaranteed to turn on the spigots. I don’t know if women understand that dynamic, the competition and stupid social conventions that get in the way of fathers and sons expressing any genuine emotions until it’s too late. If only we could bring them back after they’re gone for one last, genuine connection.

Just to wrap up, there are a few movies I can think that ought to be on this list, or at least my personal version of it:

• Superman: The Movie. I cry during the helicopter rescue scene, and I’m not entirely sure why — I think it may be related to 9/11 somehow, a little wish fulfillment, perhaps — and I usually tear up again when Supes cradles Lois’ dead body. There is such tenderness in his movements, especially when her head falls back and he makes a little sound of anguish, followed by his primal scream of rage and heartache…. god, Chris Reeve was so good in that part, so much better, I think, than people ever really gave him credit for.
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn. Spock’s death scene. Duh. Still works for me.
• The Empire Strikes Back. Two scenes: Han being lowered into the carbon-freeze, and Vader’s big revelation scene. No, I don’t think Mark Hamill overplays his anguish at finding out that the worst killer in the universe is the very man he’s spent his life imagining as a hero. So there.
• Return of the Jedi. One line: “Nothing can stop that now. Let me look on you once with… my… own… eyes.” So much of the rest of that movie is lame and tired, but not Vader’s death.
• Glory. Near the end when Matthew Broderick gazes out to sea for a moment, knowing it’s likely the last time he ever will, then dismounts and releases his horse…
• And finally, Dances with Wolves, the very end when the fierce, silent, antagonistic Wind-in-His-Hair scream down from the cliff wall that he is Dances with Wolves’ friend… that he will always be his friend… well, not to reveal too much of my personal psychology here, but for an only child who didn’t have a lot of friends growing up, who fears change and hates the way people drift out of one’s life for no apparent reason… that’s powerful stuff. It’s grand and melodramatic and maybe a shade over the top… and it’s also beautiful and it gets me every damn time I see it, even if I haven’t actually watched the rest of the movie up to that point.