Movies That Always Make Me Cry

What movie makes you cry every time you watch it? I mean, it doesn’t matter how many times you see it, it never fails to make you weepy. 

I was sifting through the $5.00 DVD bin at Wal-Mart the other day, when I unearthed one of my all-time favorite happy tear-jerkers – You’ve Got Mail. I actually screamed so loud that everyone turned around and stared at me. I held the movie up and shrugged with a “sorry” smile on my face. 

I love this movie! It never fails to make me cry and laugh. You see, it’s one thing when a movie makes you cry, but to make you cry and laugh – ah that’s a movie! The 1998 production starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan is actually based on a play Parfumerie by Miklós László.  You’ve got mail isn’t the first movie adapted from the play. The Shop Around the Corner, a 1940 film by Ernst Lubitsch and also a 1949 musical remake, In the Good Old Summertime by Robert Z. Leonard starring Judy Garland were first. The 1998 version updates the story with the use of email between the main characters.

Next on my list is The Waitress. This movie stars Keri Russell as Jenna, an unhappy waitress married to an abusive husband, Earl, played by Jeremy Sisto.  Jenna finds herself pregnant while working at Joe’s Pie Diner where she uses her incredible talent for inventing new kinds of pie. Her dream is to leave Earl and win a national pie contest.  Along the way she has an affair with her doctor, Jim Pomatter, played by Nathan Fillion. Her only friends are coworkers Becky and Dawn (Cheryl Hines and Adrienne Shelly), and Joe (Andy Griffith), the curmudgeonly owner of the diner and several other local businesses, who encourages her to begin a new life elsewhere. 

One of the saddest things about this movie is that Adrienne Shelly, who wrote, directed and had a small part in the movie, was murdered in 2006 before her movie was released in 2007. Initially, thought to be a suicide, Shelly was found hanging from a bed sheet tied to a shower rod in the New York apartment she used as an office. A construction worker in the apartment under her office confessed to killing her after she complained about the noise he was making. 

Having traveled to Ireland last October, I was thrilled and perplexed when I saw Leap Year, (2010) starring Amy Adams and Matthew Goode. The movie has breathtaking scenes of Ireland that unfortunately, are not geographically correct. No matter, this is one of my favorite laugh/cry movies. Adams character, Anna Brady, travels to Ireland where her fiancé is attending a medical conference in Dublin. She plans to use the Irish tradition of Leap Day (Feb. 29) when a man receives a proposal on Leap Day, he must accept it. Through many trials and tribulations, Anna tries to make it to Dublin with the unwilling help of Declan O’Calloghan. And yes, you guessed it; Anna discovers the love she was looking for is the maddening Irishman, Declan.

I must include The Upside of Anger (2005) on my list of movies that never fail to make me cry. 

I fell in love with this movie, even though I’m not a big Costner fan, but the chemistry between Kevin Costner, who plays Denny, a retired baseball player turned radio announcer and Joan Allen, Terry, a woman who believes her husband abandoned his family, is undeniable. The movies reveals through a flashback why Terry and her daughters are grieving for a man they though had run away with his secretary. It isn’t until Denny enters the picture, that Terry is able to come to terms with the choices her daughters, played by Keri Russell, Alicia Witt, and Erica Christensen, have made. Denny also is responsible for discovering what happened to her husband.

I cannot end this teary-movie fest without The Notebook, based on the novel of the same name by Nicholas Sparks. This movies never fails to appear in the journals of teenage girls when I ask my students to write about their favorite movie.

The story begins in a nursing home with an 80-year-old man, Duke, played by James Garner, reading to an elderly woman, played by Genna Rowlands. The story Duke is reading serves as the narrative for their life, played by Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. The sadness that hangs over the entire story is that Allie (Rowlands and McAdams) has Alzheimer’s disease and cannot remember that Duke is her husband Noah (Garner and Gosling). The bittersweet moment does occur, however fleeting, when an elderly Allie remembers Noah. 

These five movies are certainly not the only ones who make me cry or laugh for that matter. They are ones. I must say, I never tire of watching when I'm in one of those "moods." 

What movie makes you a bit weepy?

Farewell to Jack

On Wednesday, May 16, the garbage truck driver ran over my dog, Jack. He didn't even slow down. Thankfully, I didn't see it happen because I wasn't home, but the men who work in the cemetery witnessed it and buried him for me. You see, they loved Jack, too. He managed to show up in the cemetery everyday when they were having lunch. You can guess the rest!

Jack never turned down a scrap of food, a fact I attributed to him being a rescue dog who was underfed when he came to live with us. We rescued Jack from the pound. He from places unknown, and for the first 24 hours we were delighted with him and he with us. He was a ball of energy, and he fit right in with our other dogs, Molly and Murphy. I knew we had made the right decision bringing Jack to live with us.

Then Jack got sick. He went from this happy, rowdy dog to a lethargic puppy who could not stop throwing up. The vet said it was parvo - the dreaded virus that dehydrates and often kills dogs. Wherever Jack had lived, he had not been vaccinated, so when he was dropped off at the pound, he had no defense against the very contagious virus. The vet did all he could for Jack and I took him home armed with a syringe and Pedialyte. Every fifteen minutes, I injected a tiny amount of Pedialyte in Jack's mouth, trying to stave off dehydration while the virus ran its course. I called my principal and told her about Jack and that I would need a substitute teacher because I could not leave him. His only chance was the Pedialyte that I was giving him around the clock. She said, "Bring him with you and we will help you take care of him." I did and they did.

For three days I carried this pitiful little dog around in his little pet bed. He no longer had diarrhea or vomiting, but he was still lifeless. I believe it was the prayer and love of my fellow teachers who helped Jack come back. Because he did come back, and he never stopped thanking me. From that time, Jack was my dog. He loved with a fierce devotion that never lagged. He followed me everywhere; he sat in my lap or next to me; and he slept with me at night. His favorite place to sleep was around my neck. I would turn on my side and Jack would nestle against my back, his head in my hair resting on my neck.

Jack was only happy when we were together. When he came in from outside he ran through the house until he found me. If he couldn't find me, he would get more and more frantic until I called to him. I have had dogs all my life, and none have ever loved me like Jack.

Good-Bye my little Jackie. I will miss you always. There will never be another dog like you.
In James Still's poem about "those I want with me in heaven," I found the perfect tribute for this wonderful little dog.

 Those I Want With Me in Heaven Should There Be Such a Place

First I want my dog Jack,
Granted that Mama and Papa are there,
And my nine brothers and sisters,
And “Aunt” Fanny who diapered me, comforted me, shielded me,
Aunt Enore who was too good for this world,
And the grandpa who used to bite my ears,
And the other one who couldn’t remember my name—
There were so many of us;
And Uncle Edd—“Eddie Boozer” they called him—
Who had devils dancing in his eyes,
And Uncle Luther who laughed so loud in the churchyard
He had to apologize to the congregation,
And Uncle Joe who saved the first dollar he ever earned,

And the last one, and all those in between;
And Aunt Carrie who kept me informed:
“Too bad you’re not good looking like your daddy”;
And my first sweetheart, who died at sixteen,
Before she got around to saying “Yes”;

I want my dog Jack nipping at my heels,
Who was my boon companion,
Suddenly gone when I was six;
And I want Rusty, my ginger pony,
Who took me on my first journey—
Not far, yet far enough for the time.

I want the play fellows of my youth
Who gathered bumblebees in bottles,
Erected flutter mills by streams,
Flew kites nearly to heaven,
And who before me saw God.

 Be with me there.