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    ‘She Came to Me’ Review: A Sea of Troubles (the Romantic Kind)

    A love-triangle comedy from Rebecca Miller, starring Peter Dinklage, Marisa Tomei and Anne Hathaway, gets an emotional boost from an unexpected source.There’s a scene in “She Came to Me,” the writer-director Rebecca Miller’s juggling act of a romantic comedy, that sounds like the setup of a joke: An opera composer and a tugboat skipper walk into a Brooklyn dive bar. The composer’s wife, a psychiatrist, is back at their brownstone. But for the blocked composer, Steven (Peter Dinklage), his wife, Patricia (Anne Hathaway), and his seafaring muse, Katrina (Marisa Tomei), what happens next is hardly a laughing matter.The unexpected liaison cures Steven’s writer’s block. It also provides an object for Katrina’s affection — or, rather, affliction. “I’m addicted to romance,” she tells Steven, revealing an anomaly in her otherwise independent personality. As for Patricia, she’s got her own compulsions. This is a romantic triangle that may recall the screwball of a Nancy Meyers rom-com.Buoyed by a score from Bryce Dessner of the rock band the National, an original Bruce Springsteen song and the expert performances of its all-in ensemble, the film also casts a luminous aura around a first love, that of two high schoolers, Julian (Evan Ellison) and Tereza (Harlow Jane). He’s Patricia’s son and Steven’s stepson; she’s the daughter of their housekeeper, Magdalena (Joanna Kulig in a soulful turn). Tereza’s stepfather, Trey (Brian d’Arcy James), is a persnickety Civil War re-enactor and a court reporter.The teenagers’ relationship hits serious snags, through no fault of their own. Age plays a part, but so does class and Julian’s race; he identifies as Black. Amid the roiling neuroses of the adults, the young beloveds provide the film with a surprising emotional ballast.She Came to MeRated R for salty language. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘My Cousin Vinny’ at 30: An Unlikely Oscar Winner

    Much like Vinny in the South, the film was a fish out of water at the Academy Awards. But the comedy endures, thanks to a generous Joe Pesci and a fiery Marisa Tomei.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.”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.”“Vinny” concerns a pair of New York University students who, while driving through Alabama, are falsely accused of murder. They’re so desperate for legal representation that they call upon the only lawyer they can afford: Vincent LaGuardia Gambini (Pesci), a cousin of one of the accused and a novice who has just passed the bar after six attempts.Pesci roars into town in a pink Cadillac convertible at the eleven-and-a-half minute mark; on the DVD audio commentary, the director, Jonathan Lynn, calls this, with characteristically British understatement, “a star entrance.” And that’s an accurate assessment of Pesci’s station — he had just won an Oscar for his menacingly funny work in “Goodfellas,” and “Vinny” was one of his first attempts to leapfrog from supporting player to leading man.But Pesci wasn’t the only star making an entrance; a gum-smacking Tomei scores the first two laughs in the scene, first with her retort to his assertion that she sticks out “like a sore thumb” — “Oh, yeah, you blend” — and then her heartbroken realization, “I bet the Chinese food here is terrible.”Explore the 2022 Academy AwardsThe 94th Academy Awards will be held on March 27 in Los Angeles.A Makeover: On Oscar night, you can expect a refreshed, slimmer telecast and a few new awards. But are all of the tweaks a good thing?Best Actress Race: Who will win? There are cases to be made for and against each contender, and no one has an obvious advantage.A Hit: Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car” is the season’s unlikely Oscar smash. The director Bong Joon Ho is happy to discuss its success.  Making History: Troy Kotsur, who stars in “CODA” as a fisherman struggling to relate to his daughter, is the first deaf man to earn an Oscar nomination for acting. ‘Improbable Journey’: “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom” was filmed on a shoestring budget in a remote Himalayan village. In a first for Bhutan, the movie is now an Oscar nominee.It’s noteworthy that Pesci cedes those laughs to her, and continues to do so throughout the picture, playing the George to her Gracie (though she is, clearly, the smarter one). A lesser actor might try to upstage her, but Pesci had been the scene-stealer before, in films like “Raging Bull” and “Easy Money”; he knew how to step back and let his co-stars shine. And this principle of generosity is most pronounced in the courtroom climax, when Vinny puts Mona Lisa on the stand as an automobile expert (she worked in her father’s garage), giving the testimony that exonerates his clients.It’s clear why the commitment-shy Vinny falls in love with Mona Lisa all over again. She charms everyone from judge to jury to onlookers, and, in turn, the moviegoing audience. Credible, fiery, funny and energetic, she and Pesci turn what could’ve been broad caricatures into grounded, empathetic characters.But “My Cousin Vinny” is not what we think of as an “Oscar movie,” and Tomei’s is not what is conventionally considered an “Oscar performance.” Credit where due to 20th Century Fox: When the film was an unexpected commercial success ($52 million on an $11 million budget), the studio spent some of those profits on a “For Your Consideration” campaign, paying off in her nomination for best supporting actress — alongside Judy Davis (“Husbands and Wives”), Joan Plowright (“Enchanted April”), Vanessa Redgrave (“Howards End”) and Miranda Richardson (“Damage”), formidable competition indeed.If the nomination was a surprise, Tomei’s victory over her distinguished competition was a shock. She was a newcomer triumphing over veterans, an American television actress taking on distinguished stage thespians from abroad, and, perhaps most importantly, the only comic performance against a quartet of scorching dramatic turns. And for all of those reasons, when Jack Palance opened the envelope and called Tomei’s name, it sent a shock wave through the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.Tomei with her Oscar for her performance as Mona Lisa Vito.Barry King/Liaison, via Getty ImagesMaybe the uniformity of Tomei’s competition canceled each other out in her favor. Maybe she had the home court advantage. Or maybe, in a flurry of dramatic performances, the comedic joy of Mona Lisa Vito was a breath of fresh air.Our Reviews of the 10 Best-Picture Oscar NomineesCard 1 of 10“Belfast.” More