Tag Archives: 1980’s

#96- Moonstruck

Quick recap: Loretta Castorini is engaged to mild mannered Johnny and that’s cool and all until Ronny (played by Nicholas Cage) steps into the picture and she falls in love with him. Also, Loretta’s father is cheating on her mother and there’s a part about being cursed and then [insert every Italian stereotype here].

This might get weird.

This might get weird.

Fun (?) fact: No one really wanted Nicholas Cage in the movie except for Cher, who threatened to walk out if he wasn’t hired.

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My thoughts: Romantic Comedy. Two words that, when put together, can strike fear into any sane person. Add to that, Moonstruck is a romantic comedy starring Cher. I knew I was in for a rough night.

As mentioned above, this is the movie should’ve won some sort of Guinness World Record for most Italian stereotypes crammed into 90 minutes. When the characters weren’t making dramatic hand gestures or using a thick Italian accent, stereotypical Italian music could be heard in the background. Another fun fact: the original opening played the score from ‘La Boheme’, but testing audiences felt like they were being roped into an art house film and we wouldn’t want that, of course. So instead, the crew went in the opposite direction and chose ‘That’s Amore’ so that you wouldn’t forget your were watching a movie about an Italian-American family, even for a second.

That’s not to say I found anything wrong with being so heavy on the Italian references. I’m sure there were families all over the US that related perfectly to the characters, but it wasn’t something I was all that familiar with. Watching Moonstruck felt like taking one of those Buzzfeed quizzes that I stumble upon at 3 in the morning, unable to sleep. Could be something like, ‘Which English boarding school best describes your personality?’ or ‘How many of these indigenous beetles did you encounter in your trek across Africa in the 1930s?’ Either way, I felt left out.

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As for the plot, it was a little confusing. Not confusing in the sense that it was hard to understand because come on, Nicholas Cage is one of the main actors. More confusing in its message. The film centers around Loretta cheating on Johnny with his brother Ronny. We are supposed to root for her, especially when she does the romantic comedy makeover trope. When Johnny comes over at the end of the film to break off his marriage, that is supposed to signal that they all lived happily ever after. That’s all well and good until you factor in Loretta’s father, Cosmo. He too is cheating, but this is a bad thing for some reason. Maybe because he has been married for so long? He and his wife don’t seem to get along very well and maybe he could’ve found true love, just like Loretta did with Ronny. The wife, Rose, also briefly considered a fling with a handsome professor but at the last minute backed off and went home to a man who’s feelings had obviously changed. It was more depressing than romantic or comedic at that point.

Final review: 2/5 I knew I was in trouble when I found myself fully relying on Nicholas Cage to get me through this movie. And he certainly did.

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Up next: L’Age d’or

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#84- Terms of Endearment

Quick recap: Terms of Endearment follows the 30 year relationship between a mother and daughter. When something bad-DAMMIT. I can’t do this. Damn you all to hell, Terms of Endearment. Evil incarnate is what this movie is.

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Fun (?) fact: As a gift for directing the movie, Matt Groening gave James L. Brooks a book of ‘Life in Hell’ cartoons. Brooks loved it so much, he got Groening to create cartoon shorts for the Tracy Ullman show. And that’s how The Simpsons was created!

My thoughts: Before I go any further, I need to confess that yes, I did in fact cry. I’m not proud of it, but at least I fought hard until the very end. As you can probably pick up on, I’m not the most sensitive when it comes to schmaltzy things. Anything Nicholas Sparks makes me physically ill  as well as movie theaters that have ‘girlie nights’. UGH. I mean, if you  want to show Ferris Bueller, DO IT. Don’t label it ‘girlie night’ and slap on some discount wine special with the purchase of sushi. It cheapens the film and isolates a good portion of moviegoers who would’ve gladly gone otherwise. /rant

Back to the movie. If this film has any strength to stand up to other Oscar Winners, it does so with the strong acting. Every actor was believable which is probably why I was able to suspend my hatred for anything cheesy and let myself be free with my emotions. I absolutely loved Shirley MacLaine (damn you, James L. Brooks for making me love Shirley MacLaine). Debra Winger grew on me as the movie went on, but her laugh never did. I read that she was trying to get over a cocaine addiction while filming so I don’t feel so bad. Jack Nicholson of course was wonderful as well, but this ‘arrogant jerk who turns out to be a good guy’ is kind of his thing.

