Moonstruck (1987)

Director: Norman Jewison

Cast: Cher, Nicolas Cage, Vincent Gardenia, Olympia Dukakis

Have I Seen It Before: Never! In one of those weird twists of fate for that particular evening, had I seen it before I might not have even seen it then. (This will mean nothing to you.)

Did I Like It: Is it weird to marvel that a film written by an Irish-American and directed by a English Canadian can make a film that feels so authentically Italian*? Brooklyn Heights feels so believably lived in as a neighborhood in this film, I’m more than a little surprised that Cage is the only Coppola involved in the proceedings.

Feeling as if one is spending time in Brooklyn Heights alone would probably be enough to recommend the film, but there is thankfully quite a lot else going on here, and it is all deceptively simple. The film would have been forgiven for giving into the impulse to make the third act nothing more than a farce. I might have even enjoyed it if it had, but to what some might seem an anti-climax instead becomes a symphony of believable and earned character work. The plot is moved along by facial expressions, not ornate turns of fate.

The performances are key here. The vagaries of the ensuing decades might make one (read: me) giggle a little inappropriately the moment Nicolas Cage shows up on screen, but for his presence and the ultimate truth that this is an ensemble piece, it can’t help but be Cher’s movie throughout. Is there another pop diva who has had a more consistently successful career as a film actress? You might be tempted to throw Barbara Streisand in my face, but Streisand has always played herself. I’d challenge you to find too much similarity between Cher’s character here and her work in either The Witches of Eastwick (1987), or Mermaids (1990). Hell, she doesn’t even have to sing at any point in the movie—or the end credits—to justify her presence here.

*Fair question: What the hell do I know about anything being authentically Italian?

Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)

Director: Robert Zemeckis

Cast: Bob Hoskins, Christopher Lloyd, Charles Fleischer, Stubby Kaye

Have I Seen it Before: I’m a child of the 1990s and I had a VCR. What do you think?

Did I Like It: One would naturally want to dwell in this review on the technology on display here. Animated characters had interacted with live action performances before, in films like Song of the South (1946) and Mary Poppins (1964) (both from Disney, incidentally). However, they never interacted quite so believably before or since. Animated characters rustle through their environment. Water splashes, blinds rustle, and chairs rotate when they come in contact with Roger and company. It’s a subtle, relatively low-tech addition to the process, but adds so much.

This is also a baffling cross-corporation crossover. When would you ever see Donald and Daffy Duck play a duet on the piano? Or Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny engage in conversation? Or any character owned by Warner Bros. appearing within 100 miles of a Disney production? It’s a testament to the baffling things Steven Spielberg could get done with just the weight of his mere involvement in a movie. I can’t imagine that such a convergence could ever happen again. It’s probably for the best that any sequel—variously rumored to be a war movie, or a domestic drama with Roger (Fleischer) and Jessica (various performers depending on the context, but primarily Kathleen Turner) in the 1950s—never came together.

Other movies attempted to fit a similar mold in the ensuing years. Cool World (1992), Space Jam (1996), and Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003) all tried to merge real people and cartoon characters to varying degrees of commercial and critical success. Why do those films disappear into ambivalence and this film stands the test of time? Honestly, the story that underlines the whole thing (a tale about a private eye uncovering a plot to eradicate LA’s public transit system in favor of the freeway that will inevitably take it over) actually works under its own merits. The character work is solid. It may all be in the mold of Chinatown (1974), but it doesn’t skimp in the craft department simply because it is an homage.