My Cousin Vinny

I'm not sure what flipped when I was a teenager, but I became really interested in movies and movie stars around 1991 despite years of watching Entertainment Tonight with Mom. Suddenly I was reading people and scanning the Entertainment section of the paper. Maybe it had to do with getting a TV that could play past Channel 12. There was only one problem - I was too young to see a lot of movies!

"Well if you were too young, I was definitely too young." my friend said when My Cousin Vinny popped up randomly as a Friday night movie suggestion. I can cross another movie off the list :D

Joe Pesci and Marie Tomei dropping f-bombs are the only scandalous parts to this movie and I enjoyed how well written it was as well as the slow pacing. I couldn't help but think that the whole movie was based on a few true stories, especially the sleepless nights that Vinny endures to getting stuck in a small town. In fact the first fifteen minutes reminded me of our disastrous pit stop in Lima, Montana a few years ago. If I had known it would have been so bad I would have just peed my pants :D

Of course most of the humour comes from the contrast of urban versus rural, New Yorker versus Southern, but I really liked the gentle message of persistance as Vinny tries to prove that he can succeed as a lawyer.

One detail that stuck out for me was the bright pink camera that saves the day. Maybe it only seemed so because of the fact that we would use cell phones today!