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Random notes on the last few weeks

By Bert Ehrmann

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Fort Wayne Reader

2004-05-03

Things To Miss On TV.

The movie Battlefield Earth has been airing a lot lately on TV, and I find myself wondering why. Battlefield Earth is one of, if not the, worst movies of all time. The story is awful and the acting performances are sub par at best. Am I missing something here?

Battlefield Earth takes place on a future Earth over-run by aliens who have enslaved the entire human race. In his performance John Travolta, as lead alien "Terl," calls to question the whole reasoning behind him ever doing anything other than the Look Who’s Talking movies by delivering one of the worst acting performances on record. Plus he says "man-animal" a whole lot. And I'm not sure it's legal in this state to string words together like that.

I know the first time I saw Battlefield Earth I had a serious internal debate on whether I should blind myself to keep from seeing it again. Logic won out, but my mother stopped me before the fork and knife met my eyes.

In my small circle of friends, we use Battlefield Earth as a judge the quality of other movies:

Me: "Man, Hellboy was a bad movie."
Friend #003: "Yeah, but it wasn't Battlefield Earth bad."

If you've never had the pleasure of seeing Battlefield Earth, then don't. The vision you save might be your own!

Please Remove the Hyphen.

It's official; Rebecca Romijn-Stamos and John Stamos have ended their six-year whirlwind marriage. If you're not familiar with Rebecca, she's best known for her portrayal as the blue-skinned near-nude mutant "Mystique" in the hit X-Men movies.

If you're not familiar with John, he's best known as the uncle with the best hair (Jesse Katsopolis) on the 1980's hit sitcom Full House and more recently that guy who wants you to use that certain collect calling service in those annoying commercials. (What a shame is that Full House was a bonified hit back in the late 1980's. If that, and the color of Don Johnson's pastel shirts on Miami Vice aren't proof of the bad taste that permeated the decade, I'm not sure what is.)

Rebecca Romijn (don't call her Stamos) will probably sulk off, doomed to portray Mystique for a few more X-Men sequels earning her untold millions and the admiration of fan-boys worldwide. (Her near-nude performance is stunning after all. And that's nearly as good as all nude.) While John will sander off to do more collect calling commercials and, if we're lucky, a very special reunion show of Full House, showing that a house full of men raising girls in San Francisco doesn't necessarily strike a blow for gay rights.

Another Hit for ABC?

The saying goes, “Things can always get worse.” ABC seems to be trying its best to prove that point. Anyone remember the now canceled 10-8, The Line of Fire, or Karen Sisco? No? You're not alone. Most of ABC’s new shows last season have been canceled.

Sometime last century (seriously) ABC commissioned a movie of the week based on Madeline L'Engle's book A Wrinkle in Time. The classic story follows two siblings and their friend on a quest to rescue their scientist father who slips through a “wrinkle in time” and finds himself stuck in another galaxy.

Wrinkle was scheduled to air sometime the fall of 2001 only it never did. It was then rescheduled for later in the season 2002, the fall of 2003, and now (apparently) this spring.

The last time I checked, networks generally don't hold shows from airing that they think will earn big ratings. The series finale of Seinfeld wasn't pushed back several years and neither will the last episode of Friends. They do however pull shows that they think won't do so well to make room for ones that they think will.

Now, two years after the fact, A Wrinkle in Time will air (supposedly) this May on ABC. I can hardly wait.

Those Awful Sponge Monkeys.

In the last issue of The Fort Wayne Reader, Gloria Diaz in her column "Pathetic Efforts From Madison Avenue" muses, "The Quizno's ad with the singing, guitar playing rodents is awful. What are they? Hamsters? Gerbils?"

Gloria, everyone who’s anyone (or who surfs the Internet eight hours a day) knows that these animals are known as "Sponge Monkeys." Though you may think that they're awful, they've apparently done their job. It's been a few months since those commercials started airing and we're STILL talking about them - and giving free time to Quiznos. Or, as a Sponge Monkey might sing, "Quiznos, we love the subs!"