Granted, Paulina had the advantage of being familiar with the film; and on top of it
she also likes it a lot.
Nevertheless, the quality of her polemic (ouch! poor me) is remarkably on point; and
her analysis of the psychological depth of Rose is simply spectacular.
The other aspect that is unique in her essay is the reference to the nature-magic element in this fairy tale.
(Don't we live in a strange world, where we trust algorithms to find us love, but we no longer seem to have any use for believing in magic?)
COMMENT as you wish (I am not going to dictate, at least this time.)
1. As a woman with full knowledge that the lead
actress Cher isn't of Italian heritage unlike me... I don't find
Moonstruck to be all that annoying at all, I in fact loved the theme
of being true to one's self as we go through internal and external
phases... just like the moon. What I got out of this movie is as we are
ever changing, we subsequently disrupt the flow of other people's lives,
just like The Moon does to the tide. I was more
so annoyed that I was asked to be annoyed by this movie and pick it
apart because it somewhat relies on the nationality to string together a
narrative. I'm annoyed by the wording of these questions, as if I'm
being dictated blindly.
2. I may seem biased, but I cannot think of one thing in this film that irritated me that can't be rationally justified. If I did, my answer would be much more suited for a film class and not English. Although what correlates those two subjects together is storytelling and I think Moonstruck does that beautifully in a plethora of ways.
3. I thoroughly loved every emotion displayed in Moonstruck and all the ideology it tackled throughout the film. I love the story of two different family members committing adultery from two different sides of the spectrum and in the middle is the mother who goes out on a whim, and for one night abandons the responsibility of taking care of both these individuals as a mother and a wife .. a submissive role she filled for years, and in one night she finds that she too could commit adultery and entertains the idea only because she can, but she doesn't because she has a complete understanding of self as a whole and with that maturity forgives her husband and daughter. Contrary to that self-awareness is Loretta kicking the can in the middle of the street, in the middle of her life altering around her for good and bad, she is throwing caution to the wind but forgets about the "passion" to enjoy such a carefree moment ... easily one of the most beautiful scenes in a movie. It's not necessarily okay what these Italian characters do, but my takeaway was that life isn't always black and white, intact you are "whole" with a little ying in the yang and vice versa.
4. Italian Americans are portrayed beautifully in Moonstruck, because life as complicated, messy, betraying, dramatic, corny, as it is. is beautiful. la vita ha molte fasi proprio come la Luna. A stereotypical portrayal is just a perception. My perception is Moonlight was an awesome movie.
2. I may seem biased, but I cannot think of one thing in this film that irritated me that can't be rationally justified. If I did, my answer would be much more suited for a film class and not English. Although what correlates those two subjects together is storytelling and I think Moonstruck does that beautifully in a plethora of ways.
3. I thoroughly loved every emotion displayed in Moonstruck and all the ideology it tackled throughout the film. I love the story of two different family members committing adultery from two different sides of the spectrum and in the middle is the mother who goes out on a whim, and for one night abandons the responsibility of taking care of both these individuals as a mother and a wife .. a submissive role she filled for years, and in one night she finds that she too could commit adultery and entertains the idea only because she can, but she doesn't because she has a complete understanding of self as a whole and with that maturity forgives her husband and daughter. Contrary to that self-awareness is Loretta kicking the can in the middle of the street, in the middle of her life altering around her for good and bad, she is throwing caution to the wind but forgets about the "passion" to enjoy such a carefree moment ... easily one of the most beautiful scenes in a movie. It's not necessarily okay what these Italian characters do, but my takeaway was that life isn't always black and white, intact you are "whole" with a little ying in the yang and vice versa.
4. Italian Americans are portrayed beautifully in Moonstruck, because life as complicated, messy, betraying, dramatic, corny, as it is. is beautiful. la vita ha molte fasi proprio come la Luna. A stereotypical portrayal is just a perception. My perception is Moonlight was an awesome movie.
I suppose it was my biases about romantic comedies that blinded me from what the inner-workings of what the movie was truly about. I don't normally enjoy films like this because it puts this all-encompassing type of love on a pedestal and that kind of love (arguably) doesn't really exist. The whole idea of finding your soulmate as well as the trials and tribulations that come along with that journey to find that special someone is something i've seen so many times that it's become uninteresting to me. Paulina's analysis of the movie definitely enlightened me to my own ill-judgement of the film.
ReplyDeleteThere is a book/film that happens to take place in 1980's Italy called "Call Me By Your Name". I guess "Moonstruck" sort of reminded me of this story given the Italian influence it has as well as the love story aspect. "Call Me By Your Name" too is a love story and I know I ripped the "love story" trope to shreds, but this film in particular truly touched my heart. It's intriguing to me the way language can influence how we as readers feel. The language, jargon, and the stringing together of words in such a beautiful and poetic way is what made me truly appreciate "Call Me By Your Name". It's a beautiful story and I highly recommend both the film and the book.
This is John Giannusa. I also thought of "Call Me By Your Name" when watching "Moonstruck". The Italian culture is very strong in both films, with CMBYN being a more positive view of Italians. Also, the relationship in CMBYN between Ellio and Oliver seems more genuine than the romantic relationship in "Moonstruck".
DeleteAs I explained in the assignment, I don't enjoy watching romantic comedies because I find them uninteresting. Going with what Nicholas said, just shows us the journey that couples go through to find true love. Most films in this category basically consists of the idea of finding the right person that you struggle with and shows you then journey along the way.But, reading Paulina's work made me rethink the main idea of the film. She stated "It's not necessarily okay what these Italian characters do, but my takeaway was that life isn't always in black and white, intact you are "whole" with a little ying in the yang and vice versa". I didn't think of it in this perspective but looking back at some scenes, I have to agree. She also stated that Italians are actually portrayed "beautifully" in the film. Some examples were that they show how life can be complicated and their love life can get messy which does make sense considering there's cheating in the film.
