Norman Jewison (1926–2024)

Norman Jewison created this warm and airy ode to love, giving it both the beauty and fragrance of a flower cart on the cobbled streets of Italy. The scenery will take your breath away and the story make you smile in this light romantic comedy.

The always sweet and engaging Marisa Tomei is Faith, on the verge of marriage when a phone call from her fiance's friend will stop her dead in her tracks, simply because his name is Damon Bradley. A game played when she was a child and a Gypsy fortune show more teller at a carnival in her teens told her the man she would love and marry would be named, Damon Bradley.

Bonnie Hunt shines as Faith's sister-in-law and best friend, who takes off to Venice with her in search of her destiny, written in the stars. When they discover Damon Bradley has left the hotel he called from, the search will go from Venice to Rome, and on to the lovely Italian coast, as Norman Jewison gives us a gorgeous view of romantic Italy.

Robert Downey Jr. is at his most charming as Damon Bradley, who Faith meets by chance, or perhaps fate, and falls in love with. Faith will discover, however, that destiny has a few twists and turns in store for her, in this truly delightful violin concerto to love.

This film will work its magic on you if you enjoy a light romantic comedy with a 1950's feel, and will surely become one of your favorites if you are seeing it for the first time. Those who enjoy films like “Roman Holiday” and “Three Coins in the Fountain” will welcome this romantic postcard from beautiful Italy with open arms and grateful hearts. It doesn’t live up to the aforementioned films, but there are echoes of them, and that’s enough.

While it certainly cannot stand beside those lovely romantic comedies from the bygone days of the 1930s and 1940s, Only You has a certain charm for our day, Marisa Tomei gives a performance both vibrant and full of magic. A refreshing and wonderful film for romantics, this is fluff, but it’s enjoyable fluff. show less

In his direction of The Hurricane, veteran filmmaker Norman Jewison understands that slavish loyalty to factual detail is no guarantee of compelling screen biography. In telling the story of boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter--who was wrongly convicted of murder in 1967 and spent nearly two decades in jail--Jewison and his screenwriters compress time, combine characters, and rearrange events with a nonchalance that would be galling if they didn't remain honest to the core truth of Carter's show more ordeal. Because of that emotional integrity--and because Denzel Washington brings total conviction to his title role--The Hurricane rises above the confines of biographical fidelity to embrace higher values of courage, compassion, and ultimate justice.

Jewison is woefully heavy-handed in his treatment of the fictionalized, absurdly villainous detective (Dan Hedaya) who zealously plots to keep Carter in jail, and anyone familiar with Carter's story may object to the film's simplified account. But what matters here is the shining star of hope that is Lesra (Vicellous Reon Shannon), the Brooklyn teenager who rejuvenates Carter's legal battle in the early 1980s. This surrogate father-son relationship is what revives Carter's hope for family and future, and makes The Hurricane so engrossing and emotionally effective. Lesra's real-life Canadian mentors are compressed from nine characters to three, but their efforts are superbly dramatized, and Jewison hits the small but important grace notes that make a good film even better. By its final scenes, The Hurricane conveys the rich, rewarding satisfaction of surviving a difficult but valuable journey of mind, body, and soul. --Jeff Shannon show less

EBERT The movie stars Cher, as an Italian-American widow in her late 30s, but she is not the only moonstruck one in the film. There is the moonlit night, for example, that her wise, cynical mother (Olympia Dukakis) goes out for dinner by herself, and meets a middle-age university professor (John Mahoney) who specializes in seducing his young students, but who finds in this mature woman a certain undeniable sexuality. There is the furtive and yet somehow sweet affair that Cher’s father show more (Vincent Gardenia) has been carrying on for years with the ripe, disillusioned Anita Gillette.

ADVERTISEMENT

And at the heart of the story, there is Cher’s astonishing discovery that she is still capable of love. As the movie opens, she becomes engaged to Mr. Johnny Cammareri (Danny Aiello), not so much out of love as out of weariness. But after he flies to Sicily to be at the bedside of his dying mother, she goes to talk to Mr. Johnny’s estranged younger brother (Nicolas Cage), and is thunderstruck when they are drawn almost instantly into a passionate embrace.

“Moonstruck” was directed by Norman Jewison and written by John Patrick Shanley, and one of their accomplishments is to allow the film to be about all of these people (and several more, besides). This is an ensemble comedy, and a lot of the laughs grow out of the sense of family that Jewison and Shanley create. There are small, hilarious moments involving the exasperation that Dukakis feels for her ancient father-in-law (Feodor Chaliapin), who lives upstairs with his dogs. (In the course of a family dinner, she volunteers, “Feed one more bite of my food to your dogs, old man, and I'll kick you to death!”) As Cher’s absent fiance lingers at his mother’s bedside, Cher and Cage grow even more desperately passionate, and Cher learns the secret of the hatred between the two brothers: One day Aiello made Cage look the wrong way at the wrong time, and he lost his hand in a bread-slicer. Now he wears an artificial hand and carries an implacable grudge in his heart show less

A long film, nearly three hours in all. The musical style seems old fashioned at times, yet the choreography is excellent, and the scenery gorgeous. The Russian army, eventually driving the Jews out, are shown in historical context, making this useful from a social history point of view, and overall there’s much to think about. At the end, which was almost too abrupt, I found myself wishing it could be longer.

Highly recommended.

Full review here: show more target="_top">https://suesdvdreviews.blogspot.com/2012/10/fiddler-on-roof-starring-topol.html show less