Ask 411 Movies for 6.4.07: Moratorium of the Big Floppy Hat Society
Posted by Leonard Hayhurst on 06.04.2007
Charles Nelson Reilly, The Invisible Kid, White Noise, Metallica’s One video, Marvel missteps and we Hassle the Hoff
NETFLIX MOVIE OF THE WEEK: WHITE NOISE
This was recommended to me in the column several weeks ago when discussing good movies that had bad ending. I thought this was a pretty mediocre movie with a lousy ending. The extras on the disc detailing electronic voice phenomenon were much more interesting than the film itself. They took an interesting concept and draped a standard paint by numbers thriller story on it that had very little in the way of scares or suspense. I do admit that the film could have been redeemed greatly by a more logical or cleverer ending than the groan inducing one presented. Good basic idea, horrendous follow through. In the movie, Michael Keaton's wife dies and he uses evp to contact her, but gets his wires crossed with some bad spirits. Electronic voice phenomenon is the real study of possible voice messages from the dead contained in white noise.
Charles Nelson Reilly passed away last week of complications from pneumonia. He was 76. Reilly might be best known to modern audiences due to the revival of "the Match Game" on the Game Show Network. However he won a Tony in 1962 for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and was nominated twice more for Hello Dolly and directing a revival of the Gin Game in 1997. Reilly made frequent appearances on "The Tonight Show" and was a supporting player on "the Ghost and Mrs. Muir." Reilly made a handful of movies, but was a regular on television and voice over work. Below from YouTube is a trailer for Reilly's recent autobiographical one man show.
Q: Hey L.H.,
Regarding the movies that aren't really appropriate for kids:
I was allowed by my mom to go watch The Invisible Kid at theaters. It was rated PG, she thought it would be a great movie. Well...it WAS! The only part I remember about the movie was a very long locker room scene where girls aplenty walked around showing off boobs.
Granted, I've seen my fair share of boobs since, almost 20 years later. But the whole idea of a PG Rated movie showing tons of boobs? Just kind of weird when you consider now that if you even say Damn you'll get PG-13. Seems like boobs would get you an automatic R.... but then again, this is America. We'll give most action movies PG/PG13 ratings because violence isn't that big of a deal.
Anyways...just thought I'd tell you about The Invisible Kid.
-Joe
A: Thanks for that inclusion. The Invisible Kid from 1988 stars Jay Underwood as a nerdy kid who finds a way to make himself invisible. He uses this power to get back at jock Milton (Wallace Langham) and Principal Baxter (John Towey), while spying on girls in the shower including cheerleader Cindy (Chynna Phillips). The film is rated PG, despite the nudity included in the long shower scene. They most likely got away with it because it wasn't related to a sexual situation. However, if the MPAA doesn't think that a horny boy in a girl's shower room isn't sexual it's been along time since they were horny boys. This was after the PG-13 designation came about, but they were still working out the bugs on what fit where. Underwood had also built up good faith with parents by starring in the Disney films The Boy Who Could Fly and Not Quite Human. It's interesting to note that Underwood played Johnny Storm in the 1994 Fantastic Four that never received an official release.
Q: I have never written into any website before but here is my question. While watching an episode of Bevis and Butthead they showed a Metallica video entiled "One" in the video itself they were showing clips of an old war movie were the soldier in wuestion had his arms and legs blown off in an attack he was also deaf and blind. I have never been able to find out what this movie was titled do you think you can help.
-Kendall
A: The film in question is Johnny Got His Gun from 1971. It's based on a 1938 novel by Dalton Trumbo, who also wrote the screenplay and directed the film. Trumbo is one of the most famous members of the blacklisted Hollywood Ten. Luis Bunuel was once in talks with Trumbo to direct. It stars a very young Timothy Bottoms. A World War I soldier loses his arms, legs, eyes, ears and most of his face in an explosion and is now being kept alive by machines in a hospital. He uses his head to tap out Morse code asking someone to kill him, but no one ever picks up on it. Metallica purchased the rights to the film for exclusive use and that's why the film has not been released on DVD, but it is out for region 2.
Last week we talked about the old Spiderman series and this week I name dropped the atrocious original Fantastic Four film with the new one coming out in a couple weeks. So let's look at other Marvel properties that didn't get the best of media translations.
