Last week, Rumpole had a post about the best law movies... He's right -- I'm partial to A Few Good Men, but he doesn't give enough play to My Cousin Vinny. The best. Here's a recent NY Times piece covering the 30 year old classic:
When the culture-clash courtroom comedy “My Cousin Vinny” landed in theaters on March 13, 1992, the critical response was mostly positive. The Times’s Vincent Canby found it “inventive and enjoyable,” The Los Angeles Times’s Peter Rainer called it “often funny” and The Hollywood Reporter deemed it “a terrific variation on the fish-out-of-water/man-from-Mars story formula.”Here are the opening statements:
One phrase you won’t find in any of those reviews is “Oscar worthy.” Yet “Vinny” proved just that, landing an Academy Award for best supporting actress a full year after its original theatrical release — one of the biggest upsets in Oscar history, and a trophy that would prove both a blessing and a curse for its recipient, Marisa Tomei.
Her performance as Mona Lisa Vito, the long-suffering fiancée and legal secret weapon of Joe Pesci’s title character, was a breakthrough for the Brooklyn-born actress, who had done her time Off Broadway and in the world of soaps and sitcoms. “I was fresh to the business and didn’t know how movies worked,” Tomei explained in 2017, “but Joe chose me for the part, then took me by the hand and guided me immensely, so I got very lucky.”
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This little nugget speaks to all of us . . .
Vinny: I object to this witness being called at this time. We've been given no prior notice he'd testify. No discovery of any tests he's conducted or reports he's prepared. And as the court is aware, the defense is entitled to advance notice of any witness who will testify, particularly those who will give scientific evidence, so that we may properly prepare for cross-examination, as well as give the defense an opportunity to have the witness's reports reviewed by a defense expert, who might then be in a position to contradict the veracity of his conclusions.
Judge Haller: Mr. Gambini?
Vinny: Yes, sir?
Judge Haller: Mr. Gambini, that is a lucid, intelligent, well thought-out objection.
Vinny: Thank you.
Judge Haller: Overruled.
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