Moonstruck (1987)

moon-struck [moon-struhk]
adj.
1. mentally deranged, supposedly by the influence of the moon; crazed
2. dreamily romantic or bemused

So that’s the dictionary definition of Moonstruck, and certainly it is an affliction suffered by most of the characters in this movie. F’real. Everybody is fuckin’ everybody in this film. It’s like a big, happy, romantic adulterous orgy. Nicolas Cage is banging Cher who is engaged to Danny Aiello, Cher’s mom considers getting some from this weinery dude with a penchant for getting drinks dumped on him in restaurants who also happens to be Frasier's dad, and her dad, Mr. Mushnik, is slipping the pickle to some older babe who isn't Cher. I bet even the dude playing the grandpa was choking the chicken in the scenes between the scenes. Point is, there was a lot of sex in this movie. No nudity though. I thought we should’ve been treated to a crack shot or two from Cage. I mean, he wasn’t afraid to show butt in Rumble Fish, he certainly shouldn’t have been afraid to show it in this Academy Award winning movie.

That’s right. Moonstruck won several Academy Awards in the year it came out, and it’s pretty easy to see why. This shit was a good movie. It was funny with a tint of darkness and heartwarming without being cheap. Plus Cher is a good fuggin’ actress. I suppose people from my generation really consider Cher to be more of...I don’t know...an inspiration for gay dudes to prance around in assless chaps.

Fabulous!

But the homosexual community has got the right idea. This chick rocks. She’s a good actress and she was not bad looking and she deserves all the exposed butt-cheeked dance routines in the world as tribute for all that she has brought mankind. Man, if I was just a little bit gayer, I’d be rocking a pair of biker shorts and singing to some horny sailor boys right now.

Alas, though, this is Nicolas Uncaged, and we’re here to talk about the man himself, Nicolas Cage and not what I’d do as a female impersonator.

Here’s a tidbit that I pulled right off of IMDB’s trivia page: 

Nicolas Cage's screen test didn't impress the studio, and they wanted to get someone else to play Ronny. But Cher insisted that Cage was the one to play that role, and threatened to quit unless he was hired. After a few days, the studio relented.

So that's ANOTHER reason why Cher rules. She's a total Cage fan too! Hey Cher, if you're reading this right now and you want to do a guest post some time, I'd be totally cool with that.

Here’s a song that encapsulates what it’s like to be in love, Italian-style:

 

Skip to 1:45 for a bonus treat of Cage delivering a line in only the way Nicolas Cage can.

You gotta "hand" it to him, that was some fancy acting. 

So, here’s a question this film indirectly asks:

Can we really choose who we love?

In the film, Cher is a 37-year-old widow with a chip on her shoulder who believes in curses. She’s agrees to marry Danny Aiello because he’s a decent guy, has some cash, and he’s apparently into 37-year-old widows with chips on their shoulders. Circumstances send Aiello to Sicily to tend to his dying mother. In the intrim, he asks Cher to convince his estranged brother (Nic Cage) to attend the wedding. Cher tracks Cage down and they pretty much have sex immediately because of true love and all that shit.

So here's what I'm wondering: Should Cher feel bad about cheating on her hubs-to-be? I mean, arguably that’s some scum-bag maneuvering, sliding up on Cage’s pole like that, but it all worked out for the best in the end, right? The real question I suppose is what exactly is true love and is that what we should be looking for?

Here’s some more dictionary definitions for your face:

true-love [troo-luhv]
noun
a sweetheart; a truly loving or loved person

Uh....gee...that was helpful....

My point here is  that everyone always says you should follow your heart, but is following your heart an adequate reason to disregard someone else’s feelings? Think of Cher and Cage in this movie. Like, even if her fiancee wasn’t that into her, it’s still gotta feel shitty to get cheated on. And it is still ethically wrong. And a total dick thing to do. And if a major part of being intimate with someone is being physically intimate with that person how do you know it’s ‘true love’ pushing you there or just the fact you wanna get your parts wet with someone else who looks good? Because, Jeez, if that were the case, I experience true love, like, 15 times a day.

The fact that it doesn’t offer up a maudlin answer to this "true love" question is what made this movie so good. Maybe there really isn’t a differnece between true love and true sex. Maybe we’re all in some kind of flux, at the whims of our waxing and waning emotional states, trapped between our desire to love and be loved and our desire to fuck and get fucked alike. It'd almost be poetic, if it weren’t so damn sad.

Hmmm. I don’t know if there were enough jokes in this post. Goddamnit. I should’ve talked more about gay dudes and Cher’s butt.

4 Cageheads out of 5.