Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick
What the hell do you think Leona really puts in that pizza? Hey Cinapse Townies, this week we’re transporting to Mystic, Connecticut, circa 1988 for Mystic Pizza! Three teenage girls bond over relationship hurdles and their jobs at a pizza parlor. The film is notable for being one of the earliest roles for each of its three stars, Julia Roberts, Lili Taylor, and Annabeth Gish.
Did you get a chance to watch along with us this week? Want to recommend a great (or not so great) film for the whole gang to cover? Comment below or post on our Facebook or hit us up on Twitter!
Next Week’s Pick:
An aging hitman deals with the onset of Alzheimer’s in Belgian Dutch-language thriller The Memory Of A Killer, aka The Alzheimer’s Case. This one’s not streaming anywhere that we know of, but we hope you can track down a copy and watch with us!
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co!
The Team
Rhea:
“It’s the 80’s! Why would I marry an asshole?” Oh, the 80’s, when we truly believed that second wave feminism had won women some real choices. Didn’t Lili Taylor know that you only got to choose which type of asshole to marry?
I was in a wedding just like the one Mystic Pizza opens with, in 1985. I was the flower girl, and the packed church was filled with puffy sleeves, asymmetrical hair-cuts, and Catholicism. Under the weight of the heavy scent of all those stargazer lilies, the bride fainted. In Mystic Pizza, it’s the thought of the patriarchy that took the bride down, but in my real life experience, I think it was her 10 foot lace train.
There are so many movies in the 80’s about class, and Mystic Pizza adds its rom-com stylings to the topic with a sledgehammer. Despite not being a delicate rendering, it’s a sweet, entertaining movie, and a solid female-led story headed up by Julia Roberts in her prime. Now, excuse me, I need to go be nostalgic about Connecticut pizza. (@Rheabette)
Ed:
If I had a dollar for every time I had to tell a lady, in the immortal words of Vincent D’Onofrio, “All you love is my dick”… I’d have the same amount of dollars I currently have. But a man can dream.
The swearing, the cigarettes, the secret pizza ingredients… everything about Mystic Pizza feels right out of a totally different era. An era we may never get back. I loved how rough around the edges the film was, and how much it tried to tell a regional Connecticut story. An impossibly young Lili Taylor and Julia Roberts were so charming it is clear why they’re still working and relevant today. Sure, the story mostly followed a generic romantic comedy/drama mold, but that potty mouth and local charm, on top of that fantastic cast, plucked it out of romantic comedy obscurity and made it a genuinely fun watch. Also bonus points for making the douchey rich guy NOT be the villain. What do you guys think is in the pizza?
And oh my GOSH did you catch that blink-and-you-miss-it pubescent Matt Damon lobster eating cameo? Priceless. (@Ed_Travis)
Brendan:
It’s not Mystic Pizza’s fault that so many other shows and movies have cribbed from its playbook, but there’s an awful feeling of inevitability to so many of the story beats it hits. The second Annabeth Gish takes a job as a babysitter or Julia Roberts catches the eye of a layabout rich putz, you know exactly how every single one of those stories is going to play out, and so much of the body of the film is devoted to spinning wheels until the inevitable happy endings start getting dished out. Which wouldn’t be a problem if the film had a verve to its voice (like John Hughes) or even an ingratiating laconic style (like Linklater). But it’s awfully flat, and I’m going to place the majority of the blame on director Donald Petrie. He is, after all, named after the lamest Land Before Time character.
All this established, I still enjoyed the movie. Gish, Roberts and Lili Taylor are all excellent and easily earn the careers which all three women have been enjoying for years now. They bring a heart and humor to the proceedings that more than justifies the watch. (@TheTrueBrendanF)
Liam:
Mystic Pizza is not an amazing movie, but it is an interesting one. The story beats are all a bit too familiar, sure. We know where this is going. Yet, there is also something fundamentally sad about that. While being a kind of locally focused, coming of age story, Mystic Pizza cannot help but highlight gender and class. These girls are not just any girls, they are poor girls, with unsure futures. They are pushing against expectations of them which are unfair, and unreasonable. In all of this drama, which is at best melodramatic, they are still struggling to maintain their humanity. There is an undeniable charm to the film, mostly in the chemistry between the three ladies who carry the plot. They love each other in their own flawed ways, and they are doing the work of becoming. I guess, once you get past the charm, the film is kind of silly. It addresses the issues it hints at bluntly and without art. Still, there was just enough humanity in it all the same that I really enjoyed it. (@liamrulz)
Victor:
I… don’t think this movie is made for me.
