The "Training" version is for another post...

It's already been established that I'm an emotional sucker. Besides that which is SO cheesy that it's unintentionally funny, moving scenes in TV and movies drive me to lower lip tremblage pretty easily, especially for a heterosexual male, who are supposedly impervious to emotion unless it has to do with sports or one's favorite dog named Duke; and even then, we have to hide it. (Seriously, any guy who doesn't get misty-eyed at Rudy is probably a mandroid.)

Few of said moving scenes, um, move, me more than the musical montage. I'm not picky, I love them all, but I have to admit that The Shield produces some seriously kickass montages, and they're probably my favorite. (Though its sister show, Rescue Me, isn't too shabby either; and The Sopranos did it well before either of them. And then there's the reality show montage, and it's equally hard to beat the Survivor montage that they do every season when the final three are on their way to the last immunity challenge, when they walk a path lined with the torches of all the people that have been voted off before them.)

What really turns me on about musical montages is the ability to tell a story using only visuals, while letting the music take over the aural spectrum. It allows the actors to stretch their non-verbal communication skills; to let their emotions on their face and their body language replace their lines. It also forces the writers and the director to use visuals as exposition instead of lines for explanation. Having an actor find a photo in a box, or see something or someone from afar, is a much more powerful way of showing the audience a new piece of information than having someone say it. Shows do this all the time, but the montage forces many of these moments back-to-back. I dunno why, but everything just seems so much more powerful when only the music comes through.

Now, you might be wondering what real-life event inspired me to write this post. What show did I watch recently that had such a great musical montage?

Well, honestly... I didn't see a montage to inspire this. I heard a song.

I heard a song, and I immediately wanted a montage to go with it. This has happened a couple of times to me; this time it was INXS's "Afterglow."

(Cheesy? Yeah, maybe... but at least it wasn't as bad as the last song that did this to me... that silly DHT techno remake of Roxette's "Listen to your Heart." I kept wanting to see a montage of someone realizing how foolish they were for letting something get in between him and someone he loved; then turning around and frantically racing back to them to make things right.)

Unfortunately, that Google music video I linked to doesn't scratch the montage itch for me. And I wonder why? (And no, it wasn't because the model playing the afterglow-worthy love interest was a little too modely and Frenchy for me.)

I think I know. I think it's because I don't know anything about what's going on in the video. I think part of what makes a montage so great is the fact that you have all the artistry and powerful visuals of a music video, but you have context to go with it. You've been watching the show, so you know what's going through everyone's head as you see them in the montage; you know why they're crying, laughing, frustrated or angry, plotting for revenge or wallowing in their own self-hatred.

Now, I guess the question is, why do some songs do this to me when other, seemingly indistinguishable-in-quality songs, don't? For instance, why does the INXS song immediately make me want a powerful montage to go with it, while James Blunt's "You're Beautiful," which I also really like, doesn't?