Me? I gotta go with “Citizen Kane.” Stilted dialog, scenery chewing…um, sleds. It’s got it all!
What’s your pick?
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Weekend Discussion Thread: Other ‘Good’ Movies RiffTrax Should RiffRiffTrax’s “The Wizard of Oz” riff is out (and I thought it was hilarious). They previously did “Caasablanca” and several other movies considred “good.” What other movies considered “good” do you think might work for riffing?
121 Replies to “Weekend Discussion Thread: Other ‘Good’ Movies RiffTrax Should Riff”Commenting at Satellite News
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“Good” is a little difficult for me: I’d argue for half a dozen John Wayne films that probably aren’t “good” to most people anymore. How about Blade Runner, though? A bit of chewed scenery from Rutger Hauer, a deeply depressed Harrison Ford, that photo examination sequence, abundant weirdness, and plenty of quiet spots to riff at the ill fated VO.
The favorite movie of anyone who thinks Oz was an acceptable movie to riff.
/jerky, a-hole answer :p
A Few Good Men…The Nicholson scene alone would be worth it. But you got the “whiney” Lt. “Whine”berg, Demi Moore trying oh so hard not to be hot, and the cliché’d acting of Keifer Sullivan.
Don’t forget the Tom Cruise “Drunk” scene.
How about 120 Days of Sodom, Cannibal Holocaust or The Devils? I’d think those would be nearly impossible, quite the challenge. But it would probably actually make me want to watch the first 2 again.
Two possibilities: 1) The Vikings! 1958 movie with Kirk Douglas, Janet
Leigh, and as a Hollywood definitive Viking—Ernest Borgnine as Ragnar.
A lot of care was put into historical accuracy and, shades of Peter Jackson’s
LoTR movies, there’s great cinematography and music, but there are some aspects…
For example, at the conclusion the vikings go to conquer the striongest castle
in all of England with just three (3) longboats, 100 or so warriors.
Then think of the mads riffing the greetings “Hail Ragnar”, “Hail Einar”
or the wolves half mad with starvation and trained to appreciate the flavor of
human flesh, Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis getting it on (Catholic/pagans finding
ah, common grounds.
I should add it’s one of my favorite movies—then again I majored in history in college.
2) The Maltese Falcon. Nuff said.
Spartacus With Tony Curtis’s famous line “Spartacus, I love you.” and Kirk Douglas, as well as the great Peter Ustinov, tons of riff material. I can easily imagine J/M&TB all rising at the end of the movie intoning “I am Spartacus!”
I have always thought they should do the classic 1933 KING KONG…a great movie in all accounts….although some scenes would be looked down on by the PC Mafia.
If the rifftrax crew want a REAL challenge, they could go after Schindler’s List. Start with Ralph Fiennes accent.
That would truly test the tragedy + time = humor equation.
AND the whole outing would be looked down on by the PC mafia.
Although there was that Seinfeld episode…
@ 8. “you were MAKING OUT during SCHINDLER’S LIST!!?” :D
I could go with Citizen Kane, though I do like it. Gone With the Wind would be hilarious, but it’s probably too long. I’d love to see The Sound of Music, but probably too long as well. Maybe something with Charlton Heston? Nobody overacts better than Charlton.
It’s not a good movie, but now that you mention John Wayne, how about The Conqueror?
Some ‘good’ movies I’d like to see riffed are Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained, The Shawshank Redemption, and American Beauty. Granted, the reputation of the last title is somewhat tarnished these days, but all the more reason to cut it down to size.
I’d love to see them riff the classic Universal monsters, too. MST3K has been compared to horror hosts in the past – this would be their chance to try that role out.
I agree with “Citizen Kane” as a possibility. And I still think that “Gone with the Wind” would be a good one, with RT doing one half and a back-from-retirement CT doing the other. (They could flip a coin to determine who does which half.)
And for those who object to riffing on “good” movies, consider: “The Carol Burnett Show”, “The Jack Benny Show”, “Saturday Night Live” and a whole lot of other comedy shows were joking about “good” movies, and joking about them very well, long before RT came along.
My choice: Gone With The Wind! A film that while it deserves it’s place in history with all the Oscars it won, it’s reputation has slipped in recent decades as society has changed. Hammy acting by Vivien Leigh, the milquetoast unappeal of Leslie Howard, and the sometimes sickening sweetness of Olivia de Haviland’s Melanie. Cut through it like Sherman’s Army, guys! :yes:
For this topic I like to think I can say KING KONG and assume we’re all on the same page about which one I mean. It seems like the only way to top the pop icon that is Wizard of Oz, which was a major treat BTW. Thanks to Blu-ray the nostalgia factor isn’t affected at all because the transfer makes it feel as though I’m seeing these movies for the first time, so I invite Rifftrax to get as personal as they want. Hack away at my childhood, fellas!
