Clicking Our Heels - Movies That Makes Us Laugh and Cry

Clicking Our Heels – Movies That Make Us Laugh and Cry

Like books, movies impact emotions. The Stiletto Gang thought we’d suggest some of our favorite films for a good laugh or cry.

Dru Ann Love – Imitation of Life made my cry. What’s Up Doc made me laugh.

Paula Benson – During times of stress, I have three go-to-movies that always life me up with laughter and make me ready to face the world again: Legally Blonde, Bridget Jones Diary, and Shakespeare in Love.  Then, I have to admit a real fondness for Sneakers, due to all the wonderful performers, the puzzles, and the conclusion.

Cathy Perkins – Collateral Beauty (made me cry). I watched this one on the plane coming back from a business trip. Will Smith stars in this movie about a parent’s grief over losing a child.

Juliana Aragon Fatula -  Gone With the Wind – Don’t listen to Miss Prissy. She don’t know nuttin’ bout birthin’ no baby. Yellowbird and Blazing Saddles always make me laugh.                                                                                                                     

Linda Rodriguez – Songcatcher is a movie I’ve loved that didn’t get a lot of attention, but it’s a superb little film about the Great Smokies, the original homeland of my people, and always makes me cry.

Bethany Maines – Clue – A movie based on a board game should never work, but not only does Clue work, it succeeds brilliantly. The dialogue is razor sharp and delivered at a machine gun pace by actors working at their best. Tim Curry anchors the movie with a wicked grin and the rest of the cast from Eileen Brennan, to Christopher Lloyd, and Madeline Kahn fill the screen with enough shenanigans that it needs multiple viewings to catch all the jokes.  Added to the acting is some brilliant editing that operates the movie in real time (a character says “the police will be here in thirty minutes” and you can time it yourself, the police do indeed show up in thirty minutes), and gives the viewer a multiple choice ending. It makes me laugh EVERY time I watch it. I wish more people were aware of it, because it’s truly a classic.

Kay Kendall – French Kiss (starring Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline, released in 1995) has several scenes that make me laugh out loud, no matter how times I watch it. Kevin Kline is a delightfully sly Frenchman forced to turn crook, and Meg Ryan plays his unwitting accomplice, an American tourist running from her fiancé who two-timed her.

Debra H. Goldstein – No matter how many times I see it, the subtle and not so subtle lines in Miss Congeniality make me laugh. Similarly, as hokey as the movie can be, there is a moment in An Affair to Remember that always make teary eyed.

Sparkle Abbey:

  Anita – There are so many!  Movies that make me laugh in no particular order: The Princess Bride, Planes Trains and Automobiles, Airplane, The Great Outdoors, Steel Magnolias (it makes me cry too!), and Some Like it Hot.  Movies that make me cry: Imitation of Life, An Affair to Remember, Penny Serenade, Marley and Me, My Dog Skip, Old Yeller.

  Mary Lee – Oh my, Ditto on all of Anita’s list. I cried for a couple of days when I saw Old Yeller. Another for me is Toy Story 3. I know it’s animated but it always makes me cry. It is so funny and great for kids, but also extremely poignant. The main “toy” story and the human sub-plot is all about growing and changing. As far as movies that make me laugh: All of Me, Birdcage, Miss Congeniality, Airplane, and I loved The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

Jennae Phillippe – So many! The one that comes to mind these days is Swing Kids about a group of rebel kids in Germany that listen to swing music and go to dance halls – until they get caught stealing a radio and two of them start to get indoctrinated into the SS. Only one manages to resist. The end of that movie makes me cry every time, even if I only watch the last 15 minutes.

A.B. Plum – Wonder Woman – the hero’s reaction to WW catching him naked coming out of a hot springs bath is laugh-out funny and sweet and innocent. The scene that made me cry was Wonder Woman’s arrival at the front line near the end of WWI.  That was a gruesome war that definitely should have ended all wars given the number of deaths, lives destroyed, and nightmares suffered by shattered survivors.