Real News

Rip It Up, Issue 224, 1 April 1996, Page 40

Real News

The Cohen Brothers are back with the pitch black, dare-you-to-call-it-a-comedy Fargo, which is based on the true story of a 1987 kidnapping scam which went seriously amuck ... other good news in the returns department concerns David Lynch, who’s back with Lost Highway, which stars Bill Pullman and Patricia Arquette. Arquette also co-stars with Ben Stiller in David O Russell’s Spanking the Monkey follow-up, Flirting With Disaster. Meanwhile, Stiller is back behind the camera for his Reality Bites follow-up, Cable Guy — a comedy starring Jim Carrey and Matthew Broderick ... Woody Harrelson has found himself associated with another allegedly ‘copycat crime’ inspiring picture in Money Train. Two days after the film’s US opening, two men, in an incident similar to one from the film, poured petrol over a Brooklyn subway ticket booth and set it alight. A 50-year-old station worker was burned as a result, and later died. New York subway workers have appealed for a boycott of the film, while Republican senator Bob Dole (the man who mouthed off most noisily over Natural Born Killers) called for a total ban of it, to no avail ... while we still wait for the appearance of Liv Tyler on our big screens, her buzz keeps growing. After filming Tom Hanks’ directorial debut, That Thing You Do — the story of a fictional 60s rock band who reach a turning point at the crest of their popularity — she will shoot Inventing the Abbots, from Circle of Friends director Pat O’Connor ... Woody Allen’s latest film (apparently a musical) sees him teamed up with Goldie Hawn, Julia Roberts, Tim Roth and (you guessed it) Liv Tyler ... the daughter of Midnight Cowboy Jon Voight, Angeline Jolie, has been marked as one to watch due to her debut in lain Softley’s Back Beat follow-up, the hi-tech fest-cum-comic thriller Hackers ...

Bosnian director Emir Kusturcia has vowed to quit the world of film after his Palme D’Or winning Underground was denounced by critics as Serbian propaganda, promoting the idea of a united Yugoslavia... Pedro Almodovar has dispensensed with his kinky sex and garish visual trademarks for his latest film, The Flower of My Secret. Marisa Paredes stars as a middle-aged romance author who embarks on a voyage of self discovery when her life starts crumbling. Rossi De Palma and Chus Lumpreave co-star ... Matt Dillon is joined by Lauren Holly, Timothy Hutton, Rosie O’Donnell, Mira Sorvino, Martha Plimpton and Uma Thurman in Ted Demme’s Beautiful Girls. Dillon describes it as being “about that post-hol-iday blah thing”. He also stars in Albino Alligator alongside Fay Dunnaway, M Emmet Walsh, Joe Mantegna and Gary Sinise ... Liz Hurley will play a law bending stripper in an as-yet-untitled film being shot in South Africa. She is also co-producing Extreme Measures with her beloved, Hugh Grant... MaryHarron’s I Shot Andy Warhol is the story of the woman who shot Andy Warhol (duhl), and stars Lili Taylor, Stephen Dorff (as drag queen Candy Darling) and Donovon Leitch ... Leonardo DiCaprio stars alongside Meryl Streep and Diane Keaton in Marvin Room ... Sharon Stone gives up the wonderful trash-chic 70-80 s wardrobe she boasts in Casino, to play a woman who has been on death row for her entire adult life in Bruce Beresford’s Last Dance. She has also teamed up with the time transcendingly beautiful Isabelle Adjani and Chazz Palminteri in Jeremiah Chechik’s remake of HenriGeorges Clouzot’s French classic, Les Diaboliques, simply entitled Diabolique ... Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Beals and James LeGros star in Wishful Thinking. LeGros plays a projectionist at a revival theatre, who literally sees his life like a movie ... Trainspotting, based on the novel by Irvine Welsh, is the new film from the makers of Shallow Grave ...

Jon Bon Jovi will follow his role in the upcoming Moonlight and Valentino with a lead in John Duigan’s The Leading Man, alongside Lambert Wilson and Anna Galiena ... Kids co-star Justin Pierce has a role as Cathy Moriarty’s son in Brother’s Kiss, which also features Rosie Perez, Michael Rappaport, Marisa Tomei and John Leguizamo, and is directed by Seth Rosenfield ... the scheduled New Zealand releases of the tragic The Scarlet Letter (Demi Moore and Gary Oldman) and the more worthy Beyond Rangoon (Patricia Arquette) have been cancelled ... Dr Haing S Ngor was shot dead in Chinatown, Los Angeles, on February 27. Ngor became the first non-professional actor to receive an Academy Award (as best supporting actor) since 1946 for his role as Dith Pran in The Killing Fields (1984), and went on to act in eight more films and several television series’ ... Double Life of Veronique, Red, White and Blue director Krzysztof Kieslowski (54) died of a heart attack on March 16, after undergoing a heart bypass operation.