re.The late James Garner and Gena Rowlands play an older couple.It is hokum of the first order  Taffeta Bridesmaid Dresses , but it nearly always comes up in lists of the top 10 tearjerkers of all time, and was used by the Stanford researchers in their study.As I had never seen it, my responses would be fresh.Within a few minutes of the film finishing, Booth was able to show me a graph of my reactions, second by second.fat, wet, proper tears streaming down my face.I'd like to think it was because Garner is such a gifted actor, but Booth was able to pinpoint the exact moments when there were spikes in my emotional engagement.The key finding was that music was instrumental in prodding my tear ducts.This does not surprise experts.Music is a big deal.The origin of the phrase 'melodrama' is literally musical drama.And it was important even in silent movies to help the audience know when and how to react.It is a cuing system and your brain picks up on it.Nobody dies a horrible, agonizing death in a weepieAnother trigger was when the characters showed a hidden side.There is a key moment when Allie's ice-blooded mother reveals her secret broken heart, and the graph of my emotions clearly spikes.Curiously, the spike is at the exact moment when she stifles her emotion and turns away from camera.A character suppressing emotion can be more engaging than if they cry on screen, Booth explains.Finally, and unsurprisingly, the graph goes off the scale when the old couple die, hand in hand, finally at peace.Nobody dies a horrible, agonizing death in a weepie.In a bid to harness this technology, some film studios have started experimenting with testing audiences in the same way.As well as hooking people up to skin response systems, facial recognition software has been used, which is able to analyse people's reactions to funny or scary moments.But Harry Ponsonby, who helps run First Movies  Bridesmaid Dresses For Juniors , one of the biggest testing companies used by studios, is unconvinced.In my view, a director, sitting in a test audience and hearing the laughs, the shuffles, the atmosphere, is more effective than any technology.You can sense when engagement drops and when they are gripped.If you are strapped up to a gizmo, you are not getting a natural reaction to a movie.And no university or scientific study is needed to tell me that when a character I love dies, I will cry.Mind you, I may not be the most useful person to test weepie films: I cried at the latest episode of The Great British Bake Off.Before I venture out to the cinema over the next few weeks, I may have to stock up on handkerchiefs.At this point, it s hard not to wonder if the people being hired to do outreach to women on behalf of Republican candidates aren t all a bunch of Democratic moles.The College Republican National Committee created this ad for Rick Scott, who is running for re-election as governor of Florida, and it appears to be written by men who learned everything they know about women from reading bridal magazines.It s modelled after TLC s popular show Say Yes to the Dress, except it s called Say Yes to the Candidate and the dresses in this case are Rick Scott and his Democratic opponent Charlie Crist.The Rick Scott is perfect, says our blond and youthful heroine, Brittany, admiring herself in the mirror while wearing a wedding dress, which is a thing Republicans have heard women like to wear.Her friends ooh and aah.But mom, who is of course a harridan because she dared age past 35, has other ideas.in a frumpier dress.It s expensive and a little outdated  Wedding Dresses With Long Trains , but I know best.It s cute that the Republicans who created this ad think young women are still getting married!Hopefully it will be a smashing success, leading us to the next one, where Brittany has to decide between two cupcakes, one called the Scott Walker and the other the Mary Burke.Just remember, only one tastes good if you re considering an abortion!Republicans made this ad in bulk.As Bloomberg View s Jonathan Bernstein notes, not only does Brittany the undecided voter think that The Rick Scott is perfect, she feels the same way about The Rick Snyder, The Tom Corbett and three other dresses.The ads are identical, only the candidate names change.How to adjust to the astonishing disappointment that George Clooney is just like any other man?Of course he s still better looking and sexier and more effortlessly alpha and richer and more engaged with humanitarian issues and has a house on Lake Como.But in one key respect he is true to type; he lied.He promised us (all of us, with the possible exception of a few cocktail waitresses) that he wouldn t ever get married.And yet on Saturday the 53-year-old Hollywood idol broke that vow when he made another, to Amal Alamuddin, his 36-year-old human rights lawyer bride.Aside from the piqued question What has she got that we don t?Answer: everything and the legs of an impala) we must try our best to get along with her because that s what George would want.So let s try this perspective on for size; we ve not lost a heart throb; we ve gained a new global cover girl.Alamuddin (I don t think any of us is ready to call her Mrs C at this early stage) is just the sort of woman we need to grace magazine covers and model couture frocks.This is not just because, in Darwinian terms, life is all about survival of the fittest.And she is most incontrovertibly the fittest, but because she is terribly clever, too.So when our daughters say: Mummy, who is that glamorous woman on the front of Vogue and why are you drawing a moustache on her?We can reply: This is a fiercely intelligent woman who worked very hard at school and excelled at university.She speaks lots of languages and is a leading international barrister and campaigns to end sexual violence in conflict and is a member of a multi-disciplinary team of experts set up by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.She may be a complete hottie, but it was by virtue of her Rolls-Royce mind that she has captured the heart of the only man I ever truly loved and want.