Mermaids

Moonstruck (Deluxe Edition) Remember the outfit Cher wore to the Oscars when she won an Academy Award for her performance in this 1987 film? Ay-yi-yi. The actress' more retiring character in this infectious comedy leaps several psychological hurdles just giving her hair a permanent. But then the original sc...	Mask (Director's Cut, Widescreen) Teen-age rocky dennis has a wild mother and a face misshaped by a rare disease. Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 01/27/2009 Starring: Eric Stoltz Laura Dern Run time: 120 minutes Rating: Pg13 Director: Peter Bogdanovich	The Witches of Eastwick (Keepcase) Jack Nicholson was born to play the devil, and in George Miller's adaptation of John Updike's novel he plays it for all he's worth. As a wolfish womanizer summoned by three bored women in a picturesque New England town, he's sating all of his appetites with a rakish grin. Cher, S...	Silkwood Based on the harrowing account of whistle blower Karen Silkwood, this 1983 film directed by Mike Nichols (The Graduate, Postcards from the Edge) is as much a character study of a woman galvanized by injustice as a story of the dangers of nuclear power and the extremes of corporat...	Suspect Suspect is an endearingly silly suspense movie with an excellent cast. Cher stars as Washington, D.C., public defender Kathleen Riley, who is beginning to question the meaning of her career. (Before you prejudge, she's perfectly believable as a lawyer. It's the overtly Irish moni...
Now and Then This obligatory girls' version of Stand by Me begins with actors Melanie Griffith, Rita Wilson, Demi Moore, and Rosie O'Donnell doing a lousy job of playing adult versions of the film's youthful protagonists. The idea is that this quartet of characters is having a reunion, which ...	Death Becomes Her This 1992 black comedy by Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the Back to the Future trilogy) features some of the most eye-popping special effects of the '90s in its story of a narcissistic star (Meryl Streep) who steals the husband (Bruce Willis) of another ...	Mermaids: Music From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack	Hocus Pocus This big, fat theatrical bomb has a lot going for it. There's the three leads, Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker, playing three resurrected witches who wreak havoc on Salem, Massachusetts, 300 hundred years after they were hung. There's music, special effects, ...	Fried Green Tomatoes (Widescreen Collector's Edition) Kathy Bates stars as an unhappy wife trying to get her husband's attention in this amusing and moving 1991 screen adaptation of Fannie Flagg's novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe. After befriending a lonely old woman (Jessica Tandy), Bates hears the story of a lif...

I Love This Movie!
If you want to know what Mermaids is all about plot-wise, there are dozens of reviews to tell you that, but as for me, I'm here to gush praises on one of my favorite movies ever! When I was a teen I loved this movie to death! I saw it a few weeks back and you know what, it's still pretty much wonderful! When I think of this film I think of the good old days, not the pre-upheaval 1960's Mermaids depicts, I mean my own good old days of the early '90's when I'd watch this movie all the time, and life was so darn good. Mermaids is just an awesome movie, I don't see how anybody can NOT be enchanted with it, and that's really all I've got to say about it. :-)

A quirky chick-flick
My wife and I recently watched this movie and when it was over, she called it a "quirky chick-flick." I couldn't agree more. Cher is a talented actress, but that talent is truly displayed when she plays an unusual character. That is the case here. In this movie, she is Mrs. Flax, a woman with two daughters that is ahead of her time. Abandoned by her husband during the birth of her first child and having been impregnated by a guest at the hotel where she was working as a maid, Mrs. Flax stays in a location for a short time and then moves on. Given the time setting of the early sixties, it makes her very unusual. This is very hard on her children, particularly the oldest daughter Charlotte. Having been unable to establish roots, Charlotte's goal is to become a Catholic nun, even though she is Jewish. Throughout the early part of the movie, there are voiceovers of what is going through her mind as she encounters various forms of temptation. These voiceovers add a degree of seriousness and comedy to what is the very serious problems of a teenage girl. Kate is the youngest daughter and a great swimmer with Olympic hopes. She practices holding her breath in the bathtub, which makes for occasional humorous interludes. On a whim that is a stab on a map, they end up in a small town in Massachusetts, where Mrs. Flax meets Lou, a shoe salesman played by Bob Hoskins. Mrs. Flax and Lou hit it off immediately and they enter into an unusual romance. The degree to which Cher and Hoskins blend and play off of each other is amazing, it seems that their opposite actual personalities serves them very well as they play opposites on the screen. There are two high points in the movie. The first is the assassination of President Kennedy and the reaction of the people. This is very well done, the tenseness of the people surrounding television sets in stores and businesses and the looks on their faces. The second is when Charlotte is experiencing her first sexual encounter and Kate falls in the water and almost drowns. This brings all of their tensions and problems to the surface, where Charlotte finally expresses all of the frustrations about her life and admits that her father will not be coming back. Not by any means a great movie, this is one with many unusual twists and turns as people with problems try to cope and overcome them. It has the unusual aspect that you feel happy for Charlotte when she is engaging in sex for the first time, even though it clearly is the wrong thing to do at that time.

