Ask 411 Movies for 01.02.12: The Beginning of the End and End of the Beginning!

Posted by Leonard Hayhurst on 01.02.2012

What's the connection between Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call-New Orleans and Bad Lieutenant? What '80s movie has underground aliens assimilating people to take over the world? All this and more covered this week in Ask 411 Movies!

YouTube Clip of the Week
In our YouTube Clip of the Week, the girl duo of Garfunkel and Oates do an acoustic medley on guitar and ukulele of their least favorite songs, mostly from the 1990s. The girls are Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci. Micucci is probably best known as Ted's girlfriend on Scrubs. She's also appeared on 'Til Death and Raising Hope. Lindhome is also an actress and was most recently seen in a recurring role on Laura Dern's Enlightened.



Leonard's Favorite Episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Every week I highlight my favorite episode of a popular series. After doing the original series last week and TNG in the past, we're doing Star Trek: Deep Space Nine this week. My favorite episode is "Whispers" from season two, which is a great tour de force for Colm Meaney as Miles O'Brien. O'Brien narrates a flashback as he enters the wormhole. Everyone around him starts to act strange and even subdue him. He assumes they're under some alien influence and flees to the Parada, where he had previously been on a mission. He arrives on the planet and is shot. As he dies, he sees the real O'Brien. The Paradan government had abducted O'Brien and sent a clone in his place who believed he was the real O'Brien. It's one of those great episodes where you're thinking one way and then it winds up in a completely different place. It had that paranoid, 1970s political thriller feel.



Mystery Actor/Actress of the Week
Every week I'll give clues to a mystery actor or actress. If you think you know who it is, post in the comments. You win nothing but a tip of the top hat from me, but isn't that enough?

Last week: Last week's mystery man, Evel Knievel, had a guest spot as himself on my 1970s television series. The show made me the youngest woman to ever win the Emmy for best lead actress in a dramatic series. I was 28 at the time. The show was a spinoff of another popular series. The star of that show had a short lived series earlier in the 1970s that I guest starred on too. A 1989 reunion movie we did of our shows featured a future Oscar winner as our protégé. Most recently I've played a recurring character on two SyFy Channel shows. Who am I?

The answer is Lindsay Wagner. Knievel had a guest spot as himself on The Bionic Woman, for which Wagner won an Emmy, which was a spinoff of The Six Million Dollar Man. That series starred Lee Majors, and Wagner was on his Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law as well. The two did two reunion movies in the 1980s with Bionic Showdown featuring Sandra Bullock, an Oscar winner for The Blind Side, as a new bionic protégé. Wagner has most recently been seen as Dr. Vanessa Calder on Alphas and Warehouse 13. Information from IMDB.



This week: I costarred with last week's mystery actress, Lindsay Wagner, in a crime drama. Another actor in the film is known for a major sci-fi franchise and I'm known for another. I almost landed the title role in a James Bond film, but it went to a more familiar actress. I'm a former beauty pageant queen and even wrote a book about the particular pageant I was in. My final role was playing an ambassador from my native country in the pilot episode of a cult favorite television series. Who am I?

Q: Hey what was the name of this movie: the school takes the students on a field trip. They all go underground I think. Turns out the teachers are all aliens and trying to take over the world. I haven't seen it in 15-20 yrs maybe! I need to know...unless it was a dream lol
-Curt

A: This is from a friend of mine who sent it to me on Facebook. I took a stab in the dark I didn't think was right, but he said it was the movie he was looking for after taking a gander at it. Some of what he remembered was a bit off, but it appears to be the 1986 remake of Invaders from Mars. David Gardner (Hunter Carson) sees aliens land in his backyard during a meteor shower, but no one believes him. David's parents (Timothy Bottoms and Laraine Newman), teachers and other adults are sucked underground and assimilated by the aliens. The only person who believes David is school nurse Linda (Karen Black). Jimmy Hunt, who played the kid role in the original 1953 movie, plays the police chief here. There were only two Martian drone suits and they worked in a unique way. A midget was attached to the back of a regular sized actor. The midget would work the head and tiny arms. The full size person worked the larger arms and legs. Since the person had to walk backwards, it made the alien knees bend in a weird way.



