Ask 411 Movies for 11.27.06: The Search for Column Material
Posted by Leonard Hayhurst on 11.27.2006
Swimming Pool, Robert Altman, Spider-Man and X-Men cartoons, more bad ass movie characters and Matt Damon as Captain Kirk
NETFLIX MOVIE OF THE WEEK: SWIMMING POOL
My friend Kate asked if I had ever seen the film and wanted to get my thoughts. I see where she would like it, but I'm not really the target audience for the sexual awakening of a middle-aged female mystery writer. It's in that British style of being bland and slow while thinking it's daring and provocative. A real plot doesn't form until about an hour in and then it's so briskly carried through. It's like they took "Murder, She Wrote" and updated it for F/X. The twist at the end is so insipid that it doesn't come off as being surprising so much as you can't believe they went there. It's as back peddling and viewer cheating as finding Patrick Duffy in the shower. Charlotte Rampling does make a compelling lead in that same dour British way, but her acting chops keeps you interested. Ludivine Sagnier is amateurish in her portrayal of nymphet Julie, but she does have incredible breasts, which we get to see often so it's not all bad.
Robert Altman passed away last Monday evening at the age of 81 of natural causes. We have talked about Altman several times here in the column. He is revered as a creative and avant-garde filmmaker who created some of the most original films of the past 35 years. Among his best films were MASH, Nashville, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, The Long Goodbye, California Suite, The Player, Short Cuts, Gosford Park, the recent Prairie Home Companion and the ingenious HBO political satire "Tanner ‘88" which has become even more relevant and hauntingly accurate in recent political times. Altman received an honorary Oscar this past year for his body of work and while he thought it was a bit premature it was actually just in time.
I hope everyone is keeping up with 411's Tournament of Bad Ass Movie Characters that was my brainchild. Shame on you if you haven't, because we have an email on it.
Q: Awesome column! Great work from the entire staff at 411.com! That having been said, I wanted to chime in on potential entrants for the possible second tournament. I'm assuming the number of movies a given character has appeared in influenced who entered the tournament, which makes sense. I don't believe any of the characters listed appeared in fewer than three films? Anyhow…submitted for your approval..
Snake Plissken (Escape From NY/LA)
Jack Burton "It's all in the reflexes" (Big Trouble in Little China)
Sgt. Eugene Tackleberry (Police Academy Series)
Conan... I mean, Arnold can be excluded from BOTH lists?
Ripley (Aliens) At the very least... you fill the quota.
Jules Winnfield (go ahead… I dare you not to include him!)
Marv (Sin City)
Pootie Tang... that belt has to count for *something*
Casey Ryback (Hard to Kill) The only palatable Seagal flick...and
well... he was rather hard to kill
Lil Ze' and/or Knockout Ned (City of God)
Hopefully... that will be enough to encourage further fanboy geekdom for everyone to read.
Chad
A: I was purposely going after characters who had sequels, but plenty in the tournament only have two films to their credit including Rooster Cogburn, The Bride, Philo Beddoe and Popeye Doyle. I also tried to keep it to ‘average joes' for the most part and even though a guy like Mad Max slipped in, a lot of your choices are on the sci-fi end of things. Plissken and Burton are great choices I just didn't think of them. Jules was on my short list, but I wanted some more brawlers to mix things up and he got bumped for Rocky. Conan and Terminator both got disqualified under the average joe consideration. Tackleberry would have been a good funny one, but being in a comedy I didn't think of him. I also think being a comedic character takes away some of his bad ass potential. Ripley would have been good as I wanted to throw another woman in and I had Foxy Brown and Cleopatra Jones on my short list. Marv and Pootie Tang I would both say are super powered. City of God just doesn't have mass appeal. Casey Ryback was Segal's character from the two Under Siege movies, which is who I would have went with. In Hard to Kill he was Mason Storm and I would term that as his most palpable and interesting movie. And Kelly LeBrock in it doesn't hurt.
Q: Leonard 'the Barbarian' Hayhurst:
First off, more Alison Lohman pics, please. And never stop running that Mariska Hargitay picture. EVER. Onto the questions...