Gypsy Mama
Cher plays the gypsy mama to two daughter who moves every time she gets her heart broken. Winona Ryder plays the older daughter who finds being 15 and a parent to her mother difficult when she finds herself competing with mom for the attention of a handsom older classmate. An interesting film about the chaos of frequent moves and uncertainty in the early 60's.

Charming movie about mother-daughter relationship
This is a great movie filled with likable characters, good acting and wonderful setting. Mermaids revolves around a single mom, Mrs Flax [played by Cher] who has the tendency to uproot her two daughters and move whenever the going gets tough. They end up in a town on the east coast and settle into a rather unconventional lifestyle, for Mrs Flax is quite an eccentric and quirky character, whose volatile relationship with her oldest daughter, Charlotte [well-acted by Winona Ryder] makes for great viewing [their on-screen chemistry as sparring mother & daughter is very believable]. Charlotte is passionate about Christ, and fantasises about a career as a nun, a bit odd since the Flax's are Jewish! The younger daughter Kate is played by an adorable Christina Ricci, who is a talented swimmer, and has her share of quirks too. Bob Hoskins plays Lou, the small-town shoe store owner who lusts after Mrs Flax...though both Lou and Mrs Flax hardly seem compatible, both physically and in terms of personality, Cher and Hoskins make it work, and they share great chemistry on-screen. The time setting for this movie is the 60s, and the sets and costumes are wonderful and authentic, reflective of the time period. An important historical event such as JFK's assassination is handled with sensitivity and decorum. The only grouse I have with this DVD release is the lack of any special features. Otherwise, this is a movie that will warm your heart, and make you laugh.

Another Moving Dance Scene
"Mermaids,"(1990) starring the well-known singer-actress-entertainer Cher, is another good romantic comedy that came along on the heels of the 1980s. The clarion-voiced Cher, of course, has been singing since the mid-60's, with her then-husband, Sonny Bono and without him, and has had many chart-topping hits; they had a widely popular television show in the 1970s. The actress won an Oscar for "Moonstruck," also made "Silkwood," "The Witches of Eastwood," and "Mask." "Mermaids" is, without doubt, a chick flick. It was orignally meant to be the Scandinavian director Lasse Hallstrom's American film debut; however, Cher didn't care for his work. Neither did she care for Frank Oz's. So it was directed by former actor Richard Benjamin. Unfortunately, many sophisticates can't say "Richard Benjamin," without, in the same breath, declaring "tv sitcom." And when it's a chick flick too, well, the scorn. The movie also stars the English Bob Hoskins, playing Lou Landsky, lusty, unlikely love interest to Cher's Mrs. Rachel Flax. The child Christina Ricci made her debut as Kate, Mrs. Flax's younger daughter, born to swim. Winona Ryder holds the camera as the older daughter, Charlotte, in heavy flirtation with Catholism although the Flaxes are Jewish. Ryder was then a child star, more particularly a teenage star, until Angelina Jolie stole "Girl Interrupted," out from under her, and she had her regrettable adventure in shoplifting. Oddly enough, the English teenage star Emily Lloyd had been signed to play this part, but she was blond. Cher, who evidently had a lot of say on this picture, thought viewers were unlikely to accept a blond as her screen daughter. So Ryder was brought in, and Lloyd received a studio settlement. The picture's set in a lovingly recreated 1963, and treats the major world event of that year, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, with considerable discretion and grace. Mrs. Flax is a hot-blooded single mother who gets herself into talked-about trouble with men, then moves on to the next randomly-selected town. Her daughters just must get in the car. We open with the Flaxes' relocation to a pretty Massachusetts coastal town, where Mrs. Flax and, this time, her older daughter, will meet men. Kate will win swim meets. The cinematography gives us plenty of pretty. The soundtrack's chock-a-block with early 60's hits. Included on the soundtrack, for sure, is Cher's adaptation of "The Shoop Shoop Song," initially made a hit by Little Eva; now far better known as "It's In His Kiss," by Cher. The script's witty: in an often-quoted line, Flax dismisses one of her daughter's teachers as a guy who drives an Edsel. Does "Mermaids" have the heart of a sitcom? Well, it has heart, for sure-- it's really about family. And I don't watch tv sitcoms, can't abide them, but I love this movie. The final, touching scenes, where the Flaxes dance around their kitchen, setting the table to Jimmy Soul's irresistible "If You Want to be Happy the Rest of Your Life, Never Make a Pretty Woman Your Wife," perfectly express the relaxed intimacy, and joy, of family life, and present us another moving, off-handed movie dance scene.