Moonstruck (Norman Jewison, 1987)

The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films presents Moonstruck.

In this award-winning, romantic comedy, Cher stars as Loretta, a widowed bookkeeper in Brooklyn who agrees to marry a mild-mannered man (Danny Aiello) even though she does not love him. Unlucky in love, she promptly falls for his estranged brother (Nicolas Cage), sparking a torrid affair with the moody, young man while her fiancé is absent at his mother’s deathbed. With wonderfully stylized dialogue by playwright John Patrick Shanley and a brilliant ensemble of supporting performances from Olympia Dukakis, Vincent Gardenia, John Mahoney, Julie Bovasso, Louis Guss, and Feodor Chaliapin Jr., Norman Jewison’s Moonstruck is a modern screwball classic and an operatic fable full of moonlit enchantment and the sweet charm of sugar cubes dissolved in champagne.

Disc Features:

• New 4K digital restoration, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New interviews with director Norman Jewison, writer John Patrick Shanley, and actors Cher, Nicolas Cage, Olympia Dukakis, and Danny Aiello
• Audio Commentary featuring Cher, Norman Jewison, and writer John Patrick Shanley
• A Night at the Opera, musicologist Marcia Citron on opera, La bohème, and Moonstruck
• Remarriage Italian Style, scholar William Day on Moonstruck and the comedy of remarriage
• Moonstruck: At the Heart of an Italian Family, a featurette on the making of the film
• Music of Moonstruck, a featurette on the film’s score
• Trailer and TV spots
• PLUS: An essay by scholar Mary Ann McDonald Carolan

Advertisements

How to Lose Weight in 4 Easy Steps (Ben Berman, 2016)

Happy 2019, kids! It’s less than a week after New Year’s and that means it’s primetime at gyms everywhere, so it’s the perfect opportunity to spend time with Ben Berman’s hilarious, moving, and all too true short film, How To Lose Weight in 4 Easy Steps (2016). The film is based on Aaron Bleyaert’s essay of the same title, discovered by Berman when it was forwarded to him by a friend after joining a gym. The short was shot in two halves with SNL‘s Beck Bennett (in a wonderful starring performance as a heartbroken mattress salesman) losing 30 pounds in the three months in between. Funny and disarmingly inspirational, How to Lose Weight in 4 Easy Steps is actually perfect anytime of the year.

This post is naturally dedicated to work-out loving wife and her friend who loves anything with “humping” in it.  LOL.

Trailer Tuesday

It’s another splendid month of announcements from the Criterion Collection. Without any doubt, I’m most interested in the release of Frank Borzage’s Moonrise (1948). This is mainly due to my fascination with MoMA’s recent program, Republic Rediscovered. Presented in two halves, with the first having wrapped up earlier this month and the latter half arriving in August, the series is presented by Martin Scorsese and the Film Foundation and offers 30 new restorations (compliments of Paramount Pictures) from the acclaimed poverty row studio, Republic Pictures. Moonrise will join the Criterion Collection in May and screen as part of the program’s second half in August.  Until then, enjoy Gina Telaroli’s wonderful trailer.

Trailer Tuesday

Official and unofficial Criterion announcements having been rolling in since our last “Trailer Tuesday” and fans of the Collection are naturally excited for Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927), Nicholas Ray’s They Live by Night (1948), and Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker (1979). They’re certainly great movies by celebrated directors, but MMC! will take a moment to praise the teased addition of Albert Brooks’ Lost in America (1985), a film that I saw for the first time a few years ago, introduced by Kid in the Hall Kevin McDonald, and that has been fixture on my own proposal list for some time. There are plenty of other great films by Brooks that could bear a wacky “C” and so hopefully we’ll find an opportunity to stump for one of those other titles soon.

Every Day (Gabe Spitzer, 2015)

Anyone who’s seen my Letterboxd account knows I’m a big fan of ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentaries. I’ve also alluded here at MMC! to my wife’s love of running. With that in mind, I thought I’d get 2017 off on the right foot with Gabe Spitzer’s Every Day (2015), a portrait of elderly runner Joy Johnson that I saw for the first time this week and left both me and my wife teary-eyed by its end. Johnson didn’t begin running until age 59 but became an accomplished distance runner nonetheless, completing numerous races at various distances, running the New York City Marathon 25 consecutive times, posting a best time at NYC in 1999 at 3:55:30 while age 73, and even running the Twin Cities Marathon and New York City Marathon just 4 weeks apart at the age of 81. Watching Joy should offer some ambition in facing 2017.

A Thought on Red Desert

Red Desert is about industrialization and a lady’s hair.

— my wonderful wife after watching Criterion’s “3 Reasons” video.
(If you think about it, she’s actually dead-on correct.)