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For all the ‘girlies’ who came here to read a gushing review of the film that totally destroyed their every emotion, it’s time to stop reading.

I was into the mother/daughter relationship from the beginning because I am a daughter who happens to be close to her mom. I totally got the endless phone calls and how much they shared with each other. The entire relationship seemed completely authentic, even leading up to Emma’s death. (Oops. SPOILER ALERT: Emma dies.) The plot started to fall apart  towards the end as Emma got closer and closer to death. For one thing, making the decision as to who would keep the children seemed way over the top. Maybe that was a thing back then, but Flap was a perfectly decent father. He should’ve just sucked it up and raised his own children instead of pawning them off to Aurora so that he could continue his love affair with that other woman. Then again, that would’ve saved like 10 minutes of drama. The last 30 minutes of the film is basically, ‘are you crying yet? no? Let me put in a scene where Emma says goodbye to her children! That didn’t do it? How about Aurora screaming at the nurses to help her daughter who was in pain? No? Dammit. You are totally going to cry when Emma actually dies. There we go! Just in case, let’s add a few more scenes to keep you crying.’

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Final review:  4/5. You couldn’t make me sit through that again, though.

Up Next: All About Eve

 

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#78- The Dead

Quick recap: The story is set in 1904 when a couple of old ladies are throwing a party. The guests all talk about artsy stuff like the opera and who is a good singer and then, after everyone toasts the women on a job well done, everyone leaves. The main couple head to a hotel where the wife reveals she loved a boy before her husband and it’s making her super sad, you guys. In turn, the husband stares out of the window and realizes that he kind of sucks if his wife loves some dead kid more than him. He then says something about everyone dying at some point and then FIN.

how exciting!

how exciting!

Fun (?) fact: One of the first apps I ever downloaded was Solitaire for my iPhone. I’m proud to say that I played my 2000th game during this movie. And by proud, I mean ashamed. And by ashamed, I mean that I really feel no emotion.

on the edge of my seat!

on the edge of my seat!

My thoughts: I don’t think my hopes have ever crashed as hard as when I realized The Dead was not in fact about ghosts, but instead a period drama. Believe me, nothing strikes fear more than ‘period drama’, but I was still hoping that there would at least be some murder or ghostly shenanigans going on. Not in the slightest. In fact, the only drama that occurs in the entire movie happens in the last 7 or so minutes of the film. And that’s only if you consider a woman revealing that she loved someone who later died ‘drama’. Which I don’t, and really, you shouldn’t stoop yourself low enough to consider it either.

I do feel a bit hypocritical harping about how boring this movie is, when I just recently sat through almost 4 hours of a woman cleaning her house. The only action happened at the end of that movie as well, but was much more satisfying. Ever since stopping the practice of reading up on a film before watching it, I could only guess at what was about to change in the couple’s marriage. ( Side note: the Netflix synopsis said that the party was held during Epiphany and that the couple had an epiphany of their own about their marriage. I don’t think I could roll my eyes anymore than I’m doing right now.) There were several times where a woman at the party would wink at Gabriel (the main character) and he spent much of the party secretly pulling out a note and reading it to himself. I thought that he was maybe having an affair with EVERYONE and that would’ve piqued my interest a little, but once again my hopes were dashed when I realized the note he was reading was really a toast he had written for the old woman throwing the party. LAME.

