“I love you. Not like they told you love is, and I didn’t know this either, but love don’t make things nice – it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. 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. The storybooks are bullshit. Now I want you to come upstairs with me and get in my bed! ”
I plan some of them in advance, doing the bulk of the research ahead of time, & I have a list of possible future posts... but mostly a settle down with a cup of tea & just wing it. I had made a personal challenge to do a post on the blog everyday & some days, as the Husband says- "you just pulled that one out of your ass, didn't you?". I usually start with the NY Times page- On This Day In History to discover any birthdays of famous gay people. This morning I wondered if they ever talked about it on the set while filming, because today- June 20th is the birthday of Danny Aiello, John Mahoney & Olympia Dukakis, three of the stars in one of my top 5 movies of all time- Moonstruck. None of this trio is gay, but Happy Birthday to three actors that I love & admire their work.
By crazy coincidence, on Monday of this week, T (the housemate) came home & announced that he wished to have all of us "get in our jammies & watch a movie". We all changed into our pajamas (I own some, although I sleep naked) & we looked through the listings from the evil Comcast, & when Moonstruck came up we all yelled- "yes!". T had only seen it when it first opened & I had not seen it in a decade. I loved this film so much on first viewing in 1987. I was actually overwhelmed by how good every aspect of the movie was: great screenplay (an Oscar for John Patrick Shanley), great acting in even the tiniest of roles, pitch perfect direction from Norman Jewison, on of my favorite movie scores ever by Dick Hymen, superior cinematography by David Watkin). I remember getting in the car after the movie & the Husband turning to me & saying- "Cher needs to win an Oscar for this film!". Seeing this marvelous film again was such a treat. I laughed till I hurt & I cried like the big sissy I can be. Moonstruck is a timeless treasure & a classic. It received 8 Oscar nominations. Cher did win for Best Actress & accepted in an all time crazy Bob Mackie gown & headdress. Olympia Dukakis won for Best Supporting Actress. Trivia: Cher & Aiello play younger characters; in real life, she was approximately Aiello's character's age (42), & Aiello was approximately twelve years older (54) than his character. 23-year-old Cage (born 1964) plays a character about fifteen years older than his real age. In real life, he is eighteen years younger than Cher (born 1946) & thirty-one years younger than his on-screen brother Aiello (born 1933). There is only a fifteen year age difference between Cher and Dukakis (born 1931).
Early in the film:
Rose: "Do you love him?"
Loretta: "No, Ma".
Rose: "Good. 'Cause when you love 'em, they drive you crazy, because they know they can. But you like him?"
Loretta: "Oh yeah. He's a sweet man, Ma."
Near the end:
Rose: "Do you love him, Loretta?"
Loretta: "Ma, I love him awful."
Rose: "Oh, God, that's too bad."
I love full moons, Brooklyn Heights, Manhattan, Vicki Carr singing It Must Be Him, Puccini, Cher, the Met & the Chagall tapastries & I believe in the power & pain of falling in love.
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