What can you tell us about the frickin' FOX Kids X-Men & Spider-Man animated shows not getting represented on DVD? Surely Marvel would like to put these out on DVD and sometime within the last 6 years would've been perfect with the X & Spidey movies red hot. Is Fox holding out?
-Justin
A: Leonard really isn't a good barbarian name. I don't think I could run that same picture of Mariska Hargitay every week, but since you asked nicely here is another picture of Alison Lohman. She's a redhead and all seventies up in Where the Truth Lies, which I would recommend to you as she has a topless tryst with a girl dressed like Alice in Wonderland.
The "Spider-Man" cartoon from that ran from 1994 to 1998 on Fox has had several individual story arcs released on DVD including "The Venom Saga," "Spider-Man vs. Doc Ock," "The Return of the Green Goblin," "The Ultimate Villain Showdown," "Daredevil vs. Spider-Man" and a three disc collector's set that puts together the "The Sins of the Father" storyline that stretches through those last three titles above.
The "X-Men" cartoon from Fox that ran from 1992 to 1997 has had similar storyline centered releases with "The Legend of Wolverine," "The Phoenix Saga," "Sanctuary/Weapon X/Proteus" and "Reunon/Out of the Past/No Mutant is an Island." All can be found on Amazon.
This fall marks the 40th anniversary of Star Trek. I don't think we've ever gone over the film franchise, so let's do that to kill time.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979): James Kirk (William Shatner) has been promoted to admiral and a new Enterprise is about ready to get under way with Commodore Willard Decker (Stephen Collins) at the helm. A mysterious cloud wiping out everything in its way is heading toward earth and the Enterprise is the only ship in the quadrant. Kirk takes it over and flies to intercept. Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) had quit Starfleet and returned to Vulcan, but sensed the great crisis and returned to the ship. Lieutenant Ilia (Persis Khambatta), who use to date Decker, is seemingly killed by energy from the cloud, but returns to do its bidding and learn about those aboard the Enterprise. Spock travels into the cloud in an attempt to mind meld with it. He discovers that it calls itself V'ger and is looking for its creator. It's later learned that it is an old Voyager space probe retrofitted and made sentient through alien technology. Decker merges with V'ger and a new life form evolves. Originally a new series was going to be done as the flagship of a new Paramount backed network, but that network wouldn't see the light of day for over another fifteen years. A movie was then put into the works with possible plotlines involving the Enterprise crew finding God, stopping the Kennedy assassination, becoming the Greek Titans and stopping a black hole from enveloping the galaxy. The film marks the first appearance of Klingons with ridged foreheads and a more alien look as opposed to their fairly normal appearances in the original series. The prequel series "Enterprise" tried to explain this by a genetic mutation in Klingons based on experimentations with human DNA that would eventually permeate the species. Their dialogue and the Vulcans' dialogue was created by long time voice actor James Doohan who plays Scotty. Later formal languages for both races and other Star Trek races were created with dictionaries being written and printed. Fans were thrilled by the film, but critics deemed it poor. It was bland, overly long and heavy on technobabble.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982): Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig) formerly of the Enterprise is now serving on the Reliant under Captain Terrell (Paul Winfield) surveying planets for an experiment known as Genesis that would create life on lifeless worlds. In exploring what they believe to be Ceti Alpha VI they discover Khan (Ricardo Montalban) and his race of supermen from the original series episode "Space Seed." Khan and his people were stranded on Ceti Alpha V, but Ceti Alpha VI blew up months after their arrival and changed the orbit of their planet leaving it a lifeless husk. Khan uses slimy creatures to take over the minds of Terrell and Chekov and then steals the Reliant to go in search of the Genesis device and his great enemy Kirk. Kirk is drawn to the space station housing the Genesis research team by a ploy of Khan's. The team includes Kirk's long lost love Carol Marcus (Bibi Besch) and his illegitimate son David (Merrit Butrick). Kirk uses his veteran savvy to out fox Khan and their ships eventually do battle in an energy cloud. Khan plays his trump card of detonating the Genesis device and Spock sacrifices himself to fix the Enterprise's engines so they can warp to safety. Kirstie Alley makes her film debut as Spock's Vulcan protégé Saavik. Leonard Nimoy didn't want to do a second film and was only convinced when he was given a grand death scene to write him out of the franchise. However, he enjoyed making the movie so much that he wanted to come back and an additional scene of Spock mind melding with Dr. McCoy (Deforest Kelly) was added which led to the next movie. Even non-fans generally like this film and it's considered just a good science fiction movie. This was thanks in large part to writer/director Nicholas Meyer who approached the film not as a Star Trek movie, but simply a serious project.
