Ask 411 Movies for 4.28.08: The Column That Sees Red!

Posted by Leonard Hayhurst on 04.28.2008

Iron Man, Voltron, cartoons on DVD, Red Dawn, Red Heat, The Hunt for Red October, Red Eye and Red Dragon

From the Wal-Mart dump bin I picked up John Wayne's version of The Alamo, Dances with Wolves, Hoosiers, Rocky II and Rocky IV, which completes my Rocky collection. What do all those movies have in common? They were all put out by MGM DVD. I present you the king of the dump bin.

Check out the latest version of the podcast. We talk movie beginning and I host Odds Makers between Chad and George. Plus, Mitch Michaels from the music zone puts in a special appearance. I also guest on the music zone podcast this week for music trivia. I'm not proud of myself for that one.

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In talking with Mitch after recording he asked me if I knew who sang an old song he remembered called "Never Ending Shopping List." It's Lulu Roman from "Hee-Haw." Maybe I should do Ask 411 Music? The video for said song is below.



Q: hey I have a question, which movie do you think will be the most critically and financially successful this summer?
-Justin

A: I'm taking the question as which film will be the most critically successful AND financially successful in one. I have to go with Iron Man on that. It looks like a slam-dunk on paper. It's getting massively hyped, it's got a good release date early in the blockbuster season, an interesting director in Jon Favreau and a stellar casts that critics love with Robert Downey Jr., Terence Howard, Jeff Bridges and Gwyneth Paltrow. I'm getting a vibe off of it similar to the first Spiderman movie. I say it crews past $250 million easy and gets an average letter grade from critics around a B+. Chad Webb also tells me it's opening in over 4,000 theaters.

Q: Hey Leonard ...

Okay, how weird is this?

You wrote about (what is to me) a fairly obscure movie in your column this week ... The Yellow Rolls Royce and now here I am channel surfing and Voila! there it is playing on Turner Classic Movies.

Odd.

Okay ... so it looks like you're needing some questions and I'm too lazy to do the grunt work.

I've been trying to figure out a cartoon from my childhood and I don't think I've asked you yet ... if I have, my apologies for my piss poor memory.

It was a show akin to Voltron in that there were 5 robots that combined to form a bigger robot (all the craze back then) and each individual controlled an element (fire, water etc.)
Then there was this little girl? robot? that was like the overbearing 'leader' of the group and controlled the bigger robot from inside when they all combined.

I cannot for the life of me remember the name of this show. Help!

Also, if you're needing more to write about could you tell me if the classic WB cartoons from the 90's are out on DVD? (Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Freakazoid etc)

And if you STILL need to fill more space what about Saturday morning cartoon shows (from the 80s to early 90s) out on DVD?

Thanks Leonard!

EF

A: Turner Classic Movies reads my column and then programs accordingly.

Checking with the imdb I've Got to Know Boards, they've made a couple suggestions on what your Voltron-esque cartoon could be.

One suggested was the precursor to "Voltron," which was "Combattler V." Citizens of the planet Campbell fled their home. Several scientists landed on earth and went into stasis. When they came to in the 21st century they set out to conquer Earth with giant biomechanical slave beasts. Earth fought back with the Combattler V.

Another suggestion was "The Mighty Orbots." Earth is part of the United Planets in the 23rd century. Against them is a group called SHADOW. Fighting their forces are six robots that can come together to form a giant robot. The series was the idea of Fred Silverman of ABC to go up against the success of "The Transformers" and "Voltron." It lasted one season of 13 episodes due to low ratings and legal trouble with the creator of "The Go-Bots" calling the show a rip-off. Not to mention that the Go-Bots were a Transformers rip-off.

Now, there was also another Voltron series. The GoLion Voltron is the one most know, but there was a Vehicle Voltron too. There were fifteen members broken up into three teams of five; an air team, a land team and a sea team. There was a also Gladiator Voltron, who didn't make it to the US due to the second series not fairing as well as the first. Three smaller, humanoid robots came together to form a big robot.

Several "Tiny Toon Adventures" collections with a few episodes each are out on DVD. Season one, volume one is set for release on July 29. The complete first season of "Freakazoid" will be coming out the same day. Three volumes of the "Animaniacs" have been released with 25 episodes each. Three volumes of "Pinky and the Brain" episodes have also been put out.

