SNEAKS ’92 : The Shape of Films to Come : Hollywood ‘92--a Moviescape of Hopes and Questions

It’s amazing how much better each movie year looks from the beginning than it does from the end. Here we are in mid-January wondering how in the world Oscar voters will find five movies worthy of nominating for 1991’s best-picture award while the untested field ahead seems laden with possibilities.

Optimism, of course, is the opiate of the movie masses, and you can drain a new marking pen underlining the films that look like winners on the preseason release schedule of Sneaks ’92. Hmmm, Francis Coppola directing “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” . . . how can it not be good? Three Jack Nicholson movies, plus three more with Robert De Niro . . . six sure things right there, no? Throw in two new movies by Woody Allen, one each from Sidney Lumet, David Lynch and Barry Levinson and . . . well, this is not the time to put off that eye exam.

The reality is that not all of those movies will live up to expectations, and for each one that looks like prime rib on paper there are a dozen that look more like ketchup stains. Not to pick on budget-minded Disney, but its “Encino Man”--starring MTV veejay Pauly Shore as a suburbanite who hits the talk-show circuit with a caveman he digs up in his back yard--is more typical of what the year has to offer than Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of Edith Wharton’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Age of Innocence.”

Nonetheless, a close examination of major motion pictures scheduled for release between now and 1993 raises as many hopes as it does questions:

A hope. That the year’s five big biographical films--Spike Lee’s “Malcolm X,” starring Denzel Washington, Richard Attenborough’s “Charlie” (Chaplin), with Robert Downey Jr., Ridley Scott’s “Columbus,” with Gerard Depardieu, Danny DeVito’s “Hoffa,” starring Jack Nicholson, and Arthur Hiller’s “The Babe” (Ruth), with John Goodman--will all be worthy of their subjects.

A question. Is Michael Douglas really a $14-million (leading) man? Douglas gets the test in “Basic Instinct,” a sex thriller, opposite Sharon Stone, and in “Shining Through,” a spy thriller, opposite Melanie Griffith.

A hope. That any of the year’s high-profile sequels--”Alien 3,” “Batman Returns,” “Lethal Weapon 3,” “Patriot Games” (a continuation of “The Hunt for Red October”), “Honey, I Blew Up the Kid” or “Home Alone 2”--will be worthy of its box-office grosses.

A question. Will Jonathan Kaplan give us a more relevant look at American attitudes toward interracial romance with “Love Field,” starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Dennis Haysbert, than Spike Lee did with “Jungle Fever”?

A hope. That actor Robert Redford’s performance in Phil Alden Robinson’s “Sneakers” takes the aroma off his last effort in “Havana” and that Brian De Palma rises from the ashes of “Bonfire of the Vanities” with “Raising Cain.”

A question. Absent from the screen for a year, Eddie Murphy will test the attention span of his fans with two new comedies, playing an executive in love with stubborn career woman Robin Givens in “Boomerang,” and a con artist in Congress (what’s new?) in “The Distinguished Gentleman.”

A hope. That for our sake, Nicholson goes three for three for ’92 with: “Man Trouble,” a romantic comedy that reunites the star with his “Five Easy Pieces” director, Bob Rafelson; “A Few Good Men,” Rob Reiner’s adaptation of the Broadway courtroom drama, which co-stars Tom Cruise and Demi Moore; and “Hoffa,” DeVito’s profile of the permanently missing Detroit union boss.

A question. Can Errol Morris, the director of the excellent 1988 documentary “The Thin Blue Line,” make as big a splash with his first feature, “The Dark Wind”? Executive producer Robert Redford has already caused an uproar by casting part-Cherokee Lou Diamond Phillips in the role of a contemporary Navajo cop.

A hope. That Disney’s revived animation department can continue its winning streak with “Aladdin,” which features the voice of Robin Williams and the songs of Alan Menken and the late Howard Ashman (his work was completed by another lyricist).

A question. Will John Mackenzie’s “Ruby” (Danny Aiello) give us a more accurate impression of the man who shot the man who shot the President than Oliver Stone’s “JFK”?

A hope. That Wesley Snipes (in “Passenger 57”), Denzel Washington (in “Malcolm X”) and Larry Fishburne (“Deep Cover”) are commercially successful playing black men who, for a change, aren’t white men’s sidekicks.

A question. Sylvester Stallone, whom audiences were able to resist as a comedy actor in last year’s “Oscar,” will find out if he still appeals to the action crowd in Renny Harlin’s “Cliffhanger,” playing a mountain climber battling fugitives at 12,000 feet.

A hope. That Clint Eastwood’s return to the saddle in “Unforgiven,” a Western co-starring Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman, is a return to form for Hollywood’s last great cowboy.

A question. Three fading stars--Bruce Willis, Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep--will see what they can do together in “Death Becomes You,” a Robert Zemeckis comedy about a plastic surgeon and the women he loves.

A hope. That however 1992 turns out, whatever the ratio of prime rib to ketchup stains, Hollywood will not have the recession to blame.