Ask 411 Movies for 09.21.09: The Column That’s Like the Wind!

Posted by Leonard Hayhurst on 09.21.2009

Recent celebrity deaths, Greg Kinnear, Craig Kilborn, cheap movies, “King of the Hill” finale, “The Riches” and famous Leonards other than me!


From YouTube this week as sent to me by 411's own Erik Luers and done by the Onion News Network, we see what life was like back in the dark, ancient days when people had to enter an actual store to rent DVDs and videos.



Patrick Swayze, 57, died last Monday of pancreatic cancer. Swayze had been fighting the disease for more than a year and even refused pain medication so he wouldn't lose his edge while filming the A&E series "The Beast." His films included Red Dawn, The Outsiders, Dirty Dancing, Ghost, Roadhouse, Next of Kin, Black Dog, To Wong Fu Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar and Point Break.



Henry Gibson, 73, died last Monday as well of cancer. Gibson was a regular on the sketch comedy series "Laugh-In" and was featured in such movies as Nashville, Magnolia, The ‘Burbs, The Blues Brothers, Wedding Crashers, The Long Goodbye and was the voice of Wilbur in the animated Charlotte's Web.



Larry Gelbart, 81, died Sept. 11 of cancer. Gelbart was the creator of the television series "MASH" and got into television as one of many talented writers to work for Sid Ceasar. He also wrote the Broadway play "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" and the films Oh God, Tootsie, Rough Cut, Neighbors, Blame it on Rio, Barbarian at the Gate and Weapons of Mass Distraction



Q: Leonard, sorry, but the show I'm talking about had more of an "old time, maybe Vauldville(hope I spelled that right)" feel to it and was on during the early 80's, maybe even earlier. Thanks for the time used anyway. Happy 6th
-The Great Capt. Smooth

A: I'll run this to hopefully get some peanut gallery help. Again, what was originally remembered was that at the end of the show kids would be in a classic car and one of the games involved whip cream on a chalkboard covering up parts of words. Any ideas out there, shout out.

Q: Leonard:

The sight of your name in your column got me to thinking about Leonards in movies and TV.

The only ones I could think of immediately were "Leonard Part vI" which is probably the worst thing Bill Cosby was ever associated with, Leonard, the DeNiro character in "Awakenings", and Lenny from "Laverne and Shirley".

Surely there are some more Leonards in recorded history than those three. Which is your favorite Leonard character?

Sadly, Geoff or even Jeff doesn't seem to be a popular movie name.
-Geoff C

A: Interesting question. As Spaghett mentioned in the column comments last week you didn't mention Leonard Hofstadter, Johnny Galecki's character on "The Big Bang Theory." My favorite Leonard character would be Leonard Washington from "Chapelle's Show" who was in the Trading Spouses and World Series of Dice sketches. Another good one you missed was Leonard Smalls from Raising Arizona played by Randall "Tex" Cobb. There was also a 2001 film Leonard starring Dennis Lawson, Wedge of the Star Wars series, as the title character. There is Lenny Leonard from "The Simpsons" and Jerry Orbach's character Lennie Briscoe from "Law & Order," who both have the real full name of Leonard. There is also a Saint Leonard and a demon.

There is the Hulk ally Dr. Leonard Samson, who did appear in the last movie. Dr. Leonard McCoy from Star Trek. Not to mention his buddy Mr. Spock being played by Leonard Nimoy. Guy Pearce's character in Memento was named Leonard. Martin Landau's flunky to James Mason in North by Northwest was named Leonard. Damon Wayans character in I'm Gonna Get You Sucka was named Leonard.

There are seven US cities named Leonard, a defunct appliance company, musicians Leonard Cohen and Leonard Bernstein, film critic Leonard Maltin, soccer player Leonard Thompson, conductor Leonard Slatkin and many people with the last name of Leonard as well. Leonard is from Old High German and means "brave lion." My middle name is Lloyd, which means "gray hair" and my last name, from a book of surnames a teacher of mine once had, means "he who dwells behind the bush at the foot of the mountain." So my full name translates loosely to "the brave lion with gray hair who dwells behind the bush at the foot of the mountain." Doesn't that make me sound awesome?

Q: I love the column!
What kind of budget would a late-night Cinemax type of movie have? How much money would the stars make?

-Guest 1234

A: Are we talking Skinemax movies here? Regardless, late night cable movies are of the B or direct to DVD variety. There is a lot of factors that go into the cost of a movie such as salaries of cast and crew, location, special effects, props, costumes, marketing, distribution, etc. The movie Zyzzyx Road from 2006 became famous for being the lowest grossing theatrical movie of all time with just $20 netted. It was only released theatrically due to screen actor's guild regulations. IMDB lists the film's budget as $2 million, which would seem like a good range for what you're asking. I would guess the stars would probably earn a few hundred thousand for something like that.

