Moonstruck

Rating:
Summary: Note to Director:
Review: Note to Norman Jewison: Re-release this wonderful movie in letterbox format, as intended to be shown. TCM shows the widescreen, why can't the public own it?

Rating:
Summary: Disapointed
Review: I can't believe this Great Film Has not been given
the widescreen treatment it ,and we, deserve.Some extras
would be nice too.

Rating:
Summary: Why not a widescreen format?
Review: I absolutely agree with all previous reviews: great movie, but it should be in widescreen version on DVD. Otherwise I can watch it on tv. I hope that someday I'll be able to buy the widescreen version.

Rating:
Summary: Where's the widescreen format?
Review: The movie is superb. Putting it on DVD in full format is not. What a waste of $$$! If I pay for a DVD, I expect the letterbox format.

Rating:
Summary: letterbox on TCM
Review: wonderful movie. if you can stand the chopped format, get it. If you want letterbox, tape it (December 2003) from TCM. Or look for the rumored widescreen DVD version. (Why they ever made a chopped version for DVD, I'll never understand...)

Rating:
Summary: You'll be moonstruck
Review: A nice film. Cher as an older woman re-discovering her passion and vitality works. Nic Cage does a good turn as the odd would-be suitor. Still works after all this time.

Rating:
Summary: Viewer from NY
Review: I am in complete agreement with the viewer from MN as to the unfortunate full screen format this DVD version was produced in. What a blunder! What a loss of visual information so important to the script! I have had to make a VHS recording off of TCM when THEY presented the movie in its' Letterbox format. I hope someone smartens-up and rereleases Moonstruck on DVD that delivers all the great cinematography.

Rating:
Summary: Cher has as many sides as a prism
Review: Moonstruck has such a wonderful cast: Cher, of course, the inimitable Olympia Dukakis, Nicholas Cage, Vincent Gardenia, Danny Aiello... This film about an Italian-American family pushed up against their own cultural expectations, is touching, satirical, funny, a little sad - and ultimately redemptive.
Cher, a widow, feels compelled to do the right thing and marry an older, stable guy, but the one who really rings her bell is the old guy's ne'er-do-well brother. Her parents, of course, have strong feelings on the subject.
Not to be missed.

Rating:
Summary: Where's the letterbox?
Review: Like other reviewers, I'm baffled as to why this is not in letterbox. I can live without super-duper extras, but I have no reason to upgrade from my VHS until a widescreen version is published. The rating is reflective of my dislike of the fullscreen formatting. The movie itself is one of the great romantic comedies-a love letter to love itself, and NYC.

Rating:
Summary: The most magical of all romantic comedies
Review: There are a very few films that create their own special, magical world--creating a heightened, poetic sense of whimsical reality--and sustain belief in that world from beginnng to end. Norman Jewison's Moonstruck, based on the superb screenplay of John Patrick Shanley, is one of those films. Everything about this movie--from the casting to the dialogue to the mesmerizing imagery of La Bella Luna--is exactly, perfectly right, and persuades you that to be an Italian in New York is the most wonderful thing in the world. It's heartbreaking to see Cher in her current incarnation as a worldwide freak show, after her great (and deservedly Oscar-winning) performance in this film. But she also deserves credit for insisting on Nicolas Cage as her leading man in Moonstruck, at a time when Cage seemed like something of a freak show himself. Cher deserves our thanks, for Cage and Ronny Cammareri were a perfect marriage of actor and role. He and Cher have chemistry by the truckload, and it is impossible to imagine any other actors in the roles of Loretta and Ronny. There is also the perfect casting of Olympia Dukakis, who looks absolutely like Cher's mom and has what may be the best comic entrance line in the history of the movies ("Who's dead?"). Vincent Gardenia, John Mahoney, Danny Aiello, Feodor Chaliapin, Louis Guss, Julie Bovasso, Anita Gillette--the litany of exquisite comic performances in "Moonstruck" goes on and on. Seeing this movie again after a long time, it's a bit of a shock to see how death-obsessed the film is--from the answer to Dukakis' question about why men chase women ("I think it's because they fear death") to the incidental but deliberately placed appearance of a bus (Loretta's first husband was killed by one). Yet the death imagery mixes well with the movie's themes of passionate romantic love and family loyalty, reminding us to gather our rosebuds while we may. Moonstruck is one of those movies you can see again and again without ever getting tired of it. Just seeing it makes the whole world seem--to borrow a line from John Mahoney's character--"as bright and full of promise as moonlight in a martini."