There are a bunch of other cartoons from the eighties and nineties out on DVD. Many are in best of or volume formats, because of how many were churned out it's hard to do season by season discs.

Many of the Filmation series are out, including various volumes and specials for "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids," "He-Man," "She-Ra," "Groovie Ghoulies," "The Ghost Busters," "Blackstar," "Hero High," and "Bravestarr." Two volumes of the "Thundercats" have been released. Two volumes of "M.A.S.K." are out. "G.I. Joe," "Voltron," "Transformers," "Jem and the Holgrams," "Gummi Bears," "My Little Pony," "Rainbow Bright," "The Care Bears;" just a bunch is out. Too many things to go over here. Maybe we'll use eighties cartoon series for a filler sometime.

This week the color wheel lands on red. I think there were more movies with red in the title than any other, so this is a very partial list.



The Red Shoes (1948): Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) is an acclaimed ballet producer with his own private touring company. Lermontov learns that the latest ballet he has financed by a university professor was stolen from the work of his best student, Julian Cranster (Marius Goring). Lermontov hires Cranster as a coach for the orchestra to keep him quiet, but with the intentions of pushing him up the ladder. At a party, Lermontov meets a younger dancer named Victroria Page (Moira Shearer) and hires her as an extra, but also with the intentions of pushing her up the ladder. Finally the perfect project for both comes along in a ballet based on the Han Christian Anderson story "The Red Shoes." It's the tale of a girl who gets a pair of magic shoes that dance and dance forever. She can't get them off her feet and eventually dances herself to death. The ballet is a huge smash and Julian and Victoria become the new darlings of the ballet scene. They fall in love after working so closely together and Lermontov feels betrayed. It's not so much that he's in love with Victoria, but he thought he found a kindred spirit in his love for dancing and promised to make her the greatest dancer in the world. Julian and Victoria quit the company and get married, but dancing pulls at her and she winds up going back to Lermontov while Julian is producing a new opera. Victoria is set to reprise her role in "The Red Shoes" when Julian shows up and she is torn between her love for him and her love for the dance. Stricken with grief and conflicting emotions, Victoria throws herself in front of a train and much like the heroine of her ballet, dance has caused her demise. Gene Kelly showed producers this film to convince them that a dance heavy film could work so he could make An American in Paris.



Red River (1948): Tom Dunson (John Wayne) is a cattle baron who built his empire with nothing but dust and his adopted son Matthew (Montgomery Clift) to start out. Dunson launches a massive cattle drive to Missouri, but unforeseen problems arise causing Dunson to turn into a psychotic tyrant. Matthew usurps his father and takes the cattle away from him and to a new livestock market in Kansas. Dunson swears to track Matthew down and kill him. The ending is a bit of a let down, but the rest of the movie is simply awesome with a deep story and great characterizations by Wayne and Clift, two of the most opposite actors you could find. Director Howard Hawks is at his peak, combining his penchant for more intimate scenes with a John Ford sense of sweeping vistas detailing the awesome beauty and hugeness of the Western landscape. The Dunson role was originally offered to Gary Cooper, but he turned it down because he thought it didn't fit his film image. Cary Grant was also considered for the part of Cherry Valance, which was cut way down after he didn't take it.



Wake of the Red Witch (1948): Captain Ralls (John Wayne) fights Dutch shipping magnate Sam Rosen (Gig Young) for a fortune in gold aboard a sunken ship named the Red Witch and the love of a beautiful woman (Gail Russell). Wayne took the name of his production company, Batjac, from the shipping firm in this movie. The rubber octopus that Wayne fights is the same one famously used in Bride of the Monster. Ed Wood forgot to take the motor for it and Bela Lugosi wound up having to make the octopus look like it was moving.



The Big Red One (1980): An army sergeant (Lee Marvin) decorated in World War I leads a rifle squad in World War II. While many soldiers come in and out of the division, four survivors are mainstays (Mark Hamill, Robert Carradine, Bobby Di Cicco and Kelly Ward). Reportedly director Samuel Fuller wanted Martin Scorsese to play a role, but he turned it down. Fuller served in the squad known as the Big Red One himself during World War II and some segments are based on his adventures.