I agree with the above mentioned Citizen Kane…
Close Encounters of Third Kind? Sci-fi, mashed potato statues, the mothership bearing a strnage resemblance to an ELO set (or a Boston album…)
Blade Runner? Sci-fi, Harrison Ford narration…
Giant? Bloated avarice, James Dean as a oilman without a cause?
I would go with Godfater or Godfather II but you raally have to be on your riffing game (of course there are plenty of jokes to be made I am sure..)
I’ve been suggesting this one to them for years: Willow.
How about:
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad
Ed Wood
(selfish list, really- as the above are some of my favorite movies)
Sorry, but truly good, classic movies just don’t do it for me as riffing fodder. There. I said it.
Give me Apocalypse now Now!
Jaws.
But, yeah. I agree with #18.
@20
Your wish is fulfilled
http://www.rifftrax.com/rifftrax/jaws
LIKED #18 as well. With a condition: If they are not mean spirited (RT’s Oz crosses the line for me personally with what I heard on the clip) I can watch no problem.
Apocalypse Now? JAWS? Butch Cassidy?! Ed Wooooood! … man oh man. Makes me realize how long MST3K has been gone. Years and years. :(
Let us approach this in a scientific manner. “The Shawshank Redemption” is on the very top of the IMDb Top 250 list, and I think that this would be a worthy adversary for RT. As an extra bonus, while many people seem to love this movie, quite a few hate it fervently.
(They haven’t riffed it yet, right?)
2001
A couple of classic movies that came to mind would be Ben Hur or Cleopatra. I`m sure they could think of a joke or two regarding Elizabeth Taylor (and I think Roddy McDowall is in it as well).
I was also thinking about The Exorcist and Rosemary`s Baby. I wonder if something like that would be funny or are those type of movies just too creepy?
Caasablanca?
How about Gooone With the Wind?
:-P
I always said The Sound of Music is the worst film ever given an oscar. It would be perfect – I’d love to hear what happens to that damn doe a deer song,
Also Signs, a movie that did not deliver on its promise.
Sergei Bondarchuk’s War and Peace. The cast spends the whole time chewing the scenery, so it’s impossible not to make remarks.
Of course, I always like to heckle musicals and “family movies” MST3K-style. Among the examples are:
(during Show Boat) Character: “I got a sixth sense about these things.” – Me: “I see dead people.”
(during Mary Poppins) Bert: “Hello!” – Me: “Hey Rob. Has Buddy made any comments about Cooley’s bald head today?”
An example of Citizen Kane’s “stilted” dialogue:
“A fellow will remember a lot of things you wouldn’t think he’d remember. You take me. One day, back in 1896, I was crossing over to Jersey on the ferry, and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in, and on it there was a girl waiting to get off. A white dress she had on. She was carrying a white parasol. I only saw her for one second. She didn’t see me at all, but I’ll bet a month hasn’t gone by since that I haven’t thought of that girl.”
Yeah, Wells and Mankiewicz need to be TAKEN DOWN!
“Citizen Kane” is a fine, well-made movie. It’s a brilliant technical achievement by Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater. It’s one of the truly great motion pictures. And I don’t see anything wrong with making jokes about it.
I must admit that I’m biased, though. I think “How Green was My Valley” was the better choice for Best Picture.
They should riff The Godfather. ‘Nuff said.
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. I’ve loved this movie since I was a kid but it’s often hokey, stilted and surreal and it’s oddly dubbed. The final stand-off is the three main characters side-eyeing each other for like ten minutes.
Citizen Kane. I’ve been pulling for that since RiffTrax started, and Citizen Kane is one of my all time favorite movies. As is Casablanca and the Wizard of Oz. You don’t have to hate a film to make jokes along with it.
Two mentioned earlier, Spartacus and Gone With the Wind, would be great too, but the length of the films I would have to believe would be rough on the riffers and the watchers. Still if they decide they are up for the task I would gladly take the time to laugh along with them.
The Goshfaddah
@12 – Yes, but consider:
A) Burnett had worked as a movie usher in her teens (as we see in the Twilight Zone episode), and knew most of these movies by heart,
B) They had 70’s Mad Magazine writers contributing to the show, and COULD do good old-movie parodies on the movie’s own level. (And for those too young to know, there’s a difference between a good Mad Magazine parody and a RT-era riffing. Ever since I got that 50 Years of Mad CD-Rom one Christmas, I started going back and Netflixing all the 70’s classics, just to read the parodies.)
