I'll explain tomorrow why I was so late posting this, but today -- what makes you cry? Tess Monaghan admits, reluctantly, that she cries at the moment in STRICTLY BALLROOM when the sound system is cut, and the father has to start clapping the paso dobles. (Hell, I'm crying just typing that line.)

The puckering strings of my heart aren't pulled tight, to paraphrase the great Lenora Mattingly Weber, but I cry at some mighty odd things in movies. I tear up when Andie MacDowell walks into the ballroom in GROUNDHOG'S DAY and we see that it's Bill Murray at the piano. (He became a BETTER MAN! He started off just wanting to pretend to be the man she would love, and then he went whole hog and actually became that guy! Dang.) I get a little weepy during the famous through-the-skylight shot of CITIZEN KANE.

And here's a moment from THE GODFATHER that no one else ever seems to mention -- the way Tom Hagen's eyes skitter away from Tessio's.

So, things that bring surprising tears. Not the obvious tearjerker moments, but the moments that make you fog up unexpectedly, sort of like Tom Hanks and Victor Garber describing THE DIRTY DOZEN. Or Noel Coward walking down the staircase in the original ITALIAN JOB. Damn, I have to go get a tissue.