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Will California export Valley Girls to New York?

 
Published Feb. 16, 1990|Updated Oct. 16, 2005

Difficult to believe, but a movie called Scenes From a Mall is not being shot in Los Angeles, or even Southern California. Difficult, that is, until you learn that Woody Allen is starring with Bette Midler in the comedy-drama being produced and directed by Paul Mazursky, from a script Mazursky co-wrote with Roger Simon.

The Touchstone film deals with a married couple (Midler and Allen)

celebrating their 15th anniversary. Principal photography is scheduled to begin in May; the location, of course, is New York City.

Menachem Golan's 21st Century Film Corp. is rushing to complete a movie inspired by the lambada dance craze in time for the Cannes Film Festival in May.

Lambada! The Forbidden Dance stars former Miss USA Laura Herring as a Brazilian girl who, determined to save her country's rain forests from destruction by a multinational corporation, is dispatched by her father (an Amazon king) to the United States. There, she introduces her new friends to the dance that has couples swaying hip to hip.

John Goodman knows what he is going to be doing on his summer vacation: playing the leads in two feature films.

When the current season of Roseanne wraps at the end of March, Goodman heads to London to star in the title role of "King Ralph," about a Las Vegas lounge performer who becomes King of England.

Then, according to Daily Variety, Goodman will return to film Barton Fink, a 1941 Hollywood period piece by Joel and Ethan Coen, for whom he last worked in Raising Arizona.

Michael Pare will star as twin brothers in 21st Century's action-thriller The Killing Streets. He will play both a U.S. Marine held hostage by terrorists in Beirut and the brother who mounts a rescue mission.

Playwright Tom Stoppard makes his feature directorial debut in Rosencranz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Stoppard's adaptation of his Tony-winning sendup of Shakespeare's Hamlet as seen from the perspective of two minor characters.

The $6-million film stars Richard Dreyfuss, Gary Oldman and Tim Roth.

At 98, Hal Roach has survived most of the major comedy talents his studio developed from 1915 through the early 1940s - Harold Lloyd, Snub Pollard, Thelma Todd, Edgar Kennedy, the Our Gang/Little Rascals kids and, of course, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.

The American Cinematheque salute to Roach last week included screenings of several of the short comedies that were his bread and butter along with some feature-length films, including Of Mice and Men, One Million B.C., Sons of the Desert and the original Topper, starring Cary Grant and Constance Bennett.

One of the most popular programs was the Stan & Ollie en Espanol screening of the Spanish-language versions of three short Laurel & Hardy films.

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