Sequel

Tweens everywhere are texting, blogging and chatting about Friday's eagerly anticipated sequel, pondering whether it will be as totally awesome as the original. Adults without a preteen in their home may be asking, "Sequel to what?" High School Musical 2, welcome to the radar screen. The follow-up to last year's hit movie on cable TV's Disney Channel is garnering mainstream attention, more than three months after the network announced that the show would premiere Friday night. Consider that the original High School Musical was one of the biggest successes in pop culture last year.

For better or for a lot worse, Baltimore can now lay claim to another macabre literary figure -- one that might make even John Waters' imagination cry uncle.His name is Mason Verger, formerly of Owings Mills and currently of "Hannibal," Thomas Harris' mouthwatering sequel to "The Silence of the Lambs." In "Hannibal," Verger -- sheer sadist, sheer fiction -- plots culinary revenge against everybody's favorite cannibal, Dr. Hannibal Lecter.Hometown reviews of the new book have come from a most unlikely source.

Are the days of the sequel numbered -- or rather, Roman numeraled?.................... This summer film season, for the first time in memory, audiences have had to deal (albeit happily, say box-office receipts) with but a single sequel ("Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me") and a single prequel ("Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace")."Lethal Weapon," the Mel Gibson vehicle that went from zero to IV in 11 years, will have no '99 model. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose most famous film line is "I'll be back," won't be: The Terminator's term limit was two. This die-hard genre -- indeed, this "Die Hard" genre -- appears comatose.

The subject is unsinkable."Titanic" is again No. 1 at the box office, with $308 million in ticket sales through last weekend. The "Titanic" soundtrack is the No. 1 album in the country. "James Cameron's Titanic" -- on the making of the movie -- is the best-selling nonfiction paperback in the country.There's now talk of a sequel. True, the ship sank and 1,595 people died and it was the worst maritime disaster of its time. But remember, "Poseidon Adventure" had a sequel -- starring Sally Field, no less.

Michael Walsh made sure his letters of transit were in order before he started the daunting task of writing an extension of "Casablanca," the hugely popular 1942 Warner Bros. movie classic.Walsh's novel, "As Time Goes By," which arrived in bookstores last week, is a book as money-maker. A marketer's dream. A Warner book based on a Warner film. The copyright, usually owned or shared by the author, is completely retained by Warner Books. The publisher, with a worldwide printing of 1.1 million copies, hopes to make a fortune.

"Jest a Second!" -- the sequel to James Sherman's comedy, "Beau Jest" -- takes place one year later. So it's perfectly fitting that Totem Pole Playhouse is presenting the sequel exactly a year after its success with "Beau Jest."Like "Beau Jest," "Jest a Second!" is being directed by Wil Love, the popular Baltimore-based actor and director who is a longtime favorite at this Fayetteville, Pa., summer theater. In the new comedy, which opens Tuesday, the hero and heroine have married and are expecting a child.

Cinemax presents a dual lesson tonight: Lesson 1 shows how funny a movie can be, while Lesson 2 shows how pointless a sequel can be."Airplane!" (8 p.m.-10 p.m.) probably has more jokes per frame than any film ever made, which means that even if only half of them work, it's still one funny film. Fortunately, far better than half do, as a cast of film veterans, including Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges and Peter Graves, send up the very film and TV characterizations that made them famous.

Sequels can be such a tease. The more you adore the original work, the more you anticipate the sequel. And the higher your expectations, the greater your disappointment when the follow-up doesn't measure up.* "Julie" by Jean Craighead George, illustrated by Wendell Minor (HarperCollins, $15, 176 pages, ages 10 and up) is the sequel to "Julie of the Wolves," the 1973 Newbery Medal winner. Because I've treasured the original for more than two decades, it took me a few months to screw up the courage to read "Julie."

In a blink, the world's most profitable and popular idiot is back. Forrest Gump.You know him, you love Tom Hanks as him, and you rented the movie over the weekend -- although you saw it twice in the theater last year. And you probably bought Winston Groom's book of the same name and then the spin-off, "Gumpisms: The Wit and Wisdom of Forrest Gump."We have bought it all.Now comes Mr. Groom with "Gump & Co." (Pocket Books, $22), which will be available in bookstores Wednesday. The book is the speedy sequel or "extension" to his "Forrest Gump," which has sold about 2 million copies (Japan ate it up)

This book is a sort of misty science fiction thing about time travel from modern New York City to the same city of the previous century. The time travel itself, which in most books involves capsules or rocket ships or special beam-me-up rays invented for the purpose, is here accomplished by never quite describing it at all."From Time to Time" is a sequel to Mr. Finney's 1970 book, " Time and Again," just re-issued, a book that has sold a quarter of a million copies and has arrived at the status of cult classic by the word-of-mouth recommendation of people who are fairly easy to please.

