You may have read Cher‘s quote the other day about waiting to become old enough to evolve from lover to mother. (At least mother without motorcycle.) Looks like she’s made it. She’ll star in Tea with Mussolini for director Franco Zeffirelli along with other mature actresses Joan Plowright, Maggie Smith and Judi Dench. Cher plays a Jewish-American living abroad in the 1930s and early ’40s with bank accounts filled by numerous husbands. She, with assistance from the other ladies, takes the opportunity to change the life of a young man. Sounds like Auntie Mame with fascism. Either that or Harold and Maude with a nose job and breast implants. Your call.
NOW THAT’S COOL: Rap star Coolio will play a triple role in the upcoming independent film Tyrone. He plays Tyrone, Tyrone’s twin brother Jerome and their triplet sister, Cherone. You know what I always say, you can never have enough Coolio. (Unless you had enough Coolio before his “Dangerous Minds” video was over.)
AND EBERT: Gene Siskel is still recuperating from brain surgery, so you had to wonder what would happen on “Siskel & Ebert.” Maybe Roger and a disembodied hand puppet? Well, the answer came last weekend as Roger took his balcony seat and Gene called in from his recovery room. It was pretty surreal. Disney (who produces the show) had a split screen with stills of Gene and an “On the telephone: Gene Siskel” graphic. But the stills would dissolve into slightly different stills every few seconds, giving the illusion of movement. Rogert Ebert was very solicitous, but clearly pretty uncomfortable. I’m glad Siskel is well enough to look at video tapes and to put together his thoughts on the latest films, but isn’t this a little more than we needed? Certainly not more than the studios needed. Siskel and Ebert are apparently important enough to the ongoing marketing of films; in the eyes of the studios, that propping up Gene seems like a good idea. I mean, this isn’t exactly like waiting for the president to return to office after a major operation. This guy is a film critic! I know that we were all on pins and needles waiting to see what he thought of Godzilla, but he could have taken a few weeks off if he and Disney wanted my thumbs up.
STONE IN A BROOK(S): Sharon Stone is apparently chatting about being in Albert Brooks‘ next film, The Muse. The film is about a writer who finally finds the woman who inspires him to possible greatness. The film will be made by October Films, which was recently folded into Universal Pictures. But I still wonder, why don’t the majors support Brooks in his work? There’s nothing wrong with October, but Brooks would seem like the kind of writer-director, like Woody Allen, who could help the overall profile of a major by being part of the family. On the other hand, I hear that Woody’s long-established freedom to make whatever he wants whenever he wants to has taken some serious hits in the last couple of years that has led to his re-association with producer Jean Doumanian.
ONE IF BY LAND: The return of the Titanic may be behind Warner Bros.’ willingness to pay for the rights to the unpublished book 1906 for Barry Levinson‘s Baltimore Pictures. It’s the story of the Big One, the earthquake that hit San Francisco in 1906. The purchase of the book was based on a movie treatment which has a budding romance in the days before the quake and through the four days in which the city burned. “I’m fireman of the world!”
X MARKS: Are you anxiously awaiting The X-Files? Are you reading The Hot Button? Click on The X-Files banner on the nav bar to learn all you need to know about how to plug into The X-Files premiere next week on rough cut. I’ll be there. You come, too.
PLOT DOES MATTER: Thanks to Cinescape, who caught the Lucasfilm moment of insanity on their hard drive, you can see the Godzilla diss of the week. Click.
THE CONTEST: The end of Dave’s Box Office Contest has come. But there will be two contests in its place. Win, Place & Show is the new weekly box office contest. It’ll be easier to play and should be fun, so check it out tomorrow. Plus, Dave’s Summer Movie Race is up today. Handicap the movies best, and you can end up with your very own DVD player.
READER OF THE DAY: Erin writes: “Your weekend The Hot Button has proven to be a source of amusing confusion for a friend of mine and I’ll admit that it did take me a minute to realize the source. Then I laughed. From last weekend’s The Hot Button: ‘Nicolas Cage, freed from Super duty for at least eight months, is going on with his work. He just finished principal photography on the snuff film thriller 8mm for director Joel Schumacher.’ On first glance, it sounds like Schumacher (about whom I will refrain from comment) has made a studio- and industry-sanctioned snuff film. No mention here of the fact that 8mm is ‘about’ a snuff film, not ‘actually’ a snuff film itself. Pretty wily words you’ve written. It’s a good thing I was able to set her straight, or before you know it media outlets across the nation will be running ‘Schumacher shoots film — literally!’ headlines. I can see it in the Weekly World News already.”

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