I’m @rachel_handler, and welcome to #vulturemovieclub, Moonstruck Edition — the funniest film ever made about astrologically induced horniness. I hope everyone has a glass of red wine, a big bowl of ravioli, bread bread bread, & no oily fish, because your hands will get sweaty.
Moonstruck is about love & death: the fear of it, the inexplicable drive towards it, how it makes life poignant. It’s about fear: of dying, of aging, of living, & the catharsis of pushing past that fear. It’s about eggs, opera, passionately boning under a full moon.
I love the economy of these first scenes. You know everything about Loretta in a matter of seconds. She’s no-bullshit & a little bit sad but she’s secretly a romantic; she takes care of her people and she’s She’s All That (glasses and overalls) hot. #vulturemovieclub 
RT if you’ve eaten oily fish before a plane ride, like if you’ve forgone the oily fish for the manicotti, RT and like if you’ve eaten the oily fish and halfway to Sicily you got green.
Marry, fuck, kill: Bobo, Johnny Cammareri, Perry the professor #vulturemovieclub
Part of what makes Moonstruck so enchanting: the threads about curses & magic & fate & luck. You sense you’re being swept up in a world that’s a lot like ours, but isn’t exactly the same — it’s more operatic, more absurd, with more wooden hands. #vulturemovieclub
Anyway this queen is billed as “old crone.”
Roger Ebert, who loved Moonstruck but clearly never got really drunk in Brooklyn, said the movie “exists in a Brooklyn that has never existed, a Brooklyn where the full moon makes the night like day and drives people crazy with amore.”
John Patrick Shanley (@JohnJPSHanley) is so generous with each character in Moonstruck, giving them all so much depth and richness and weirdness — nobody gets the short shrift, not even this liquor store couple. Everyone feels heightened-real and slightly insane.
Cher, who won an Oscar for Moonstruck, was at first wary of doing it — and didn’t think it would do well critically. She also said she preferred the “Before” Loretta than the made-over version: “The freedom is not interesting to me because that’s something I know, usually."
vibes #vulturemovieclub
me when somebody doesn’t answer my text within 5 minutes
Olympia Dukakis is god-level in this movie. I saw her walking down Broadway last year and we did not speak but it was the most religious experience of my life. #vulturemovieclub
Director Norman Jewison once said of Moonstruck’s central premise — that the moon makes people forget how to act — “I’m a farmer, so I know the moon affects animals. And I think the moon affects humans to a greater extent than most of us recognize.” @chaninicholas pls weigh in.
sry but this is the most erotic shot in Moonstruck #vulturemovieclub
old but childlike Italian men vampires
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not standing directly under the sun
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not standing directly under the sun
iconique levels of petty #vulturemovieclub
This introduction of Nicolas Cage is incredible and hilarious and, like Cher’s intro, tells you everything you need to know about Ronny. Even from behind you can tell he’s this wild, animalistic drama king. #vulturemovieclub
Cage initially didn’t want to do Moonstruck — "I was angry and rebellious...I read the screenplay and thought, 'I would never pay money to see this film!' — even though Cher said she’d only do it if he played Ronny: “He was kind of crazy, but he was great.”
tfw your brother johnny took ur life
It’s impossible to pick the best part of this scene, possibly the best in all of cinemá. The demented, gonzo performance? The incredible comedic writing? Chrissy’s subtle, unrequited lust? Everyone’s eyebrows?
@ chrissy pls bring me the big knife
RT if you have your hand, like if you have your bride, like if you have neither a hand nor a bride
me typing and deleting tweets that proudly objectify young Nicolas Cage #vulturemovieclub
“It costs money. It costs money because it saves money.” — how i convinced my parents to buy me a Tamagotchi in 7th grade
Any doctors or witches out there want to speak on the concept of eating things “bloody” to “feed blood” please get @ me
an earlier draft of Shanley’s script was called The Bride and the Wolf, but Jewison didn’t like it, saying it sounded too much like a horror film. He convinced Shanley to call it Moonstruck — and also had to convince Cage to stop speaking like a wolf on camera. 😅
Nicolas Cage invented flipping tables
The B-plots in Moonstruck are so lovely. They both elevate and ground the whole thing. Each is fleshed out and totally believable. We all know Roses and Cosmos and Ritas and Raymonds, but they still feel surprising and amplified.
the next Cosmo's Moon will appear in 214 years according to science
when you should have taken a rock and killed yourself years ago
many people don’t realize this, but this legally counted as therapy in 1987
half-time: gigantic glass of red wine check. everybody grab a post-makeover-montage refill. #vulturemovieclub
Cinderella Beauty Shop, ruby-red slippers, an expiration date at midnight, an opera-within-an-opera, two unexpected dramatic run-ins on the way, and on top of everything else, a reminder that Moonstruck is a low-key Christmas movie.
tbh the "sad professor dating his students" plotline is my least favorite; it feels the most derivative and least surprising. But maybe that’s because the rest of Moonstruck is so thrillingly original. Anyway if you’re keeping track this is the 2nd minestrone so far.
why do men chase women?
feel like watching Cher and Nic Cage watch the opera is why movies were invented
"you're a little boy and you like to be bad" Olympia!!!!
Norman Jewison called this scene one of many “arias” in Shanley’s operatic script; he once referred to Shanley as “the Bard of the Bronx.” hard to say whether Moonstruck or Shakespeare is hornier tho
quarantine vibes
“We aren’t here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us, not us. We are here to ruin ourselves, and to break our hearts, and love the wrong people, and die!!" 🌕
johnny's inability to hold onto his suitcases is a metaphor for men's inability to hold onto suitcases
why do men chase women?
If you or your family members have literally kicked a can down a road, I want to hear from you. also everyone should read @alisonwillmore's wonderful piece on this phenomenon: vulture.com/2020/04/cher-k…
RT if you want Olympia Dukakis to look directly in your face and tell you you aren't shit
I too am waiting for Johnny Cammareri
when u don’t understand why moonstruck has to end
Moonstruck is so perfect that you’re like, “No way they stick the ending.” But it’s such a madcap-farcical, flawless, moving final scene — a delightfully deranged chorus. Everybody gets what they want, and conflicts are easily resolved, but none of it rings false. we stan!
Thanks for joining me (@rachel_handler, who will be giving the keys back shortly and never getting them again) in rewatching Moonstruck, the most gorgeously morbid spaghetti rom-com. Beware: The next full moon is on April 7. Behave yourselves!! vulture.com/2020/04/moonst…
