Two of my utterly reliable crypoints are the Lilo moment (unconventional family tenderness, as when Noni sings "Aloha Oe" to Lilo or when she, Lilo and David are playing on the beach and surfing and losing themselves in improbably uncomplicated joy, or Stitch saying, "It's little, and broken, but still good. Yeh, still good"; or, in the film of Matilda, when Matilda pulls the adoption paperwork out of her backpack and you realize she's been carrying it around for years as a promise to herself that if she ever finds her true family she'll be ready) and what I guess you could call the Jesus moment, when a character gives up everything for the beloved, regardless of the personal cost. Which I define broadly enough to include moments like Jamie reciting the Spanish poem and later withdrawing from Nina's world in Truly Madly Deeply.

(Which I've been thinking about because I just foisted clips from it onto my two officemates who'd been raving about how much they adore Ghost, and I couldn't even. Steps had to be taken. At least they're now both thoroughly intrigued and riveted, and I can move on to being pissy at the idiots on YouTube downrating the clips because how could Juliet Stevenson love an actual living human out in the world if she had corpsey Alan Rickman at home?)

Never felt the Truly Madly Deeply love. I found it mostly disturbing.

Well, it's not supposed to be *not* disturbing. It's pretty clear throughout that she is cohabiting with an actual dead person, and that his return in response to her total inability to move on may be deeply comforting to her, but it's not healthy and it's emphatically not life.

I love that movie for its meditations of love, life, and grief. It is really powerful to me. The first time I saw it, I had a really good cry.

I just rewatched the brief scene with Nina and Jamie on her back steps, as he's telling her about the little girl named Alice who often goes back to the playground she used to love when she was alive, and she's folding her laundry, and they slide easily from the parents at the playground seeing Alice's memorial plaque and holding their living children all the tighter, to the most placidly mundane couple-y bickering. So many little grace notes.

moments like Jamie reciting the Spanish poem and later withdrawing from Nina's world in Truly Madly Deeply.

Loves JZ. And yes to the disturbing and the cathartic cry. And the love.

Actually, I credit TMD for introducing me to Neruda, the same way the Perlman/Hamilton Beauty and the Beast introduced me to Rilke many years ago. In my world of a southern US public school education heavy in Home Ec and softball and light in classic literature, far from distracting me from reading, tv pushed me to read more widely, with more curiosity and understanding.

Um. Where'd that soapbox come from?

I adore that film beyond all reason.

As much as I liked it at the time, all I remember now is "There are ghosts in my house watching videos." But that still makes me laugh.

My house is full of dead people! And why are they all men?

I truly love TMD with all my heart.

The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore scene is one of my top three most romantic moments in cinema, ever.