Racing with the Moon

If you like the romance movies this one is the one. It is smart in a nice way and its dramatic. It takes place in 1940s. Elizabeth McGovern is great, Nicolas Cage, And Sean Penn. :):):):):):) I dont know why they call it racing with the moon. watch it!!!!

Coming-of-age piece set in small town America during WWII. Sean Penn has seldom been so youthfully exuberant and amiable playing a young working-class man about to go off to war, finding love for the first time with a sweet lass he presumes is wealthy ("a Gatsby girl"). Richard Benjamin's direction is sensitive and breezy, and Elizabeth McGovern is a good romantic match for Penn (though sometimes she talks down to him, like a big sister might). Nicolas Cage is also fine as Sean's goof-off buddy, yet the slim screenplay hasn't enough meat on its bones and the middle portion of the film goes around in circles. The period flavor has been captured with non-showy flair, and Penn's exceptional performance is winning, making the film a nearly-satisfying nostalgic drama. *** from ****

We never get to see the two main characters in the movie go to War. This world war 3 setting coming of age drama is not so much about the war over in Japan but the war on the home front. Growing up in 1943 in small town California, searching for love and meaning. Sean Penn is great in his role. Even more, Nicolas Cage is better as his close friend and side kick. Whether for comic relief of ream moments of edgy drama, Cage delivers. Also, a surprise in the movie is the performance of Elizabeth McGovern who is always beautiful. The three quickly discover life as they grow up before the two boys are shipped out to the Pacific. Michael Madsen and Crispin Glover pop into the movie with small roles. A nice movie, I wasn't expecting much until the movie started. It is a guarantee crowd pleaser.

I've always viewed Richard Benjamin as a sensitive, honest filmmaker. Sure, he's made some less-than-great films, but his directorial debut, `My Favorite Year' may be about the funniest film ever made.

Racing with the Moon--the boy, his friend, and the girl--a small town in the Midwest in 1942 and a few weeks before the young men are to be inducted in the service. Their lives will be changed unequivocally, and they will no longer be boys. This is all the time they have left to enjoy the freedom, the carefree wonderment that is youth.

Stevn Kloves first produced script (later The Fabulous Baker Boys) is right on target with smart roles for three young stars. Sean Penn had Taps, and Fast Times behind him, and was his career was flourishing, Nick Cage had done Valley Girl, and Birdy, but would languish for ten more years, before achieving stardom, and Elizabeth McGovern, who's wonderful as Caddie Winger, is still waiting her just recognition.

Benjamin was born and raised in New York City, but his age is appropriate to our main characters. I'm sure he smiled, over and over as he recalled his own youth. His heart is in Racing with the Moon, and its worth your time, to go back for a moment, and enjoy those times.

Unlike most Hollywood movies that must be pigeonholed into categories--comedy, drama, romance--this movie dared to be all of these. And it dared to be low-key, without large, manufactured tragedies or plot hooks. Rather, it had the elegiac mood and idiosyncratic details of a fine short story, with its characters neither good nor bad but human, their lives honestly and touchingly observed by a sensitive screenwriter and director.