Best movie of this year hands down!

Just perfect...

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

A clone alien race led by Graydon (Ben Kingsley) sends down an agent (Garry Shandling) to earth for its eventual takeover. He is given a mechanical penis with a mission to find a female and procreate. He lands in a plane bathroom heading for Phoenix. He hits on the flight attendant Rebecca (Judy Greer) and airline investigator Roland Jones (John Goodman) is on his case. Perry Gordon (Greg Kinnear) mistakes him for new fellow banker Harold Anderson. Don Fisk (Richard Jenkins) is their boss. Perry takes Harold to an AA meeting to pick up girls. Harold reconnects with Rebecca and meets Susan Anderson (Annette Bening). He's also after Perry's wife Helen Gordon (Linda Fiorentino).This is generally not funny. Garry Shandling is not that likable in this. He's an emotionless sleazy skirt-chaser. Most of the other characters are also unlikeable. I wouldn't call them annoying but they are mostly unfunny. I didn't laugh once.

What Planet Are You From? is a likable sexy romp that revels in adult matters, mainly the relations between men and women. Harold Anderson comes down to Earth in this down-to-earth comedy to discover that women might not be so easy as he thinks. Garry Shandling is Harold, a highly evolved alien void of feeling emotion, whose about to come into full contact with the purely emotional human race, namely the human woman.The cast stands out. Shandling co-wrote and stars. He well deserves this movie and he's especially agreeable in it. Annette Bening is wonderful in this type of role. I really love seeing her play quirky and eccentric, and she's quite funny. John Goodman amusingly plays Roland Jones who would appear to be cuckoo if not for the actuality that Harold really is from another planet. Greg Kinnear is great as he presents his acting range and also his handsome charm. Ben Kingsley gives a fittingly unemotional performance; that seems to be well in his wheelhouse. Linda Fiorentino makes an arresting appearance. Judy Greer gets topless and is as cute as she can be. Don't forget Richard Jenkins; he's a standard in comedies.At the crutch of the plot is a penis that vibrates. The movie somewhat revolves around Harold's vibrating penis, as it were. It's ridiculous but I suppose it does carry its symbolic message - enjoy yourself.What Planet Are You From? is particularly humorous and promises for a few chuckles. It really never gets bad and it has plenty of polite moments. It's well-written with very good dialogue and a good cast. The story lacks firmness, but that's alright, the movie is silly and not too full of itself, making it mildly refreshing. I wish I could give this a higher rating because I really like it, but a 5 is good.

