My Basic Ramblings: Four minutes. That's how long it took me to go from Whitney Freemesser, average movie watcher, to Whitney Freemesser, big blubbering pile of tears. And that four minutes includes the FBI Warning and the opening credits, to it really only took maybe a minute of the actual movie to render me weepy.
What, pray tell, could happen in a movie so quickly to make Ms. Cynical, who refused to shed a tear at the end of Titanic, get all puffy-eyed and snot-filled?
A little piglet, up against a gate, saying "Goodbye....Mom."
But the sadness is soon swept away with this wonderful, wonderful movie.
You look at the big action heroes of our movies. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Jean-Claude Van Damme. When a sheepdog can show more emotion in a scene than one of them, you know something's a little off in the world.
Chris loves to torment me with this movie, calling it "Babe: The Delicious White Hot" and saying "I want my mom" in a cute Babe-esque voice and immediately stuffing his face with whatever pork product happens to be nearby, and I then usually tell him he's evil. (Sound familiar, all you readers of Boy Wonder?)
I heard or read or maybe it's just an urban legend that this movie inspired lots of people to become vegetarians. I'd like to be noble and say it inspired me likewise, but it didn't. In fact, the day after I saw this movie again, Chris and I had pork for dinner (9 hours in the Crock-Pot and two big jars of barbeque sauce, it was good but the sauce hit my sinuses badly). In the movie, however, they put a bit of a spin on the animal eating thing, saying that Babe's mom and other pigs go to a wonderful place called "Pig Heaven" and the barnyard credo of "that's the way things are." Of course, in the mind of Ferdinand, the duck, "the way things are stinks."
This is such a sweet 'n groovy movie. I absolutely love the little Greek chorus of mice, especially singing "Blue Moon". A random moment that's soopoib. And Hoggett's lumbering jig to cheer a depressed pig. And of course, the big sheepdog trials which is just such a warm happy moment you watch it over and over and over and feel good to be alive.