ROCK 'N' REEL

Hollywood is pumping out musicthemed movies—from a slew of biopics (about Otis Redding, Joan Jett, and Iggy Pop, among others) to Julie Taymor's Across the Universe, featuring a mustachioed Bono—while a number of singers are headed for their close-ups.

Lisa Robinson

PROJECTIONS

Musicians, and the lives that late they led, are coming to a multiplex near you. Upcoming biopics now include one about soul great Otis Redding, who died in a plane crash on December 10, 1967, and whose family is celebrating his life with a yearlong museum exhibition in his hometown of Macon, Georgia. In the works, too, is a Rick James movie, possibly starring Terrence Howard, who is also "in talks" to play the part of blues great Muddy Waters. And, while she waits (more than four years now) to make the Janis Joplin story, director Penelope Spheeris will film Love Above the Strip, a romantic comedy she wrote about 80s metal bands. Spheeris knows whereof she speaks—having done the excellent 1988 The Decline of Western Civilization Part II with such star metalheads as Ozzy Osbourne and Megadeth, as well as obscure bands such as Lizzy Borden and Seduce, who now reside in the "Where are they now?" file.

Not even the living can escape Hollywood's clutches. Neon Angels, directed by Floria Sigismondi, tells the tale of Joan Jett and the 70s all-girl rock band the Runaways. Elijah Wood portrays Iggy Pop in The Passenger, about the early days of the Stooges. The Dirt is the film based on the book about the music and career of Motley Crüe. Across the Universe, directed by Julie {Lion King) Taymor and described by some as Hair meets Rent with Beatles songs, features a mustachioed Bono singing "I Am the Walrus"; Taymor is also working with Bono and the Edge on a Broadway show about Spider-Man. Desperately Seeking Susan, the only Madonna movie not trashed for her acting, will be resurrected as a musical in London's West End with Deborah Harry songs; a film version could be next. And Kirsten Dunst will play Harry in a picture about the 70s pop-punk band Blondie.

The musician making the best music for children, Dan Zanes, has filmed a small part—as a singer in a 1950s roadhouse band—in Sam Mendes's Revolutionary Road, starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. First a 1984 movie starring Kevin Bacon and then a Broadway show, Footloose will be re-done as a movie with High School Musical and Hairspray star Zac Efron. Karen O performs on the soundtrack for Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are, Eddie Vedder contributes music to Phil Donahue's Iraq documentary, Wyclef Jean does music for an Angelina Jolie documentary (and has his own movie about Haiti coming out, too), and, straight outta Brooklyn: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah wrote songs for and played themselves in the Tom Hanks starrer The Great Buck Howard.

Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, who was part of the Oscar-winning ensemble cast in Crash and who had a noteworthy cameo in Hustle & Flow, should have received an Emmy nomination for his recurring role in Law & Order: SVU. No matter. His movie career flourishes and, he says, "The biggest issue for me has been having a career that is filled with acting roles that interest me, just like my music." Obviously, he's found them, with forthcoming appearances in Vince Vaughn's Christmas movie, Fred Claus, and Guy Ritchie's RocknRolla, with Thandie Newton and Jeremy Piven. 50 Cent plays a boxer in The Dance, with Nicolas Cage, and draws on his past for the role of a drug dealer in Righteous Kill, with A1 Pacino and Robert De Niro. Bette Midler is a talk-show host in the Helen Hunt-directed Then She Found Me, and will soon bring her incomparable live show to Caesars Palace in Las Vegas—the recent home of Celine Dion and Elton John; expect the Divine Miss M to bring back the glamour of the days of Sammy, Dean, and Frank.

When you've loved and lost the way Frank has, then you know what life's about.