The Facts from Clute, Texas • Page 30

4 THE FACTS WMkond Friday, May 22,1998 ENTERTAINMENT 'Floating phantoms' invade Texas State Aquarium today CORPUS CHRISTI What floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee and lives in the sea? The answer is the shiny, slimy stars of the newest exhbit at the Texas State Aquarium Jellies: Floating Phantoms. To celebrate the Memorial Day Holiday and the beginning of summer, the new gallery will make its public debut today. It will feature more than six different species of jellyfish in a variety of acrylic windows, cyclin- ders and bubbles designed to capture their beauty and fragility. Visitors will be mesmerized as they observe jellies ranging in size from a contact lens to a dinner plate gliding gracefully in their aquatic environments. "The jeJlyfish gallery is the first of many changing exhibits which will offer something new to see and do each time people visit the Aquarium," executive director Steve Ordahl.

"It will be in place for approximately two years, providing visitors with a chance to experience the mystical, magical world of the jellies. Similar exhibits at other facilities across the country have drawn tremendous crowds and we want our guests to have the same opportunity." "Phantoms will be placed strategically between the Aquarium's existing Islands of Steel and Flower Gardens exhibits, offering guests a relaxing pause on their journey ever- deeper into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Specially orchestrated music by James Corrigan will set the tone for the darkened gallery, drawing visitors inside. Subdued lighting will give the illusion that the aquariums almost seem to glow, lending an ethereal quality to the shimmering shapes swimming inside. The 1700-square foot exhbit will contain a total of 10 tanks an interactive computer station where visitors can learn more about the behavior, biology and habits of jellies.

The gallery will also festure three original jellyfish, highlighting several deep-water and rarely-seen species. At the "Jelly Culture Lab," visitors can learn baout the "jelly of the month," explore the entire life cycle of a common jellyfish. They can also get an up- close look at several of the other members of the Phylum Cnidaria, including close cousins of the jellyfish like the sea anemone. Headlining the Phantoms playbill will be the classic moon jellyfish, sometimes referred to as the perfect "textbook" example. Shaped like a bell and fringed with hundreds of short tentacles, moon jellies usually reach approximately eight inches in diameter.

They are considered harmless because their stinging cells are typically not strong enough to penetrate human skin. The moon jelly moves through the water with a pulsing mothion resembling the opening and Icos- ing of an umbrella. They are very common in South Texas bays, especially during the summer and fall when breeding occurs. Sharing center stage will be the small and elusive umbrella jelly, averaging only one inch in diameter. Usually found in the cool, northern oceans of the 6 4 Visitors of all ages will marvel at the technical and aesthetic appeal of the jellyfish gallery as they find themselves surrounded by hundreds of phantom-like creatures." STEVE ORDAHL executive director, Texas State Aquarium work, the transparent umbrella jelly is quite cunning when it comes to camouflage.

"Visitors will have to look closely to get a peek at this master of disguise. Also starring will be the Pacific Brown and Atlantic Sea Nettles, both considered to be dangerous jellies because of their "stinging" personalities. The sea nettle is characterized by long, trailing tentacles covered with tiny stinging cells called nernato- cysts. A brush with a nettle in the wild can cause painful welts, but inside the Aquarium visitors can enjoy their beautiful ballet without reservation. Making a special guest appearance will be the famous Lion's Mane, one of the largest species in the world.

Ranging in color from iridescent white to pale orange, this giant jelly may have clusters of more than 150 tentacles, which can extend up to 20 feet or more. It is also categorized as dangerous and an accidental encounter in the ocean can lead to burning and sometimes even blisters. In spite of their "stinging" reputation, jellyfish are extremely fragile and difficult to maintain in an aquarium environment. Because of their unique architecture and the fact that they are typically 90 percent water, they can be damaged by even the slightest brush of a net. Tanks have to be specially designed with careful attention to water circulation in order to protect the jellies and their favorite food plankton.

Tiny animal organisms such as baby brine shrimp have to be suspended in the water in order for the jellies to feed. The highly-trained team of aquarists and water quality specialists at the Aquarium have already begun breeding and acquiring jellies in preparation for the opening of Floating Phantoms. Careful research and extensive experimentation has made it possible for them to rear these delicate animals in an artificial setting and to create an exhibit that will accomodate their needs. "Visitors of all ages will marvel at the technical and aesthetic appeal of the jellyfish gallery as they find themselves surrounded by hundreds of phantom-like creatures," Ordahl said. "The unique combination of entertainment and education will have our guests coming back time and time again to observe the dazzling dance of the jellies." Staying afloat: ABC univeils promising fall TV lineup By TIM GOODMAN San Francisco Examiner Credit a sinking ABC with finding the plug before it went down the drain.

