We wanted to have a movie night tonight, so I went to the iTunes movie store and rented “The Iron Giant.”  Now, this movie has a little history in our family.   It is the only movie to make me cry since I was a little boy.  I think the movie before that was “My Girl” or something like that.  The only movie since was “The Passion of the Christ.”  I mean, come on… I don’t cry much at movies.

Well, I haven’t seen “The Iron Giant” in 7 years or so (since the first time I saw it) and I remember it being “good enough to make me cry.” Plus I learned that it was Brad Bird (creator of The Incredibles–my favorite animated movie ever) that was a writer for it.

We put it on and we all enjoyed it.   When we got to the climactic scene (SPOILER ALERT) where the missle is fired at the robot and the little boy is telling him that everyone will die if it hits, I was starting to tear up.   When the robot took off into the sky to meet the missle mid-air, a tear rolled down my cheek.  By the time he stared at the missle and muttered “Superman” my son, my wife, and I were all bawling.  Timothy was so sad that the robot was going to “die” — Andrea was so amazed by Timothy’s compassion (though, only for non-carbon-based entities) and I was crying for the same reason I did 7 damn years ago.  Stupid movie.  Bethany, of course, was oblivious.

I’ve been made fun of for pretty much our whole marriage for crying at this movie, but I think that will stop tonight.   You, on the other hand, now have “another-way-to-make-fun-of-Mark” ammunition for another 7 years.   Have fun.