Of course, the Corbett character's Mom and Dad had to be on the opposite pole to the "down to Earth" Greek, fun loving counterpart -- the funniest part of the film. Of course, it was all fairly predictable but I still don't see why it draws so much fire. "Moonstruck" is a much better film but I don't get the parallel other than all boy meets girl films bear striking resemblances to one another. Strangely, the whole thing came off as a believable if a rather light comedy with some engaging characters.
Just for what it's worth, here's the Ebert review (***):
Michael Constantine has suffered a return to notoriety from MBFGW . He used to hang out in a coffeehouse in His hometown in PA, and wqas rarely bothered by celebrity stalkers. He was always a friendly quite knowledgeable person always interested in state politics and sports. Hed often be seen just hanging out and talking with the regulars. However, since the movie, he has curtailed his hangout time. Too bad, .
I remember him as the old witch Lemke in Thinner, and he played in a couple of TV series (none of which come to mind) My one memory of him was in an old Steve McQueen movie "The Rievers", saw it as a kid with my dad. I remember I wanted to go on a road trip because of it but I cannot remember the plot.
I did hope that the film would be a stepping stone back into film but instead he ended up on the sitcom version of the film which died quickly, I think because of the absence of John Corbett. And admittedly, the story had been told and had no more comedic energy in it (they continued to play with the ethnic humor and culture clash but it became redundant very quickly). He was also in "Voyage of the Damned."
His filmography:
http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0176073/
Sometimes a2k just doesn't work well and I haven't received any updates.
I really liked Monsoon Wedding which I thought was a good film about young people dealing with being "ethnic" in a sort of Americanized world.
The young woman's inability to "get over" her married lover when she had a gem in her arrainged groom showed how people can really ruin -- or approach ruining -- their lives over rotten people.
I don't think BFGW was a terrible picture, just a lame one, maybe 1 and 1/2 to 2 stars while Moonstruck is 2and1/2 to 3. Monsoon Wedding is definitely 3 stars as is Passianata.
I like Lightwizard's observation that Corbett's family was as stereotyped as the Greek family. I thought that at the time but I often need someone else to put things into words.
I did not think that this movie lived to all the hype of the promotions of it.
