billandersen

I'm only 14 minutes into the movie and it's so horrible I don't know if I can go on. But, in the hope that someone will read this before SciFi decides to replay it, and can thereby gain two hours of their life back, I am honor bound to try to warn you away.

This stinker is jam-packed with every corrupt-corporate-future-meets-space-travel cliché imaginable. I don't know why SciFi even bothers. It's even worse then the marginally entertaining Alien Apocalype. I'm now 19 minutes into it. Hopefully there will be the usual gratuitous SciFi sex scene.... Nope. Not yet.

There are some bad space suits and (this is good) "welding" on the outside of a spaceship covered apparently by the same kind of thermal tiles that are used on the Space Shuttle.

Who writes this stuff anyway?

What can I say? Anyone who has seen this movie and knows anything about WWII and the (real) Battle of the Bulge has two choices -- to laugh or to cry. Laugh because this movie has nothing to do with what went on in Belgium in December, 1944. Cry, because it did a tremendous disservice to those on all sides who participated in that battle and to other, infinitely better, depictions of that campaign and period of the war (e.g., "Battleground", "Band of Brothers"). From the "Tigers" (US M-48 tanks painted gray with German crosses) to the lack of anything resembling actual military deportment or tactics, to the filming locations (Fort Hood, Texas just doesn't look like Bastogne -- Pennsylvania would have been a better choice), this movie is every bit as much a stinker as "Battle of the Last Panzer".

"Battle of the Bulge" is typical of other "big concept" novel-based movies like "The Longest Day" (another travesty especially when compared to the likes of "Saving Private Ryan"). I vote this as a contender for one of the worst movies ever made.

I first saw TV Total while working in Germany in 1999-2000. Problem was the show is in German and I didn't know that much then. Eventually my understanding of German improved along with my appreciation for the TV Total.

Appearing 4 nights a week (Monday-Thursday) on the German network "Pro 7", in concept, it's similar to the "Daily Show" on Comedy Central. The host, Stefan Raab, has an army of interns who scour German television for bloopers, strange people, pompous politicians,and generally silly events. Then he weaves them into a one-hour show where he takes full advantage of the material. Stefan is a really funny and multitalented guy, with a special ability for physical comedy.

Probably the funniest part of the show is a regular segment called "Raab in Gefahr" (Raab in danger), where Stefan puts himself into situations where he's likely to be hurt doing a physical stunt, slapped while insulting someone, or creating general mayhem. One of the better examples was his posing as a flight attendant (unknown to the passengers) where he handed out porno magazines to passengers as they boarded the plane.

Raab is somewhat of a controversial figure in German TV, much like Howard Stern is in the US -- he never misses an opportunity to take the (self-) important down a peg or to kick someone when they're down. For this reason, he is either loved and hated in Germany. Recently the show went from once a week to four times weekly, which many viewers think has diluted the quality of the material.