It's enough to make a film critic go back to being a repo man.
Among the many movies being pitched to prospective financiers at the Cannes Film Festival last week was "Death Wish V," starring Charles Bronson.Other sequels on the horizon, also announced at Cannes:
- The Hidden 2
- Weekend at Bernie's II
- The Endless Summer 2
- Children of the Corn II: Deadly Harvest
- Red Scorpion 2
- Cyborg II
- Army of Darkness: Evil Dead III
- Tales From the Darkside: The Movie II
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3
- Stepfather III
- Warlock II
- Amityville 5
There are also a number of remakes slated for the near future - "Pride and Prejudice," "Room at the Top," "Flame Over India," "The Trial" and "Machine Gun Kelly" chief among them.
And more Stephen King adaptations are on the way, in addition to the as-yet unreleased "The Dark Half" and "Pet Sematary II" - "Thinner," "The Langoliers" (from "Four Past Midnight") and the aforementioned "Children of the Corn" and "Tales From the Darkside" sequels.
Then there are movies that aren't exactly remakes and aren't exactly sequels, but don't sound terribly original either:
- Criminal Instinct
- Animal Instincts
- Lethal Impact
- Lethal Ninja
- National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon
- The Assassinator
- Terminator Woman
- The Kickboxing Terminator
- Cyborg Ninja
- Surf Samurai
- The Good, the Bad and the Subhumanoid
- Teenage Bonnie and Klepto Clyde
- Presumed Impotent
- Geeks in Love
- Stepmonster
- Freekz
- YOU MAY BE WONDERING what could possibly be contained in that missing fortysomething seconds from "Basic Instinct," the frames that were clipped to get the film an R rating.
According to Variety, not much.
Todd McCarthy reported in the show-biz trade paper's May 11 issue that the "director's cut," which opened the Cannes Film Festival and which will be released in an unrated video version in the United States, "seems very much the same film it was . . . with the few moments of added explicitness in the sex and violence making essentially no difference."
If that's true, you have to wonder what the ratings board was thinking of when "Basic Instinct" received an R rating. Even the most liberal critics across the country seem to be in agreement that if this movie is an R, there is no such thing as NC-17.
By the way, "Basic Instinct" is on its way to cracking the coveted $100 million mark. It has so far earned $931/2 million, and Memorial Day Weekend is one of the year's biggest moviegoing periods.
- THERE'S BEEN A lot of publicity about "Far and Away" being the first movie shot in 70mm since Disney's "TRON" in 1982. And before that, the most recent 70mm film being "Ryan's Daughter" in 1970.
But if that's true, what about all those other movies that were released in theaters in the 70mm format, like "Top Gun," the "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" series and, more recently, "Beauty and the Beast"?
It seems that all of those movies - and every other 70mm film released in the past 20-plus years - were filmed in 35mm and blown up to 70mm.
What's the difference, you ask?
The standard gauge size for professional motion pictures is 35mm. The larger the film gauge, the more clear the filmed images - hence, a 16mm film has a more grainy look than a 35mm film. And a film shot in 70mm will have an even sharper picture than one shot in 35mm.
The stereo sound on 70mm is also enhanced. The soundtrack for 35mm film is on one side of the film strip (inside the perforations, of course), but for 70mm the soundtrack is true stereo on both sides of the film strip.
With recent stereo innovations, however, 70mm stereo isn't a lot better than 35mm anymore.
See? Movie columns can be educational.
- MOVIEGOING RULES: Never go to a movie that bills "Michael J. Pollard as the rat catcher." Anyone who saw "Split Second" knows why.
- QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Sigourney Weaver, explaining to John Richardson in the May issue of Premiere magazine why it was seven years before "Aliens" followed "Alien," and why it was another six years before we got "Alien 3 ": "It's a little like childbirth. The first couple of years after you make an `Alien' film, the idea of doing another one is not that appealing."