Touches You

Fantastic!

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Mystic Pizza (1988) Director: Donald Petrie Watched: April 2018 8/10 {Clue: An individual claiming supernatural powers or Where you can find a quaint Slice of Heaven} Might you be wondering why this romantic comedy rises above the rest (pizza making pun intended)? Young girls coming of age with all around commendable performances (pre-Hollywood Julia Roberts & did you spot Matt Damon?), Scenes that make you laugh, cry, or sing along ("The Fireside Gourmet", Kat's first introduction to the pain of love, Aretha's "R-E-S-P-E-C-T"), Their stories feels genuine, without using sex or violence for cheap entertainment (Kat's love for astronomy, Jojo's cold feet, the Arujos' sibling rivalry, Charles's insecurities with law school and wealthy family), Inventive situational or character comedy rather than the typical sophomoric or slapstick kind ("I fucked up," "... but you gave it a 100% effort!"; "What the hell do you think Leona really puts in that pizza?"), Community easy to fall in love with (Who wouldn't want to live in a town charmingly named Mystic, Connecticut?) Acrostic is a form of poetry where the first letters in each line, paragraph, or word are doubly used to spell a name, phrase, or word. The word "acrostic" comes from the Greek words "akros" (outermost) and "stichos" (line of verse). Read the appropriate letters in the poem vertically to reveal the extra message, called the "acrostich"!

Though it's teased throughout the movie, you're not going to find out what Leona's (Cochatta Ferrell) secret pizza recipe calls for. You'll have to wait till she retires to see if one of the girls spills the beans.This is a lighthearted fluff of a film with some present-day well known players who got an early start on stardom here, Julia Roberts and Vincent D'Onofrio chief among them. If you stay attentive during the Windsor Family dinner party, you'll even catch Matt Damon in his very first movie appearance with a single line trying to give away his 'green stuff'. No, it's not money, you'll have to catch the picture to find out.Most of the characters here are pretty much stereotypes of those you'd find in any romantic comedy/drama, given some added appeal via the scenic backdrop of Mystic, Connecticut. So intrigued was I with the mysterious name of the Eastern seaport that I made a day trip out there once. Besides checking out Mystic Pizza if you go, you really should visit the Mystic Seaport Museum of America and the Sea - it's got blue lobsters!

Mystic Pizza A Review by Ashley I was making breakfast when I started watching Mystic Pizza. I can't be completely sure what I made myself that day, but knowing me it was probably a burger or spaghetti of some kind. I had decided to watch T.V. while I made breakfast because cooking can often be very boring, and I needed more stimulation. At first I was just watching the T.V. Guide channel, but I soon found myself switching to AMC to watch the last hour of Mystic Pizza. I have to admit; at first I was completely lost. There were so many conflicts and I spent a lot of time just trying to figure out who the head pizza lady was. She looked so familiar, and it was killing me. Once I settled down and watched the movie a little I really got into it. And although I didn't watch the whole thing I knew everything that had already happened or was going to happen simply by listening. Also I saw that awesome lobster dinner part with young Matt Damon! Pure gold!As I said before, there were a lot of conflicts in the movie. Some of the conflicts in the movie included, but were not limited to: a girl who had family problems, Julia Roberts being poor while her boyfriend was rich, problems paying tuition to Yale/ Harvard, a decline in restaurant profits, and last but not least, dealing with the olds. All I all it was a good movie. I give it seven Golden Apes up! Which is only a 3 on IMDb.

The title sounds intriguing, a sort of "Zen and the Art of Pizza Making". "Mystic Pizza", however, has nothing to do with mysticism. The "mystic" is a reference to the small town of Mystic, Connecticut, and the three main characters all work as waitresses at the town's pizza restaurant. The three are sisters Kat and Daisy Araujo and their friend Jojo Barboza. All come from the town's large Portuguese-American community, and all are in their late teens or early twenties. All are romantically involved, and the film traces the stories of their romances. Kat is the intellectual of the group; she has been accepted to attend Yale University and, besides her work at the restaurant, also acts as babysitter for a thirty-something Yale graduate named Tim whose wife is currently in Europe. She falls heavily for Tim after discovering that they have intellectual interests in common and cherishes the hope that he will leave his wife for her. · Daisy's love-interest is Charles Gordon Winsor junior, the son of a wealthy WASP family. Although the Winsors are "new" rather than "old" money, they have all the snobbish instincts of the most aristocratic blue-bloods, and disapprove of their son's romance with a girl who is "ethnic", a Roman Catholic and from a working-class background. (The comments about Daisy's ethnicity did not really ring true; the Winsors seem to regard Portuguese-Americans in much the same light as particularly unenlightened British colonialists used to regard the "natives", even though there have been Portuguese communities in the New England fishing ports for several generations). This sort of conflict is a commonplace in romantic dramas; the relationship between Charles and Daisy parallels almost exactly that between the rich WASP boy Oliver and the poor Italian Catholic girl Jenny in "Love Story". Here, however, the situation is given an unusual twist. After Charles engineers a confrontation with his family over a perceived insult to Daisy, she is perceptive enough to realise that his interest in her has less to do with love than with a self-conscious act of rebellion against his privileged background. Unwilling to be used as a weapon in his private battle against his family, she ends the relationship, although a more conventional romance would have presented Charles' outburst as something admirable and provided the expected "happy-ever-after" ending. Of the three romances, in fact, two end unhappily. Rather more predictably, at least in terms of adherence to dramatic conventions, Kat discovers too late that Tim has simply been using her and has no intention of leaving his wife for her. The one story that does end happily is that of Jojo, although even here normal Hollywood conventions are given a new twist. Jojo is engaged to Bill, a local fisherman, but is reluctant to commit herself to him in marriage. This is a reversal of the normal movie cliché in which it is the male characters who are portrayed as being frightened of emotional commitment. Bill (whose strong religious beliefs preclude sex before marriage) wants to get married as soon as possible, but Jojo doesn't believe she is ready. In his review of the film, written when it first came out in1988, Roger Ebert stated "I have a feeling that "Mystic Pizza" may someday become known for the movie stars it showcased back before they became stars." Of the three leads it was Annabeth Gish as Kat, whom he singled out for special mention, comparing her to a "young Katharine Hepburn." Gish is certainly good, but for me the star of the film was the still little-known Julia Roberts, who shows here not only the looks and the talent but also the charisma which were to make her a major star a couple of years later in films like "Pretty Woman" and "Sleeping with the Enemy". Lili Taylor as Jojo does not perhaps have quite the same impact, but there are some good contributions from some of the minor characters, especially Conchata Ferrell as Leona, the owner of the restaurant who claims to be in possession of a secret recipe for pizza sauce which she has inherited from her forebears on the Algarve. (And there was me thinking pizza was an Italian dish rather than a Portuguese one). Adam Storke as the spoilt rich boy Charles is the best of the male stars. The film has been described as a romantic comedy, although it does not follow the normal format of the standard Hollywood rom-com. A better description would probably be a coming-of-age story, set against a well-realised background of small- town life. In a traditional romantic comedy the main focus of interest would be Jojo finding the love of her life; here the focus is on all three characters learning lessons about life. As Ebert put it, it's about three girls discovering what their standards for love are going to be. This is not exactly an original theme, but "Mystic Pizza" adds enough original touches to keep it interesting. 6/10