“Oh yeah. You blend.”

If you don’t recognize the quote in the title of today’s post instantly, let me help you out. It’s a line of dialogue from one of my all-time favorite movies, 1992’s My Cousin Vinny- played with fantastic comic gusto by the inimitable Joe Pesci.

Vinny is New Yawk lawyer who has just passed the bar exam.  (After seven times.  Or was it nine?)

But through the wonders of clever, high-concept script-writing, he is sent down to Alabama to defend his hapless (and innocent ) young cousin- Ralph Macchio- and Ralph’s equally innocent buddy, Mitchell Whitfield, from a trumped-up murder rap.

Oh, and did I happen to mention that Vinny drives his Cadillac El Dorado down there accompanied by his girl friend-  out-of-work hairdresser, Mona Lisa Vito?

Mona Lisa is a gem.  And she is played with hilarious bravura Italiana (and an authentic, homegrown Brooklyn accent to match) by the fabulous Marisa Tomei.

In 1993 Marisa got the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for that performance. Even though controversy- stirred up by Rex Reed- rages to this day.  He wrongly maintained that she was awarded it when Jack Palance mistakenly called her name out over such luminaries as her rivals that year- Miranda Richardson, Joan Plowright, Vanessa Redgrave and Judy Davis.

Let’s Set The Record Straight Sidebar:  The Academy has always officially denied this. And finally, Price Waterhouse explained that in case of such an unlikely event, one of their representatives would have stepped out on stage to say that the presenter misspoke.

She deserved it.

And La Tomei has gone on to co-star in such great movies as In The Bedroom and The Wrestler-  both of which she garnered two other Academy Award noms.

Little Known Fact and How About That For A Coincidence Department:  Marisa Tomei was also featured in the third season of the television show “Who Do You Think You Are” as she tried to uncover the truth about the one hundred year old unsolved murder of her great-grandfather.

And get this.  She went to Elba!  How coincidental is that, dear readers?

All the casting was brilliant in this film.  From Fred Gwynne’s Judge Chamberlain Haller, Lane Smith as District Attorney Jim Trotter, Austin Pendleton as the stammering lawyer John Gibbons, Bruce McGill and Maury Chaykin as townsfolk, everyone in MCV is a riot.

But the star has to be the script.  Brilliantly written by Dale Launer.   (He also did Ruthless People, Love Potion No. 9, Blind Date and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.  But Vinny is his magnum opus.)

It contains SO many good lines  that you can have a field day quoting from it.

My then-husband Mike, the ski instructor, loved to do just that.  He had the entire movie memorized, and he could break into it at any given time.  Once, on a flight from Aspen to Chicago, he started, and like couldn’t stop.

He reenacted the entire movie as I was a captive audience next to him.  I wouldn’t have minded so much if he had only let ME be Mona Lisa Vito.  I can do her to a tee.

But lately I’ve found out that many other people have the compulsion to act out Vinny.  It didn’t just grip the two of us.  Other people suddenly start spontaneously spouting lines and bon mots from the movie- with little or no provocation.

(“You’re a smooth talker.  You are.”  and “Imagine you’re a sweet, innocent, harmless, leaf-eating, doe-eyed little deer”  being among them.)

So if you’re a Vinny-phile and have always longed for the chance to be part of its very special magic, please get in touch with me here.

I’m putting together a My Cousin Vinny evening of watching- and then reenacting- this cinematic comedy masterpiece.  I’m even willing to accept call-ins, emails, Skyping, face time and texts if you’re not in Chicago but still want to participate.

I have an overwhelming desire to do this now.  My biological clock is ticking like this- stomp stomp stomp.

And yeah.

I’m sure.