I actually found a Screen Actor's Guild contract for a low budget theatrical film, which had that listed as being under $625,000 in production costs. A weekly performer would need to be paid the SAG minimum of $933 a week.

Q: Do you have any info about the film Stuck on You? It was recently on and I loved it, I'm just wondering how they were able to actually do this film. While I find it very funny, it's quite dark and some of the best scenes can make you cringe. Matt Damon was great as "background objects" in the TV Series, but I think Greg Kinnear was amazing.

Speaking of Greg, what was it that made him want to become an actor? I remember seeing his Late Late Night show before he quit. Do you think he will become a big star, or just do small supporting stuff?

Speaking of Late Night people, what the heck happened to Craig Kilborn? I know he quit to do movies, but the only thing I've seen him in was Old School. Did his career fall flat? What's he doing now, and do you know if he's stated somewhere about regretting the leaving of his show?

Thanks man!
-Zero

A: Stuck on You from 2003 is from the Farrelly Brothers. Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear star as conjoined twins who share a liver. They live their lives pretty normally until Kinnear wants to move to Hollywood and pursue an acting career and Damon hooks up with his internet girlfriend, who doesn't know he's a conjoined twin.

I couldn't really find anything on the special effects, but making it look like two people are joined at the hip is fairly easy and cheap to do with clothing and makeup. From IMDB, originally Jim Carrey and Woody Allen were up for the brothers, which makes no sense. Cher's part was just actress, but when she was hired the Farrelly Brothers thought it would be funny just to make the character Cher. Benjamin Carson who plays a doctor in the movie is a real life doctor who was the first doctor ever to separate conjoined twins and have both survive. Carson's family also has a cameo. Several real life conjoined twins are referenced in the movie, including singer Reba Schappell who does the song "The Fear of Being Alone" over the end credits.



Greg Kinnear, 46, was born in Logansport, Ind., to a homemaker mother and a dad who was a career diplomat for the US State Department. He has two brothers James and Steven. His family moved around a lot and while living in Athena, Greece, Kinnear hosted his own radio show while a student at American Community Schools. He then returned to the states to study broadcast journalism at the University of Arizona. His wife is a former British model named Helen and they have two kids.

After college he moved to Los Angeles and got a marketing job with Empire Entertainment while also doing some bit acting on television and serving as an on air host and reporter for Movietime, which eventually became E! He then hosted the short-lived game show "College Mad House" and the show "Best of the Worst" for Fox. After that came "Talk Soup!" and "Later with Greg Kinnear."

His first major film role came around the same time as his popular shows as a radio host in Damon Wayan's Blankman. His other films have included Dear God, A Smile Like Yours, Sabrina, Nurse Betty, Someone Like You, Loser, Mystery Men, Auto Focus, the Matador, Flash of Genius, Invincible, You've Got Mail, Little Miss Sunshine, Fast Food Nation and his Oscar nominated performance in As Good as it Gets. He'll next play Miley Cyrus' father in The Last Song.

I think Kinnear has carved out a nice niche for himself as a second tier leading man for smaller films and a second lead for bigger movies. He also seems to do well in ensembles. Even if the film doesn't do well, he usually gets good notices. I really don't see Kinnear rising above this level anytime and can probably coast along at this level for at least the next ten years or so. At the same time, I think he's a guy who could get lucky and pull out that plum part at anytime and vault to the next level if not as a box office draw, at least as an award winning actor. On his own philosophy on himself and his career I found this quote from him, "Setting goals can blind you to opportunities. You might be trying to get to point C; when opportunity B comes, you don't even look at it because you're going straight to C. I've never had a clear road map. When things come along, I benefit."



Craig Kilborn, 47, was born in Kansas City, Mo., His dad was an insurance salesman and his mom was a homemaker. He went to Montana State on a basketball scholarship. He got into sports broadcasting and worked a lot of small jobs in the field before landing at ESPN as a "SportsCenter" anchor from 1993 to 1996. He was the first host of "The Daily Show" and left the series after three seasons to replace Tom Snyder on CBS' "The Late, Late Show." In 2004 he chose not to renew his contract. He told "Variety," "I simply want to try something new. I can now focus on writing and producing different television projects I haven't had time for." He's been in five movies since that time; Old School, Cursed, Full of It, the Benchwarmers and The Shaggy Dog. He has a small part in the coming indy film Action Hero. I couldn't find anything on the supposed writing and producing projects he wanted to do.



Q: Great column. What is the worst movie you have ever watched? I have to say, i've probably watched hundreds of movies and in my opinion nothing holds a candle to the heinosity of Big Bully, starring Tom Arnold & Rick Moranis. What is your opinion of this turd of a movie?
-Spaghett

A: I was recently given a movie called Godmonster of Indian Flats, which is supposed to be one of the worst things ever, but I haven't gotten around to watching it yet. I'll have to get back to you. For now I'll go with 1991's Children of the Night. One of my hallmarks for truly bad B-movies is that it stars people who used to be famous and the children of the famous. Here we have Dom's son Peter DeLuise as a schoolteacher and Mickey's daughter Ami Dolenz as a nymphette fighting vampire vixon Karen Black with the help of Garrett Morris in full Sporty James mode from "Hunter." Ok, bad vampire movie, there's tons of those. What's so special about this one? The vampires live in the basement of a flooded church where they float in suspended animation with their lungs on the outside of their bodies. This allows them to breath underwater. THEY'RE FUCKING VAMPIRES THEY DON'T FUCKING BREATHE!!!