And as for the ending, I do see how sad that would make anyone when realizing their wife of several years prefers a dead kid over them. But is it worth torturing me about for two hours? No. No it is not. I imagine the ‘discovery’ was felt much more deeply from anyone who read the short story by James Joyce, which this movie comes from. I did manage to read up on the short story a bit and it seemed Joyce emphasized Gabriel’s insecurities so that in the final scene, it all comes crashing around him as he wonders whether is it better to die young or old, after you’ve had a chance to mess everything up. That thought seems more profound to me than what the movie portrayed.

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Final review: 2/5. The Dead wasn’t completely unwatchable. It’s soothing, in the same way listening to rain on my white noise app is. The next time I can’t get it to work, I’ll put on this movie.

Up next: American Beauty

 

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#69- Brazil

Quick recap: Sam Lowry holds a low level government job in the not so distant dystopian future. He’s happy with things the way they are, except for the bizarre dreams he has of rescuing a beautiful woman. Once he realizes she is in fact real, he makes it his life mission to find and save her.

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Fun (?) fact: Terry Gilliam, the director of Brazil, was involved in a long battle against a studio company not wanting to release his film. At one point, Gilliam took out a full page ad in Daily Variety asking when the studio was going to release his film.

That's the way to get things done

That’s the way to get things done

My thoughts: Cool story bro: On the day I was going to watch this movie, I had somehow gotten Billy Joel’s ‘My Life’ stuck in my head .(Just kidding. I know exactly how it was done. BLACK MAGIC) After leaving the theater, the curse was lifted and now I have the theme to Brazil stuck  instead. It’s not as bad as Billy Joel, because, let’s face it, nothing is. Also, there were a ton of variations to the theme so it’s almost like a new song each time.

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So, besides this being one of my husband’s favorite movies (not one of several husbands. One of several movies), I love Monty Python and therefore, knew I would enjoy Brazil. The movie did not disappoint, but I admit to being a little confused by the whole thing. I hadn’t read up on the movie beforehand so I didn’t know that it is commonly characterized as a ‘dystopian satire’. It’s a totally apt description. The very beginning of the film involves an innocent man being whisked away from his family, presumably to be executed. I was a little surprised by the violence, but then one of the officers makes the wife sign away her husband, making sure she signs in the correct spots. She is then given a receipt and everyone leaves. The woman is hysterical by what has happened, yet she stops crying long enough to sign the forms correctly. Another example happens when Lowry goes out to dinner with his mother and while they are eating, a terrorist attack occurs in the restaurant. As people lay dying and bleeding to death, Lowry’s table continues eating as if nothing has happened. The waiter even brings over a partition so they won’t be bothered by the gruesome scene. I am blown away how Gilliam was able to  blend the dystopian scene with satire so seamlessly.

The dystopian society itself interested me tremendously. In this ‘retro future’, everyone is materialistic, and yet they are surrounded by the shoddiest things. Lowry’s apartment, for example, is fully automated so that he doesn’t have to lift a finger in order to get ready for work. However, nothing works right: His alarm is set wrong, he has to plug in several wires just to answer the phone, and his breakfast is ruined when the machine pours the coffee all over the toast. Also, as a major plot point, there are these pipes that are everywhere. When his heating system breaks down, Lowry phones the Central Services line to get someone to fix it. Instead, a man intercepts the call and does the work much more efficiently. It is at this point that Lowry’s eyes are open. Another characteristic of this society is that paperwork rules all. Hardly anything gets done because of the vast amount of paperwork involved. Innocent people are routinely killed because the government believes the paperwork is infallible.

Brazil_movieI realize I haven’t really touched on the plot of this movie very much, and there is a reason for that. I feel like this movie will be best be enjoyed if you have no idea what you are getting into. Everything was a surprise and I had no idea how it would all end. The ending, in fact, is one of the main controversies with Terry Gilliam and the movie studio. I feel like the less said, the better about this one. brazil2

Final review: 1/5 and 5/5. Much like Moulin Rouge, I imagine Brazil to be polarizing. Many people will dismiss it as too weird, but I respectfully disagree. I would love to watch it again to see what else I pick up on, humor-wise.

Up next: Cleo from 5 to 7

 

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