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STALKING THE STOOGES
After tasting the relatively stress-free option of producing a movie they neither directed nor wrote (Say It Isn’t So), Peter and Bobby Farrelly are circling round The Three Stooges once more. The idea of doing a biopic about the comedy slapstick trio who made 190 short films between 1934 and 1958 has been around for quite a while. Indeed, it became briefly involved in the Heidi Fleiss scandal, when money supposed to have been spent developing a Stooges biopic is alleged to have been diverted in the direction of purposes more recreational than creative.
Then, a couple of years ago, the Farrelly brothers let it be known that they wanted to do it, and the Moe, Larry and Curly biopic moved back out of the slow lane. According to one report, the brothers were originally so keen to make the film that they were prepared to do it for no money. But Columbia - which was the studio then developing the project - saw the story in very different terms from the Farrellys (less vulgarly, would be my guess). Then the Stooges story passed to Warner Bros, where the Farrellys have just been working on an animation/live action comedy called Osmosis Jones.
Warners approached the lads, and they leapt at the opportunity. The film is still a long way off being made, but Peter told Daily Variety that they would do it as a completely contemporary film with “no explanation, no being their grandsons, no coming back in time from the past”. This, he added, would enable them to explore such jokes as Moe sticking Curly’s head in a microwave.
The Farrellys’ sense of humour being what it is, we should, I suppose, be grateful it was Curly’s head he was talking about. Or perhaps that was just the polite version of the gag.
Currently, by the way, the boys are shooting Shallow Hal, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Jason Alexander and Jack Black.
LIVING THE VIDA LOCA
This time last year, there was much talk about a remake of 1987 hit Dirty Dancing, supposedly due to star Latin heartthrob Ricky Martin, who would - so the story went - be strutting his stuff with Natalie Portman. Well, all I’ve heard about that idea since I left Cannes 2000 is that Quentin Tarantino’s producing partner Lawrence Bender - who recently moved even more solidly into the mainstream with The Mexican - has come aboard. But there’s still nothing like a cast and/or confirmation, let alone a start date.
What there is, however, is a more recent, even more intriguing rumour involving Martin: that he will star in a Warners remake of the 1964 movie Viva Las Vegas. In the context of Elvis Presley’s post-Jailhouse Rock movie outings, Viva wasn’t a half-bad movie, largely because of the fact that the King co-starred with Ann-Margret.
A script for the remake is reportedly being written by Jason Schafer, who penned last year’s Sundance entry trick. In the new version, the rock-’n’-roll-singing-country-boy character will be replaced by an ambitious Puerto Rican songthrush. Given that, I’m sure it will come as no surprise if I tell you that Jennifer Lopez is being mentioned as a possible co-star. It will doubtless come as even less of a surprise if I say she has yet to confirm.
What JLo has done, however, is pull out of Miramax’s Frida Kahlo biopic (one of two somewhere in the works) in favour of Tony Scott’s Taking Lives, in which she will play an FBI profiler.
THE NUN'S STORY
Walter Salles: remember the name? Brazilian director, Oscar-nominated for Central Station? Hollywood Notes in the last issue? Linked with a biopic of Che Guevara?
Well, Fidel only knows where that project is at the moment, especially given the latest film to which Salles’ name was attached in a much-trumpeted announcement from InterMedia and DreamWorks in mid-March. To be fair, though, the reason for all the trumpeting had less to do with Salles than with the cast members lined up for the film, The Assumption of the Virgin.
It’s a period romance set in the Renaissance about the painter Fra Lippi, who apparently confirmed all those prejudices about medieval monks by having a healthy sex life in addition to being one of the leading painters of the Florentine school. The focus of the film - with a screenplay by Anthony Minghella and Leigh Jackson adapted from Katie Campbell’s novel - is on what happens when Fra Lippi falls in love with the deeply religious nun who is posing for his latest painting.
There are four key cast members already confirmed, and they have two Oscars and three Oscar-nominations between them. The painter will be played by Benicio Del Toro, who recently won Best Supporting Actor for Traffic. And the nun part is being taken by Juliette Binoche, nominated earlier this year for her work in Chocolat.
The other two cast members - whose roles have yet to be confirmed - are Geoffrey Rush (who won in 1996 for Shine and was nominated again this year for Quills); and Chloë Sevigny, who was nominated last year for Boys Don’t Cry.
DOLLY SHOT
If I needed to make a list of pleasant cinematic surprises, Dolly Parton’s performance in Nine to Five (1980) would certainly figure somewhere. Previously known as a country singer and as the butt of an endless series of jokes by elderly male comedians, Parton proved herself a fine comic actress in that highly enjoyable movie, effortlessly holding her own alongside such seasoned screen pros as Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin.
Since then, Parton has appeared only rarely on the screen, most notably in Steel Magnolias, most forgettably in Rhinestone. But she hasn’t been seen on the big screen since 1992’s equally forgettable Straight Talk, in which she played a country girl mistaken for a radio psychologist, whose down-home advice becomes a hit with Chicago audiences. The film failed to do likewise, in Chicago as everywhere else.
Dolly went back in front of the cameras at the end of last month, however, in a Disney comedy called Frank McClusky, C.I. The film is about an insurance claims investigator (played by American TV comedian Dave Sheridan) who frequently goes undercover to solve cases. The only trouble is, he is almost pathologically careful about not taking risks, since his Dad, a stuntman, has been in a coma for 20 years and his Mum is always on at him to take care. Dennis Quaid looks likely to play the Dad, with Parton as the overbearing mother. Well, it is 20 years since Nine to Five.
MARRAKECH EXPRESS
Whoever represents the Moroccan Film Commission in Hollywood, they’re doing one hell of a job. Having stood in for everywhere from Tibet (Kundun) to Yemen (Rules of Engagement), the North African kingdom has recently being playing host to both the Scott brothers in succession.
Tony Scott was there doing locations with Robert Redford and Brad Pitt for Spy Game. Preview readers will recall that the British director replaced Dutch Oscar-winner Mike Van Diem some time ago in this quintessential story of a veteran operative who has to go back into action when his young protégé gets into trouble.
No sooner had the younger Scott winged his way back across the Atlantic, however, than brother Ridley flew in to start shooting Black Hawk Down, an action thriller about the US marines’ abortive rescue mission in Somalia in 1993.
This will be the second of Scott’s last three movies to have been filmed in Morocco, which supplied the North African locations for Gladiator. Production started at the end of February, with a brief break to allow the director to fly to Hollywood and pick up a few gongs for Gladiator.
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