What Planet Are You From?

If the goal of comedic cinema is to irritate, offend, and bore, then this film by Mike (The Graduate) Nichols is hilarious. Gary Shandling is an alien sent to Earth to impregnate a woman so that his breed can take over the universe. His detachable penis vibrates when he's aroused, and the humming noise provides the punch line for myriad insipid jokes. Ben Kingsley reaches the pinnacle of his career as the alien leader who travels to and from Earth by flushing himself down airplane toilets. The irony. And Annette Bening draws on her Oscar-nominated performance in American Beauty to play Susan, an agonizingly flaky real-estate agent who, desperate for companionship and a child, agrees to date -- and, two days later, to marry -- Shandling after he eyes her at an AA meeting. (Recovering alcoholics are vulnerable and easy to seduce. Funny, no?) The rest of the female population is portrayed as a collection of insecure nags and sex-crazed bitches who, for some inconceivable reason, find Shandling irresistible, and that results in numerous self-indulgent shots of his naked tan ass. After Bening finally gives birth to their son, Shandling undergoes the ever-predictable epiphany and transforms from unfeeling extraterrestrial to sensitive being with Hallmark-issue emotions. When I said "hilarious," I meant "utter crap."

-- Jumana Farouky