Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe 'VANILLA SKY' Parts of the upcoming Tom Cruise movie "Vanilla Sky" are being re-shot following recent screenings for test audiences, but a spokeswoman for Cruise said it's part of the plan and certainly not a sign of concern. Advertisement The New York Post quoted publicist Pat Kingsley as saying that Cruise and writer-director Cameron Crowe "want to clarify something." Kingsley said "it was always their intention" to do two days of additional shooting. In Crowe's remake of Spanish writer-director Alejandro Amenábar's 1997 movie "Open Your Eyes," Cruise plays a womanizer who becomes horribly disfigured when a woman he has hurt in love crashes their car into a tree. Cruise's "Vanilla Sky" co-stars include Penélope Cruz, Kurt Russell and Cameron Diaz. (Thanks to UPI Hollywood Reporter Pat Nason) 'FROM HELL' The movie "From Hell" -- which takes a look at the legend of Jack the Ripper -- may appear to be a departure for the film's directors the Hughes brothers, who are better known for their contemporary inner-city dramas. Not so, according to Albert Hughes. "This is a ghetto story. It concerns poverty, violence and corruption, which are themes we deal with in our movies because they fascinate us," he said. "These particular characters happen to be white, but all poor people have the same problems. What also intrigued us was the psychology of Jack the Ripper -- his behavior and the hysteria he incited." Advertisement Allen Hughes said: "Previous accounts of this story have been antiseptic, told from the eyes of the prim upper class. We're revealing it from the perspective of the people who lived in squalor, in the neighborhood where this terror was inflicted." Jack the Ripper, who killed five prostitutes in London's Whitechapel district during a 10-week span in the fall of 1888, was never caught. "The challenge and attraction for us is taking a well-known mystery rich with legend and using our imagination to give it added dimension," said Albert Hughes. His brother added: "The victims of Jack the Ripper have never been humanized. We want to give them life. They weren't just casualties. They were human beings." JULIA CHILD The Smithsonian Institution, the American national attic, has announced that it will soon take delivery on Julia Child's kitchen. "The French Chef" -- as she is known to admirers of her culinary talents -- will be returning to her home state of California after 45 years in Cambridge, Mass. The kitchen from her home, in which her last three television series were actually shot, is not going with her but will, instead, travel south to its new permanent home in the National Museum of American History. The 1950-vintage stainless steel kitchen sink is included. Bon Voyage and Bon Appetit! Advertisement (From UPI Capital Comment)
