I cry during a lot of movies. Sometimes it's just some watery eyes, sometimes it's just a feeling of a good cry on the horizon. Sometimes it's a total seat shaking, hyperventilating cry (see The Lion King, The Fox and the Hound, Apollo 13, E.T).
This most recently happened at The Fault In Our Stars screening I attended, and if you know the story, you know.
Now, I blame all this crying on the filmmakers. Because you can't just put a moving scene, with moving words and actions and set it to moving, emotionally peaked music, and not expect me to respond. I am a human being with feelings, of course I'll respond. I respond to beer commercials for goodness sake. That Budweiser Superbowl ad, with the puppy and the horse? I've seen that commercial countless times and I still sob.
BRB, sobbing.
One particular movie that relentlessly sends me into ugly cry mode is Field Of Dreams. It's a movie about being a parent, and having regrets, and maybe not being able to fix all your regrets but you'll try anyway. Also there's some baseball. And a cornfield. Ray Liotta lives in the cornfield, but he's dead. And he lives there with some other dead guys? I don't know. If you think about Field of Dreams too much it doesn't make much sense, you really just have to go with it.
Anyway, they've just had the 25th anniversary of the movie and they had a gathering at the site the movie was filmed. I think there was a screening of the film, and interviews, and hot dogs. And peanuts and crackerjacks, because baseball.
So there's that scene at the end of the movie, and Kevin Costner's character Ray is talking to his dead dad, who is younger, but whatever, they're working stuff out, like, emotionally or whatever. And Ray goes:
http://youtu.be/EwwCsd_jJq4
And there's the swell of the music, and the sunset, and the Kevin Costner of it all and I turn into a puddle. Every time.
Well, Kevin Costner, during this 25th anniversary, had a catch with his sons. ON THE SAME FIELD.
http://popwatch.ew.com/2014/06/14/kevin-costner-field-of-dreams-playing-catch-video/
So of course I turned into a puddle. Again.
And I know why this movie, or just this one scene, elicits so much emotion out of me. It's because Dad and I played catch all the time when I was little. And it was pretty fun, and I don't want to brag but I was pretty great at it. Except for that time I threw the ball at his new truck, and that other time I let my face catch the ball, like 'hey, let's see how this ends.' Spoiler alert: it ends in blood.
Old Gravel Road (that was the name of the road I grew up on. I can't make this stuff up) didn't get a heck of lot of traffic, so Dad and I played uninterrupted for hours, or until the mosquitoes won. Until we couldn't find the ball that went in the gully. Until we'd caught 10 in a row. I don't know if we ever talked or if we just 'had a catch' but sometimes I feel like it was the bright spot in the day. As if that was all we had. Sometimes, maybe it was.
I remember playing catch after stuff had happened and we'd moved to Balsam Way, but the road was busy and we had actual neighbours. I had boys on the brain, and playing catch with your Dad when you're 16 wasn't considered cool, I guess. And that's okay, because catch on Balsam Way wasn't catch on Old Gravel Road. And that's just as it should be.
So, Happy Father's Day Dad. Thanks for all the great catches.
OK, FINE. I'll post the whole scene.