But I guess I get how if I was a teenage girl in the early nineties, this would have been a stone cold classic. It’s pleasant, lighthearted, low stakes, and endlessly sweet. There are no real villains, no arguments strong enough to break the bonds of friendship and sisterhood, and no story beat you don’t see coming down the road from a mile away.
It has to be said, though, that one feels for Annabeth Gish, as she is indisputably outclassed by Lili Taylor, Julia Roberts, and Julia Roberts’ big-assed hair, in that exact order.
I guess this is the movie that first put her on Hollywood’s radar, and even as someone who isn’t much of a fan, it’s kind of neat to see how fully formed she was from the jump. Even before she was officially a star, she straight up refused to take any shit from anybody. You gotta respect that. (Unless you’re Annabeth Gish. In which case you’ll probably want to replace ‘respect’ with ‘resent’…)
In closing, it was all worth it just to see Vincent D’Onofrio treated as some sort of rugged sex object. (Victor Pryor)
Austin:
For awhile Liam and I have been talking about incorporating more female-friendly Two Cents picks. Now that doesn’t mean a bunch of horrible Jennifer Lopez rom-coms, but this respectable recommendation from Rhea certainly suits our goal. While I would prefer that the title be applied to an amazing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, Mystic Pizza is a sassy but good-natured look at three teenage girls trying to transition into adulthood. I particularly liked how the coastal setting informed every part of the characters and story.
As a side note, and because I’m an idiot, I was going to mention how great Kathy Bates is in this movie– only she’s not in it. Whoops. Shout out to Conchata Ferrell, perhaps best known as the housekeeper from Two & A Half Men. My apologies to both ladies!
Regarding the other sex: Some of the men in this film do some pretty rotten things, but at the same time two of them put up with some equally ridiculous shenanigans from their girlfriends. Left hanging at the altar? Porsche filled with fish? I can’t decide if they’re saints or spineless for tolerating that kind of abuse. What say you, gentle readers? (@VforVashaw)
Our Guests
Natalie DeYoung:
This movie has all of the elements of a romantic comedy without the tired tropes that typify the genre, making it a refreshing watch. It’s paced lightly enough that the heaviness of the subject matter (affair with a married man! the painful realities of class in America! racism!) doesn’t weigh it down, and it squeezes in enough real humor to not be ersatz. Oh, and the subject matter? It’s also refreshing, in that it’s not the same-old coming-of-age story, but a coming-of-age story about women, minus the sentimentality. On that delicate cusp between teen and adult, these women are still infused with enough hope and romance to believe the best in people, only to learn some hard lessons about love. But it’s not just love they’re exploring; love seems to be the mechanism through which they discover themselves, which sets it apart from the prescribed formula for females-led movies, where romantic love is the goal. I can see why this film helped launch Julia Roberts’ career — she embodies feistiness, while feeling trepidation for her future. And Lili Taylor? I thought I couldn’t love her more than I did in Say Anything, but clearly I was wrong. (@singingfool1224)
Justin Harlan:
I tend to prefer my coming-of-age stories in the Sci-Fi and Fantasy variety… the Harry Potter series (books and films) and the Ender series (books, though I enjoyed the first film) rank among the top for me. Though, there are some gems from the 80’s and 90’s like the incredible Stephen King adaptation Stand By Me (the short story “The Body” by King is also really solid). Mystic Pizza resonates at one of these gems. While not on the same level for me as Stand By Me, the story of three young women growing up through a series of life events is a strong one. Critics praised Annabelle Gish and Julia Roberts in this film, but I always remember Lili Taylor’s role as the sidekick type friend to the sister protagonists as my favorite. Much like her role as Corey in Say Anything, Taylor is vulnerable and lovable. Not the cool, sexy one, just a really solid performance that makes the film go. Mystic Pizza also features the first appearance of Matt Damon, telling his mom she can eat the “green stuff”. That’s some cinema gold right there. Solid film, well worth a few viewings. (@thepaintedman)
Did you all get a chance to watch along with us? Share your thoughts with us here in the comments or on Twitter or Facebook!