C) Back in the 70’s, nobody was watching old movies–The VCR wasn’t invented, and late night stations only showed them as filler, which made them a sort of quaint trivialized thing everyone “knew” but nobody actually watched–And Bogart, Cagney or Bette Davis films were treated like the omnipresent channel-click airings of Oz or It’s a Wonderful Life.
Nowadays, like Oz, there ARE no more TV airings, so only film buffs watch them on preserved formats, and there’s no more mentality that the movies, what’s the expression, “have it coming”.
Basically, Carol’s parodies were kidding labors of love, not, like Hamlet or Halloween, the mercenary on-a-roll of “We can riff anything!”
And even then, the TV-rerun “quaint” factor wasn’t quite the same as the LOTR/Twilight/Marvel-movie high-school thrill of saying “Only geeks and losers watch Ronald Colman!”
Oh, how about BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN or METROPOLIS?
Birth Of A Nation.
Up In Smoke
The Big Lebowski
Stripes
Grindhouse
Scarface
Serenity
Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer (lol)
MST3K: The Movie
Master Ninja 3-7 (Lmao)
Anything by Rogers and Hammerstein. But especially Carousel, a really “good” movie.
I’m really thankful that I don’t have anything in my life that bugs me the way Rifftrax seems to bug certain people.
I think they should riff one of the best films ever made – Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie. :-)
I keep suggesting Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but I think they are ignoring me. It’s my number one pick.
Second would be any of the old Universal or Hammer horror films. They would be so awesome!
Metropolis would be difficult. They just did their first silent short (I haven’t seen it), so I don’t know how well a full length movie would be.
Cleopatra I think is way too damn long for them. It’s over four hours. I recently watched it but it took me several days to do it. Although I would love it if they did.
I’m really thankful that Oz means so much to me that I don’t really go for this treatment. It’s something I treasure beyond most other films and TV shows. My long history with it is from a life time of adoration for the film and it’s wonderful characters.
But with all the respect I have for the RT guys, I can say loud and clear that I hope this sells a bunch of copies of the RT commentary for them, and that new Wiz of Oz release that just came out with the Blu rays, 2D and 3D (which I did buy for my mother for Christmas this year) also sells more copies than flakes of snow in the poppy field.
I agree with #18 and the others: I don’t like Rifftrax when they do good movies.
Sure, I personally love Night of the Living Dead, but even I can admit that the film has its rough edges, and I thought the Live Show was pretty funny, didn’t diminish my appreciation for the film and I thought they were mildly respectful. Plus, they wisely didn’t try to riff over the final scene, which is pretty freaking bleak, man.
As for Citizen Kane. . .I agree with the snarkasm that Frank lies down up at #29. Stilted dialogue? Please. It’s stylized!
I’d like to see them take on several Hitchcock films, especially Psycho(for moments like the segment where the detective falls down the stairs), Vertigo(for Jimmy Stewart’s creepy moments where he tries to turn one woman into another) and The Birds(just for the many voices they’d use to make the birds talk).
I’m glad to see others agree with me that Gone With The Wind is due for a riffing takedown. However with it being four hours long, will the guys have the stamina for it? Maybe if they invited the Cinematic Titanic folks in to help…yes, THIS movie could unite the entire MST3K cast once again!! If nothing else, I think Mary Jo’s modern woman viewpoint would be most valuable.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? – Taylor and Burton being drunken louts.
They Shoot Horses Don’t They? – What’s not funny about Depression Era Marathon Skating competition?
Touch of Evil – Heston as a Mexican Narc, Orson Welles as corrupt U.S. cop, add a convoluted slow moving plot.
The Ten Commandments – over blown epic with a cast of thousands
The Shining – with Jack Nickolas – creepy, creepy fun, I remember watching it in the theater and not know whether to be scared or laughing.
The Planet of the Apes (1968) original – again Heston being a total stiff
Westside Story – why not a musical- about gang violence in NYC danced to snappy show tunes, perfect.
@46 – I think they literally can’t even tell the difference anymore–Even just reading their RT descriptions, they seem to think they’ve become a sort of wandering itinerant Agony Booth or Nostalgia Critic that can pick on anything, anytime, just for the pop-cultural reputation value, rather than judge the riffability of actual specific scenes.
I don’t know how much argument I’d get if I accused RT of being head over heels in love with itself, but it’s starting to cloud their vision of what actually IS a bad film (as opposed one that just “bugs” them), and one that just gets an easy pop-cultural gag–A problem they already had from Season 6 onwards, when they were just grabbing easy titles out of the Medveds’ Turkeys books, and hasn’t since gotten any better with fewer decision-makers over their heads.