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984): Nimoy wanted to come back, but he also leveraged his way into the directing chair. Spock's body was left on the newly created Genesis planet and was de-aged back to a child. He's discovered by David Marcus and Saavik (now played by Robin Curtis as Kirstie Alley did not want to return). They are captured by vengeful Klingons after the Genesis technology (led by Christopher Lloyd as Kruge with John Larroquette among the crew as Maltz). Meanwhile, Spock's father Sarek (Mark Lenard) informs Kirk of the Vulcan ability to transplant their ‘soul' into another person. They find that Spock did this to McCoy and steal the Enterprise to recover Spock's body on the Genesis planet. Spock's body is aging rapidly as the planet appears to be doing so as well. Kruge kills David and Kirk in a last ditch gambit destroys the Enterprise. Kirk kills Kruge on the planet and then steals the Klingon ship. They fly to Vulcan and put Spock back together, although his memories and personality are a bit wonky. My question is whatever happened to Maltz after Kirk had him locked in his quarters and refused to kill him?
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986): The Enterprise crew on the Klingon Bird of Prey flies back to Earth to face the music of their actions. The planet is being attacked by an alien force making noises similar to that of Humpback Whales, which are extinct. The Enterprise crew slingshot around the son to travel back in time to the late 20th century and hide in Golden Gate Park thanks to the Klingon cloaking device. Spock and Kirk find two whales at a nearby water park and befriend their handler Dr. Gillian Taylor (Catherine Hicks). They get the whales and return to the future to save the planet, which looks good for them when they go on trial. Eddie Murphy was originally linked to this project to play a comic relief college professor that eventually morphed into the Taylor character. Murphy was a closet Trekkie, but his people talked him out of doing the movie and he starred in The Golden Child instead. That flopped and Voyage Home was one of the highest grossing films of the year. The memorable punk that Spock knocks out on the bus was associate producer Kirk Thatcher who wrote and performed the song blaring for his boom box "I Hate You." That scene was actually an unused bit for Nicholas Meyer's Time After Time. He came on to do some script doctoring at the behest of Nimoy.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989): After Nimoy directed the last two movies, Shatner pulled rank to direct this one. Paramount slashed his budget and filming time and rushed the film into a crowded summer movie season. It flopped. Shatner actually asked Paramount for money to finish the film as he had envisioned with top of the line special effects for the DVD release, but the studio refused. The Enterprise is called to defuse a hostage situation of several Federation ambassadors on a desolate planet. They walk into an ambush and the Enterprise is taken over by Spock's half brother Sybok (Laurence Luckinbill, Sean Connery and Max Von Sydow refused the part). Sybok can manipulate people's memories and make them relive events to take away their pain. In the best moment of the film Kirk pleads that he needs his pain and his pain is part of who he is. Sybok takes the ship to the center of the galaxy to a planet behind a barrier. There they find a being Sybok believes to be God. God wants them to bring the Enterprise closer so he can merge with it. In a question up there with "How do they cram all that graham?" and "Who let the dogs out?" Kirk asks, "What does God need with a starship?" So it turns out not to be God, but an evil entity imprisoned on the planet for millennia most likely by the real God.
