Film Fun

Rip It Up, Issue 21, 1 April 1979, Page 14

Film Fun

Well-known film critic Pauline Kael is to quit the New Yorker to work for Warren Beatty’s production company. She commented that she was finding it harder to write intelligently about bad films, and decided she needed a breather ... Beatty’s company is already well into preproduction work on a film based on the book about the 1917 Russian Revolution, Ten Days That Shook the World. The film will likely be titled Red Square ... Eagles’ manager Irv Azoff is to produce a Western entitled Desperado. Music will be provided by the The Eagles ... The Band’s drummer Levon Helm is to play Loretta Lynn’s father in the film based on her life story, Coal Miner's Daughter. The part of Loretta Lynn will be taken by Sissy Spacek ... The Blues Brothers, Joliet Jake and Elwood Blues, as portrayed by Saturday Night mainstays John Belushi and Dan Akroyd, are to make a film. The movie will tell the tale of Jake and Elwood's attempts to reform their band after Jake escapes from prison. The Blues Brothers' album has sold 2,200,000 copies in the States and a soundtrack album from the movie will be released in mid 1980 ... the producers of I Wanna Hold Your Hand are to follow it up with Just Us Kids. The sequel will centre on the lives of six teenagers during the height of Beatlemania ... The Who Ltd (that’s the film production company established by The Who) is to follow up its first two films The Kids Are Alright and Ouadrophenia with McVicar, the story (based on fact) of John McVicar who escaped from a supposedly escape-proof prison ... Milos Forman’s movie version of Hair has been released to let's just say less than enthusiastic reviews ... Forman is now set to film Hadrian VII, the story of an ordinary man who becomes Pope ... Michael Cimino has won the Director’s Guild of America's feature directing award for The Deer Hunter. Many are picking Cimino to take an Oscar for his direction ... Cimino is now set to film Heaven’s Gate, which Cimino modestly describes as the story of the birth of the American nation. Players set for the film are John Hurt and Kris Kristofferson ... Ken Russell is to direct Altered States, a film scripted by Paddy Chayefsky. Originally scheduled director, Arthur Penn, quit due to creative differences with Chayefsky. This film was dumped by Columbia when the budget shot from a projected sl2 million to sl9 million due to special effects costs. But one of the other major studios has picked up the project ... Otto Preminger is to film Graham Greene’s novel, The Human Factor ... director of The Eyes of Laura Mars, Irvin Kershner, is shooting the Star Wars' sequel The Empire Strikes Back. Scripted by George Lucas and others, the cast once again includes Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher... Robert Altman is filming Health with Lauren Bacall, Carol Burnett, Glenda Jackson and Dinah Shore among others ...