1988 - MARRIED TO THE MOB, a gangster comedy

Michelle Pfeiffer has to play "straight man " to a bunch of eccentric performers in this gangster comedy.  She's married to a young Alec Baldwin who is working as a hit man for gangster Dean Stockwell.  But Baldwin is also having an affair with Stockwell's mistress which is a bad idea.  Stockwell kills Baldwin, but Stockwell's bigger problem is his very scary wife played by Mercedes Ruehl.  Throw in an eccentric FBI agent played by Matthew Modine who gets romantically involved with Pfeiffer.  Well it's funny stuff.

 The director is Jonathan Demme who learned his trade working for Roger Corman.  From Corman Demme learned how to mix comedy, violence and action.  He brought a light touch to this nutty version of The Godfather.  Married to the Mob was a turning point for Demme.  After this film he moved into more serious film making with The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia and the probably ill advised Beloved.  For the most part he really didn't make entertaining films like this later in his career.

 

For a woman who started her career as a beauty pageant winner Michelle Pfeiffer turned out to be a very good actor.  She manages to hold her own with this incredible cast.  Former child actor Dean Stockwell is the scary but goofy mob boss.  One minute he's hitting on Pfeiffer after her husband's funeral and the next minute he's putting down an attempted assassination.  Not to be outdone is Mercedes Ruehl who plays it very broad as Stockwell's extremely jealous wife and is definitely not a person to be trifled with.  Matthew Modine is the FBI agent keeping an eye on Pfeiffer and at times he's growling like a tiger in his pursuit of Stockwell for no particular reason.

 

This kind of story is extremely hard to pull off but everyone in this film was on top of their game.  A very funny film. 

The film was written by Barry Strugatz and Mark R. Burns, the running time is 104 minutes. 

1984 - STOP MAKING SENSE, the Talking Heads concert show

 David Byrne the lead singer of the Talking Heads jumps, struts, shakes and runs around like a mad man possessed in this film version of one of their concerts that features most of their hit songs up to this point in the band's lifetime

It's all here the songs, Psycho Killer, Burning Down The House, Once In A Lifetime, Take Me To The River and Byrne running around in his famous big suit.

 

The concert film was directed by Jonathan Demme a big rock and roll fan who's major contribution was probably just turnin on the cameras and letting the Talking Heads do their thing.  Stop Making Sense is certainly a lot less pretentious than Martin Scorcese's The Last Waltz which practically patted itself on the back with all the big name talent they had for that film.

 

A very enjoyable film, however six years later Byrne walked away from the band.  Byrne didn't even bother to tell the band they were breaking up, they had to read about it in a newspaper article.

The film was written by the Talking Heads and Jonathan Demme, the running time is 88 minutes.