Dr. Strange (1978): In this TV movie intended as an ongoing series, Stephen Strange (Peter Hooten) is a psychiatrist visited by the current Sorcerer Supreme of Earth (John Mills) and his manservant Wong (Clyde Kusatsu). Strange is the heir apparent to the Sorcerer Supreme title and marked so by a ring given to him by his father. Strange must save a woman named Clea Lake (Anne-Marie Martin) from the clutches of Morgan Le Fey (Jessica Walter) before her plans to take over our dimension comes to fruition.
The Punisher (1989): Frank Castle (Dolph Lundgren) becomes a vigilante after the murder of his wife and family. His only friend and informant is Shake (Barry Otto). Castle is wanted by the police (headed by Louis Gossett, Jr.). Castle finds himself siding with the mafia don (Jereon Krabbe) that killed his family when the Yakuza led by Lady Tanaka (Kim Miyori) kidnap the children of the Italian mafia in an effort to take over the American crime scene. Michael Pare was originally targeted to star. A new film was later made starring Thomas Jane.
Captain America (1990): The film is pretty close to the story of Captain America to start and then goes wonky from there. Steve Rogers (Matt Salinger) is a 4F soldier who takes a super soldier serum that turns him into Captain America. While battling the Red Skull (Scott Paulin), who is an Italian fascist in this film, he is tied to a bomb and launched at Washington. Rogers manages to turn the bomb into Alaska and is frozen in the ice there. He's thawed out in the 1990's. President Kimball (Ronny Cox) supports environmental legislation, which makes him a target of various big business types who hire the Red Skull and his daughter (Francesca Neri) to kill him. Rogers teams with the daughter (Kim Gillingham) of his former love to battle the Skull anew. Ned Beatty plays a reporter detailing Cap's resurrection. Dolph Lundgren was reportedly up for the role, but did The Punisher instead. Arnold Schwarzenegger was discounted due to his Austrian accent, about the only thing that could have made the movie worst. Val Kilmer was also rumored up for the part, but signed to do The Doors. Captain America, Jim Morrison; it's a wash. There were also two Cap television movies in the late seventies starring Reb Brown. Brown played the son of the original Captain America who rode around on a custom motorcycle with a windshield that doubled as his shield.
Fantastic Four (1994): Here's the deal. Roger Corman's production company was on the verge of losing their rights to making a Fantastic Four movie if they didn't produce anything. Rumors had Chris Columbus waiting in the wings to do his own big budget version of the comic. So they rushed a super crappy film into production with no intentions of ever releasing it to retain the copyright while also getting their movie bought out so there wasn't a bad version already out souring the property. In this film Reed Richards (Alex Hyde White) and Victor Von Doom (Joseph Culp) are college friends. Doom is scarred in an experiment gone wrong and he blames Richards. Later on, Richards goes into space with Ben Grimm (Michael Bailey Smith), Sue Richards (Rebecca Staab) and her brother Johnny (Jay Underwood mentioned above). They gain superpowers with Grimm turning into the orange rocky Thing (Carl Carfalio). Grimm runs off and comes across Alicia Masters (Kat Green) who is being pursued by the Jeweler (Ian Trigger in a character close to the Mole Man of the comics) to marry her and take a gem in her possession. At the same time, Doom is after the jewel to power his laser. While never officially released, bootlegs are out there.
Man-Thing (2005): Originally this was targeted for direct to video release, but the popularity of super hero films led Marvel to try a small theatrical release. When half the audience walked out on a test screening they wound up dumping it on the Sci-Fi channel. This version of the character has more to do with DC Comics Swamp Thing as he can control vegetation. Goons of an oil tycoon disappear while investigating a Louisiana swamp for possible drilling. The local sheriff (Matthew Le Nevez) looks into matters to discover the Man-Thing, a former Native American shaman transformed by the Nexus of All Realities.
Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD (1998): David Hasselhoff stars as grizzled soldier Nick Fury in this Fox telefilm. Fury is brought out of retirement by Contessa Valentina (Lisa Rinna with super cleavage) to battle the daughter (Sandra Hess) of his old foe Baron Von Strucker, known as Viper. Viper has a pathogen known as the Death's Head Virus that she uses to hold the world hostage. Since I couldn't find a poster, here is a YouTube clip of the Hoff singing "Hooked on a Feeling." That feeling is nauseous.