Respire" is a made-in-Maryland feature centered around a secret formula for prolonging life. It's also a horror movie, so naturally the secret to prolonging life leads to gruesome deaths and mass derangement. The Baltimore area has become a center for modest genre movies that determined filmmakers push over the finish line and often screen for cast and crew at local theaters like the Senator and the Charles before their release on DVD. I usually don't attend these events. But David A. Cross, the producer-director-writer of "Respire," was clever enough to schedule his horror movie's debut close to Halloween.

Carrie and company returning for 'Sex' sequel There's still sex to be had in the city, even though Carrie Bradshaw has settled down with one man. New Line Cinema spokeswoman Candice McDonough confirms that Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker, her three co-stars and writer-director Michael Patrick King are signed for a sequel to last year's hit movie. The film will reunite Parker and gal pals Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon. In a statement, King says: "I'm very excited to work with these amazing actresses again and would love to give everyone more information about the sequel ... but I'm busy with my Sex life."

The sequel to the infamous Stop Snitching DVD and its implied message - intended or not - is only part of a larger code of silence, a member of a panel said last night at an East Baltimore church. To get to the root of a culture in which telling on wrongdoers is discouraged, Tyrone Powers, an education and political activist, told about 75 people at New Life United Methodist Church that drug dealers and murderers should not be singled out, and that there need to be whistleblowers in all walks of life, willing to expose politicians, police officers and clergy.

Tweens everywhere are texting, blogging and chatting about Friday's eagerly anticipated sequel, pondering whether it will be as totally awesome as the original. Adults without a preteen in their home may be asking, "Sequel to what?" High School Musical 2, welcome to the radar screen. The follow-up to last year's hit movie on cable TV's Disney Channel is garnering mainstream attention, more than three months after the network announced that the show would premiere Friday night. Consider that the original High School Musical was one of the biggest successes in pop culture last year.

Good morning --Steve McNair-- The comeback sequel was even better than the original.

ANGEL AND APOSTLE Deborah Noyes Unbridled Books / 304 pages The scarlet "A" of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic novel of Puritanical repression and retribution is both a compelling metaphor and an iconic colloquialism of American culture. But what happened to Hester Prynne after the A? Unlike the stain on Monica Lewinsky's blue dress, the scarlet letter affixed to Hester garnered her only shame in the society into which she had borne her out-of-wedlock daughter. What of the daughter, the little sprite Pearl?

A feature in which Sun writers and critics sound off about the movies. This week, no item struck greater fear into the hearts of movie reviewers everywhere than the announcement that Sylvester Stallone intends to return as that renowned Philadelphia pug Rocky Balboa in Rocky VI. Don't get me wrong: I was a big fan of Rocky (I). And maybe future generations able to forget the namesake sequels that came after it will once again deem it one of the great film flukes of all time. In 1976, Stallone made people identify with -- and even love -- the character of a loan-shark's thumb-breaker.

Don't let the similar sounding names fool you: Pikmin has nothing to do with Pokemon. They're completely different, most notably in that adults can find enjoyment in Pikmin 2, while the appeal of Pokemon has remained a mystery to anyone older than 12. Pikmin also has nothing to do with Pac-Man, although, come to think of it, one wonders about the originality of these names. Trademark tip of the day: Grab Pekmen and Pukmun, quick! Pikmin 2, the sequel to 2001's Pikmin, improves on its predecessor in almost every way while keeping to Nintendo's maxim of delivering an intelligent game disguised in a cute package.

There's an idea that's been floating around in game magazines and Web sites recently that gamers aren't interested in supporting innovative games. Everybody complains that mediocre roadkill such as Enter the Matrix sells 4 million copies, but quirky titles such as Rez can't break 100,000 in sales. Now, I'll grant that the public ignores a lot of good games, but whose fault is that? In the current issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, the editors complain about the lackluster fate of games like Rez and lecture readers not to buy into all the hype when a publisher trots out its latest big budget sequel.

Heavily hyped retreads, lacking individuality, are in the box-office tank, gobbled up by the clever Finding Nemo and other inventive films. It's a pretty scary proposition, but is it possible that the average 16-year-old has better taste in movies than the rich, Ivy League-educated studio executives who've flooded us with a deluge of movie sequels this summer? Ever since the arrival of The Matrix Reloaded in mid-May, which was a box-office success but a huge disappointment to most fans and critics alike, the retread market has taken a nasty bearish turn.