In my mind there is a big difference between Hollywood bad and indy bad. In some ways, Hollywood bad is inexcusable. You've got the money, you've got the talent, you've got the support of a major studio and all those resources. To produce a truly bad movie with all of that going for you really is an art.



In Big Bully from 1996, Rick Moranis plays a famous writer who returns to his hometown to be a teacher. He confronts his old nemesis, Tom Arnold, who is now the shop teacher, but is still a big bully jerk. The cast also features Carol Kane, Curtis Armstrong, Jeffrey Tambor, Stuart Pankin and Don Knotts. To me it feels more like a TV movie with the talent involved and just overall feel. It's a slight film to be sure and I think your level of enjoyment will depend on how much you like Arnold and Moranis, who can both be pretty annoying in their own rights depending on your tastes or individual project. Basically, I know several adults who still revel in their high school glory days, but no one who acts the way Arnold does at his age. He's one of those characters that really only exists in movies. A mild prank here and there is ok, but if some dumbass fires a nail gun at me, I'm calling the cops.

Q: If we can consider any Steve Martin movies to be underrated, I've always had a soft spot for Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. Probably for two reasons.

One - I love the dry wit interactions he has with Bogart, et al. Very ingenious screen writing and something I'm really surprised hasn't been done more often.

Two - Rachel Ward. One of the most underrated hotties of the 80's. Yes - she was hot in The Thornbirds, but she was just classically beautiful in this movie.
-Bobby C

A: In the film from 1982, Steve Martin plays a classic hard boiled, film noir detective investigating the death of a notable cheese scientist after being hired by his daughter, Rachel Ward. Characters and scenes from classic noirs are spliced in for Martin to interact with. Martin and Carl Reiner envisioned the movie originally to be a parody of the thirties and it was going to be called Depression. After Reiner fooled around with editing in old footage from a thirties film and it worked well they reconceived the film to be based around that concept. Those appearing in the movie via archive footage include Edward Arnold, Ingrid Bergman, Charles Laughton, Vincent Price, Humphrey Bogart, Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Lana Turner, Wally Brown, James Cagney, William Conrad, Jeff Corey, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Brian Donlevy, Ava Gardner, Cary Grant, Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Fred McMurray, Charles McGraw, Ray Milland, Edmund O'Brian and Barbara Stanwyck. Many appear from scenes in different movies.



Q: Hey I just got done watching the "King of the Hill" finale and at the very end they show Boomhauers wallet and they zoomed in on it and it had a police badge. What was the point of that? I haven't been watching the new episodes and only watched the finale cause it was the last episode. I only see the re-runs and a lot of stuff happened I didn't know about like Luanne had a baby. But was it something I missed or just random? Also what happened to John Redcorn? Also an underrated movie to me is "Airborne" with seth green. The dude who plays Jack reminds me of Matt Hughes. And one more question what happened to "The Riches"? that was an awesome show. Thanks
-Hiphopshuvit

A: From what I could find that seemed to be a random bit about Boomhauer. His occupation was never revealed during the course of the show and he was often shown doing odd jobs, like limo driver or mechanic, and there were some hints that he was an electrician. The badge shown reveals that Boomhauer is a Texas Ranger.

I think John Redcorn's last major appearance on "King of the Hill" was an episode late last season when he was Luann's agent for her children's show and videotapes the Manger Babies. In that episode it was revealed that Redcorn had become a talent agent, focusing on children's entertainers.

"The Riches" was canceled after two short seasons on F/X in September of 2008. Critical response and ratings were solid and I really couldn't find a reason from the network why the series was canned. Star and co-creator Eddie Izzard said that he's currently working on a movie, he didn't say feature or made for TV, that would finish the show on a proper note and wrap up loose storylines. Both seasons are available on DVD.

In Airborne from 1993, Mitchell (Shane McDermott) is a California kid who loves to surf and roller blade. His parents are zoologists who travel to Australia for work and Mitchell has to go live with his aunt, uncle and cousin Wiley (Seth Green) in Cincinnati. Mitchell and Wiley run afoul of the big skaters at high school, but are eventually recruited to play street hockey with them against the preppies and a race down the dreaded Devil's Backbone. Jack Black has an early role.

That's it for this week as I need to try to catch up with an old episode of "Night Gallery" and "Rebel Highway" to answer a few more q's in the cue.

Don't die.

"My name is Leonard Washington and I'm from a little town called none of your damn business."