Comfort Films 125: My Blue Heaven (1990)

For the month of November, we're throwing a four-episode Friendsgiving celebration and inviting friends old and new to talk about some of their favorite films! We start with welcoming returning guest Frank Bonanno to discuss the Steve Martin/Rick Moranis mob movie My Blue Heaven, a de facto comedic sequel to Goodfellas (which came out a few weeks later). Writer Nora Ephron was married to Henry Hill biographer Nicholas Pileggi during the writing of Wiseguy and took real stories of Hill's time in witness protection as inspiration for her screenplay. We talk about the Goodfellas connections, the crazy casting process that at one point had Arnold Schwarzenegger playing mobster Vinnie Antonelli, Joan Cusack's excellent work as prosecutor Hannah Stubbs - who holds her own toe to toe with Martin's Antonelli and Moranis's Barney Coopersmith, the difficulties of finding good Italian food in certain parts of the country, and the idea of a heaven populated by mobsters in witness protection. Let's hit the dance floor and do the merengue--don't forget to overtip your server!