Bella Amore!

The Movie: Moonstruck, directed by Norman Jewison
Recommendation: Dee
Reason: "Cher won an Oscar for this!"

Moonstruck is predictable. That's the biggest problem it has. The story's spelled out from beginning to end, the characters aren't unexpected. But there's a level of genuine...something that really elevates the film above its merely blah trappings. Cher really did earn her award-her character is quite unlike the mega-diva-from-beyond-time that everyone's so familiar with. She has a rhythm, a patter about her speech and her movement that's very fresh.

The rest of the cast has a similar sort of power. They're charming without being saccharine, and there's that same very real quality about them. It's hard to believe they aren't really a big, loving, brawling, shouting family. They were a perfect setting for a decent romantic comedy. Seriously, Nia Vardalos has nothing on these guys. They were legitimately funny. I laughed more often during Moonstruck than I did during My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

My Italian sucks, as you can see above. I'm primarily from the Isles of the United Kingdom, and then filtered through a few generations in Canada. But I can really appreciate the family unit that was created in this film, as foreign as the root of it may be. Pretty good work here.

-73/365 down, 292/365 to go