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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 31, 1996)
Arts ©Entertainment Wednesday, January 31, 1996 Page 9 the glassy eye Gerry Beltz TV reruns get better with time Reruns. They’re as American as apple pie. They are also the only thing I watch with any regularity on television any more. You can have your “Friends,” “Seinfeld” and “ER” because I have reruns to keep my attention. (Besides, with my cable discon nected, the only chance I have to watch television is at Laundry Land.) It is sad, however, to see how many classic rerun shows aren’t available in our market, with the old “Star Trek” episodes at the top of my most wanted list. Sure, I can tune in every night and catch ol ’ Jean-Luc doin ’ his thang, but it was Kirk who was bedding all the green women and overacting to beat the band. Oh yeah!! Fortunately, “MASH” is still around. I can catch anywhere from 60 to 90 minutes of it a night, depending on if the rerun of “Quantum Leap” on the Sci-Fi Channel is any good. Be cause every episode has been shown at least 86 BILLION TIMES, how ever, it is beginning to wear a bit thin. My favorite rerun show of all time —“WKRP in Cincinnati”—is avail able on the E! Network... sort of. For whatever reason, these creepoids have edited out funny scenes from the origi nal shows and inserted previously unseen crap instead! There is no God. Sadly, the rerun well has begun to run very dry now that the 10 p.m. “Night Court” has been replaced with some lame-oid dating show. Again, mere is no uou. What has helped is the F/X Chan nel, bringing back shows like “Mis sion : Impossible,” “Wonder Woman” and—one of the best—the original “Batman” series starring Adam West and Burt Ward. (It’s funny, though. In the cartoons, Batman doesn’t have a beer gut.) Between the Sci-Fi Channel and the USA Network, I can pretty much get my fill. (Unfortunately, LaundryLand doesn’t get Sci-Fi, so I’m out of luck there.) USA Network should run an all day “MacGyver” marathon, so we can see all the nifty little heely-hooters he makes with chocolate bars, pantyhose and a clothes hanger. My mom got me hooked on “Wings,” but not so much that I started watching the first-run episodes. It just seems so... yuppie-ish. It is also a pain because USA replaced its 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. block of “Wings” episodes with “Silk Stalkings.” The USA Network isn’t without its faults,naturally. The network replaced the 8 a.m. “MacGyver” with a second hour of “American Gladiators,” and featured two full hours of “Knight Rider” (and it didn’t even show the episodes in order, the swine!) The Sci-Fi Channel also features some great reruns, including “The Twilight Zone” and (classics from childhood) “The Six Million Dollar Man” and “The Bionic Woman.” The Sci-Fi Channel also has pro vided room for those television series that never fared well, such as “Probe” and “The Invisible Man.” Ah, well. I’m off with a load of smelly socks to wash. “Hart to Hart” is on tonight. Beltz is a senior English education ma jor and a Dally Nebraskan senior reporter. Bumin’ dollars Remote-control cars race for popularity By Patrick Hambrecht Senior Reporter In a vacant building at the Lin coln Crossing Shopping Center, 5100 N. 27th St., remote-control cars drive around in circles all Sat . urdayafternoon. ___ .... The air is thick with the smell of burning Paragon FXII, a tire lubri cation compound with an odor simi lar to Ben Gay. Tension is high, both with the steel-nerved drivers turning tiny steering wheels with their fingers and the pit crew teams lining the walls, fiddling with their motors for the next race. Although 36 cars may race on a given day, only three will win first place trophies in the “Hobbytown USA Road Course Racing” contest on Feb. 17. Anyone can come and race here on Friday and Saturday evenings. All k takes is $7 and an RC vehicle. The Friday track is shaped like an oval, while Saturday’s is a circular maze. “It’s amazing to watch the driv ers focus on something like this for eight minutes,” said Vera Filbert, one of the only spectators in the building. Away from the indoor track, Fil bert also races gasoline RC cars and helps manufacture electric RC car motors for her boy fri end ’ s com pany, Ultraline Motors. “The kind of racing these driv ers do is extremely difficult,” Fil bert said. “It’s like the toughest video game you’ve ever played.” Enthusiastic fans like Filbert are rare, racer Will Frerichs said. “Usually we only get shoppers watching us, and then only for a couple of minutes,” Frerichs said. He is a UNL English graduate and publisher of the local magazine, Analog. “Sometimes shoppers will stop James Mehsling/DN in and look around for a couple of minutes. They’ll say, ‘God that’s cool, but geez these guys are weird! ’ or ‘Jesus Christ, this is expensive! ’,” he said. RC enthusiast Josh Pfenning said he had spent more than $5000 on RC racing over the last 12 years. The electric cars constantly need new parts and one to eight hours a week for maintenance, the unde clared UNL junior said. But the money and time is all worth it, Pfenning said, because RC racing is becoming the wave of the See RACES on 10 Futuristic film keeps audience guessing Photo courtesy of TriStar Pictures Jennifer Rubin and Peter Weller star in the futuristic thriller, “Screamers.” By Cliff Hicks Film Critic When a movie is based on a Philip K. Dick story, the result ranges from good (“Total Recall”) to classic (“Blade Runner”). “Screamers” falls more toward the former than the latter, but it’s not a bad effort. «-- “Screamers” is movie set in 2078, on a RPViPW mining planet. It nciricvir is here that a hid 1 eous war has been waged between the company, re ferred to as the New Economic Bloc, which wants to continue mining, and the Alliance, a group of scientists who cannot tolerate its destructive effects. But the scientists have a weapon that gives them the edge, a “mobile, self-replicating sword,” better known as a Screamer. Col. Joseph Hendricksson, played by Peter Weller (“Robocop”), is the commander of a remote Alli ance outpost that is extremely out of touch with the rest of the Alliance. Very little goes on there at first. But two events soon set the ac tion into motion. First, an N.E.B. soldier comes bearing a request for an alliance. Second, an Alliance ship crashes just outside Hendricksson’s outpost, and from here on out, everything goes wrong. Along the way, the cast changes quite a bit. Actors are added and removed throughout the film, but Film: “Screamers” Stars: Peter Weller, Jennifer Rubin, Andy Lauer Director: Christian Duguay Rating: R (violence, language, brief nudity) Grade: B Five words: “Apocalypse Now” meets “Body Snatchers” Hendricksson carries on, gradually revealing the details of the disaster that has taken place. Exactly what the disaster is, how ever, is hard to talk about without revealing major plot points in the story. “Screamers” keeps the audi ence guessing at several points. There are, however, a couple of see-through bits where most people will be able to jump the gun and figure out what is happening, but these are usual ly just minor points in the story. “Screamers” does an excellent job ofkeeping tension high and view ers on the edge of their seats. Good music, excellent pacing and well timed scenes make this a goodjumpy film. This is a fun film with a strong balance between horror and adven ture. And even though the ending is slightly cliched, it doesn’t really mat ter. This isn’t an epic sci-fi classic, but it will do. ,