Q: Is there any connection between the original Bad Lieutenant and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans?
-Green Man

A: According to interviews with director Warner Herzog, his The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call-New Orleans has no direct correlation with Bad Lieutenant outside of both being about a corrupt police officer. Herzog has said his movie is not a remake or sequel, but more of a rethinking of the original concept. He said he's never seen the original movie and the studio added the bad lieutenant title to help with marketing. In a 2008 interview with "The Guardian," Abel Ferrara, who directed Bad Lieutenant, was under the assumption that the new movie was a straight remake. He said it gave him "a horrible feeling" and that everyone involved "should all die in hell." He also said he had no idea how Nicolas Cage "can even have the nerve to play Harvey Keitel."

Bad Lieutenant from 1992 was directed by Abel Ferrara from a script by actress and model Zoe Lund, who was in Ferrara's earlier Ms. 45. Harvey Keitel stars as the title character, a drug abusing, alcoholic, gambling cop who finds some redemption in the case of a raped nun. The lead was intended originally for Christopher Walken.



The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call-New Orleans from 2009 stars Nicholas Cage as the title character, who this time around is given a name in Terrence McDonagh. McDonagh saves a drowning prisoner following Hurricane Katrina and is promoted to lieutenant. However, he injures his back and becomes addicted to vicodin among other drugs. Like the original film, the lieutenant steals drugs from police evidence and has big gambling debts. Brad Dourif plays McDonagh's bookie, Eva Mendes his hooker girlfriend, Val Kilmer plays his partner and Xzibit is a drug dealer McDonagh enters into a tenuous partnership with.



For column filler I was going to profile New Year's Eve and New Year's Day movies, but there aren't many. Instead, we'll look at movies with midnight in the title.

The Horn Blows at Midnight (1945): Jack Benny plays a trumpeter in a big band who falls asleep during a show and imagines himself an angel named Athanael. He's charged with blowing the last horn at midnight to end the world. Two fallen angels (Allyn Joslyn and John Alexander) enjoying life on earth try to stop him and enlist a jewel thief (Reginald Gardiner) for help. Athanael blows his first chance to end the world by saving the thief's accomplice (Dolores Moran) from committing suicide. He battles with his adversaries on a rooftop as midnight of the second day approaches. Of course, he wakes up at the end. The movie was a huge flop and pretty much ended Benny's movie career as a leading man, a point that was a constant joke on his later radio and television programs.



Midnight Cowboy (1969): Joe Buck (Jon Voight) is a naïve male prostitute trying to make it in New York City. Buck gets hustled more than he hustles others and winds up teaming up with the outcast Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) after Rizzo actually cons money from him. The movie won Oscars for best screenplay, best picture and best director for John Schlesinger. It's the only X-rated movie to win the best picture Oscar. However, ratings qualifications changed and the movie was downgraded to an R-rating upon a 1971 reissue. Elvis Presley was offered the role of Joe Buck, but his manager, Colonel Tom Parker, said no. Lee Majors was going to do it, but had a conflicting schedule with his series The Big Valley. Michael Sarrazin was set to go, but dropped out because of a wage dispute. Robert Blake was up for Ratso, but declined. Hoffman won the role after he asked the casting director to meet him on a street corner. The director paid little attention to a beggar accosting people on the street until he came up and revealed himself to be Hoffman.



Midnight Express (1978): Billy Hayes (Brad Davis) is discovered trying to smuggle two kilos of hashish out of Turkey and is thrown in jail for four years. The prison experience is harsh and inhospitable. Hayes does make a few friends, such as fellow American Jimmy Booth (Randy Quaid).While the movie is based on a true story, the real Hayes has said the movie is very exaggerated of his real experiences. Richard Gere and John Travolta were both considered for the lead. The cast also features John Hurt, Bo Hopkins, Irene Miracle and Paul L. Smith. Oliver Stone wrote the screenplay.



