My New Gun (1989)
Directed by Maggie Greenwald/Stacy Cochran
110 minutes
**My New Gun** **Stacy Cochran, 1992, U.S., 35mm, 100m** The Garden State’s suburbs serve as the stage for the understated, deadpan noir of Stacy Cochran’s feature debut, starring Diane Lane as Debbie, a New Jersey doctor’s (Stephen Collins) trophy wife who, as a gift from her husband, receives a handgun she does not want. But when Skippy, the slightly eccentric slacker next door (James Le Gros), asks to borrow Debbie’s new firearm and refuses to give it back, Debbie and her husband’s lives begin to change in ways that allow Cochran to send up suburban paranoia and American gun fetishism to mesmerizing, satirical effect. Deftly lensed by cinematographer Ed Lachman and featuring, in a small role, an early Philip Seymour Hoffman performance, _My New Gun_ is a sui generis synthesis of noir and comedy that feels perfectly matched to the cultural and political climates of the 1990s.