MOVIESAnother Screen Role for Mrs. RitchieMadonna will...

MOVIES

Another Screen Role for Mrs. Ritchie

Madonna will star in her husband Guy Ritchie’s next film, a spokesman for the British director said Friday. Ritchie will direct his wife of eight months in a remake of the 1975 Italian love story “Swept Away.” She’ll play a spoiled rich woman who falls in love with a communist sailor during a cruise in the Mediterranean.

It won’t be the first professional outing for the couple. He directed the violent video for her recent single “What It Feels Like for a Girl,” which was banned from MTV and VH1 after airing only once. She also appeared in an Internet film Ritchie created for car maker BMW.

No date has been set for starting production.

A Visual Remembrance of the Blacklist

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will present an exhibit on the Hollywood blacklist--one of the most controversial eras in motion picture history. The project--curated by Larry Ceplair, co-author of “The Inquisition in Hollywood: Politics in the Film Community 1930-1960”--is scheduled for February.

Paramount: Our Way or the Highway

Pitting journalists who play by their rules against those who violate the studio’s edict, Paramount has been placing phone calls to several New York-based weekly publications, reminding them not to run reviews of new films until they’ve opened.

New York magazine, the New York Observer, the New Yorker, Time and Newsweek are among those who have been contacted. “In effect, we were told, ‘Review it after it opens or don’t review it at all,”’ New York magazine’s David Denby told Variety.

Though the studio says the policy isn’t new, the embargo came as a surprise to Village Voice film editor Dennis Lim, who learned of it too late to postpone a negative review of Paramount’s “The Score.”

The real test: media treatment of Paramount’s “Rat Race,” for which an all-media screening is scheduled Wednesday, 16 days before its release date. Lim said the message he got implied “that we will be struck off the Paramount screening list if we break their rules again.”

Nancy Kirkpatrick, Paramount’s executive vice president for worldwide publicity, says she thought that everyone had been aware of the policy, which, with rare exceptions such as “The Truman Show” and “Wonder Boys,” had been in effect for years. These calls, she told The Times, were just a reminder of the new “Rat Race” opening date.

THEATER

Local Playwright Opens Off-Broadway

“Topdog/Underdog,” the new play about feuding brothers by CalArts faculty member Suzan-Lori Parks, opened Thursday at New York’s Joseph Papp Public Theater. Ben Brant-ley of the New York Times deemed Parks a “ferociously talented writer,” calling “Topdog’s” first act “as exciting as any new play by a young American since Tony Kushner’s ‘Angels in America.”’

Brantley wasn’t alone, however, in feeling let down by the second act’s “conventional melodrama.” The New York Daily News called Act 2 “weak,” while the Post wrote the whole thing off as “a big, busy gumbo of incredible and pretentious ideas.” “Topdog/Underdog” closes Sept. 2.

TELEVISION/RADIO

Election 2000: The Ultimate Reality Show

What about Bill Pullman as W, Ted Danson as Gore and Anjelica Huston as Katherine Harris, the indomitable Florida secretary of state? It’s anyone’s guess at this point who’ll be cast in a behind-the-scenes account of the 2000 presidential election being mounted by Showtime.

The project’s executive producer, Steven Haft, is a veteran of the Peabody Award-winning “Strange Justice,” about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas--as is Jacob Epstein, who’s writing the piece with Jeffrey Lewis (“Hill Street Blues”). New Yorker Washington correspondent Jane Mayer, who co-authored the bestseller “Strange Justice,” will serve as co-producer.

KABC-AM Phases Out Grant’s Talk Program

KABC-AM (790) has officially dropped Toni Grant’s talk show, which aired weeknights from 9 to midnight. Doug McIntyre, who handled the overnight shift for the station, began temporarily filling in about three weeks ago.

According to a KABC spokeswoman, Grant’s show has been in limbo for months. The talk-radio psychologist was originally off the air due to illness and then because of a contract dispute with her producer. With no return date in sight, executives at the station decided to replace Grant with an issues-based show, the spokeswoman said. The search for a permanent replacement continues.

‘West Wing’-ers Cut Sweetened Deal

Producers at NBC’s “The West Wing” are breathing a little easier. After widely publicized negotiations, Allison Janney, Richard Schiff, John Spencer and Bradley Whitford have secured sweetened contracts that will pay them more than double their current salary--and extend their commitment through a seventh year.

The actors--who opted to use the increasingly common practice of negotiating as a unit--will reportedly have their salaries increased to roughly $70,000 per episode for the coming season, with bumps built in for subsequent years.

Warner Bros. Television confirmed that the matter had been resolved without commenting on the terms. All four performers are nominated for Emmys this year in the supporting actor categories.

POP/ROCK

Taking a Breather From Academic Life

Paul Simon, the former senator from Illinois and onetime presidential candidate, used to joke about people confusing him with the singer-songwriter of the same name. The two appeared together on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” in the 1980s. Now, the ex-politician has become a part-time vocalist for his daughter Sheila’s band, Loose Gravel.

The band’s engagement Wednesday night before 200 people in Carbondale, Ill., featured Simon’s baritone treatment of “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” Afterward, Simon, the director of Southern Illinois University’s Public Policy Institute, said he talked to the other Simon about three months ago.

“He asked me when I ran into him in New York how my singing career was going, and I told him I wouldn’t be a lot of competition for him,” the former senator said.

QUICK TAKES

Nicolas Cage will be honored at the 16th annual American Cinematheque Awards at the Beverly Hilton on Sept. 22. ... “Mamma Mia!,” the musical based on the songs of ABBA, will have a top ticket price of $100 when it opens on Broadway in October. The show, which played in L.A. earlier this year, follows in the footsteps of “The Producers,” which raised its top ticket price to a record-setting $100 in April. ... David Hartman, former host of ABC’s “Good Morning America,” will be broadcasting “The Paul Harvey News” on radio next week. Harvey is having surgery to repair a weakened vocal cord.