Loretta Castorini (Cher) is engaged to her longtime boyfriend Johnny Cammareri (Danny Aiello), but then has to leave for Italy to tend to his ailing mother. With Johnny absent, Loretta starts dating his hot tempered brother Ronny (Nicolas Cage). Aside from that a taboo relationship runs rampant in Loretta's Italian-American household with the exception of her grandfather and the four dogs if you count them as family.The winner of three Academy Awards and Cher was among one of them. In the finicky world of the Academy Award judges who have had their biases in the past when it came to selecting those they feel deserve Oscar recognition, the committee seemed to have twenty smiles on their faces for a film like this one that could've been easily snubbed by today's standards. I guess they liked the idea that "Moonstruck" was saturated with Italian characters that are not linked to any underworld associations. It also seems that the average age group of characters featured in here seems to be over the age of 60. Elder performers in supporting roles seems like a rarity when the movie industry caters more towards younger performers getting more exposure. This is one contributing factor why this movie stands out.The women characters Loretta and her mother Rose (Oscar winner Olympia Dukakis) are the true leaders in their respected households and in their respected relationships. It also helps that the performers are not strangers to one another so non-verbal poses are all the more effective and the dialogue within them run smoothly.Even though this movie may have given Cher tons of accolades in her performance, it didn't transform into a megastar here. Her break came with the 1985 film "Mask" which she was badly snubbed by the Oscars. Cher must've had a ten foot smile when she read the script and would've been payed cheap to play this role, let alone winning an Academy Award for her role.The real breakout star here is Nicolas Cage. Along with "Raising Arizona" which came out in 1987 as well, truly shows that Cage's specialty is his knack for comedy. His comic timing is spot on and his widened eyes are effective, we see his gift displayed in these types of films. And sure he still continues making lousy action flicks, it's comedy that really exhibits the actor that Cage is and what he could accomplish.Some of the best scenes in "Moonstruck" involve around Ronny Cammareri. When Loretta interrogates Ronny about his estranged relationship with his brother, Ronny relinquishes an unexpected emotional outburst. Later we see Ronny buttoned up for the opera a sign where romance is more welcomed than reality.The opera is a form of acting where the voice is the centerpiece of the theatre than the action. It's like giving skilled artisans colouring pencils and activity books and to tell them they can't surpass the segregated lines like the book tells them to. Cage's acting never goes outside the lines once here.The subject of infidelity comes across frequently here in "Moonstruck". The uneven account about the infidelity depicted here is that Loretta can get away with it is for her love for Ronny than she is to Johnny. But Rose's husband and Loretta's father Cosmo (Vincent Gardenia) was questioned with non-approval after quietly being with another woman behind her back even though there was never any signs of engaging in intercourse. But Rose still loves Cosmo and their loyalty to each other is what really matters. This is cleverly crafted romantic story with a great cast and an excellent script.

Classic romantic comedy about 37-year-old widow (played terrifically by Cher) getting engaged to mismatched Aiello, only to begin falling for his younger brother, a bitter and heartbroken one-handed baker (played by Nicolas Cage in one of his better performances). Really captures the complexity of love by incorporating Gardenia and Dukakis' sub-plot(s), who play Loretta's (Cher) parents. Well-loved for a reason; but fans overlook the all-too-familiar movie flaw of having deep characters and a complex plot wrapped up nicely with a simple solution. The mood alone captures a wonderful cinema-style that was lost once the 1980s were over. For better or for worse, there will probably never be anything else quite like it.*** (out of four)

i rented a 1998 'special edition' DVD from netflix. i was very disappointed to find that it had been reformatted 4:3 for TV viewing. mgm needs to reissue this fine movie in its original aspect ratio. generally a reformatted DVD has two sides, so the viewer can pick. but in this case there's only one side. otherwise it's a fine movie that i probably saw in the theater then again on tape. given its quality, i'm surprised it hasn't been issued in a REALLY special edition. now, is this enough lines for a review? of course i'm not going to pad the review with junk, but i do think a review needn't be of a certain length. i've said what i need to say. so there.

Just like everyone is Irish when St. Patty's Day rolls around, everybody's Italian when it comes to watching this pleasant charmer, no matter if it's written by an Irish American, directed by a Canadian Jew, and stars the world's most famous Armenian-Native American.Loretta Castorini Clark (Cher) is not a lucky woman, it seems. Widowed by a freak bus accident, she wiles away the shank of her thirties as a self-employed accountant who lives with her aging family under the skyscrapers of the Big Apple. Just as she readies herself for a loveless marriage with the sweet-but-simple Johnny Cammarini (Danny Aiello), love strikes in the form of Johnny's bitter brother Ronny (Nicolas Cage). Can Loretta do the right thing, even if she doesn't quite know what that is?"Moonstruck" is a comedy that works in serious themes, like death, infidelity, faith, and hopelessness. Writer John Patrick Shanley operates with a deft hand and an ear for how people say what they really mean even when they try to say something else, like when Loretta's cheating father Cosmo (Vincent Gardinia, along with Cage one of the authentic Italian-American cast members) warns her against marriage because, well, he's cheap and doesn't want to pay for it.Seeing her ring from Johnny is just a pinky ring (Johnny wasn't prepared when he popped the question), Pop complains when she tells him it's temporary: "Everything is temporary! That don't excuse nothing!"Cher won an Oscar for her performance, which wasn't maybe the best of all performances that year but carries the film ably. I'm not a Cher fan myself, but it's hard not to admire the way she plays Loretta against expectations. She's quiet and subtle when you expect big and loud. Even late in the film, when she undergoes her expected transformation into a glamour queen, she doesn't go all diva about it."You look beautiful," Ronny tells her. "Your hair.""Yeah, I had it done," she says with a shrug.Cage is the other over-the-top actor here, but he succeeds with that by playing his part more for laughs. He blames Johnny for the loss of his hand and his fiancé, not that it's fair of him and he knows it. "I ain't no freakin' monument to justice," he exclaims.Cage's best work in the movie comes at the end, when he's not talking so much as listening in the background while the other characters have their big confessional moments at the breakfast table. That concluding scene is a showcase of fine comic acting and writing, which director Norman Jewison (another guy who liked to go big in other productions) plays very lightly and well, working the silences as much as the speeches to wry effect.Even the secondary performers, like Feodor Chaliapin as Cosmo's confused father, and Julie Bovasso and Louis Guss as Loretta's aunt and uncle, make their marks. This is a film about family that celebrates all its members.I don't quite buy a central premise of the film, that a man cheats on his wife because he's afraid of death, and feel some of the secondary scenes take up too much time, but there's a simple joy even in those scenes which sticks. Olympia Dukakis, the other Oscar-winner in the cast, has a great scene with Aiello which justifies his character's somewhat superfluous presence.To be in love is to die a little, but dying seems like a small price to pay for the pleasure of love. Such is the simple magical lesson on offer in "Moonstruck."