POP/ROCKRappers Arrested in Shootings: Two controversial rap...

POP/ROCK

Rappers Arrested in Shootings: Two controversial rap stars have been arrested in unrelated shooting incidents. Hollywood rapper Tupac Amaru Shakur was arrested on Sunday on two counts of aggravated assault after allegedly shooting two off-duty police officers in Atlanta. Police say that the 22-year-old rapper, who co-starred with Janet Jackson in the film “Poetic Justice,” shot the men after an argument broke out when a car almost hit one of the officers’ wives as she crossed the street. According to police, Shakur was among a group of men who got out of the car and at least one other nearby car. Police said one of the officers pointed a gun toward the group, but it wasn’t clear if the men identified themselves as police officers. The two officers, brothers Mark and Scott Whitwell, were later reported in satisfactory condition at a local hospital, with one wounded in the abdomen and the other in the buttocks. A preliminary hearing, originally scheduled for Monday, was postponed until Dec. 1, and the rapper was freed on $55,000 bail. Shakur, whose anti-cop lyrics have drawn national criticism, gained attention when a man who had been listening to his album “2pacalypse Now” shot and killed a Texas state trooper. Shakur also faces an Atlanta charge of simple battery for allegedly slapping a woman last summer when she asked for his autograph.

In a separate occurrence, Rap star Flavor Flav of the million-selling group Public Enemy was arrested in New York Monday morning for allegedly trying to shoot another man in a dispute over a woman. No injuries were reported, but police said the rapper, whose real name is William Drayton, was facing charges of attempted murder, possession of a weapon and reckless endangerment shooting. A semi-automatic pistol was recovered after the incident at a New York apartment house, police said. Flav, 34, was arrested last year for allegedly punching his girlfriend.

Musician Arrested in Canada: In still another police case, Shannon Hoon, the lead singer of the Los Angeles-based rock group Blind Melon, was arrested in Vancouver after he reportedly stripped and urinated on stage during a concert there Sunday. After complaints from concertgoers, police surrounded Hoon’s tour bus following the performance. Hoon then climbed on the bus’s roof and shouted obscenities at police before surrendering. He was charged with indecent behavior and released pending a court appearance in December.

MOVIES

Fellini’s Wake: Technicians at Rome’s Cinecitta studios on Monday hurriedly re-created a set from “Intervista,” one of Federico Fellini’s last films, to serve as the backdrop for his wake in a cavernous space the director called his professional home. As circus-like music from Fellini’s films tinkled in the background, workers set the scene for the wake that began Monday and will continue today. . . . Meanwhile, in the United States, cable’s Cinemax will show the subtitled “Intervista” (1987), in which Fellini stars as himself, today at 2:30 p.m., and the Bravo channel will show his Oscar-winning 1954 movie, “La Strada,” on Thursday at 6 and 11 p.m. The five-time Oscar winner died Sunday at age 73.

Technology Woos Kubrick: After a two-year absence from the project, Stanley Kubrick has again decided to produce and direct “AI,” an epic science-fiction story named for the abbreviation for artificial intelligence. Kubrick put the Warner Bros. project aside in 1991 because he felt that the visuals were beyond what special effects could then accomplish. After reportedly being impressed with the technology used in “Jurassic Park,” Kubrick has given the film the go-ahead, with production planned for next year. The story is set in a future when intelligent robots serve in many capacities, the greenhouse effect has melted the ice caps and many great cities, including New York, are drowned.

ART

Sotheby’s L.A. Comeback?: Sotheby’s auction house, which closed its Southland sales operation in July, 1982, plans to start holding local auctions of modern and contemporary prints in the spring. The first sale is scheduled for March 26, 1994, at the Regent Beverly Wilshire. Ruth Ziegler, of Sotheby’s New York print department, is organizing the auction in the firm’s Beverly Hills office. Sotheby’s says future sales also will be devoted to prints, but dealers speculate that success in that low-priced corner of the market is likely to bring back auctions of other kinds of art.

QUICK TAKES

The Mark Taper Forum has called off its production of David Mamet’s “Oleanna,” which had been scheduled for Jan. 16-March 13. A Taper spokeswoman attributed the cancellation to a casting dispute between Mamet and the Taper management. No replacement show has been selected yet. . . . Pop star Elton John launched a libel suit Monday against a British newspaper that he claims defamed his character by falsely suggesting he was on a bulimic “diet of death” in which food was chewed but not swallowed. The 46-year-old singer-songwriter has acknowledged battling with a string of addictions including bulimia, but says he beat them long before the Dec. 27 story in the Sunday Mirror.