Gina DeAngelis | Through the Shattered Lens

Nominated for Best Picture of 1987, Moonstruck is a film about love, romance, New York City, and being Italian.

Loretta Castorini (Cher) is a widow and a bookkeeper who lives with her parents, Cosmo (Vincent Gardenia) and Rose (Olympia Dukakis) in Brooklyn. When her boyfriend, Johnny (Danny Aiello), asks Loretta to marry him, Loretta says yes even though she knows that, while she likes him, she’s not really in love with him. After he proposes, Johnny reveals that he has to go to Sicily to see his “dying” mother. He asks Loretta to pay a visit to his estranged brother, Ronny (Nicolas Cage), and invite him to the wedding. Loretta, a strong believer in family and the importance of following tradition, agrees.

Loretta finds Ronny working in the bakery that he owns. Ronny is not thrilled to learn that his brother has gotten engaged. Ronny reveals that he has a wooden hand. He lost his real hand when he accidentally placed it in a bread slicer while having a conversation with Johnny. After he lost his hand, Ronny’s then-fiancée left him. Ronny has never forgiven Johnny for the loss of his hand. “I lost my hand! I lost my bride!” Ronny yells to the heavens. Loretta, however, immediately understands that Johnny actually hurt his hand to get his fiancée to break up with him. A conversation at Ronny’s apartment leads to the two of them impulsively sleeping with each other. The next day, Ronny promises to never bother Loretta again if she agrees to go the opera with him.

What the guilt-stricken Loretta doesn’t know is that her father is having an affair himself and it turns out that Cosmo and Mona (Rose Gilette) enjoy the opera as well. Meanwhile, Rose finds herself tempted by a lecherous college professor named Perry (John Mahoney).

There’s a lot of stereotypes to be found in Moonstruck. Of course, passionate Ronny loves the opera. Of course, the simple but well-intentioned Johnny abandons his fiancée so that he can rush to Sicily to be with his “dying” mother who, it turns out, isn’t dying at all. Of course, Loretta slaps Ronny and tells him to snap out of it. (I should note that I’m a fourth Italian myself so I could definitely relate to some of this film. I’ve never liked opera, though.) Fortunately, the film’s cast is so perfectly chosen and John Patrick Shanley’s script so adroitly maintains the balance between the broad comedy and the small dramatic moments that it doesn’t matter that all of the characters are a bit stereotypical. The film comes to a wonderful life. It’s impossible not love these characters, flaws and all. Cher and Olympia Dukakis deserved the Oscars that they both won for this film. Vincent Gardenia deserved the nomination that he received. Nicolas Cage, Danny Aiello, and John Mahoney were not nominated but they should have been. In particular, John Mahoney is heart-breaking in his small role, playing the type of lecherous character that most films would have just portrayed as being a cardboard buffoon. As for Nicolas Cage, Moonstruck is a film that features both his trademark eccentricity and his ability to show the real and vulnerable human being underneath all of the bluster. Moonstruck is a film about the search for love and the glory of finding it. It’s a wonderfully romantic film, even if almost all of that love seems to involve infidelity. As directed by Norman Jewison, Moonstruck not only celebrates falling in love but also celebrates being lucky enough to do so in New York City. It’s a love letter not just to its characters but to the city as well.

Moonstruck was nominated for Best Picture but it lost to a far more epic production, The Last Emperor.

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The time is 1982. The place is Hell on Earth, also known as Philadelphia. Crime is out of control and the police are powerless to stop it. When deli owner John D’Angelo (Tom Skerritt) and his wife, Lisa (Patti LuPone), confront a pimp named Eldorado (Pete Richardson), he rams his car into the back of their car, causing the pregnant Lisa to lose her unborn child. At almost the exact same time, John’s mother (Gina DeAngles) is mugged by two thugs who chop off her ring finger.

In the grand tradition of Charles Bronson, John decides to fight back. But he doesn’t go it alone. With his best friend, a police officer named Vince (Michael Sarrazin), John starts the People’s Neighborhood Patrol. The PNP is going to clean up Philadelphia, one street at a time. The media (represented by David Rasche) make John into a celebrity. The black community (represented by Yaphet Kotto) suspect that John and the PNP are guilty of racial discrimination. The Mafia wants to bring John over to their side. John runs for city council but he still has time to drop a grenade in a pimp’s car.

Fighting Back was one of the many urban vigiliante films to come out after the success of Death Wish. Fighting Back‘s producer, Dino De Laurentiis, also produced Death Wish but made the mistake of later selling the rights to Cannon. Fighting Back was not the box office success that either Death Wish or its sequels were, even though Fighting Back is actually the better movie. That’s because Fighting Back was directed by the underrated Lewis Teague. Teague does a good job of making Philadelphia look like a war zone and the scenes of vigilante justice are enjoyable but, overall, Teague takes a far more ambiguous approach to vigilantism than Michael Winner did when he directed Death Wish. As vile as Philadelphia criminals may be, John D’Angelo isn’t always that likable himself. When Kotto accuses John and the all-white PNP of being racially prejudiced, Teague suggests that he has a point. Tom Skerritt gives a good performance, playing John as a proud, blue collar guy who wants to do the right thing but gets seduced by his newfound celebrity.

Better acted than Death Wish and smarter than The Exterminator, Fighting Back is an underrated vigilante gem.