Reel News

Rip It Up, Issue 220, 1 December 1995, Page 29

Reel News

Sticking in the literary mode, Leonardo DiCaprio follows his role as Jim Carroll, in forthcoming film The Basketball Diaries, by stepping into the shoes of Arthur Rimbaud, in Total Eclipse, which co-stars David Thewliss ... eager to prove he’s more than simply sex on a stick, Brad Pitt gave himself a home haircut for his part as a wealthy eccentric activist in Twelve Monkeys, a time-travel tale directed by Terry Gillam. Pitt follows this up with a part in Sleepers, based on the book by Lorenzo Carcaterra. The story follows four friends whose lives take different paths after their harsh experiences as juvenile delinquents. The Pittster will also co-star alongside Harrison Ford in Devil’s Own, which is about a cop who unknowingly shelters an IRA terrorist ... John Travolta is joined by Rene Russo, Gene Hackman and Danny DeVito in the screen version of Elmore Leonard’s book Get Shorty. DeVito also produces, and Barry Sonnenfeld directs ... filming has begun on Jane Campion’s adpatation of the Henry James novel Portrait of a Lady. The cast includes Nicole Kidman, Barbara Hershey, John Malkovich, Christian Bale, MaryLouise Parker and Martin Donovan ...

Anjelica Huston is to reprise her Best Supporting Actress Oscar winning role in Prizzi’s Honour in the prequel, Prizzi’s Family. She will also be reunited with ex-husband Jack Nicholson in Sean Penn’s The Crossing Guard ... an American remake of Pedro Almodovar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is on the way ...

Kenneth Branagh will direct and act in a film adpatation of Hamlet ... Jeremy Irons and Melanie Griffith have signed up for Adrian Lyne’s continuously delayed remake of Lolita ... Robert DeNiro will star in Affirmative Action as a cop who gets tangled up with a bunch of LA right-wing extremists ...

Liz Hurley will join Leslie Nielsen for the action spoof Spy Hard ... the ‘it’ girl of the moment, Sandra Bullock, has just finished filming Two if by the Sea with ‘Asshole’ man Denis Leary. She has also signed on for A Time to Ki 11... following the recently completed Beyond Rangoon, Patricia Arquette will play an English woman in The Secret Agent, based on the book by Joseph Conrad and co-starring Gerard Depardieu, Bob Hoskins and Robin Williams; the wife of physicist Richard Fienman, who helped create the atom bomb, in Matthew Broderick’s directorial debut, Infinity (Broderick also costars); and take a place in Spanking the Monkey director David Russell’s forthcoming farce, Flirting With Disaster, which co-stars Ben Stiller, Mary Tyler-Moore, George Segal and Lily Tomlin ... Spike Lee’s newest film, Girl 6, stars Theresa Randle, Madonna, Quentin Tarantino, Debi Mazar, Naomi Campbell, Richard Belzer, Peter Berg, Halle Berry and the director himself ... Clive Barker’s new film is Lord of Illusions, starring Scott Bakula.