The last time we saw adventurer Jack Colton
(Michael Douglas) and romance novelist
Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner), they were
sailing off into the sunset after their hair-raising
Latin American adventure in "Romancing
the Stone." But romance doesn't always sur
vive the final fade-out, and things are look
ing rocky for everyone's favorite screen
couple... until they encounter the mystery of
the Jewel, and embark on the wildest adven
ture of their lives. Jack and Joan are bock,
with their pint-sized arch-enemy Ralph
(Danny DeVito) still dogging their trail, in
the sequel to 1984's blockbuster comedy
adventure: TUI JIWCL OF TNI NlLI
Director Wolfgang Petersen was nominated
for an Oscar when he launched "Das Boot,"
his tense drama about a German U-Boat in
World War II. Now he tackles a
"relationship film"... with a
difference: ENEMY MINE
starring Dennis Quaid
("The Right Stuff") and Lou
Gossett, Jr., (who won an
Oscar for his portrayal of the
martinet in "An Officer and a
Gentleman," as enemy space
pilots fighting an interstellar war
a hundred years in the future.
Quaid, a human, and Gossett, a
Drac from the planet Dracon, are
f
marooned together on a deadly
planet where they have to learn
mutual trust and respect to survive.
One of the most powerful and unusual
films of this or any year.
Screenwriter David Seltzer established him
self as a force to reckon with in Hollywood
by writing the blockbuster supernatural
thriller "Tne Omen," but his first film as a
director is in a very different vein. LUCAS
(played by 'Firstblood'"* Corey Haim) is a
diminutive rebel who stands apart from his
fellow high-schoolers and criticizes their
J
i activities as "superficial," until the girl he
' loves (Kerri Green of "Goonies") falls for a
football star (Martin Sheen's son Charlie
Sheen), prompting the desperate Lucas to a
grand gesture verging on suicide: going out
for the football team.
Before turning to feature directing, Russell
Mulcahy established himself as one of the
premier directors of rock videos, with
memorably eye-catching videos for groups
like Culture Club and Duran Duran. In
HIGHLANDIR he brings his gifts as a
visual stylist to a unique fantasy-adventure
story about warring Immortals whose battle
for a mysterious talisman rages down the
ages from the highlands of 16th Century
Scotland to the streets and alleys of present
day New York. Starring Sean Connery and
Christopher Lambert, erf "Greystoke" rame.
American-born Bob Swaim took an unusual
route to directorial superstardom—he went
to France, and made "La Balance," a tough
as-nails police thriller that set boxoff ice records
and cleaned up when it was time for the
French to hand out Les Oscars. Now he
thriller, Sigourney Weaver plays a govern
ment think-tank expert who moonlights as a
paid escort, and Michael Caine is a diplomat
involved in international intrigue who falls in
love with her. From the novel "Dr. Slaughter"
by Paul Theroux.
Marshall Brickman was Woody Allen's
writing collaborator for years before he
}
turned to writing and directing features,
and now he brings his wry sensibility to
THK MANHATTAN PROJECT: a con
temporary thriller about a resourceful high
school student who sets out to join the most
exclusive club in the world... one whose
members now include the United States, the
Soviet Union, Great Britain, France and
China. Christopher Collet stars as Paul
Stephens, who builds his own atomic bomb
as a science fair project, just to prove that it
can be done. John Lithgow ("Buckaroo
Banzai," "The World According to Garp")
also stars as a sympathetic scientist who tries
to help Paul ana his girlfriend Jenny (Cynthia
Nixon) when they find themselves the object
of a very serious manhunt by foreign and
domestic agencies.
A summer camp for future astronauts? It
exists already, in Alabama, and kids who
want to attend have to have letters of recom
mendation from their math and science
teachers. Then they can spend a summer
doing everything from studying astrophysics
to practicing their space-walk in a zero
gravity simulator. Tnis real-life training center
for tomorrow's space jockeys is going to be
the subject of a movie from Leonard Gold
berg, the producer of "WarGames": In
SPACECAMP, youngsters at such a camp
get more adventure than they bargained for
when their capsule is launched into space—
for real. Stars include Kate Capshaw ("Indi
ana Jones and the Temple of Doom") and
Lea Thompson, who sizzled as Michael J.
Fox's mother-to-be in "Back to the Future."
Before he changed the face of the horror
film with "Halloween," John Carpenter
made a non-stop actioner called "Assault on
Precinct 13" that has become a cult favorite,
and he showed what he could do with
action again when he made "Escape from
New York," starring Kurt Russell. Now
he and Russell have re-teamed for
BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA,
about a tough truck-driver named Jack
irton becomes embroiled in a war in San
trancisco's Chinatown, where bad
guys and good guys alike have
magical powers. Tne script is by top ™
screenwriter W. D. Richter {"Grubaker," EE
"Invasion of the Body Snatchers"), who ^
made his directing debut last year with
the nutty cult classic "The Adventures of ■
Buckaroo Banzai." *
Sigourney Weaver will also be back this
summer as Warrant Officer Ripley, the
sole survivor of the spaceship Nostromo's
encounter with a deadly extraterrestrial in
1979's blockbuster "Alien." The sequel is
called ALIENS (watch out for that s), and it
is being made under conditions of top
secrecy in England by writer-director James
Cameron, who was responsible for last year's
sci-fi sleeper hit "The Terminator," starring
Arnold Schwarzengger.
»*••*»** *««»•»**• •••••*
When director Howard Zieff teamed with
Goldie Hawn on "Private Benjamin," they
made comedy history. Now Zieff is collab
orating with tne brilliant actress-comedienne
Whoopi Goldberg—fresh from her first star
ring role in Steven Spielberg's "The Color
Purple"—for KNOCK, KNOCK, a com
edy-thriller about a computer operator in a
bank who starts receiving messages on her
computer screen from a dashing American
spy trapped behind the Iron Curtain.
Besides being Hollywood's leading comedy
actor-writer-director, Mel Brooks is also one
of the most innovative producers around,
with such off-beat films as "The Elephant
Man," "Frances" and "My Favorite Year" to
his credit. Now he is producing a remake of
the sci-fi horror classic THE FLY, about an
unfortunate scientist (Vincent Price in the
original) whose molecules get scrambled
with those of a common housefly. Featuring
state-of-the-art makeup effects that go far
beyond the original, "The Fly" will be
directed by David Cronenberg, who proved
himself a master of surreal horror with
"Scanners" and "Videodrome."
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