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Posted by Sampo, on August 22nd, 2009 Alert reader Keith “Bartcow” Davis writes:
This week’s episode guide got me to thinking about the movies that I think could have been good with a better budget/actor/script. “Leech Woman” has an interesting premise, but it’s pretty much squashed by all the mediocrity around it.
So that brings me to my suggestion: What movie could conceivably be remade into a competent film (“The Island”/Parts: The Clonus Horror” excluded, of course).
My pick would be “City Limits.” It’s got all the ingredients: post-apocalyptic setting, motorcycle gangs who are into comic books, shadowy government conspiracy. It could work!
What’s your pick?
Posted by Sampo, on August 22nd, 2009 This is an open thread for comments on last night’s RiffTrax Live show.
My thoughts:
• Despite the fact that I have seen a DVD version of this riff, and also saw it live in San Diego last summer, I still went away with a bad case of “laugh stomach.” Another great show. There were definitely some new lines and that was fun: Sorry, Fort Worth!
• The short was lots of fun. It really got everybody warmed up. “Thank you for keeping the plane snake-free.”
• I really liked the thing where they showed the riffers at the side of the screen. I wished they’d done it more.
• For the record, my theater was about 80 percent full, and people were laughing a LOT.
• There were four really brief signal dropouts, all only a few seconds long, in the first half hour or so. Each time I thought “Oh, God, another technical disaster!” But it was fine.
• This was my first exposure to Mr. Coulton and I really enjoyed it. I will seek more of his stuff.
• Every time they showed the two girls in the front row who were singing along with Coulton, people in my theater laughed and, I fear, not WITH the young ladies.
• Lowtax’s stuff didn’t strike me as hold-my-sides hilarious, but I laughed some. I think it’s an acquired taste. I may be too old a fogie.
• This was also my first exposure to Ms. Belmont. I don’t want to come off like a cranky old grandpa here, but quite frankly, for somebody being billed as “the queen of the internet,” I had never heard of her, Revision3, Tekzilla, Qore or the PlayStation Network before she was announced as the host of the Comic-Con show. I’m not a gamer, and she looks young enough to be my daughter so, sorry Veronica, you’ve just never been on my radar screen. You kids get off my lawn! Actually, she seems pleasant enough, and she discharged her duties cheerfully, but she was also a little out of place. To her credit, she seemed to be aware of it. I could almost hear her thinking, “What the hell am I doing here?” Maybe somebody with actual comedy experience (Bridget perhaps?) might have been a better fit, but she was fine.
• I would say that about a tenth of the total laughs the show got were people simply laughing at the movie itself. I’ve seen this movie a dozen times now, at least, and its rank incompetence still stuns me every time.
• It was interesting to see that, in the bedroom scene, they left in the photo of the two contest winners. A couple of years ago they ran a contest, I forget the details, but the prize was that Legend would put your photo in that picture frame. And it was still there.
• Speaking of the color print, it is very nice, not garish at all. Those Legend wizards do a good job.
• Seeing this again made me wonder what the REAL reason was that they never did this movie during the MST3K years. The more I think about it, the more I think the excuses they gave at the time don’t really hold up.
• Fave riff: Why are we beating them off?
Erhardt adds:
• I saw the show in one of AMC’s hoity-toity Fork & Screen theaters. The auditorium was completely sold out. I honestly thought I’d be about the only one there and I was quite pleasantly surprised. I think there was one other auditorium at the AMC Studio 29 also screening the show, but I have no idea what its attendance was.
• Several people in our comments section have posted that they and/or the audience didn’t particularly care for John Coulton. I thoroughly enjoyed his performances…especially when Kevin guest-starred as “the zombie.” Unfortunately in my theater, very few people sung the “eat your brains” line that Mr. Coulton exhorted us to.
• The first Lowtax “sponsor” ad got a HUGE laugh from the Kansas City crowd I was sitting with, as did the quick mention in the “Plans 1-8” song. I’ve always noticed that the residents here love it anytime their city is mentioned, whether that mention is particularly complimentary or not. I can only imagine that the reactions from the Fort Worth audiences were similar. But where the heck was OUR apology, Bill?
