Do we really need another 'Terminator'?

Everyone knows Hollywood is fresh out of ideas. But another installment of The Terminator? Really?

Yes, Christian Bale, who seemingly does no wrong on the big screen, is now "John Connor" in Terminator 4 (a.k.a. Terminator: Salvation, a.k.a. Terminator: Just Remember You Used to Like This Series When Arnold Played The Lead).

Set in post-apocalyptic 2018, humanity is at war with the computer network Skynet. (Anyone else worried that this is just 10 years away? I call it the "Space: 1999 Syndrome.") The flick is due in theaters in summer 2009.

Take deep breaths, then click here to see the trailer for Terminator: Salvation on the web.

(By the way, whenever I see Christian Bale onscreen, I'm amazed he played the small boy lead character in 1987's Empire of The Sun. Relive the magic.)

Turn THESE into sequels, Costner!

Score this idea an error: Kevin Costner is trying to talk Hollywood into making a sequel to our beloved Bull Durham.

No offense, Kevin, but I think the way the first movie ended was just about perfect. I don't want to know what happens next. Let's see. Nuke LaLoosh blows out his arm in the majors and comes back to Durham to fight for Annie's affections while working at the nearby Jiffy Lube. And Crash Davis ends up managing the Bulls and turns around their losing streak. Yawn. And pretty much exactly the same plot as Major League 3: Back to the Minors ... and we all know what a suck-fest that was.

You want to make a few sequels, Kev? Here are some suggested plots for "Part 2" of your other '80s classics. (And by the way, this is absolutely the last time I help you out for free.)

AMERICAN FLYERS (1985): Ah, yes, the forgotten cycling movie. Thankfully between 1985 and 2008, a miracle cure is found for your cerebral tumor. So you return to the sport and win the Tour de France title. Sadly, your wife Sarah (Rae Dawn Chong) leaves you for Lance Armstrong.

THE UNTOUCHABLES (1987): Elliot Ness should have quit while he was ahead. After putting Al Capone behind bars, the real Ness went on to a rather unremarkable career fighting hoods in Cleveland, moonshiners in Kentucky and prostitution in Washington, D.C. (Still it sounds more entertaining than the plot of The Bodyguard.)

NO WAY OUT (1987): You know who else is dying for a sequel of this underrated classic? Sean Young, baby! Turns out her Susan Atwell character didn't die after all. It was all a clever ruse by the Soviet spy machine. Now she's living in sin again with Costner, who is running an espionage school for gifted teenagers in rural Indiana. Sadly, he's exposed when a disgraced Gene Hackman shows up to coach the local high school basketball team.

FIELD OF DREAMS (1989): Now Ray Kinsella's wife Annie (Amy Madigan) is hearing voices -- "If you build it, he will skate." It seems she's haunted from being dumped by her junior high school boyfriend back in 1982. So she heeds her instincts and plows through another corn field to build a rollerskating rink, so she can have one more couple skate with him while REO Speedwagon's Keep on Loving You plays gently in the background. "Hey, sweetie bear ... wanna have a skate?" "I'd like that, Annie..." (Queue the sobbing from the '80s nation. Well, from me anyway.)

[Publicity photo from Orion Pictures]

Remakes & sequels: 'Now is the season of evil'

Vigo the Carpathian - most evil-looking dude of the '80s? Or just a man very upset that his legacy in Ghostbusters 2 is about to be upstaged by the sequel 20 years later? You be the judge.

The good news is that a new Ghostbusters installment will probably include Bill Murray, who told a crowd at Fanastic Fest this week that he "would definitely be into doing another Ghostbusters movie, stating that the first 40 minutes of the original film is some of the best stuff he's been associated with and the whole shoot was an amazing amount of fun," according to Moviehole.com.

"He also went on to say that his enthusiasm for Ghostbusters was heightened after recording the voice of Peter Venkman for the video game over the summer," Moviehole.com says. "In fact, he said he found himself walking down the street singing the Ghostbusters theme song and then thought people walking around him were going to start yelling at him to 'get over yourself, Bill,' so he stopped ... But the enthusiasm was there."

Though Ghostbusters 3 seems like it's headed in the right direction, what about all the other '80s movies that are slated for remakes and sequels? That's the topic of this week's Stuck in the '80s podcast, featuring guest co-host Steve Persall, the film critic -- film genius dare I say? -- from the St. Petersburg Times.

Click here to download the show. Or click here to get all our shows for free via iTunes.

Can't have Axel Foley without 'Axel F'

There's hope for Beverly Hills Cop 4 after all. It seems that Harold Faltermeyer's award-winning theme song will return for the sequel.

E Online reports that Axel F, the tune's formal name, will get an updated feel, but not enough to ruin its original magic.

"Why change the song?" director Brett Ratner told the Web site. In fact, Ratner's biggest beef with the floppish Miami Vice remake (with Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx) was that Jan Hammer's theme song was missing.

"I said to [director Michael Mann], 'Why didn't you have it?' " Ratner tells E Online. "He said, 'We're doing something new.' That's like doing Mission Impossible without the theme song."

Beverly Hills Cop 4 is set to go into production next year with a 2010 release date planned.

TOP 5 MOVIE THEMES OF THE '80s:

5. ST. ELMO'S FIRE (listen): Next to Andrew McCarthy's bongo playing and nifty newspaper writing, the score by David Foster stands out over this trapped-in-time movie.

4. CHARIOTS OF FIRE (listen): Satirized more than any other score of the '80s (brilliantly by Chevy Chase in Vacation), the original soundtrack composed by Vangelis won an Academy Award.

3. BEVERLY HILLS COP (listen): You can just picture Foley, Rosewood and Taggart skulking around the grounds of Victor Maitland's house.

2. TOP GUN (listen): It's our buddy, Harold Faltermeyer again here. The entire soundtrack would become one of the most popular albums of the '80s. But the theme song, with Steve Stevens on guitar, just kills. "Time to buzz the tower, Goose."

1. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (listen): Ah, good ole John Williams. He earned a Oscar nod for Raiders' March but lost to Chariots of Fire. Ah, that's okay, we haven't seen the last of these guys.

[Publicity photo]

Mother pus bucket! A new 'Ghostbusters'!

The rumors are true: A new version of Ghostbusters is in the works.

Harold Ramis, who co-wrote and co-starred in the original Ghostbuster movies, recently told the Chicago Tribune that the old cast will reunite for the project.

In an e-mail to Trib blogger Mark Caro, Ramis said Columbia Pictures is developing the script.

"(Dan) Aykroyd, Ivan Reitman and I are consulting at this point, and according to Dan, Bill Murray is willing to be involved on some level," Ramis said. "He did record his dialogue for the new Ghostbusters video game, as did Danny and I, and Ernie Hudson."

What will be different than the '80s originals? For one, Judd Apatow and his troupe of actors could be taking over as the lead characters.

"The concept is that the old Ghostbusters would appear in the film in some mentor capacity," Ramis said. "Everyone is confident a decent script can be written, and I guess we'll take it from there."

So that's some good news: It's a sequel in other words, not a "remake." Because we need another '80s remake like we need to relive the Philadelphia mass turbulence of 1947.

TOP 5 UNDER-USED LINES FROM GHOSTBUSTERS:

5. "Maybe now you'll never slime a guy with a positron collider, huh?"

4. "Venkman, shorten your stream!"

3. "Hee hee hee! 'Get her!' That was your whole plan, huh, 'get her.' Very scientific."

2. "Mother pus bucket!"

1. "Take me now, subcreature." (Actually, I do HEAR that line a lot.)

[Publicity photo]