Moonstruck

While new films seem to be what most of the Blu-ray buying public is looking for, I also really enjoy the back catalogs, even the deep back catalogs. It gives me a chance to get a fresh look at films I never had the opportunity to see, didn’t know about or haven’t seen in a long time. One such film is the subject of this review, Moonstruck which I hadn’t seen since its original theatrical run in 1987. I really loved it then. Would I love it just as much now all these years later? The answer is an unqualified yes.

Film  

Moonstruck is just as wonderful a film as I recalled it to be. Warm, charming, engaging and very, very funny. The film features Cher is her Oscar winning role as Loretta, a 38 year old widow from Little Italy in New York City, who does not believe in love or good luck. She agrees to marry Johnny (Danny Aiello), a man she does not love, a fact that meets the approval of her mother, played by Olympia Dukakis. The marriage proposal is rather rushed with a temporary engagement ring that is Johnny’s pinky ring as Johnny is on his way back to Sicily to be at the bed of his dying mother. He will not formally marry Loretta until his mother dies. Johnny asks that Loretta call his brother Ronnie (Nicholas Cage) with whom he is estranged. When she does so, Ronnie hangs up on her and Loretta goes over to his bakery where they fall madly in love, or is it lust?

Loretta thinks she must break Johnny’s heart by disclosing that she is in love with his estranged brother. Along the way we are offered a look at Little Italy, the Metropolitan Opera and are introduced to the rest of Loretta’s extended family, including her father, Cosmo (Vincent Gardenia), a plumber who knows his way around a woman’s plumbing if you get my drift and who is having a clandestine affair himself. Moonstruck is a charming film that is wonderfully written and directed and features some fine performances and an Oscar winning one for Cher, who looks marvelous before all that plastic surgery and botox (what was she thinking?). Moonstruck is very highly recommended for film fans of all ages and nationalities.

Video  

The video quality here is really a hit or miss affair. There are some really great looking scenes with well saturated and natural looking colors, excellent levels of fine detail and nice blacks. There are other sequences, often times right after a very good looking scene, that have slightly de-saturated colors and are very soft, almost murky looking with mediocre blacks. It doesn’t seem to matter whether it is a night time or daytime scene, interior or exterior shots, the quality is all over the place.

The only things uniform across the entire film is the presence of fine film grain and black crush, both of which are rather prevalent. The most obvious example of crushed blacks involves the scene at the opera where you are unable to delineated Cher’s deep black hair from the shadows in their booth. The same can be said for Nicholas Cage’s black suit.. Moonstruck is also not exactly a bright and bold looking film and looks more like an old photograph from the old country. As best I can recall, that is how the film looked in the theater and not the result of a poor encode or deteriorating film stock. Perhaps Moonstruck is in need of a complete restoration. I just wished that it looked better and more consistent.

Audio  

While I was far from impressed with the video presentation of Moonstrick on Blu-ray, the audio was a real surprise and a good bit better than I had anticipated. The real star for me here is the music which sounds sensational. The music has a light and airy feel with an excellent sense of depth. The instruments sound as though they are hanging in the air in front of you, with excellent transparency and imaging. Bass is deep and solid.

The sound effects sound great as well and actively engaged the surrounds where appropriate, such as the scene where Johnny’s jet returns from Italy and flies right over your head. For the most part, other than the music and the sound effects, the surrounds are used subtly for room and street ambiance. The dialogue track is fairly well recorded and just a tiny bit on the thin side. It is well placed in the mix and always intelligible. All in all, Moonstruck features a very solid audio presentation.

Special Features  

The extras all in all are rather standard fair, but are presented in HD. The extras include an audio commentary by Cher, diretor Norman Jewison and screenplay author John Patrick Shaney. Also included are three featurettes, a behind the scenes look at the making of the film, an interview with Dick Hyman who discusses the film’s score and a look at the fine Italian food available in Little Italy in New York City and Mulberry Street in particular, from a restaurant, food store, pasty shop, pasta store and a gelato stand. Also included is the theatrical trailer for the film. All of the featurettes are of an appropriate length and worth a look.

Final Thoughts  

Moonstruck is a wonderful charming film that is highly recommended, despite its less than stellar video presentation. if you are unfamiliar with the film, give it a look, you will be glad you did.