Unwatchable #85: "Battlefield Earth"

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.

Welcome to a very special edition of Unwatchable! What’s so special about yet another crappy movie, you ask? Well, for the first time since I started this project, the movie in question is one that I have already seen! This may not make it special for you, but Hubbard knows it couldn’t have come at a better time for me. It’s also special because, unlike all of these unworthy Mystery Science Theater subjects, Battlefield Earth has truly earned its position on the Bottom 100 list. Here are the top three reasons why:

Monstrous Ego Trip/Vanity Project. Hollywood’s second-most famous Scientologist had long dreamed of bringing L. Ron Hubbard’s epic sci-fi vision to the screen. With his career reduced to a series of talking baby movies, he didn’t exactly have the clout to pull it off, but then Quentin Tarantino and Pulp Fiction came along, and soon Travolta was back on the A-list. For a while, we were all so happy for Travolta and his big screen comeback. By the time Battlefield Earth rolled out, there probably wasn’t a person left on the planet who was still happy for him besides his agent. It had taken so long to bring the so-called “Saga of the Year 3000” to fruition, Travolta was too old for the lead role of Johnnie ‘Goodboy’ Tyler (played here by Barry Pepper), so instead he appears as a 10-foot-tall dreadlocked Psychlo named Terl. It’s a terrible performance – Travolta’s girlish giggle and reedy, sing-song reading of lines like “You are out of your skullbone!” are far from fearsome – but at least Travolta is better off than co-star Forest Whitaker, now an Academy Award winner, then a cross between George Clinton and the Cowardly Lion.

Misbegotten Sci-Fi Extravaganza. Sure, it’s possible that Battlefield Earth was intended as a piece of Scientology propaganda, but I have no idea how anyone could tell from the finished product. So muddled and mindless it makes David Lynch’s Dune look like a model of crisp, coherent storytelling, the movie is a chaotic blur of poorly edited action and bottom-of-the-barrel special effects. Set in a post-apocalyptic future where the alien Psychos (who sound like they’re gargling with their own vomit every time they speak) have enslaved the remaining “man-animals,” the story concerns the inevitable rebellion led by Pepper. It’s the kind of movie where our heroes, who have been living a barbarian-level existence, teach themselves to fly Harrier jets in a matter of days. The thrift-store look of this dark dystopic future is epitomized by the cruddy CGI backgrounds that make one yearn for the artistry of the matte paintings from Beneath the Planet of the Apes.

Massive Box Office Failure. Taking in a mere $21 million in the U.S., less than a third of its budget, the movie laid a big egg at the box office. Obviously, not every bomb is necessarily a bad movie, but the people have definitely spoken in the case of Battlefield Earth. Of all the Bottom 100 entries we’ve covered so far, none have received more than 4000 votes on the IMDb (a minimum of 650 is required for inclusion on the list of infamy). Battlefield Earth has received more than 29,000 votes – truly a dud for the ages.

Previously on Unwatchable:
86. Hobgoblins
87. The Sidehackers
88. College Road Trip (pending)
89. Bloodlust!
90. The Bat People

The Cliffs Notes to Tom Cruise

Phil Nugent — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Juliet Lapidos offers a handy rundown of "the good parts" in Andrew Morton's new unauthorized biography of Tom Cruise. From the sound of it, the book's focus is on the same two damn subjects that Cruise-related gossip has always centered on: his sexual orientation and his devotion to Scientology. To the thumping disappointment of millions, Morton seems to have found nothing but evidence that Cruise is heterosexual. He even offers testimony that the guy is homophobic, which if true is...well, pretty damn funny, really, since he has to listen to the same rumors as the rest of us. Based on the anecdotes that Morton offers about Cruise's romantic life, you may wonder if people started getting the idea that he must be putting on some kind of an act because, rather than acting on instinct, he works from notes that he made on the courtship process based on his close textual reading of Archie comics. The Tomcat likes to make out in cars and subjects his favored ladies with unholy barrages of long-stemmed roses and love notes, until they have only two options: give in or, like Sofia Vergara, freak out at all the over-attention and slip away through the fire exit while Top Gun is on the phone to the florist again.

Eventually, in the course of this grand narrative, Cruise converts to Scientology and is finally inducted into the deepest secrets of the universe, which are reserved for the eyes and ears of those who have proven themselves worthy of receiving the ultmate gospel of L. Ron Hubbard. According to Morton, church father David Miscavige may have misjudged Cruise's readiness to, as Jack Nicholson once put it, handle the truth: "Tom found the knowledge he had just received disturbing and alarming, as he struggled to reconcile the creationist myth with the more practical teachings contained in the lower levels of Scientology. … It was recalled that around this time relations became 'ugly' between David Miscavige and the Hollywood actor, Tom complaining that he had studied all these years and the whole faith was about space aliens." (All this may lend an intriguing new subtext to The War of the Worlds.) Earlier, under Miscavige's orders, a "team of twenty Sea Org disciples was set to work digging, hoeing, and planting wheat grass and wildflower seed near the Cruises' bungalow. Former Scientologist Maureen Bolstad recalled working until early in the morning in the mud and pouring rain," all so that Cruise and Nicole Kidman could realize their shared "fantasy of running through a meadow of wildflowers together." This was the point where my own faith in Cruise's heterosexuality began to flag, since I find it hard to believe that any straight man would have a fantasy like that. But then I realized that I was being small-minded; I can't really picture any gay men, or hardly any women, having that fantasy either. It could be that Morton missed his real scoop, which, if this story is true, would seem to be that Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman are actually a couple of eight-year-old girls.

For more Scientology weirdness, check out Dana Goodyear's recent New Yorker article about the church's "Celebrity Centre", a seven-story, turreted castle, originally built as a "a long-term residential hotel for movie stars", where celebrity church members are encouraged to check in for weeks at a time and concentrate on their study of church teachings. It doesn't have much about Tom Cruise in it, but it does have a terrifying description of the annual Christmas variety show, where this year someone took note of cast member Jenna Elfman's last name and took it to the terribly logical extreme.

The Screengrab : l. ron hubbard

Unwatchable #85: "Battlefield Earth"

The Cliffs Notes to Tom Cruise