A Movie Nearly Every Night: Moonstruck

Moonstruck (1987)
Dir: Norman Jewison
Starring: Cher, Nicholas Cage, Vincent Gardenia, Olympia Dukakis

"Chrissy, bring me the big knife." "No, Ronny! I won't do it!"

I know, I might as well say I like When Harry Met Sally or admit publicly how many times I've seen Working Girl, but this movie keeps me mesmerized every time it's on television. I used to just let it wash over me and accept the attraction as the lure of the Italian family that it captures so accurately, whether it's with everyone seated in the kitchen having breakfast,


or the silly way Aunt Rita and Uncle Raymond talk about the sex they had the night before,

"You were a tiger last night."
"And you were a lamb, soft as milk."
"HUSH UP. You want them to hear you?"

or Loretta and her mother going to confession at church and doing penance and sharing that kind of hard New York style mother-daughter confidence (Rose sighing about her husband having an affair but has no proof -- "A wife knows" -- and Loretta, always pragmatic, replying: "You don't know."),


or the little Italian woman who puts a curse on Johnny's plane to Sicily because her sister's on dat plane and "fifty years ago she stole a man from me. S'aprese il mio uomo. Today she tells me that she never loved him, that she took him to be strong on me" so she's cursed the plane to go into the ocean,


but both the woman and Loretta admit that they don't really believe in curses.

These are all so real and familiar, that it makes this movie a comfortable blanket to put on when it's cold outside. It's a sip of red wine and a sandwich. But this time I thought that maybe it's Nicholas Cage that really attracts me --

"You've got a love bite on your neck."

because I don't like Nicholas Cage. I have a hard time watching any movies he's in because he's always kind of dopey and dull, but with a creepy look behind his eyes that betrays his crazy personal weirdness. When I used to watch this movie I always considered him the weakest link, with his shouting that he wants her to "come upstairs and GET in my bed. I don't care why you come ... no I don't mean that" like he's trying to be this macho guy, but then taking it back and so there was no grasping his character the way he was played on the screen.

And then I realized there really was something to it: He's opera.

Ronny lives his life like it's an opera, especially through all of his dramatic arias: he has an aria about his hand;

"I ain't no freakin' monument to justice! I lost my hand! I lost my bride!"

about how he's going to cut his throat in front of Loretta so she can tell his brother on their wedding day; his big passionate crazy declaration about how love isn't perfect; the way he throws the table over and carries Loretta into the bedroom --- it's all done in these giant, overdone ways that's perfect for the operatic Ronny. He loves Loretta and he loves the opera. That's it. And it's shaped him as a character, and I appreciated him more, that Ronny Cammareri.

I liked him.

I still don't like Nicholas Cage much, but Ronny, he's okay.

"Do ya love him, Loretta?"
"Oh, ma, I love him awful."
"That's too bad."