eHarmony Dating Activities Advice - 20 Movies that Make Men Cry

20 Movies that Make Men Cry

Not Edward Scissorhands? "Oh, that Johnny Depp. He make-a me cry."

For real? I watched Joyeux Noel on Christmas morning. (It has some nudity and I watched it for a Fun House column.) It's a movie about the famous Christmas truce in WW1 when the soldiers refused to fight. That one got me.

On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in 1914, during the first sacred holiday of the war to end all wars, the trench warriors set aside their rifles, ignored their orders, and walked into the no-man's land to celebrate Christmas with their enemies. As the film pictures it, first the Germans put Christmas trees up just above their sight lines, with signs that said "you no shoot, we no shoot" or "Merry Christmas." Then the Scots brought out their ubiquitous bagpipes and played Christmas carols. The French broke out their champagne. The men shared pictures of their loved ones. They roasted some pigs together for Christmas dinner, and their chaplains held Christmas religious ceremonies. They cleared no-man's land of the rotten corpses, buried their fallen comrades, and helped their enemies to do the same. When they had cleared away their dead, they played soccer where the bodies had been strewn.

The real-life aftermath of the unpremeditated Christmas truce was shock among the high commands of the opposing nations. Nothing could be more disastrous for the world's sense of proper order than to have young men of opposing countries declaring their comradeship and refusing to kill one another. Why it's downright socialist! Generals on both sides declared this peacemaking to be treasonous, and all the lingering goodwill generated by the spontaneous outbreak of peace had been completely quashed by Easter of 1915, when the men would again resume the unquestioned killing of one another on behalf of their common God, who apparently issued the two sides contradictory orders. Before Armistice Day in 1918, an entire European generation was lost. Some thirty million young men would return to their homes wounded. Their mothers would be envied by the ten million others whose sons did not return at all.

Here's the whole review.