In contrast to NBC's dull offering Monday, ABC announced its fall schedule Tuesday and showed that horrific shows from this season like Miller and Diller might have been a temporary creative glitch. ABC boldly strutted a lineup that indicated a pretty good farm system at work. Next season it will have shows from the producer of My So Called Life and thir- tysomething; filmmaker Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black, Get Shorty), Chris Rock (as executive producer), Susan Harris (the woman behind Soap), Imagine Television (Ron Howard and Aaron Sorkin A Few Good Men, The American President), as well as midseason shows from the producers of The X-Files and Seinfeld. Not bad for a network that recycled Timecop last season. It may not all work, but at least ABC is taking chances (of course, NBC has done much better this year and doesn't need to bring back Fantasy Island, which ABC is doing).

In addition to some sweeping creative changes eigh.f shows, including five siteoms ABC has revamped to include elements of the now defunct Prime Time network is calling a rifiw show and putting it on three tirHes a week. The other major shakelip is The Practice, which move's from Monday to Sunday. With Monday Night Fobtball moving an hour earlier, I'io 10 p.m., ABC is not progranirning any other shows that nigh(; On Tuesdays, ABC durrlps Soul Man and uses Home 0 Improvement, Spin City and NYPD Blue as so-called tent pole shows, to support two new The Hughleys stars D.L. Hughley as a man trymg to adjust to suburban bliss without losing his African-American edge. Rock is executive producer.

Sports Night looks to be a sitcom about ESPN's SportsCenter a behind-the-scenes show frcgjji Howard and company. On paper: Excellent. If Rpck and Hughley don't make thijs a watered-down love story, should sail. Sports Night is fy great concept with a lot of talent behind it. i.

With Ellen out on Wednesdays and Two Guys, a Girl and a tfi Place in, the only big changes here are the revamped and a new sitcom, The Secret Lives of Men. It stars Peter Gallagher and it's about three divorced men who play a lot of golf and try to rebuild their lives. On paper: Hey, golf is big. Not only that, but the Harris production team is solid. Loaded with potential.

And will anyone really miss Prime Time Live? ABC continues its trend of counter-programming the NBC sitcoms, this time with an action series called Mr. Chapel starring Michael Madsen (it's basically The Equalizer for the '90s, without guns and killing. A revenge series). The network will also program a movie on Thursdays. On paper: Disastrous.

Unless America decides to stop laughing on Thursdays, this is White Towel Night on ABC. A total give up. Fridays finds ABC tinkering slightly with its successful TGIF teen formula. You Wish and Teen Angel are out, Two of a Kind and Brother's Keeper are in. The former stars the Olsen Twins run for your lives in a ripoff of The Nanny keep running! Straitlaced dad hires wild young nanny.

Don't expect sexual innuendos, however. The latter is about a Straitlaced English teacher (a theme night, perhaps) whose brother is an uncontrollable football star who just signed with the 49ers. On paper: Whatever. Saturdays are hell night on television, so you might as well make it light, which ABC does with America's Funniest Home Videos, the all-new Fantasy Island and a new "romantic comedy" cailed Cupid, which stars Jeremy Piven from Ellen, who, in a City of Angels kind of twist, has to come to Earth to be cupid and bring 100 couples together. On paper: Well, with Sonnenfeld recasting Fantasy Island in his twisted vision (Malcolm McDowell is the new Mr.

Roarke, who wears Armani and doesn't have Tattoo anymore) anything is possible. A modern, potentially ripe concept. Cupidl Shoot an arrow at the wall and see if it sticks. Sundays are suspicious for ABC. Two hours of Disney, followed by another installment of and then The Practice.

On paper: Where's the movie? Also, it's a demographic nightmare. What, parents watch with their kids, put them to bed while getting informed and then close the night out with drama and passion? Only in Hollywood. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service 44 years later, 'Godzilla? is a sizable disappointment By SARA VOORHEES Scripps Howard News Service Godzilla (king of the monsters) began his long and illustrious career 44 years ago as a metaphor for nuclear devastation. In the intervening years, at least to i Americans, he's become a metaphor for camp horror. It's been a dramatic journey.

After the end of World War II, the Japanese were prohibited by the American occupation authorities from publicly discussing the atomic bombs that had virtually destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So in 1954, when the United States tested its new hydrogen bomb on Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific and a boatload of Japanese fishermen were dusted by radioactive fallout, Godzilla was born. The giant lizard became a cautionary symbol for the atomic age, a cover for Japanese filmmakers to dodge the government's' policy of silence. Over the next four decades, 20 Godzilla features were released in Japan and four in America. In all of them, Godzilla retained his colossal size and city-stomping disposition, but to American fans who had no inkling of his history, he became a joke the epitome of camp horror.

