the groundhog day project

Roger Ebert’s (2003) review and summary. Rita Kempley’s (1988) review for the Washington Post . Louis Virtel’s (2013) 10 reasons why Moonstruck might be the best movie ever. pop u list ‘s paragraph-long bit about Moonstruck in a series on memorable movie breakfast scenes. William Day’s (2003) essay “ Moonstruck , or How to Ruin Everything.” Jean Paul Russo’s (1995) essay on “Italian American Filmmakers.” Thomas A. Shaffer’s (2005/2006) essay, “The Democratic Virtues, Our Common Life and the Common School: Trust in Democracy: Anabaptists, Italian Americans, and Solidarity.” Anthony Giardina’s (2009) essay “Wild Dreams and Italianness.” Richard Hornby’s (1994) essay “Albee and Pinter” (which connects to Moonstruck in some way or another I cannot remember even though I found it less than a week ago. These are pieces I found, printed and have in my 7th Groundhog Day Project binder. These are pieces I have neglected all this week when I should have read them days ago. These are piece...

Today, some complaints. Or nitpicks, I suppose. One is simply an issue with the time (in terms of setting) of the film, the other deals with character motivations. Both relate to time. The La Boheme performance is Monday, November 15. The poster we see being put up at the start of the film says as much. The problem is this: November 15 was not a Monday. Moonstruck was filmed in December 1986 and released in December 1987. November 15 in ‘86 was a Saturday, ‘87 was a Sunday. 1988 was a leap year, so November 15 was a Tuesday. Thing is, because of that leap year, the last time November 15 was a Monday was in 1982 and the next would be 1993. It’s a minor detail but you’d think someone in the prop department would check when the film was set. This only bugged me because I was thinking about the timing of the film. Johnny proposes to Loretta on Saturday night, then she drives him to the airport, stops at the store for champagne—where the husband and wife running the place seem about t...

I suppose my problem, having watched La Boheme and seeing which scene they feature in Moonstruck , is that the two don’t actually play well together. On the one hand, you can take the experience of the opera as the thing that turns the heart of Loretta—even though that turn is inevitable from the start because it’s a romantic comedy... (Come to think of it, the use of Casablanca in When Harry Met Sally —something I never mentioned last week—makes more sense if you consider the original ending in which Harry and Sally remain just friends.) The turn may be inevitable, but it still needs a catalyst. Ronny’s persistence isn’t enough. But, the romance of the opera works. It’s simplistic. We don’t know—generally—what’s going on in that scene from La Boheme , but maybe we’ve got a vague idea that La Boheme involves love and romance, or maybe we just assume that the opera includes those things. There’s actually some room for discussion of class in this film, though I’m not sure I part...

There’s commentary playing. Moonstruck ‘s commentary, unfortunately, is three people (Cher, writer John Patrick Shanley and director Norman Jewison) recorded separately. It’s not a nice back-and-forth, though already, just a minute or so in, it seems like Jewison at least is responding specifically to what’s said in Shanley’s track. The Grand Ticino, a real restaurant, didn’t want to stop serving customers for filming. So the interior was a construct. Cher was nervous about being Italian, holding the accent for the entire film. Jewison guesses that Shanley writes quickly and doesn’t like rewrites. I get that. I write quickly and I hate rewriting things. Rewriting feels dishonest to me... Early title: The Bride and the Wolf . Shanley points out the practical nature of Loretta’s decision to marry a man she doesn’t love—Johnny. But, he says, life isn’t practical. It’s “a project” in which you end up dead. So, there’s no reason to live by common sense but rather something more visc...

Ci lasceremo alla stagion de fior. (We'll part when it's the season of flowers again.) Vorrei che eterno durasse il verno! (I wish winter would be everlasting.) About a year ago, the real Cammareri Bakery, featured briefly in Moonstruck , filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This makes news . Back in January of this year, a tree "that made a star-making appearance" in the film [really, it's only briefly seen and never featured], was chopped down. And that made news . The smallest things can seem important if the timing is right. And, the little things in a story (or a movie) we like can feel important when lost. Like a connection to the story is gone. And, the feelings we may have felt watching (or reading) the story unfolding are not far behind in being lost. We see a romantic movie like Moonstruck -- (Though, I must say that the damn-the-future romanticism on display in Moonstruck is not really my idea of romance . Romance, to me, is not momentary passio...

The beginning of Moonstruck , during the opening credits that is, they cut between Loretta walking to work and steps in the setup of the production of La Boheme , the posters being put up outside, the truck full of set pieces driving through the streets and arriving at the Met. (This sequence was not , by the way, in the final draft of John Patrick Shanley’s script.) The story about to unfold is framed along with La Boheme , tying the two together. Szigeti (2013) explains: Moonstruck uses opera and La Bohème to illustrate a heartbreaking and even illicit passion between Nick Cage’s character Ronny to Cher’s Loretta. ... As Loretta watches Mimì’s heartbreak unfold, her own heart breaks as she realizes her connection to Johnny is a love she also must leave behind. I think it’s something a little different, actually. I don’t think Loretta really laments losing her connection to Johnny at all. She has spent seven years as a widow, propagating the idea that her life is full of bad lu...