My New Gun

This movie interested me since I first heard of it, which was a Siskel & Ebert review. Until Gerald Bender has to go to the hospital, the movie is really interesting. But after that point, not so much. It was still very watchable, indeed, but somehow the edge wasn't all there. The Stephen Collins character, I think, is what keeps the movie going. But when Diane Lane is now the lead, the movie is a bit slow. As for Skippy (played by James LeGros), this character is too subtle. The reasons for wanting his neighbors' gun are never clear. Is he secretly a murderer? Is he protecting somebody? As to whether this is something you're easily supposed to figure out, I have no idea. And as the movie gets closer to the end, it starts to make a lot less sense. And as for the ending (without spoiling too much), there is a gun involved, but what is the point of this scene? And I don't think the movie ends. It just stops.

**1/2 out of ****

I LUV the pacing of this film - it just sails along completely untroubled by the constant irony - all the actors play off of each other with perfect timing and reaction - Diane Lane. Playing the central character, plays a young housewife consistently at a total loss but forging on nonetheless, Stephen Collins is, as always, solidly in role as the witless husband, and James Le Gros as the "Skippy" character is a bemusingly understated suburbia Rebel Without a Clue.

Director/Writer Stacy Cochran is in full control of the film - unusual for a Director/Auteur - and keeps the overall look, feel, timing, and timing of the whole thing in beautiful sync.

Favorite line: Diane Lane in marvelously modulated deadpan: "You're a fishy guy, aren't you Skippy."

Catch this one if you can, it's fun and a little camp, and lot of professional work and performances that are a pleasure to watch proceed through the narrative.

Slight plot about what happens when fumbling wife Diane Lane receives a gun from her husband. Nicely performed comedy especially by Stephen Collins and James Le Gros. A light divertisement directed in the style of the later "Happiness".

One of the weirdest comedies I've seen yet. I didn't think it was funny or even particularly interesting, and at times it played much like a drama. The acting was fine, I merely feel the writer was smoking banana peels during the project's creation.

Dark comedy, more puzzling and inscrutable than satisfyingly quirky, centers on the ever-changing circumstances happening to a modern day suburban couple who bring a gun into their house. Writer-director Stacy Cochran seemingly has a lot to say about "internal and external regeneration," but never manages to put all her thoughts together (the people in her screenplay talk haltingly, measuring their thoughts between their words). As a result, we're drawn to Diane Lane's lovely, quizzical concern as the housewife to doctor Stephen Collins but not much else. The scenario is intentionally vapid, with these neighborhood weirdos living in a vacuum, but Cochran isn't able to make her sideways vision funny or interesting. *1/2 from ****