WELCOME TO PARADISE Starring Dana Carvey, Jon Lovitz, Nicolas Cage. Directed by George Gallo. Any flick that casts Carvey, Lovitz, and Cage as brothers gets bonus points for chutzpah. The three play the Firpos, nudnick hoods from New York City who mastermind a Christmas Eve bank heist in a Pennsylvania cow town called Paradise-only to be thwarted by the locals' over-the-top geniality. "Midnight Run meets It's a Wonderful Life," is how Carvey describes it. Filmed last winter in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, the production endured the region's coldest weather in decades-but still had to import a reported 25 tons of potato flakes to simulate a yuletide blizzard. And speaking of flakes: Lovitz, Saturday Night Live's pathological liar, who plays another compulsive fibber in the film, sees Paradise as a career breakthrough. "I'm not doing a character," he says. "It's pretty much my own voice and personality." Yeah, that's the ticket. *What's At Stake: Of the three amigos, Cage is hot compared with the full-time comics; Carvey needs to prove there's life outside Wayne's World; Lovitz still has some explaining to do for Mom and Dad Save the World.
PULP FICTION Starring John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Uma Thurman, Tim Roth, Rosanna Arquette, Amanda Plummer, Eric Stoltz, Christopher Walken, Harvey Keitel. Directed by Quentin Tarantino. A triptych of brutal (and often brutally funny) tales of thugs, drugs, and dumb lugs, Pulp Fiction is riding a wave of good buzz that began last spring when it took the Palme d'Or at Cannes. It's already being flagged as a career- resuscitator for Travolta, who impressed Tarantino by beating him in a Welcome Back, Kotter board game. "Quentin gave me my job back," says the actor, who plays a philosophically inclined hit man. "I've never been surrounded by so many good actors." And in a nod to Saturday Night Fever fans, Travolta even takes to the dance floor to do a stylized twist with drug- addicted gangster's moll Thurman. On the set, Tarantino, a walking film encyclopedia, had a film reference for every occasion: To get Travolta and Thurman in the mood for their pas de deux, he showed them a scene from Jean- Luc Godard's Band of Outsiders, and a screening of an old Aldo Ray film inspired Willis' boxer's buzz cut. "Bruce is the only major star," claims Tarantino, "who actually looks like those actors from the '50s." (Oct. 7) *What's At Stake: Career boosts for everyone involved, and probable punishment for the TriStar exec who made the foolish decision to put this $8 million film into turnaround last year (Tarantino went to Miramax instead).
NOBODY'S FOOL Starring Paul Newman, Melanie Griffith, Jessica Tandy, Bruce Willis. Directed by Robert Benton. Sure hands at work: Updating his charming ne'er-do-well roles from Hud and The Hustler, Newman plays Donald "Sully" Sullivan, a hard-luck construction worker trying to reunite with the son he abandoned long ago; Benton returns to the kind of story that won him Oscars for Places in the Heart and Kramer vs. Kramer. Keeping up with these old pros (Newman is 69, Benton, 61) was a concern for cast and crew. For Griffith, who plays Toby, Sully's love interest, it was her second chance to act with Newman. "When I was 17," she says, "he told me, 'If you want to be an actress, you better study.' So to work with him now, I was petrified. But he was so helpful." Others didn't fare so well. Cinematographer Roger Deakins was replaced by John Bailey mid-shoot. "I would prefer not to talk about that, since they're both friends of mine," says Benton. "We didn't lose any days, and the transition between their styles is seamless." (Oct. 7) *What's At Stake: Besides Oscar chips for Newman and Benton, there's Willis. His unbilled performance as Sully's sometime boss and Toby's husband could add to the actor-of-substance aura he'll carry from Pulp Fiction.
