Ask 411 Movies for 5.25.09: Memorial Day May Day Parlay!

Posted by Leonard Hayhurst on 05.25.2009

The Black Dahlia, Danger Bay, The Tall Guy, Harper’s Island, why Dr. Cox hates Hugh Jackman, sequel fever and fear My Little Ponies!

From YouTube this week, My Little Pony gets the Transformer big screen treatment and it's not pretty.



My ten favorite ‘whitest' NBA players in no particular order:
Brad Lohaus
Frank Brickowski
Larry Krystkowiak
Jack Sikma
Craig Ehlo
Detlef Schrempf
Kurt Rambis
Greg Kite
Bryant "Big Country" Reeves
"The Polish Rifle" Eric Piatkowski

Next week I'll update you on how my weekend at Cinevent went. Next up, of course, is the Monster Bash June 26 to 28 in Butler, Pa. I'll be hosting "Frankenstein vs. the Space Monster" at 1:30 a.m. Friday evening.

Q: This article is nearly unreadable. What am I looking at? I make the assumption when I see a "Q" in front of a line, it means "question". Here it seems, many times, just to be a statement.

Then I read this:
(Q: "BTW, I still contend that Wrong Guy starring Dave Foley is one of the most hilariously underrated comedies of all time."

I second that!!! Being a fan of the Kids in the Hall series, I know that he has the best straight face in the business. Too bad he hasn't done more.

Brain Candy is another underrated comedy by the Kids....
-Mikel

A: We've covered The Wrong Guy a couple weeks ago, so lets hit Brain Candy.)

You give an A: to something that isnt even a Q:

Jeez my man, skip the formatting of the column and just say, "I wanna talk about Brain Candy."

Maybe I am missing something, I'm not a regular reader .
-Josh

A: This is the format we've used for nearly 300 columns and you are the first person to complain or be confused by it. Basically, bold text and the "Q:" denotes a reader's comment and "A:" with regular text denotes my reply. Not only do I answer questions, but I will reply to reader's statements if I feel a reply or follow up is desired. Especially since the comments sections has been added to articles more people will take the time to suggest their own answer to questions and topics or follow up themselves on something I said. I guess we could change up these instances to use C for comment and R for reply, but I really believe that is unneeded unless more complaints are received. As Mark noted in the comments last week, we've become a very episodic column with topics stretching over weeks, but we always try to welcome new readers. Why don't you go back and read the first 295 columns and get caught up. Should only take you a couple months.

Q: Another underrated comedy would be "The Tall Guy." It has Jeff Goldblum and Emma Thompson. Their love scene has to be one of the funnier ones ever done. And the plot...well, let's say I really look forward to "Elephant Man...the Musical."
-Obscurity

A: I'm sad nobody covered this when we did "Get to Know Your Goldblum" on the movies podcast.



From 1989, Dexter King (Jeff Goldblum) is the straight man to a nasty comedian (Rowan Atkinson). He eventually leaves him and lands the lead in "Elephant Man: The Musical." During this time, he is seeing a nurse (Emma Thompson) who leaves him after mistakenly thinking he was having an affair with a cast mate. Thompson and Jason Isaacs make their film debuts here. Atkinson wanted to play King, but Goldblum was available due to an actors strike in the US. Director Mel Smith was part of a famed comedy duo in England himself and also worked with Atkinson several times preceding this movie.

Q: What was the logic behind moving Harper's Island from Thursday following CSI to Saturday in a dead time slot. I understand that Harper's Island is a limited run show but the move mystifies me. I noticed that several television listing services didn't make the change right away making me wonder if it was a sudden switch.
-Pete

A: As Mario pointed out in the comments, ratings were bad and it got thrown into the death time slot just to burn off remaining episodes. As you can imagine having "CSI" as a lead in is a bonus for any show and CBS didn't think "Harper's Island" was retaining enough of the audience. It dropped about three million viewers from its debut to its last airing on Thursdays and about another three to its debut on Saturdays. At current it's averaging about 4.65 million viewers, down from over 10 million for its debut, according to ratings information I found on Wikipedia.



Q: You have probably covered this before, but why is it that some TV DVD sets take so long to come out? I recently finished season 3 of Taxi, and seasons 4 and 5 have not yet been released. Season 3 was released in 2005, so what is the holdup?

And another thing, how come I can't get no tang 'round here?!
-Mario

A: It's similar to the answer you gave Pete on "Harper's Island." Sales have not been strong, so there is no rush on getting the next season out if at all. Also, sometimes there are various rights issues here and there with music or other elements that could be trouble. For example, "Taxi" which you mentioned did switch networks in its final season. So in short, it's usually just red tape, but let's calm our nerves by chilling to the "Taxi" theme.



You can't get no ‘tang, because there is no ‘tang to be had. Go where the pussy is.