'Round Midnight (1986): Real life jazz saxophonist Dexter Gordon plays fictional jazz artist Dale Turner. Turner is estranged from his family due to alcoholism and is barely clinging to his music in the New York jazz scene of the 1950s. Turner takes an offer to play in Paris and a major fan of his work (Francois Cluzet) helps him find some redemption and renewed love for music. The movie is loosely based on the relationship between Bud Powell and Francis Paudras with the Turner character also featuring elements of Lester Young. Gordon received an Oscar nomination for best actor for his only major acting performance.



Midnight Run (1988): Bounty hunter Jack Walsh (Robert DeNiro) finds former mob accountant Jonathan "The Duke" Mardukas (Charles Grodin) when nobody else could. In order to collect his fee, Walsh has to take Mardukas across country from New York to Los Angeles. They are chased by the mafia, the FBI and a rival bounty hunter (John Ashton). As what happens in movies, Walsh and Mardukas form an odd friendship after early animosity. Originally the movie was to be made at Paramount, who wanted Mardukas to be turned into a woman played by Cher. Director Martin Brest rejected that idea, so Paramount then wanted Robin Williams. Brest read Grodin for the part and insisted on him. Paramount sold the rights to Universal.



Past Midnight (1991): Ben Jordan (Rutger Hauer) is released from prison after 15 years for killing his pregnant wife. His social worker (Natasha Richardson), begins looking into the case and believes Jordan is innocent as she falls in love with him. However, that doesn't mean he's not dangerous or if the real killer is out there, he won't come after her now. Quentin Tarantino re-wrote a good bit of the script and wound up getting an associate producer credit, his first on screen credit.



Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997): Big city reporter John Kelso (John Cusack) is in Savannah, Ga., to write a story one of the legendary Christmas parties of eccentric millionaire Jim Williams (Kevin Spacey). Williams' lover Billy (Jude Law) is killed and Williams goes on trial for the murder. Kelso stays on to cover it. Kelso attempts to solve the crime himself while running into a bunch of odd characters and strange situations. Alison Eastwood, daughter of director Clint Eastwood, plays a love interest for Kelso who wasn't in the source novel. The book is based on a true story with real life drag queen Lady Chablis playing herself in the movie and Williams' lawyer playing the judge. Edward Norton was up for Kelso and both Robert Redford and Jack Nicholson were said to be interested in developing the project.



Permanent Midnight (1998): The movie is based on the memoir of comedy writer Jerry Stahl about his drug abuse problems. Stiller plays Stahl, who went from obscurity to a sought after writer penning scripts for such series as Moonlighting, thirtysomething, Twin Peaks and Alf. For legal reasons, show names are changed with Alf as Mr. Chompers, most prominently. The film is told in flashback as Stahl tells his story to fellow detox survivor Kitty (Maria Bello). Owen Wilson plays Stahl's friend, Elizabeth Hurley his wife, Jeanne Garofalo as his agent and Fred Willard is a network executive. The real Stahl has a cameo as a doctor in a methadone clinic.



The Midnight Meat Train (2008) Leon (Bradley Cooper) is a struggling photographer who lives with his girlfriend Maya (Leslie Bibb). After a gallery owner (Brooke Shields) trashes his work, Leon wanders the streets taking photos and eventually winds up saving a woman from a group of thugs in the subway. When she later goes missing, Leon becomes obsessed with what happened to her and believes a butcher (Vinnie Jones) might have had something to do with it.



Midnight in Paris (2011): Gil (Owen Wilson) and his fiancé Inez (Rachel McAdams) piggy back on her parents' business trip to Paris for a vacation. Gil is a successful Hollywood writer, but is struggling on his first novel. After getting drunk and wandering the streets, Gil finds himself in Paris of the 1920s. He meets several famous writers such as Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll) and F. Scott Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston). Gil travels to the past every night and eventually falls for the mistress (Marion Cotillard) of Pablo Picasso (Marcial Di Fonzo Bo). Gil tries to confide in several artists, such as Salvador Dali (Adrien Brody) who as surrealists find nothing strange with Gil being form the future. Director and writer Woody Allen said he had the title to start with and worked backwards from there.



Don't die.
"Don't worry, Son! We Marines have no qualms about killing Martians!"