What Planet Are You From? (2000)

A human-looking alien from a highly advanced but emotionless all-male society is sent to Earth to impregnate a woman and bring the child back to their planet. The alien ends up falling in love there. A suspicious F.A.A. Agent targets him.

Director:

Mike Nichols

Writers:

Garry Shandling (story), Michael Leeson (story)

Stars:

Garry Shandling, Annette Bening, John Goodman

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Garry Shandling	...	Harold Anderson
Annette Bening	...	Susan
John Goodman	...	Roland Jones
Greg Kinnear	...	Perry Gordon
Ben Kingsley	...	Graydon
Judy Greer	...	Rebecca
Danny Zorn	...	Randy
Harmony Smith	...	Rita
Richard Jenkins	...	Don Fisk
Linda Fiorentino	...	Helen Gordon
Caroline Aaron	...	Nadine
Nora Dunn	...	Madeline
Cricky Long	...	Janice
Camryn Manheim	...	Alison
Ann Cusack	...	Liz

Storyline

A highly advanced civilization, whose citizens feel no emotion and reproduce by cloning, plans to conquer Earth from the inside by sending an operative, fashioned with a humming, mechanical penis, to impregnate a human and stay until the birth. The alien, Harold Anderson, goes to Phoenix as a banker and sets to work finding a mate. His approaches to women are inept, and the humming phallus doesn't help, but on the advice of a banking colleague, he cruises an A.A. meeting, meets Susan, and somehow convinces her to marry him. The clock starts to tick: will she conceive, have a baby, and lose Harold (and the child) to his planet before he discovers emotion and starts to care?

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Plot Keywords:

pregnancy | question in title | alien | husband wife relationship | sex scene | 

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Taglines:

To save his planet, an alien must find a woman on Earth to have his baby. There's just one problem.

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Genres:

Comedy | Sci-Fi

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for sexuality and language

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

3 March 2000 (USA)

Also Known As:

De quelle planète viens-tu?

Filming Locations:

Santa Clarita, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$60,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$3,008,746, 5 March 2000, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$6,291,602, 26 March 2000

Company Credits

Production Co:

Brillstein-Grey Entertainment, Columbia Pictures Corporation, What Planet Are You From? Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

105 min 87 min (DVD)

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

If you look closely, the opening "Columbia" lady's face is very different and holds a very strong resemblance to Annette Bening.

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Goofs

[All goofs for this title are spoilers.]

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Quotes

[first lines]
Title Card: At the far reaches of the Universe lies a planet of men who have advanced technologically beyond the realm of human comprehension. This is no breeding - they are a product of cloning, and their reproductive organs have shrunk and disappeared. All emotions have been bred out of this race and each succeeding generation has become more ambitious and driven than the previous one. They want to rule the Universe, and now they are planning their next takeover from the inside.

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Crazy Credits

Playing on the oft-noted resemblance between Annette Bening and the lady bearing the torch in the Columbia Pictures logo, Bening's face replaces the Columbia lady's.

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Alternate Versions

The German DVD only runs 87 minutes. At least 3 scenes from the trailer are missing. The subplots involving Linda Fiorentino and John Goodman's characters are mostly deleted.

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Connections

References The Crying Game (1992)

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Soundtracks

All Night Long (All Night)
Written and Performed by Lionel Richie
Courtesy of Motown Records
Under License from Universal Music Special Markets

User Reviews

PLANET is in a world of its own

Garry Shandling is an unattractive man who looks as if he is suffering from a perpetual state of constipation, and, can you believe it?, he still manages to be enjoyable (and even loveable, of all things) in his latest movie, What Planet Are You From? Despite a clunky title and an unlikely leading man (even Shandling himself seems stunned by the reality of it), this movie manages to just barely pull off a decent performance.

The premise seems much more suited to an hour and a half of repetitive penis jokes (and, in some ways, it gets close to that): Shandling plays Harold Anderson, an alien from a planet inhabited by impotent, super-intelligent men bent on universal domination. Led by a stiff-lipped Ben Kingsley (whose neck seems to have disappeared) this race of uber-men has lost all semblances of emotion, let alone sexuality. In their quest for universal rulership, they have chosen Earth as their next target. Their goal? To impregnate a human woman and begin populating the world with "their kind."

Of the millions of available aliens, Shandling is chosen as their ambassador, and after being fitted with an artificial and somewhat dysfunctional penis (it hums when erect), he travels to Earth in a glowing white ball and immediately begins incorporating the lessons he learned about the delicate art of female seduction. For instance, he has an endless bevy of "nice footwear" and "nice perfume" remarks, including some slang: "Kitty likes to scratch!"

Sounds like a one-hour one-liner, huh?

Fortunately, it's not. It's safe to say the movie would have fallen flat on its alien face if it weren't for the stellar performance of Annette Benning as the one woman who finally falls for the bumbling alien's "charms." She manages to take this ludicrous premise and bring a touching dose of reality to it, giving a normally crass idea a glimmer of merit. She is what diversifies Shandling's occasionally monotonous character, and it is through her eyes that the film sheds its hokiness and becomes a real movie.

Co-stars John Goodman and Greg Kinnear, to their credit, do a great job as well, both of them displaying an untypical amount of restraint. As far-fetched as it seems, it is the undertones and quiet moments in this film that render it watchable. Likewise, those moments are what keep the joke from getting old. Director Mike Nichols (who gave us such gems as Catch-22 and The Graduate) has combined the quiet soul of his Regarding Henry with the flamboyant ditziness of his The Birdcage to come up with something truly remarkable: a Garry Shandling movie that works.

It certainly has its flaws, like most flicks, and many times the plot seems to stop and start just like Harold's malfunctioning member. However, although the jokes reach levels the man from Nantucket would be proud of, they mostly act as reminders that, no matter how much we poke fun at sex and marriage, most of the jokes are true. What Planet Are You From? has its out-there moments, but it still hits close to home.