Oh, they’ll sneak up on you. You’ll be chuckling along with a funny movie when suddenly – hey, what’s that lump in your throat all about? They get you when your guard is down, those comedies with little bits of sadness tucked in. If you’re looking for a movie that’ll make you laugh AND tug at your heartstrings, I’ve got just the list for you:
Planes, Trains , and Automobiles. This Steve Martin/John Candy movie could be called an anti-buddy-comedy. Forced by circumstances to travel together (via planes, trains… you can guess the rest) from New York to Chicago at Thanksgiving time, Neal (Martin) can’t wait to be rid of the over-exuberant Del (Candy), but then softens when he learns more of Del’s story.
Big 
. Tom Hanks plays a boy who wakes up in the body of a grown man. Hanks is adorable as the suddenly “big” Josh trying to navigate in the adult world. Watch out for the ending, though, have tissues ready!
Sideways. Melancholy Miles (Paul Giamatti) takes his more gregarious friend Jack (Thomas Haden Church) through wine country on a buddy-trip before Jack ties the knot. Lots of wine and hi-jinks ensue, revealing much about the lead characters. Miles can be a real “Debby Downer”, which is played to comedic effect, but some of the realizations on this boy’s trip are a little more melancholy.
The Bucket List. Ok, with a title like this you could probably guess that something sad might be on the horizon. Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman mine the situation laughs, though, as a billionaire and a mechanic who share a hospital room after being diagnosed with terminal illnesses. Working on a list of things they want to do before they die becomes a healing exercise for both.
Click. Wait, this is an Adam Sandler movie. There’s no crying in Adam Sandler movies! Well, get ready to be proven wrong. In this movie Sandler plays a workaholic husband and father who finds a remote control device that lets him pause, fast-forward, and rewind events in his life. Of course, he comes to many realizations, mainly that the things that he thought were important in his life, aren’t.
In Bruges. This comedy about a suicidal hit man is admittedly pretty dark, but the writing and performances in this film really pull you in, and the scenes between the hit man Ray (Colin Farrell) and his partner (Brendon Gleeson) can be particularly affecting.
Little Miss Sunshine. Dysfunctional family road trip! Everyone is this family has issues, but they all pile into a barely-working van to drive young Olive (wonderfully played by Abigail Breslin) to compete in the Little Miss Sunshine contest. Funny moments are peppered with poignant ones, and you’re bound to tear up at least once along the way.
Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. Another road trip movie. Why are road trips the perfect vehicle for sad comedies? In this one, an unstoppable asteroid is hurtling toward Earth and certain annihilation. What to do in the days you have left? One man (Steve Carrell) decides to drive off and find his high school sweetheart before the world ends. He’s joined on his quest by his quirky neighbor (Keira Knightly), and hilarity ensues. But there’s still that asteroid out there…
WALL-E. In this animated movie from Pixar, WALL-E is a trash-collecting robot on a deserted and ravaged planet Earth. After years alone on the planet, another robot suddenly appears, giving WALL-E a new purpose. Funny and endearing, you’ll root for the little guy as he tries to interact with his environment and save the future of the planet.
Up. All right, Pixar, enough with the heartstring-pulling! A retired balloon salesman rigs up his house with thousands of balloons, and he (and his house) sail off into the sunset. Except he has a stowaway, an eight-year-old Wilderness Explorer Scout named Russell. The unlikely duo have many adventures along the way, and of course learn many valuable lessons about life and love.
Studios, the film company known for making ground-breaking and award-winning (and record-breaking, with more than 
What is Catmull’s secret? Of course a strong bottom line is what investors want, and Catmull agrees, but he refuses to allow the creativity of the artists to be stymied in any way. There are no superstars – not even preferred parking. Everyone from the janitor to the lunch lady to the writer is allowed equal – respected – input. Employees are encouraged to do what it takes to keep happy and relaxed, because happy employees are productive employees. They are encouraged to take time for classes offered at work – art, archery, whatever. If they are producing a film in Africa, a team of writers and artists will take a field trip to Africa and experience what they are trying to portray. Films, from first idea pitch to final cut – are brought up for constant, honest review, where the ensemble team toss ideas off each other about the work, good or bad, and the film may take a twist for the better from it. Every artist is respected every step of the way. Written into the contracts is a proviso that if a film reaches a certain amount of return, a portion of that is given to the employees as a bonus.
There are only two days a year when no major sports games are held: the day before baseball’s Major League All-Star Game, and the day after. On every other day of the year, a major sporting event occurs somewhere in the country. Indeed, there are only 26 days a year when the PGA is not on tour, 51 days without tennis, and 95 days without a NASCAR event. Many sport seasons overlap – baseball ends long after football starts, basketball begins during football, and hockey runs long after baseball starts.
sport was Indy car racing, and if you practice that, police get annoyed. I earned an inter-dorm basketball championship shirt in college, but that was because we won three games by default, and yes, I watch two full weeks of the Olympics each time.
Mountain
actual world championships (but no flying on the brooms), and there is still a push to make Quidditch an Olympic sport. Or you can follow Connecticut Quidditch teams at Yale, UConn, or Quinnipiac to watch live action on the pitch. (Yes, I’m serious. My daughter’s team ranked 22nd in the world).
Not every book becomes a movie; not every movie started out as a book, but the two feed off each other like peanut butter and chocolate. Many of the top Oscar-winning films started out as books (
On July 21, it will be FIFTY years since mankind first walked on the Moon.
[for reference, an MP3 recording of the Star Spangled Banner runs around 900 Kb – half your memory]). The entire country surged forward with that dream, no doubt spurred on as an homage to Kennedy following his assassination. TV picked up the dream with serious and non-serious programs like 
idn’t even manage to smash a probe onto the moon until 1962. We made it through the Gemini program, only to learn that some things couldn’t be rushed or corners cut when the Apollo 1 crew – Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee – burned to death in an oxygen fire in a test module, because the pressurized doors opened the wrong way. This led to a pause – there was no Apollo 2 or 3, and 4-5-6 were all unmanned. If ever there was a lot of pressure on a crew, Apollo 7 was the first 3-manned crew to blast off Earth, period. Missions 8-10 looped the moon, giving us the famous Earthrise photo.
lunar lander settled on the moon, Armstrong sent out the famous words, “The Eagle has landed,” followed shortly by 
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