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ReplyDeletePaulina’s impressive maniest in defense of the movie ”Moonstruck” led me to thinking that depending on our life experience or different temperament we tend to see the same movie from different perspectives, like a famous Persian poet said “One window watched the two. One saw the rain and mud, other-green foliage ligature,spring and the sky is blue”. And I think that there’s nothing wrong with that because seeing the world in single color omits the idea that each of us is different. This world has many hidden magic within it, which would go undiscovered if we watch it through the one color prism. I also like “Moonstruck” because it is full of emotional experiences and highlights the family values of Italians. From the movie I found out an interesting aspect about Italians that they put a sugar cube in the champagne because of the old Italian wives tale that the devil never wants to see you happy, and since champagne "makes you happy," dropping a sugar cube keeps the devil away.
I think some aspects of the film are so unrealistic sometimes, similar to a lot of other romantic comedies. That is one of the reasons why I usually don't gravitate towards these kinds of films because it's this unrealistic expectation of people and how things work out in the universe.
ReplyDeleteBut some aspects such as the characters being flawed and things not always working out as planned is something that is real, and relatable. And Paulina's notion of black and white holds true in real life and in the film, life is complicated and things don't always work out like a fairy tale, arguably most of the time.
Yes lucas i agree with you about the realistic part, not everything always works out the way we want and thats one thing this film showed.
DeletePaulina accurately portrayed her thoughts. Although my opinion was different than hers I can agree with her on some points and acknowledge her perspectives. I agree with her on the point with the two families committing adultery. In my opinion, it represented a double standard. The movie implied a negative connotation when the father cheated, however, when Loretta cheated it was presented to the audience in a different way. I thought that Italian-Americans were stereotypically portrayed. For example, Ronny is the typical Italian stereotype. He is aggressive and works at a bakery. On the contrary, Perry who is not Italian is portrayed as a sophisticated professor looking for love even though he is not the main character. I could be wrong in my opinion. I am not Italian like Paulina is so maybe she has more insight than me.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading Paulina’s assignment, I felt a sense of enlightenment. I honestly felt the movie was a bit irritating because I didn’t agree with the narrative and overall theme (or what I assumed it was). I will admit, that my personal experiences played a large role in my immediate reaction to the movie. I just couldn’t wrap my head around all the adultery, and deception. However, after understanding Paulina’s perspective, I felt like I missed the message all together. I felt Paulina brought up a great point, that the movies theme was more about self-awareness and internal/external phases of self, that truly interrupts the course of our lives. A theme I chose to ignore throughout this movie, because I focused on the reality of the situation. Like Paulina mentioned, life is not always black and white, so why should we define it like it is? Overall, it’s interesting to see how our levels of perception differ, yet were able to share a mutual understanding. I felt Paulina’s responses were honest, very well written and overall enlightening. Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI agree, I really think Paulina's perspective and opinions on the film help me better understand the narrative better. Hearing someone else's thoughts are always interesting and you can always learn more from it.
DeleteI personally dont mind watching any genre of movies as long as it catches my attention. Even though Moon struck wasnt relatively realistic like many movies we watch. It all depends on how you look at it. As paulina said we are all changing like the phases of moon which is something the film portrayed. one thing i didnt like what the idea of adultery maybe thats just my way of thinking. Even though many of these love stories are unrealistic there are sides of it that are real.
ReplyDeleteThank you !!
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ReplyDeleteI found with Paulina's comment to find thing to nitpick about the movie to be very relatable to an extent. I found myself not liking the movie though unlike Paulina. Paulina preferred to like the ideas and themes of the movie, but I mainly focused on the characters when watching a movie and found characters to be nitpicked and disliked than anything. The characters and their actions develop what happens in a movie and although the development was there for Loretta and her development to like someone else other than the one she is to marry, I found the way she behaved to be very childish and unlikable from my point of view. I found it very unrealistic with the exaggeration of the ideals that the characters had and at some point found it more satirical than anything else.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed Paulina's comment, I found it creative and I completely can view the movie from her point of view. The movie was creative and poetic and Paulina's interpretation of the theme to the title was clever. To me I still was annoyed by the movie because of the way it portrays Italian American men, not all men are like Johnny so why keep portraying them in this light. The movie was not bad so to speak but, it came of cliché to me and it just would not be my suggestion.
ReplyDeleteThank you Joseph :)
DeleteI love Pualina's response I too was disappointed that i had to choose a part that I didn't like about the film and that didn't sit well with me. I actually originally wasn't going to answer the question but I knew that wasn't a good idea because I did want to receive credit. I doubt I was the only one who felt this way. So I did the opposite of paulina and I wrote just about anything that I could come up with even though I didn't agree with it entirely. Paulina definitely inspired me for the next writing assignment to answer more truthfully and stay true to oneself and answer how I please.
ReplyDeleteThank you Vivica :)
DeleteWhen I watched this film I really disliked it for a number of reasons. Maybe it was just because I personally am not a fan of romantic movies or maybe it was because I was annoyed by how messy and selfish all the characters in the film were. I enjoyed reading Paulina's response because while I was annoyed by the messiness, she saw the beauty in it. Reading her comments made me reanalyze the movie and rewatch parts of it on youtube. Although I enjoyed the end of the movie when the mess works its self out and everyone is able to come together as a family, it is so unrealistic that I almost had to force myself to enjoy it, thats how romance movies are through.
ReplyDeleteThank you Emily :)
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