• I’ve got to agree with Sampo about Ms. Belmont. Her appearance, along with Coulton’s, just seemed to be an attempt by RiffTrax to heighten their “geek” cred. As if they need to. But she did a good enough job.
• The RiffTrax site actually crashed after the show as audience members rushed to get their free downloads. But they were able to make a few database fixes and got the site back up after a few hours.
• Favorite riff: Can Kevin’s “ptoo!” noise whenever a character waved a gun be considered a riff? If not, I’ll go with “The captain thanks you for keeping our plane snake free.”
Also: Reviews here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
8/22 Update: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
Posted by Sampo, on August 21st, 2009 As the RiffTrax Live event approached, we started to see actual news stories in the media about it. Which, with a few exceptions, made a change from what people had been doing–just rewriting (or in some cases NOT rewriting) the press release RiffTrax/Fathom put out.
A LOT of sites did this, but I didn’t bother to list every one as it happened, because there was no new information, just a reiteration of what everybody already knew. But for those of you completionists who need to see EVERY FREAKIN’ MEDIA MENTION (:::coughTomNoelcough::: ;-) ), here’s a collection of links (I may have missed a few personal blogs or LiveJournal posts. If so, feel free to add them in the comments.)
You can see mentions of the RiffTrax Live here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here (great headline!), here, here, here, here, here and here.
8/14 Update: Here (Wall St. Journal!), here (SF Chron.), here, here (slightly more detailed than most), here (companion to a larger piece in the other post), here (well-known blogger Ann Althouse!), here (complete with snarky comment), here, here and here.
8/17 Update: here, here (The Hollywood Reporter), here, here, here, here and here. Oh, and about a zillion retweets today after they announced a contest where if you retweet an announcement about the show coming to the theater in your town, you might win an iPod.
8/18 Update: Here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
8/19 Update: Here, here, here, here and here.
8/20 Update: Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here (Brits!), here, here, here and here.
Posted by Sampo, on August 19th, 2009 The many MSTies in the media are once again taking an opportunity to talk about MST3K-related stuff because of the upcoming RiffTrax Live event.
Here’s our list of pieces we’ve seen in recent days:
• David Perry of Blogcritics.org interviews Mike, Kevin and Bill about the upcoming RiffTrax Live event.
• There’s this piece on VictoriaAdvocate.com
• Brett Johnson of the Ventura County Star interviews Mike.
• Nancy Van Valkenburg of the Ogden, Utah Standard Examiner has a nice piece that features comments from our buddy Josh Gemma at RiffTrax.
• John Scott Lewinski of TVSquad.com interviews Mike, Kevin and Bill.
• David Durica of the Scifi Overdrive radio show interviews Mike, Kevin and Bill.
• The Onion’s AV Club interviews Mike, Kevin and Bill.
• Dave Taylor of DaveOnFilm.com interviews Kevin.
• Dane101.com interviews Mike.
• Bob Tremblay of the Waltham, Mass., Daily News Tribune gets some quotes from Mike for his piece.
• Jef Burnham of Film Monthly also interviews Mike.
Posted by Sampo, on August 15th, 2009 This weekend’s thread again plays off the Episode Guide discussion.
As I said in my comments on Thursday, I was watching episode 801, and in the movie there is a stock footage shot of an alligator jumping up out of the water and snagging a swamp bird sitting on a log. Crow responds by singing: “Egrets, I’ve had a few…”
Something clicked in me. Despite the loss of Trace, which was clearly a gut-punch to the show, I KNEW they were gonna be okay.
So, what was the moment (hopefully SOMEtime in Season 8) when you knew they were gonna be okay? I know some of you had a hard time with the long string of b&w Universal monster movies they started the season with, and really didn’t come around until almost mid-season with “Giant Spider Invasion.” Or maybe you didn’t come around at all. I know some folks felt that way.
So let’s hear it. What was your moment?
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