The Woman in Red (1984): Based on a French film, Gene Wilder plays a successful businessman with a good wife and children, who suffers a midlife crisis when he becomes infatuated with a mysterious woman in a red dress (Kelly LeBrock). Wilder's real life wife, Gilda Radner, plays his secretary. Stevie Wonder won an Oscar for best original song for the movie for "I Just Called to Say I Love You."



Red Dawn (1984): Russian and Cuban invaders on US soil start World War III. A group of teens in the west (Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Charlie Sheen, Jennifer Grey and Lea Thompson) fight back against the Russian invaders with what weapons they can scrounge up. I met William Smith who plays one of the Russian commanders. He won the part by being fluent in Russian and he served as an interpreter during the Korean War. This was the first movie released to be given a PG-13 rating. The Flamingo Kid was the first film to be given the rating, but this came out first.



Red Sonja (1985): This is sort of an unofficial sequel to the Conan the Barbarian films. Red Sonja was a character created for the comic books loosely based on another character created by Conan author Robert E. Howard. Due to rights issues between the properties Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a character similar to Conan, but not him, as he helps the title character played by Brigitte Nielsen seek revenge for the death of her sister against Queen Gedren (Sandahl Bergman). Bergman was originally cast as Sonja, but wanted to avoid typecasting and took the secondary part. Even Arnie claims this as one of his worst movies and jokes that he threatens to make his children watch it if they're bad.



Red Heat (1988): Arnie is back, this time as a Russian detective sent to the United States to retrieve a drug dealer. When the dealer escapes, Arnie joins forces with a Chicago cop played by Jim Belushi to track him down. Legendary stunt coordinator Bennie Dobbins died during the making of the film while setting up the snow fight scene while on location in Vienna. Director Walter Hill asked Schwarzenegger to lose ten pounds before filming began, because he thought he looked too muscular, and for Belushi to gain 10 pounds. I guess, to look more like his brother. Hill also had Schwarzenegger watch the movie Ninotchka and told him study Greta Garbo to get his character here.



The Hunt for Red October (1990): Captain Marko Raimus (Sean Connery) wants to defect from the Soviet Union to the United States, and he's going to bring a new nuclear sub with him. Only CIA agent Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin) figures out what Raimus is doing and gets aboard an American sub (captained by Scott Glenn) to help bring him in. This is the first movie in the Jack Ryan series, with the character to later be played by Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck. Originally cast here was Kevin Costner. Gates McFadden of Star Trek fame had most of her scenes cut as Ryan's wife, as it was decided the domestic scenes bogged down the film.



The Thin Red Line (1998): Director Terence Malick adapts the 1962 autobiographical James Jones' novel about his service in World War II during the battle of Guadalcanal. The all star cast includes Adrien Brody, George Clooney, James Caviezel, John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, Thomas Jane, Jared Leto, Elias Koteas, Tim Blake Nelson, Nick Nolte, Sean Penn, John C. Reilly and John Travolta. Many more stars filmed small parts, but were cut out when Malick took the movie down from its original six hour running time. This includes Mickey Rourke, Vigoo Mortensen, Lukas Haas, Gary Oldman, Bill Pullman and narration by Billy Bob Thornton. It was first made into a movie in 1964.



Red Dragon (2002): This is the prequel to Silence of the Lambs, which itself had been made as a movie in 1986 as Manhunter. Anthony Hopkins reprises his role as madman Hannibal Lecter. This time he helps a retired FBI agent played by Edward Norton to track a serial killer known as the Tooth Fairy. Ralph Fiennes plays the character of Dolahyde, which was offered first to Nicholas Cage and Sean Penn. Jeremy Piven also auditioned. Michael Bay considered directing the movie before Brett Ratner took it on. Frank Langella did narration as the voice of the dragon, but it was cut.



Red Eye (2005): Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams) is flying form Dallas to Miami after her grandmother's funeral. She meets on the red eye flight Jackson Rippner (Cillian Murphy). He threatens to have her father (Brian Cox) murdered if she doesn't use her sway as a hotel manager to move the head of homeland security into a different room to facilitate an assassination attempt. First time screenwriter Carl Ellsworth had Sean Penn and Robin Wright Penn in mind for the leads, but director Wes Craven wanted to go younger.

Don't die.

"Is it cool if I get a picture with you?"
"Yes. Yes it's very cool. I don't wanna see this on your myspace page. Please, no gang signs. No, throw it up. I'm kidding."