Household Saints (Nancy Savoca, 1993)

Lili Taylor in Household Saints

Cast: Tracey Ullman, Vincent D'Onofrio, Lili Taylor, Judith Malina, Michael Rispoli, Victor Argo, Michael Imperioli, Rachel Bella, Ileana Douglas, Joe Grifasi. Screenplay: Richard Guay, Nancy Savoca, based on a novel by Savoca. Cinematography: Bobby Bukowski. Production design: Kalina Ivanova. Film editing: Elizabeth King. Music: Stephen Endelman. 

As a portrayal of a certain kind of religious obsession peculiar to immigrant families, Nancy Savoca's adaptation of Francine Prose's novel Household Saints has warmth and charm balanced with a touch of skepticism. Judith Malina and Tracey Ullman overcome the caricature inherent in their roles as Old World mama and New World daughter-in-law, and Lili Taylor is wonderful as Teresa, who inherits her grandmother's piety with a new intensity. Vincent D'Onofrio is a touch too contemporary in style for the role of the butcher Joseph Santangelo, who tries unsuccessfully to impose his will on the women in his life. The film runs about half an hour too long. It could have jettisoned the subplot dealing with the obsession of Nicky Falconetti (Michael Rispoli) with Asian women, which has something to do with Madame Butterfly, and the framing scenes that set up the veneration of Teresa aren't really necessary. Household Saints sometimes overstates the comedy, but that's a risk inherent in the story, and Savoca manages to avoid the temptation to milk the material for tears.

The Addiction (Abel Ferrara, 1995)

Lili Taylor in The Addiction

Cast: Lili Taylor, Christopher Walken, Annabella Sciorra, Edie Falco, Paul Calderon, Fredro Starr, Kathryn Erbe, Michael Imperioli, Robert W. Castle. Screenplay: Nicholas St. John. Cinematography: Ken Kelsch. Production design: Charles M. Lagola. Film editing: Mayin Lo. Music: Joe Delia. 

Blood looks bloodier in black-and-white. In color it too often looks like ketchup or cranberry juice or corn syrup with red food dye. But under the lens and lights of cinematographer Ken Kelsch in The Addiction it turns black, flat and dry like an aging wound or glossy like the spill of an unsavory substance. And there's a lot of it in the film, which turns vampirism into a metaphor for not only drug addiction but any other self-destructive obsession. When Kathleen Conklin (the terrific Lili Taylor) is turned vampire, her attacker (Annabella Sciorra) tells her to resist, and after Kathleen is addicted, she makes a similar offer to her own victims: They should tell her to go away. Except "victims" is maybe the wrong word here. The film is about something as banal as responsibility or yielding to temptation: It almost devolves into a "just say no" moral treatise, except that it also exposes the inanity of that maxim. Christopher Walken plays a vampire who has managed to get his bloodlust under control, except that we can see the price he has paid doing so. As Macbeth put it, "I am in blood / Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o'er." Admonitions against self-destructive behavior aside, The Addiction is a fable with rich intellectual content, a meditation on human appetite and attempts to control it. That it's also a pretty damn good horror movie is only part of it. 

Say Anything.... (Cameron Crowe, 1989)

John Cusack in Say Anything....

Cast: John Cusack, Ione Skye, John Mahoney, Lili Taylor, Amy Brooks, Pamela Adlon, Joan Cusack, Jason Gould, Loren Dean, Jeremy Piven, Bebe Neuwirth, Eric Stoltz, Philip Baker Hall. Screenplay: Cameron Crowe. Cinematography: Lásló Kovács. Production design: Mark W. Mansbridge. Film editing: Richard Marks. Music: Anne Dudley, Richard Gibbs.

No teen comedy is more full of memorable moments and lines than Cameron Crowe's Say Anything.... "I gave her my heart and she gave me a pen." "I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed.'' And even today, John Cusack's Lloyd Dobler holding up a boom box playing Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" remains one of the definitive movie images, long after boom boxes became obsolete. Crowe managed to overcome the banality of the misfit romance trope -- slacker and high achiever fall in love -- with the help of an enormously talented cast.