Buried, perhaps, in all the ado about the Oscars is the winner of best animated short film, namely Feast. In the movie house, this short was shown with Big Hero 6, which was itself an Oscar winner, for best animated film. If you haven't seen either, the focus here is on Feast, which tells the story of a cute (of course) Boston terrier and the dude who adopts him off the street. The film is seen from pretty much ground-level, as told via images of the food that the dog, who is named Winston, gets during the short.
Self normally doesn't cry at or after movies, perhaps because I consciously tend not to choose movies that are tear-jerkers (although Still Alice comes close, perhaps), or that 3CM is basically a cold fish. Surprisingly, not least for me, Feast was the recent exception that proved the rule. More below the flip...
On my way home, after seeing both Feast and Big Hero 6, I literally cried my eyes out. It was really about Feast, though, not Big Hero 6 (although a few plot points of Big Hero 6 do lend themselves to potential tear-jerker moments, but 3CM digresses, as usual). 3CM being the way he is, while bawling to himself, he started to think about 'why cry' over this short film.
It helps to know some bits about the story. In addition to telling of the relationship between Winston and his human through the food that the dude feeds Winston (it starts with a French fry, FWIW), it's also to do with how Winston reacts to the food. There's one scene, for example, where the dude and his pals are watching a Sunday game, presumably football. At one point, their team scores big. The guys jump out of their chairs, and in so doing, they tip the TV tray with nachos on it over. Guess who's waiting to catch the nachos, or as many as possible, before they hit the floor? Yup, Winston. There are other moments where the dude lets Winston pig out on human junk food, beyond feeding him standard dog food. When the dude drops food above Winston, you again see Winston with his mouth wide open, just scarfing it all up, eating his way through life big time.
If one (i.e. 3CM) wants to overanalyze things, one could see Winston's actions with regard to food as a metaphor for careless types who eat the planet's resources without thinking about the long-term consequences. During the short, Winston, after all, gets to pig out to his heart's content, totally devil-may-care and phat (not fat, as he never changes shape or gains weight during the short), happy-go-lucky, all the clichés like that. And then I figured it out: that was just it. Winston is just so damn happy and carefree, totally blessed out. The obvious corollary is that 3CM is none of that. Little, transient nice moments, sure, those are easy. But the really big stuff, when everything is really good, all together, and life is just 100% great? Not so sure.
In fairness, Winston isn't a bad dog at all (unlike the wingnuts I alluded to). He actually takes action to return the favor to his human, in terms of happiness. I suppose that I bawled over Feast because of a lot of pent-up, repressed emotions that needed an outlet. In the end, as fitting in a Disney-type movie, it all works out well in the end for Winston's human, as well as Winston, in terms of being in human junk-food heaven, that is. Not so much for 3CM, because he's too lame to try.
Hmm, for once, an SNLC that actually fits the series' original mission. With that, time for the standard SNLC protocol, namely your loser stories for the week....