Matewan (1987)

Matewan is a beautiful communist western. And it involves the kind of group dynamic that Sayles is so excellent at portraying. Chris Cooper and Mary McDonnell are wonderful, but a special shout-out is surely due to James Earl Jones and David Strathairn who are exquisite in this.

Something Wild

Something Wild is extraordinary and weird and very Jonathan Demme. Melanie Griffith and Jeff Daniels and Ray Liotta are all sexy as hell. And Ray Liotta gives a weirdly brilliant performance. It's just so strange and compelling and... silly? Cameos by John Waters and John Sayles round out the weirdness, but the extraordinary thing here is the direction. The entire film made me uncomfortable, but when Demme's movie leaps genres and becomes something altogether different than it promised, it moves into brilliant territory.