Now, for some unknown reason, Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, the gifted team who made the low-budget (by Hollywood standards) block- MOVIE REVIEW buster Independence Day, made a state-of-the-art '90s version of Godzilla as a Hollywood star long, athletic in a movie that is without substance, without and (worst of all) without hearj. The movie opens dramatically, with a nuclear test conducted by the French in the Pacific. Ten years later, from out of nowhere, an enormous beast appears and begins to demolish freighters, fishing boats and villages. In Russia, Matthew Broderick, playing a kind of weird-creature- ologist who is in Chernobyl i exploring the effects of nuclear fallout on worms, is swept up by the American military and taken to a South Sea island, where huge reptilian footprints cut a terrifying path across the land. The creature is searching for a place to nest, and as he makes his way (inevitably) to New York City, Broderick's scientist identifies him as a new species: an island lizard, mutated by fallout from nuclear testing.

Before they know it, the creature, named Godzilla by a dying fisherman, is on ajram- page in New York City, stomping on cars and pedestrians and 1 destroying skyscrapers with a flick of his tail. The Godzilla creature is.a marvel of special effectsrHe's a handsome spiny-backed, massive-headed Hollywood brute who's been sculpted as if by plas- tic surgery to bear only a slight resemblance to his clumsy grandfather, his heavy body lipo-suc- tioned into a slender-torsoed reptile. It's easy to see that Devlin and Emmerich were shooting for a straight, not campy, story about a terrifying lizard who destroys an entire city while innocently looking for a place to lay his eggs (consult your Biology I textbook under Asexual Reproduction) when he meets up with Humanity, armed with Uzis and dangerous to all living things. Unfortunately, the movie teeters precariously between camp and serious without finding its balance. The screenplay Devlin and Emmerich came up with has none of the nuances that might shed some sympathy on either the monster or the human beings chasing him.

Broderick has a fine moment at the beginning when he and the monster stare into each other's eyes and sort of bond, but after that there is no sense that Godzilla remembers him. Only in the final five, minutes (the best moments in the film) is there even a trace of real emotion, a sense of what the movie was meant to be. The human cast is endlessly disappointing. Broderick's wimpy character is virtually eclipsed by the movie's pounding score (by David Arnold) and visual effects (Volker Engel), and he's joined in his obscurity by a mysterious Frenchman (Jean Reno) who has accepted the responsibility of clearing up the mess created by the nuclear test of his countrymen. Reno is a fascinating presence on screen, but here he has little to do but crack wise about the relative merits of French and American coffee.

Broderick's character has been pining away for a pretty blond air- head (Maria Pitillo) who was his college sweetheart. Now Pitillo is trying to break into TV news as a reporter, and she decides to exploit her history with Broderick to get the story of her life. Ho hum. Her character is silly, one- dimensional and thoroughly unlikable. Pitillo is joined by a TV cameraman, played by Hank Azaria one of the funniest and most versatile actors in movies today.

Azaria tries to give the movie a comic boost, but it's a lost cause. The script is so dull that the humor falls fiat. The movie's biggest disappointment is the Godzilla baby design. The babies come, out of their eggs looking and acting' exactly like velociraptors, as if they were gleaned from a leftover computer program for The Lost World. It's Jurassic Central Park.

Another Ho hum. Godzilla the creature is a huge and beautifully designed monster, but this latest installment in his continuing adventures contradicts the movie's peculiar ad campaign that proclaims that "Size does matter." At 400 feet high, "Godzilla" is still a massive disappointment. Local opinions on today's issues Every day onf Page 4 in The Facts YOUR ONE-STOP BEANIE BABIES SHOP ORIGINAL BEANIE 281-331-0212 (Houston Line) 281-585-8800 (Alvin Line) ALL CURRENTS IN STOCK COLLECTIBLES 600 E. SOUTH STREET ALVIN, TEXAS 77511 HOURS: T.W.F.12:00-6:OOPM THURS. SAT.

CLOSED SUNDAY-MONDAY Beanie World Magazine Advanced Discount Admission Autograph ticketvavailable til 64 in the shop Don't miss the Beanie Babies Expo Collectors Show Houston June InternatlonalTrade Center (Expo Center) 2515 Murworth (1 block west of the Astrodome) Friday 3-8 Saturday 10-6 Sunday 10-4 Free Parking Free Door Prizes Free Giveaways Come meet the Stars Eddie George Eric Dickerson Thurmao Thomas Moses Malone Andre Dawson Autographs Reg. Price $20.00 Premium Item Price $30.00 Free Autographs An to wain Smith Dominique Moceanu Rey Mysterio, Jr. Konnan Ultimo Dragon WE'RE CLOSING FOR THE SUMMER JUNE THROUGH AUGUST ALL REMAINING INVENTORY MUST BE SOLD Everything has been Marked Down! Perennials Bedding Plants Texas Natives Shrubs Roses Trees 1 to 3O Gal. We will Re-Open Sept. 1st For All Your Fall Planting Needs he fiJursery Outlet Quality plants Huge Selection Cow Prices etosEmwowDAY FM 1301 4 MILES'WEST OF HWY.

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