Moonstruck (feat. Nicolas Cage)

Cher is pretty all right. It's hard not to like her. Though I think there must have been some favoritism going on, like the Academy thought they owed Cher a favor, because I don't know how this film won three Oscars. I don't think cheesey romance films are bad, but none of the characters in this film behave like real people tend to sometimes do. Characters in Moonstruck get engaged, fall in love at first sight, and change the trajectory of their lives based on momentary passions. Is that how all Italian Americans are? Are they all insane?

On insanity, Cage's character Ronny is an actual psycho, smashing things with his "fake-wooden hand", threatening to kill himself, and perpetually blaming his brother for an accident that was his own fault. Maybe that's just how all Italian-American bakers are, only wearing tank tops, never full shirts unless they're going to the Opera. They call this film a romantic comedy, but the comedy aspect is playing on a wheelchair of Italian stereotypes. Maybe if I considered myself more cultured, I'd feel obligated to think it's funny. Like, maybe the Academy thought it was funny because they are laughing at themselves, and they are in the know. Maybe it is considered a comedy in the traditional sense, leaving you wondering what the plot is before revealing it in the end.

What about the romance? Maybe it is the absence of rational motivation that makes this film romantic, because love is not rational. Love can make you deny the factual "bad luck" that might lead you to get engaged to a guy you have no reason to like, the way Cher's character (Loretta) did. Perhaps love is just it's own force, at odds with the world, yet moving the world at its own whim. So maybe my unwillingness to accept this principle is the reason why I didn't think this movie was amazing.

  1. Raising Arizona
  2. Leaving Las Vegas
  3. Red Rock West
  4. Adaptation
  5. Birdy
  6. Wild at Heart
  7. Dog Eat Dog
  8. Color Out of Space
  9. Mom and Dad
  10. Peggy Sue Got Married
  11. City of Angels
  12. Bangkok Dangerous
  13. Drive Angry
  14. Lord of War
  15. Gone in 60 Seconds
  16. Matchstick Men
  17. Vampire's Kiss
  18. Con Air
  19. Face/Off
  20. Honeymoon in Vegas
  21. Amos and Andrew
  22. Moonstruck
  23. The Sorcerer's Apprentice
  24. Bringing Out the Dead
  25. The Family Man
  26. It Could Happen to You
  27. 8mm
  28. Ghost Rider
  29. The Humanity Bureau
  30. Next
  31. The Weather Man
  32. 211
  33. The Croods

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