Q: Just watched Angels and Demons, which like the Davinci code is gaining a lot of controversy due to its "anti-religious" stance...whereas I think it deserves its notoriety from being a boring piece of crap...

regardless, seems theres' probably a long list of flicks that the Vatican has not added their stamp of approval to... any others that come to mind?
-The Capn

A: Along with Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, the Vatican was also publicly against the 2002 film The Magdalene Sisters due to its exploration of Magdalene Asylums. These were institutions that ‘fallen' women, usually of Roman Catholic faith, were shipped to by their families and forced into hard labor. I'm thinking Last Temptation of Christ is on the list too, but couldn't find a citation. The film Nuevo Mundo was banned for 20 years by the Catholic Church due to its story of a Jesuit priest who commissions a statue of the Virgin Mary to look Aztec in order to convert followers in 16th century Mexico.

Q: Hey Leonard,
With all the recent prequels/sequels, who has been in the most pre/sequels? I would not count James Bond nor porn movies as sequels. My guess would be Sly Stallone with Rocky's 2-6 plus Rambo 2-4 for a total of 8 OR Mickey Rooney as Andy Hardy if you count all those movies as sequels.

With the same thought, who has played the same character in the most movies? My guess it would be Desmond Llewelyn aka "Q" from the Bond movies or Mickey Rooney as Andy Hardy.
-David

A: I'd say Harrison Ford has been in the most sequels of different series. He was in two Star Wars sequels, three Indiana Jones sequels, a cameo in More American Graffiti, Force Ten from Navarone and two Jack Ryan sequels (he took over Alec Baldwin's character from Hunt for Red October). So that's nine in five series.

If you do count the Andy Hardy films, there have been 19 of those. If you count James Bond, Desmond Llewelyn played Q in 21 of those. If you want a more direct sequel series, Johnny Weismueller played Tarzan 12 times. Robert Englund has played Freddy Kreuger nine times in features. However, I think the winner for person in the most sequels and the person to play the character in the most sequels is Charles Sterrett who played the Durango Kid in 52 movies from 1940 to 1952.



Q: I was watching Scrubs the other day and I got thinking. Why is it that Dr. Cox hates Hugh Jackman? I'm sure someone's already asked this but it's something i've been wondering about for a while now.
-Flagg

A: Why would he not hate Hugh Jackman? From a character standpoint I can see where Cox would just be totally annoyed by Jackman for being a singing and dancing nancy boy masquerading as an action star that women drool over.



This is what John C. McGinley had to say on the matter from a 2006 interview with TV Squad: "I think it's because the creator of the show just can't stand how talented he is. Hugh Jackman is just too talented. For him to have won a Tony, he's Wolverine, and he's deadly good-looking. He's a great athlete, he can sing and he can dance. That's too much for Billy (Lawrence) to process."

Q: Hey Leonard.
I watched De Palma's The Black Dahlia a while back. I thought it was really uneven, but somewhat okay in a 'meh' kind of way. Now, the whole ad campaign touted that it was based upon the 'most famous unsolved murder in California history', (which is arguably true) but towards the end of the film they revealed the culprit. Do you think that this was an educated guess like what Finchner did in Zodiac, or did DePalma take creative license and blame the murder on fictional characters?
-BP



A: The film The Black Dahlia is not so much based on the actual crime and records itself as it is an adaptation of a 1987 novel by James Ellory that only took inspiration from the actual case to detail the investigation of two fictional detectives into the case. Some of the characters are based on real life people, such as Rose McGowan's Sheryl Saddon. So, I'm going with creative license.

The actual murder remains unsolved to this day. About 60 people are said to have confessed to the crime, while hundreds have been interviewed on it. The Los Angeles District Attorney finalized a list of 22 suspects that seemed the most viable. Among famous people considered at one time or another to be suspects were Woody Guthrie and Orson Welles. Many books have been written on the case, which have propagated or twisted information.

Just to clarify for the uninitiated, Elizabeth Short was found on Jan. 15, 1947, in Leinert Park in Los Angeles mutilated, cut in half and her blood drained. She had her mouth slit and her arms posed on her head with her elbows out. Black Dahlia was a nickname give to Short by the press as a play on the then current hit film The Blue Dahlia.

Q: I vaguely remember a show on the Disney Channel from when I was a kid in the mid-eighties. It was a doctor and his two kids and they either ran or worked at an aquarium.
-Rick

A: This would be the Canadian series "Danger Bay" that ran on the Disney Channel in the United States. The show lasted six seasons from 1985 to 1990. Grant "Doc" Roberts (Donnelly Rhodes) was a marine veterinarian who was often helped or lead into trouble by his two children (Christopher Crabb and Ocean Hellman). You can call it a live action "Captain Planet" as most episodes dealt with environmentalism, pollution and animals.



As a side note, Rhodes' previous job before "Danger Bay" was playing the father of twins Jean and Liz Sagal on "Double Trouble." Man, I had such a crush on those girls.



Don't die.

"You want to talk to God? Let's go see him together, I've got nothing better to do."