Advertisement

Coming Soon to a Theater Near You: Twisted Sequels for Your Eyes Only

Share

Two Thumbs II: Hollywood’s obsession with sequels continues to spin out of control. In addition to Disney’s clone du jour, “Toy Story 2: Because We Didn’t Make Enough Money the First Time,” at least 30,000 other sequels are now in production. They include:

* “Double Jeopardy II.” Ashley Judd is framed for the murder of Alex Trebek. Co-stars Tommy Lee Jones as Pat Sajak.

* “The Milk-Bone Collector.” Denzel Washington plays a quadriplegic mailman trying to catch a psychotic dog who is terrorizing U.S. postal workers. From the producers of “The Trombone Collector,” which features Washington as a quadriplegic musician hunting the deranged killer of an orchestra’s horn section.

Advertisement

* “Bringing Out the Dead II.” A documentary on the speeches of Al Gore and Bill Bradley.

* “The D.A.R.E. Witch Project.” Three drug-abuse counselors vanish in the woods of Maryland while trying to do an intervention with a heroin-addicted witch. This is the first in a series of follow-ups to “The Blair Witch Project,” the summer blockbuster that cost a mere $12.75 to make because it was filmed entirely by squirrels on amphetamines. Other spinoffs include “The Blair Snitch Project,” in which a trio of mob hit men gets lost in Maryland while tracking an informant in the federal Witness Protection Program, and “Baywitch,” starring David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson as well-tanned witches who cast spells at a trendy Los Angeles beach.

* “End of Days II.” Patrick Buchanan is elected president.

* “Saving Private Ryan Again.” Hapless Ryan returns home from the war but continues to find himself in one jam after another. In the graphic opening sequence, he locks himself out of his car and has to be rescued by an AAA driver played by Tom Hanks.

* “The Bachelor II.” Bill Clinton finds out he will inherit $100 million--if he can stay faithful for 24 hours.

* “Pokemon: The Second Movie.” Seemingly harmless animated film actually uses subliminal images to convert its impressionable young audiences to a Japanese cult that puts nerve gas in Tokyo subways.

*

Animal Farm 2000: Canadian cows are now banned from having human names. Under an edict issued by Ottawa bureaucrats, animals at Canada’s Central Experimental Farm must henceforth be given “non-people names,” for fear of offending humans.

The order was made after a woman visitor named Stephani complained about a cow at the farm having the same name.

Advertisement

“Some people are . . . sensitive to finding their name on an animal,” explained farm director Genevieve Ste-Marie, in an interview with the Ottawa Citizen. “Let’s say you came in and found your name on a cow, and you thought the cow was old and ugly.”

Under the new rules, Maple is fine, but Mabel is banned. Bossy is acceptable, but not Bessie. And Daisy (according to a report in the Boston Globe) is “borderline” and would need executive approval.

*

Rocky Road Bureau: In honor of Bullwinkle’s 40th birthday, Universal Studios has created a 4,000-pound chocolate moose. Estimated number of calories in the 8-foot-high statue: 40 million.

*

Best Supermarket Tabloid Headline: “Did Adam & Eve Once Live in 1.8-Million-Year-Old Treehouse? Famed Archeologist Announces Discovery in Iraq” (Weekly World News)

Unpaid Informants: Susanna Timmons, Bob Sipchen, Arizona Daily Star, Wireless Flash News Service. E-mail Off-Kilter at roy.rivenburg@latimes.com. Off-Kilter runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Advertisement