WHAT PLANET ARE YOU FROM? (2000) *** Garry Shandling, Annette Bening, John Goodman, Greg Kinnear, Ben Kingsley, Linda Fiorentino, Caroline Aaron, Nora Dunn, Camryn Manheim, Ann Cusack, Richard Jenkins, Janeane Garofalo (cameo). Garry Shandling, with his pinched expression suggesting comical disdain and quixotic confusion, makes his first starring bid as a film star (he has been on the silver screen prior to this ambitious effort in cameo roles here and there, but this is his first legitimate lead role) in the wildly funny sci-fi comedy that attempts to answer, really, are Women From Venus and Men From Mars? Shandling (who co- wrote the sharply funny screenplay with Michael Lesson, Ed Solomon & Peter Tolan), is the chosen cloned eunoch from a race of male aliens from a distant planet making final plans to invade Earth with his sole mission of achievement to get the wheels greased and running: to impregnate a woman.Seen in an assembled display of how to react to an Earth woman's conversations (the reliable and ubiquitous response of a barely interested: `uh-huh'), he clearly has his work cut out for him, particularly with the fact he has to have his sexual appendage attached for said close encounter (giving an all new meaning to `alien probing'). With a few words of wisdom by his leader Graydon (Kingsley) he is beamed aboard a commercial airliner and winds up in Seattle as the assumed identity of a Harold Anderson and walks into an unsuspecting bank as their awaited new accounts manager. Met by the smarmy Perry Gordon (Kinnear oozing oily malfeasance with canny glee), his soon-to-be rival, he quickly attempts to find his mate to be (only after several hilarious attempts from the airplane to his new job and the fact his member noisily vibrates whenever he's aroused).At an AA meeting (Perry explains it being one of the best pick-up spots in town for vulnerable women), he is taken by a recovering alcoholic named Susan Hart (the beguilingly sublimely funny Bening) and sets his phaser for stun.After hooking up with her in an unlikely situation and one date he explains to her in no uncertain terms that he wants to have a child. Susan, thinking finally a real man in touch with his emotional core, succumbs to his sweet yet eager charms and accepts his impromptu marriage proposal the next day. From there they honeymoon in Vegas with a marathon of sex (`126 times' he says matter-of-factly upon returning to work much to the amazement of Perry) figuring the seed has been planted and to just wait it out. What next comes is a series of truly unsettling changes in his being: namely emotions and finally realizing just what will become of his only child.Shandling - who has already become an icon with his pitch perfect accuracy of skewering the world of show business in the classic HBO series `The Larry Sanders Show' and his self-deprecating sexual hang-ups - scores big laughs as the alien with a heart (despite his overachieving goal of surpassing his horniness to save his race!), and makes this heavily trodded hybrid genre (heck go back to Robin Williams in `Mork & Mindy' or all the way back to Jerry Lewis as a misfit extraterrestrial in `Visit To A Small Planet') a welcome return. Getting his smart alecky alien to parallel the real off-balance of the sexes with men roles as being piggish louts who'd rather watch the game on the tube than actually talk to the women in their lives is one large step he attempts and neatly dispatches, as well as the well-timed deflations of pick-up lines he uses apparently circa 1965 with much hilarity ensuing.Bening proves to be a truly giften comic actress (hell her first big role in cinema was the John Candy/Dan Aykroyd romp `The Great Outdoors' and has shown up more recently in her acclaimed Oscar nominated turn in the pitch black comedy/drama, `American Beauty') and matches Shandling step by step as the confused 12 stepper attempting to find some footing in her second chance at some sort of life; she gives the film its soul.Goodman is in fine form as well as Roland Jones, the FAA agent who seems to be channeling Fox Mulder from `The X-Files' (hey one small quibble, why the HELL didn't Shandling even attempt to ask his good buddy David Duchovny, so furiously funny for his guest star shots on `Sanders', in a little piece of stunt casting??), who is hell bent to prove the alien exists when he's not busy trying to save his marriage to the suspicious Nadine (Aaron, a fine comic character actress best remembered as Woody Allen's sister in `Hannah And Her Sisters') who has many of the film's best lines: (after accusing Goodman of eyeballing a female co-worker: GOODMAN: `She's in a wheelchair, Nadine!' AARON: `Yeah, and don't think she doesn't play that for all it's worth!') Kinnear is proving to be a fine comic actor in his own right as the pompous skirt chasing Perry (although I found it unlikely since his spouse Helen is played by the incredibly hot Fiorentino - who also gets one of the film's best lines; after hearing Shandling's audible arousal : SHANDLING `It's my penis.it hums'. Beat. FIORENTINO: `Guess it doesn't know the words.') Directed by one of the living legends of comedy, Mike Nichols, the film ricochets with razor-gleaned timing, excellent performances and the ability of making a comedy that mines its laughs as well as aim for romantics in the long run: now that's an achievement!

I watched this film at a friends house after being told it was 'hilarious!' We had a straight choice between this and 'XXX,' and there has never been a more stupid mistake in the history of mankind! Ive never been so glad I had to go home in all my life! I never saw the end of the film, and I never want to, it is without a doubt the most godawful piece of film making Ive ever seen. Some films are bad due to bad acting, bad storylines, bad script, bad casting, this one had the lot! I havent seen Annette Bening in anything since, I imagine she was booted out of Hollywood permanently after this debacle! (Not that Im picking on her, she's usually a very good actress.)Any film with X-Rated sex content, and humour for the under 5s has an obvious problem!