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991): After the debacle of the last film, Nicholas Meyer was brought back to write and direct. He wanted to bring Saavik back as a traitor for dramatic impact, but Gene Roddenberry hated the idea and the new character of Valeris was created as played by Kim Cattrall. Cattrall posed for nude photos on the Enterprise bridge during an off day of shooting, but was caught by Nimoy who was infuriated by her actions. Shatner tried to keep up with Nimoy in the douchebag race by strongly objecting to Sulu being made a captain with his own ship. To answer my question from above, Maltz was given a scene during the courtroom sequence where he appeared as a witness against Kirk and McCoy, but Larroquette was unavailable. Another interesting tidbit is that Garry Marshall had Shatner and Nimoy in character appear behind a door opened by Al Pacino while filming Frankie and Johnnie as a gag and get the proper look of surprise he wanted from Pacino. In the film, a Klingon moon explodes and cripples the empires energy resources. Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner) opens peace talks with the Federation and Spock volunteers the Enterprise to transport him to the peace talks. The Klingon ship is attacked. Kirk and McCoy go on board to try and save Gorkon, but he dies and they are arrested. Spock attempts to solve the mystery of how it appears that the Enterprise fired on the ship while Kirk and McCoy try to escape from a Klingon prison colony.
Star Trek: Generations (1994): Kirk is pulled out of mothballs to christen a new Enterprise and seemingly dies trying to save the ship from a strange energy ribbon. Fast forward to the cast of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" uncovering the plot of bonkers Soran (Malcolm McDowell) to bring the energy ribbon to a planet so he can enter it. Once in the ribbon a person can have their fondest dreams come true. Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) is sucked into the energy ribbon and enlists Kirk's help to use the ribbon's powers to go back in time to stop Soran. Nimoy was asked to direct this film and appear as Spock, but he thought the part for him sucked and it went to Scotty. Deforest Kelly was too ill to appear as McCoy and his part was given to Chekov. Originally Kirk was to be shot in the back by Soran, but this tested poorly with audiences who wanted a more heroic death for Kirk.
Star Trek: First Contact (1996): Following in his predecessor's footsteps, Jonathan Frakes who plays First Office Riker directs. He earned the nickname of "Two Takes Frakes" because he refused to do more than two takes of any one scene. Special effects for the movie was done by George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic and as an in-joke the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars can be glimpsed in the battle with the Borg. The Borg attack earth and are beaten back, but then travel back in time to prevent earth's first contact with the Vulcan race and assimilate the planet. Riker and Geordi Le Forge (LeVar Burton) lead a team on earth to help space flight pioneer Zefram Cochrane (James Cromwell) while Picard fights the Borg threat on the Enterprise with Worf (Michael Dorn) and new character Lieutenant Hawk (Neal McDonough in a character that was gay in the screenplay, but all subtext to that was taken out). Data (Brent Spiner) is recruited by the Borg, but shows his true colors in the end. When it was decided to do a time travel story the Civil War and Medieval Europe were considered for locales.
Star Trek: Insurrection (1998): Picard and crew are ordered to move the Baku race from their home world, a planet whose radiation gives fountain of youth like results on people who live there. The Starfleet Prime Directive states that no expedition may interfere with the natural development of a civilization (which never stopped Kirk). Picard realizes that he is being manipulated by shady higher ups who want to exploit the planet and he risks his career to uphold his morals.
Star Trek: Nemesis (2002): Riker and Troi finally get hitched, but the Enterprise is called into action deep in Romulan space before their honeymoon can start. A young clone of Picard has rallied the inhabitants of the Romulan planet Remus and wants to negotiate with the Federation. This is a ruse as he needs Picard to supply regenerative genetic material and really wants to destroy the earth. The clone storyline thread can be traced back to the "Unification" episodes of the series. Tom Hardy plays Shinzon the clone, but Jude Law and Michael Shanks were both considered. It was the biggest flop of the franchise, even beating Star Trek V. Nicholas Meyer was originally hired to direct, but was fired when he requested a script rewrite. Maybe they should have listened to him. JJ Abrams is currently linked to a new film targeted for 2008. Rumors have it as a prequel to the original series with Kirk, Spock and other characters at Starfleet or possibly just taking over the Enterprise. Matt Damon has been linked to Kirk and because of that Ben Affleck to Spock with Phillip Seymour Hoffman playing a doctor pre-McCoy. This is all rumor, so don't get bent out of shape quite yet.
Don't die.
"Awards are like hemorrhoids. Sooner or later every asshole gets one."
