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>> shotgun in the getaway >> blade runner gun priss's gun in bgc.
Being a Canadian, I naturally favour a different kind of gun in a movie.
I'm particularly found of My New Gun, a small movie that got missed by
most people, despite a great performance by Diane Lane.
Here's the NYTimes review:
Review/Film; Wry Tale of Bored Wife and Her Gun
By JANET MASLIN
Debbie Bender (Diane Lane) looks perplexed. Something about her marriage
to an indifferent radiologist named Gerald (Stephen Collins) and her
life in a featureless New Jersey town house isn't quite working out.
Debbie isn't the type to dwell on this, but she can't help noticing that
life may be passing her by. It is at this point that a miracle appears,
in the form of the small, dainty handgun, which Gerald wants Debbie to
keep in her night table drawer.
Across the street, in an identical dwelling, lives one of the world's
great liars. Skippy (James Le Gros) is also something of a romantic,
having become so smitten with Debbie that he can hear her cry out in
alarm (when she dreams that the gun fires accidentally) in the middle of
the night. Skippy, who will eventually be pronounced "a fishy guy" for
doing things like paying for a magazine with a $100 bill, doesn't say
much, and never truly gets around to explaining himself. But he
understands Debbie better than she understands herself, and he is ready
to become the instrument of her salvation.
Debbie Bender (Diane Lane) looks perplexed. Something about her marriage
to an indifferent radiologist named Gerald (Stephen Collins) and her
life in a featureless New Jersey town house isn't quite working out.
Debbie isn't the type to dwell on this, but she can't help noticing that
life may be passing her by. It is at this point that a miracle appears,
in the form of the small, dainty handgun, which Gerald wants Debbie to
keep in her night table drawer.
Across the street, in an identical dwelling, lives one of the world's
great liars. Skippy (James Le Gros) is also something of a romantic,
having become so smitten with Debbie that he can hear her cry out in
alarm (when she dreams that the gun fires accidentally) in the middle of
the night. Skippy, who will eventually be pronounced "a fishy guy" for
doing things like paying for a magazine with a $100 bill, doesn't say
much, and never truly gets around to explaining himself. But he
understands Debbie better than she understands herself, and he is ready
to become the instrument of her salvation.
These are the elements of "My New Gun," a delectably wry slice of
suburban life from a new director, Stacy Cochran, whose sympathy for her
subject greatly humanizes an otherwise deadpan style. As imagined by Ms.
Cochran and played with perfect bewilderment by the enormously appealing
Ms. Lane, Debbie is a lot more than the mad-housewife caricature she
might have been. Repeated insults by her husband ("You back in the
Valley of the Dolls, Deb?") do not annoy Debbie as much as they could.
She seems to have her mind on something bigger, something that becomes
clearer as the film lets her inch toward a getaway.
"My New Gun" has such a keen sense of setting and character that its
actual plot seems almost an afterthought. More could have happened here,
and should have. But Ms. Cochran succeeds in holding the attention with
the general arc of Debbie's transformation, and with a wealth of clever
details and deft camera moves. Ed Lachman's cinematography has a bright,
mischievous verve, and the mood is compounded by Pat Irwin's jaunty score.
As screenwriter, Ms. Cochran certainly knows her territory; she knows
the kind of man who thinks a new Gore-Tex windbreaker is a good topic of
conversation, and she knows why that man's wife would be sick of him.
Yet "My New Gun" is not a series of potshots at familiar targets. Ms.
Cochran also understands that the kind of bland, anonymous setting in
which her characters live can be full of wonderful surprises.
It is telling (and tacitly amusing) that the Benders's mock-tasteful
household and Skippy's more eccentric place were actually shot in the
same setting (for Skippy's domestic scenes, the living room is redone
with red linoleum, a Ping-Pong table and conga drums). This points not
only to Ms. Cochran's low-budget resourcefulness but also to her knack
for making a few well-chosen props say a lot about the people around
them. Sometimes the props don't even need to be visible to be funny, as
when an injured Gerald is told that blood was spilled in the Bender
family car. "I knew we shouldn't have gotten mocha seats," he wails.
Ms. Cochran fares even better with live actors than with inanimate
objects, drawing a hilariously obtuse caricature out of Mr. Collins and
a delightfully sly, hangdog manner from Mr. Le Gros. His Skippy has an
uncanny way of sounding timid while making outrageous demands. "You
don't have another one, do you?" he shyly asks Debbie, after he has
stolen her gun for reasons he does not altogether explain. Gerald's
irritable assessment of Skippy as a "Satan-worshiping junkie" seems to
miss something seriously cunning in Skippy's nature.
Also in "My New Gun" are Tess Harper as Skippy's suitably peculiar
mother, a country singer of some renown. ("You know, my brother had a
bunch of your records," an admirer tells her. "He was a big fan. He's
dead now.") Bruce Altman plays Gerald's best friend, another
radiologist, and Maddie Corman is especially funny as his wide-eyed,
baby fiancee; it is this couple's romantic plan to buy both gun and
engagement ring that convinces Gerald that there is something amorous
about a firearm. The film finally points to a sneakier assessment of the
gun and its near-magical way of empowering Debbie and setting her free.
My New Gun Written and directed by Stacy Cochran; director of
photography, Ed Lachman; edited by Camilla Toniolo; music by Pat Irwin;
production designer, Tony Corbett; produced by Michael Flynn and Lydia
Dean Pilcher; released by I.R.S Media. Running time: 99 minutes. This
film has no rating. Debbie . . . Diane Lane Skippy . . . James Le Gros
Gerald . . . Stephen Collins Kimmy . . . Tess Harper Andrew . . . Bill
Raymond Irwin . . . Bruce Altman Myra . . . Maddie Corman
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