Reel News

Rip It Up, Issue 225, 1 May 1996, Page 40

Reel News

Robert Altman’s next project will be the film version of the highly acclaimed play Angels in America, which will star Al Pacino. Altman is also sorting out another batch of Raymond Carver stories to make into a Short Cuts sequel... Tricky has taken a substantial role in an upcoming Luc Besson film ... Mary Stuart Masterson makes her directorial debut on a script she wrote called Grapefruit Moon. Francis Ford Coppola will produce ...

Alicia Silverstone will produce and star in the comedy Excess Baggage, as a girl who arranges her own kidnapping to get some fatherly attention. Usual Suspect Benicio del Toro joins her line-up ... Mark Wahlberg follows up his role in The Basketball Diaries with the lead in Fear, alongside Alyssa Milano ... Chris O’Donnell will co-star with Sandra Bullock in Bichard Attenborough’s upcoming Hemingway movie, In Love and War. He will also star in the film adaptation of John Grisham’s The Chamber, which James Foley directs. Neither of these pieces of news should be confused with the fact Sandra Bullock is also to star in the Joel Schumacher directed adaptation of John Grisham’s first novel, A Time to Kill, alongside Samuel L Jackson ...

Ridley Scott’s next film is White Squall, which tells the story of a truelife maritime disaster and stars Jeff Bridges ... Keenan Ivory Wayans has produced Paris Barclay’s debut feature, the piss-taking Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood ... Linda Fiorentino and her Last Seduction director John Dahl are reunited with the tangled sci-fi tale Unforgettable ... Ellen's Ellen De Generes stars alongside Bill Pullman in the comedy Mr Wrong ... Guiseppe Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso, A Pure Formality) has written and directed The Star Maker, in which a snaky faker poses as a talent scout and tricks a bunch of country bumpkins into paying him for sham screen tests ... Harrison Ford and Susan Sarandon play restaurant owners in Paying Up, a comedy set the day before the stockmarket crash of 1987. Other upcoming Ford roles (for which he will receive (US)S2O-million each) are alongside Brad Pitt in Devil’s Own, and in the air action drama Air Force One ... you know the gossip which made Melanie Griffiths and Antonio Banderas cover stars of the women’s mag set, but did you know the film on which they met, Two Much, also starring Daryl Hannah, is Belle Epoque director Fernando Trueba’s English language debut? ... Christian Slater plays a lawyer who is a real devil’s advocate in Devil’s Advocate ... Robert Redford’s next directorial project will be The Horse Whisperer, based on the Nicholas Evans novel which Hollywood Pictures bought the rights to for a record-break-ing (US)$3-million in 1994, despite the fact it was unfinished ... Leonardo DiCaprio and Clare Danes co-star in Strictly Ballroom director Baz Luhrmann’s take on Romeo and Juliette ... even as Madonna films Alan Parker’s Evita in Buenos Aires, protests to oust her from the sainted star spot continue. At least the city’s mayor is on Maddy’s side, and has gone out of his way to welcome her publicly ... Tim Burton’s next film is the fantastically entitled Mars Attacks! ... Arnold Schwarzenegger follows the upcoming, big-bangin’ action flick Eraser with another foray into comedy, as a dad with a mission in Jingle All the Way ... Diabolique (Jeremiah Chechik’s remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Les Diaboliques) has hit a snag in the shape of Clouzot’s widow. She claims to own all the rights to her late husband’s work, and now plans to halt the film’s release by taking her case to the French Ministry of Culture. Stay tuned to see if this will affect the film’s September scheduled opening in New Zealand.

UPCOMING RELEASES

Executive Decision May 3 Four Rooms May 17 Rumble in the Bronx May 17 Mr Holland’s Opus May 24 City Hall May 24