RAISING CAIN
The husband-and-wife team of director Brian De Palma (The Bonfire
of the Vanities) and producer Gale Anne Hurd (The Abyss) put their
heads together for this thriller about a child psychologist (John
Lithgow) who develops a creepy obsession with his own child. When his
wife (Lolita Davidovich) rekindles her romance with an old suitor
(Steven Bauer), things really start to get ugly. Remember: De Palma
and Hurd are — Twilight Zone music here — new parents themselves.
Inside Story: De Palma kicked off Bonfire with a dizzying
five-minute, nonstop shot of Bruce Willis stumbling through New
York's vast Winter Garden plaza. He may top it this time with a
continuous shot of Frances Sternhagen descending into a morgue. Last
fall in the Mountain View, Calif., city hall, Steadicam operator
Larry McConkey preceded Sternhagen as she trekked down four flights
of stairs for about 25 takes in 12 hours. Sternhagen, who also had to
talk throughout, relied on deep breaths and Evian. "There was always
some nice production assistant standing there going, 'Do you need
more water, Frances?'" she says.
RAPID FIRE
Brandon Lee, the 27-year-old son of the late, great Kung Fu
fighter Bruce Lee, stars as an intense art student whose father's
murder is the perfect excuse to unlimber his nifty martial arts
moves.
Inside Story: In films of this genre, Lee says, "You either get
fine actors who cheat on the fighting or great martial artists who
can't act their way out of a paper bag. If it's not too much hubris
to say, audiences are going to see someone with both." Lee
choreographed his own fight sequences, but in the act of not cheating
he learned a bit about suffering for his art: "I nailed this big,
heavy oak door and just shattered my toe. When I got home my foot was
the size of a watermelon." He had to take a month off to recuperate;
the scene never made it into the movie.
SINGLE WHITE FEMALE
In what director Barbet Schroeder (Reversal of Fortune) calls a
"Hitchcockian relationship of codependency," Bridget Fonda plays a
woman desperately seeking a roommate for her New York apartment, and
Jennifer Jason Leigh is the character who answers the ad and becomes
dangerously — even murderously — obsessed with her new best friend.
Inside Story: For this thriller — which is starting to look like a
surprise late-summer hit — Schroeder gave Fonda her choice of the two
roles. She opted for the outwardly stronger though emotionally needy
victim. "Bridget is very independent and charming, and all that
covers the insecurity that many people have," says Schroeder. "But
her facade is so fantastic it makes her insecurity all the more
surprising." As for the predatory Leigh, "I think she understands the
pain of rejection, of not being able to conform."
SINGLES
An ensemble piece for twentysomethings, this stars Matt Dillon,
Bridget Fonda, Kyra Sedgwick, Campbell Scott, Sheila Kelley, and Jim
True as Seattle singles struggling in the age of AIDS. Dillon plays a
rock & roller (the film was once titled Love or Confusion, after the
Hendrix tune), and many of the peripheral characters are real-life
musicians from the white-hot Seattle alternative- music bands,
including Pearl Jam and Soundgarden.
Inside Story: Most of the filming was done in one Seattle
apartment building, so writer-director Cameron Crowe (Say Anything) thought it would be convenient to actually move some of the actors in
for the 11-week production. The cast incorporated themselves so well
into the apartment that one tenant, standing out in the hallway with
Dillon and Fonda one day, asked them what the film was about and
when the actors would arrive. He must have missed the sign, hung in
the windows across the street by adoring secretaries, that said in
huge letters, "HI MATT."
