Have you noticed how they never advertise any motion pictures with the phrase, "the feel-bad movie of the year?" 'Cause I have.

If I hear a movie being advertised as "the feel-good" anything, I know that it's not a movie for me. My heart strings do not appreciate being tugged on by poorly written manipulative tripe. So I usually avoid such movies out of hand. One exception was Mr. Holland's Opus, which my sister dragged me along to (despite my vigorous protestations) the night she came back to the states from Curaçao for the first time. She apologized repeatedly over the duration of her stay. I didn't have the heart to get up and walk out during the movie, but apparently if I had she'd have followed me out the door.

But the feel-bad movie of the year? I might go to that, just on general principle. I mean, even when you're a kid and you know Old Yeller dies at the end, you see it every summer and you cry every time. There's something to be said for that. Old Yeller is probably the feel-bad movie of the first twelve years of your life.

But I don't, by any stretch of the imagination, mean that tear jerkers are acceptable fare. They're just as bad as FGMsOTY. Four-hankie movies are just as bad as Mr. Holland's Opus in my book (it didn't help that the Opus in question was a terrible piece of music - how am I supposed to be sympathetic to anything written by Michael Kamen?).

My suggestions are more along the lines of, say, The Unforgiven, or Happiness (which I actually haven't seen, since I wasn't up for being depressed the night my friends went to see it), or anything really where the good guys are as flawed as the bad guys, and the "happy" ending is problematic at best. I think those make for better movies.

Note to Hollywood: make the feel-bad movie of the year. I'll go see it.

link (12 oct)