Chris Frantz Movies

Michelle Pfeiffer is Married to the Mob in this comedy. The wife of Mafia hitman Alec Baldwin, Pfeiffer regularly chastizes her husband for his underhanded line of work. Baldwin refuses to entertain any thoughts of quitting the mob-and besides, he's got a good thing going with Nancy Travis, the promiscuous girl friend of gang boss Dean Stockwell. When Stockwell catches on to Travis' peccadilloes, he murders both his mistress and the unlucky Baldwin. At Baldwin's funeral, Stockwell is overwhelmed by Pfeiffer's beauty, and immediately begins plying her with expensive gifts. But Pfeiffer is through with this sort of thing, and with her young son in tow, she leaves town, hoping to start life anew. Upon making the acquaintance of bumbling, seemingly sincere Matthew Modine, Pfeiffer is convinced that Modine is just another mob flunkey. But it's even worse: Modine is an FBI agent, ordered to get to Stockwell by using Pfeiffer as bait. Reluctantly (he's grown quite fond of her himself), Modine blackmails Pfeiffer into setting up a rendezvous with Stockwell. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Stop Making Sense was the first feature-length documentary effort of filmmaker Jonathan Demme. The director's subject is The Talking Heads, a new-wave/pop-rock group comprised of David Byrne, Chris Franz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison. The film was made during a three-day concert gig at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood. What emerges on screen says as much about director Demme's taste and sensitivity as it does about the group and its visionary leader Byrne. Though some of the material in Stop Making Sense overlaps with the Talking Heads' earlier concert film The Name of This Band is Talking Heads, one never gets the feeling of by-the-numbers repetition; the group's energy is such that it virtually explodes from the screen. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi