Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Oct 13, 2017 12:32:59 GMT -5
It's Friday the 13th! I wish I had an actual Friday the 13th movie for you, but much to my chagrin Rifftrax never bothered to riff one of those. But the movie I wound up watching today wound up somewhat perfect for the day anyway. Unlucky Day Thirteen:Film Year: 2008 Director: M. Night Shyamalan Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo Riff Year: 2008 Riffers: Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett Selected Short: Why Doesn’t Cathy Eat Breakfast?/Petaluma Chicken At long last, the question of the ages is met head on. No facet of the issue is left unexplored. The philosophical, eschatological, teleological, epistemological, and cosmological aspects are all given a thorough exegetical going over. Just one viewing of this ground breaking short will see you fully prepared to engage the weighty issues and answer confidently and with authority when someone asks, Why Doesn't Cathy Eat Breakfast? To further expand your mind, RiffTrax is proud to offer you the weirdest thing ever - weirder than a million Crispin Glovers starring in a million remakes of The Wicker Man - a short subject called Petaluma Chicken. If you have any interest in omelet making history, you owe it to yourself to see this.
Mike, Kevin, and Bill will be your guides through this hugely important double feature.To best simulate how it feels for me to watch an M. Night Shyamalan film, here’s a strange duo of shorts that Rifftrax paired off for some reason. It starts out with a semi-serious rhetorical question and then left turns into something that’s just batshit insane. Insert Robot Chicken “WHAT A TWIST” meme here. The first short was made by the Dairy Council and features a young girl harassed by a narrator who insists that she tell him why she doesn’t eat breakfast. Cathy doesn’t answer, because Cathy is a cold-hearted bitch that likes to lead men on. This leads to an ending that asks the question “Why doesn’t Cathy eat breakfast?” I’m not sure who this is for or why the Dairy Council would care why this girl doesn’t eat breakfast. This short just stumps me. She doesn’t eat breakfast because she’s not hungry. The end. Moving on. I’m not sure why this footage dubbed “Petaluma Chicken” was latched onto the Cathy short, though I imagine the guys at Rifftrax really liked both and since neither was up to their normal short runtime they stapled both together. Petaluma Chicken is about a group of people making the world’s largest omelette. I’m not sure if they’re doing it right myself, but I’m pretty sure making an omelette doesn’t involve doing jumping jacks on the eggs. For whatever reason, these two totally different shorts work well together. The riffing is certainly in a heckling mood in giving the narrator a bit of a tough time for not leaving Cathy alone, leading up to the unresolved cliffhanger which leads to one of my favorite riffs…“WHAT?! No Country for Old Men had better closure!” Petaluma Chicken is so wonky and strange that it’s no wonder why they chose it to complete this riffing session. The footage seen has so little context and is so battered and choppy it seems otherworldly. The riffers take that strangeness to the next level by embracing and enhancing it. But now we must take that giant omelette and FORCE FEED IT TO CATHY! And now our feature presentation... The Happening is a departure for director M. Night Shyamalan: he abandons his trademark conceit of the twist ending to tell a straight-forward tale of horror. It's like going to a Gallagher show where he refuses to smash watermelons with a giant mallet. The only difference is that Gallagher's comedy is grim and depressing and The Happening is hilarious.
Yes, the plants of the Northeastern United States are fed up with how we've been treating them and decide to simultaneously release a toxin that causes humanity to commit suicide in various comical ways. Evidently this is something that is entirely scientifically valid, because a hot-dog obsessed lunatic says so at one point in time during the movie. Mark Wahlberg baffles as a Lemon Drink-eyeing science teacher and the part of Zooey Deschanel is ably played by a Tarsier. Mike, Kevin and Bill lend intentionally funny riffs to this masterpiece of unintentional comedy. (Unless there's some sort of real-life Happening, in which case they pre-emptively announce their allegiance to the plants.)Back in 2002 the movie Signs came out, and I thought it was garbage. This was not a good time to hate an M. Night Shyamalan film, because you would be labeled a moron who “didn’t get it.” I didn’t particularly care for The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable either, but I didn’t feel as insulted by them as I felt with Signs. If that was the Shyamalan masterpiece then I just threw my hands up and backed away from the table and told myself to never bother watching another Shyamalan movie again. In the years that went by I saw the anticipation for The Village swelling, only to hear people bitch about it afterward. I heard people call Lady in the Water his eventual bounce back to brilliance, only to meet the same result. The same happened with The Happening. The same happened with The Last Airbender. Then people stopped giving a poopie. And maybe he’s making movies people like again. I guess. But who cares at this point? But I suppose my point is that as I stopped watching his films it seemed more and more people started noticing the things that were grinding my gears about them the whole time. Even years later I saw the Nostalgia Critic review of Signs and he pretty much repeated EVERYTHING that I said against that movie in the first place, right up until the moronic ending where the aliens are revealed to be allergic to water after having invaded a planet that is over 75% water. I don’t want to sound arrogant and say I’m vindicated after this turn of tide (though I am arrogant enough to say it), but let’s just say it feels somewhat good to not be alone on this opinion on this director anymore. But there is one thing that always bugged me about this: if the films I watched were the good ones, how bad were the ones I didn’t watch? I still haven’t seen a lot of his work. But after all these years I have since lifted my Shyamalan self-restriction and have caught a few. I saw The Last Airbender with Rifftrax years ago and was indifferent to it (but I never watched the animated series either), and I saw Split earlier this year and it was fine, I suppose. But the question is do I dare venture back to the absolute dogs of his career? What would I think of Lady in the Water or After Earth? Basically what I’m saying is that I’ve never watched The Happening before today. Not even with Rifftrax. And now that experience is over. Wow. I don’t throw this around often, but this is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. I mean seriously, yesterday I dogged Cloverfield pretty hard for simply being a dumb movie, but how dare I? What bloody right did I have to knock that movie when it came out the same year as this? I feel so angry at myself right now. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, about this movie just feels wrong. The acting looks clueless and lost, which maybe they might have salvaged something had the script gave them dialogue worth saying. One of the biggest problems I’ve ever had with Shyamalan is that he never seemed to have a clear grasp on human emotion, and I hereby offer The Happening as proof. All the blank stares this movie offers at what should be horrific sights. He'll, I knew this was going to be a rough ride the minute I saw all those people leaping to their doom early on as a man stares blankly at them like he has indigestion. “Holy mother of god,” he says. I concur, but I’m witnessing something else that’s leaving me in shock. Shyamalan’s direction and visual eye, usually one of things about him that I don’t have fault with, also seems off. The visuals just look silly, as Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel run from the wind and victims of “The Happening” walk backwards in and ill advised attempt to look creepy. And what kills me is that I like the concept of this movie. The idea of a natural cause beyond our control affecting our mental health. The visual terror of people killing themselves for no reason. The suspense of running from something you can't see, or possibly right into it. This could have been a really good movie. I almost feel sorry for Shyamalan. I think way too many people praised him for The Sixth Sense and he felt pressure to just keep delivering thrillers like that in the aftermath, even after he ran out of ideas and scraped the bottom of the barrel. The Happening might have started as a promising idea, but somewhere early on it took a wrong turn and a domino effect started, and the result is this abomination. I need to shut up about this movie and remind myself that I’m actually reviewing a Rifftrax. This is the first Shyamalan riff they released, and for a while they seemed gung ho about riffing Shyamalan’s work and the fans seemed to embrace the idea. In the end they only riffed three of his films, the only other of which I’ve seen is The Last Airbender (I’ll be watching the other later this month). From what I remember of Last Airbender, I think I found The Happening to be funnier, though truth be told I also found The Happening as a movie to be far more unintentionally funny as well. This riff starts a bit uneven, but the more balls out insane the movie gets the more inspired the quipping seems to be. By the climax I was steadily laughing, and sometimes to the point I couldn’t breathe. Okay, I’ll fess up. It was Mark Wahlberg having a conversation with a plastic potted plant. It sent me into a giggle fit and I never recovered. I had Schlocktober all scheduled out for quite a while now, and I’ve intentionally kept some of the worst movies for toward the end of it. If I had known of how bad The Happening was I might have saved it for that run. I mean, I had been warned about this movie, but to an extent I thought it was hyperbole. How bad could it be? Pretty flapjacksing bad. It’s no Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny, but this is a genuine contender for worst movie ever riffed. Right now I’m actively considering watching it without the Rifftrax to see if I really saw what I thought I saw and prove that it wasn’t the riff that was swaying my opinion. But do I hate myself enough to risk it?
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Torgo
Moderator Emeritus
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Post by Torgo on Oct 14, 2017 13:16:45 GMT -5
Day Fourteen:Film Year: 1962 Director: Herk Harvey Starring: Candace Hilligoss Riff Year: 2016 (also riffed in 2005 and 2009) Riffers: Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett Featured Shorts: The Dirt-Witch Cleans Up, Masks of Grass Rifftrax Live: Carnival of Souls! Mike, Bill, and Kevin riffed this spooky midnight-movie cult classic live in Nashville, and now it's available for you to download or stream in Anywhere-Ville!
When young Mary survives a horrible car crash, she tries to start her life over with a new church organist job in a small Utah town, as one does. But along the way she’s haunted by a gaunt pale figure in a nice suit who leads her to an abandoned old pavilion on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. Soon Mary doesn’t know if she’s awake or dreaming, alive or dead, which makes her really dull at parties. Fans of Rifftrax Live: Night of the Living Dead will love this one. Weird, creepy and very silly, our live riff of Carnival of Souls is not to be missed!
The show also includes live riffs of TWO hilarious shorts. The Dirt Witch, probably one of the top films ever made about witch cleanliness. And the unforgettable Masks of Grass, a disturbing trash-crafting follow-up to the Rifftrax classic, At Your Fingertips: Grasses!Last year's Halloween show went back a bit to the good old days when the guys would put up a colorized public domain film and a couple of shorts. Out of Rifftrax’s 2016 Live shows, Carnival of Souls was probably second best, behind the MST3K Reunion show. I’d definitely say this one was a step above the mostly okay Mothra and a giant leap above the largely unfunny reriff of MST “classic” Time Chasers. This starts off with a short on cleanliness, because you’re all pigs. The Dirt-Witch Cleans Up features a dirty witch casting spells to make little boys dirty, because little boys never like getting dirty I guess. A little girl spots her, shames her, takes her home and forces her to take a bath, leading up to the moral that you look so much better when you aren’t covered in mud. Well, duh. The riffing on this silly but brief short is pretty solid. I like Mike trying to explain an Encyclopedia to the youngsters of the audience as a “printed-out Wikipedia.” The as the short gets stranger, the riffs get stronger, like usual. Highlighting is Bill pointing out the hidden moral of “Kids, don’t just go home with strangers, bathe them too.” Our second short is one of those VCI crafts shorts these guys love so much, Masks of Grass. It’s a bit similar to the grass crafts short, but it restricts itself to making masks out of it. It’s meant to stimulate imagination, but like usual, riffing material like this brings us big laughs as it’s very visual and sometimes a bit creepy. The riffing becomes surprisingly sparse toward the end however, for whatever reason. There’s even a lengthy patch where children are showing off masks where very few riffs take place. I’m almost convinced this is calculated however, as it almost seems like the riffers want the audience to react to what they’re seeing. Carnival of Souls is a movie I initially didn’t like but has grown on me over the years. It’s a very clumsy movie and mildly ponderous at its worst moments, but the Twilight Zone style storyline is pretty cool. Though if we’re bringing Twilight Zone into this, watch the episode The Hitchhiker. It’s pretty much the same story only streamlined and about fifty minutes shorter. Carnival of Souls features a woman surviving an automobile accident where her friends were killed. She attempts to move on with her life only to find she is being followed by a pale man and is eventually sucked into a nightmarish carnival of dancing ghouls. It’s tough talking about the film without venturing into spoiler territory, though to be fair the twist is pretty obvious almost from the get go. It’s a movie you somewhat appreciate a little more knowing the ending, though it doesn’t always make sense in retrospect. Ruining the mood in this particular version of the film is the fact that Rifftrax chose to use Legend Films’ colorized version of the film. Why they chose to use this version I have never gotten a straight answer on since Rifftrax is no longer affiliated with Legend. The color version isn’t without it’s charms, such as the creative decision to keep the ghouls mostly black and white but with slight color touches, which is fun. But the fact is that Carnival of Souls is so much creepier in its original black and white cinematography. “You’re a very strong person, aren’t you?” “Men don’t like that, sweet cheeks.” The riffing is pretty good. The dreariness, lacking acting, and sometimes questionable events come under fire quite often. The movie is not short on sleazy characters that they zero in on, and as the movie grows more otherworldly the drug jokes start kicking in. Carnival of Souls is a bit of a low budget work of visual art, but being so visual just makes it an easy target. And, of course, endless organ music. Pad out that film and give Mike, Kevin, and Bill something to be playfully annoyed at. I’m so close to liking this movie. Parts of it are gorgeous, others dull and sometimes annoying. It’s a movie that could be good but strains itself by padding itself past seventy minutes. The live show around it is above average, though they fumble a bit with by using a colorized print of the movie. This is overall a recommended effort.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Oct 15, 2017 13:25:12 GMT -5
Day FifteenFilm Year: 2010 Director: David Slade Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Anna Kendrick, Bryce Dallas Howard, Dakota Fanning Riff Year: 2010 Riffers: Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett Selected Short: The Trouble with Women Women - what the hell, man? I mean, what's your problem? Thankfully, for all of us non-women, some very smart people have put their best be-crew-cutted minds into coming up with a solution to the trouble with women (to avoid a conflict of interests, no women contributed, thank goodness). The Trouble with Women doesn't give us the definitive answer, but it does give us some very useful tools for dealing with... them. Mike, Kevin, and Bill (themselves NOT women) are your guides through this indispensable short.“The trouble with women is that one of them is Kathy Griffin.” “Are we sure about that?” As I prepare to watch my third Twilight movie in two weeks I hope you’ll forgive me for watching a short that vents about women. The short in question features a supervisor telling off his boss for hiring women, and listing off all the reasons why they shouldn’t be hired. But say what you want about this guy, but at least he isn’t sexually harassing and raping the girls. This makes him infinitely more likeable than Harvey Weinstein. But before we rag on this short for being sexist, it needs to be pointed out that the purpose of the short is to shed light on sexist attitudes and try and correct them. The boss sets the man straight that his troubles with women aren’t just gender exclusive. It doesn’t do much of a thorough job of examining and rebutting every example he comes up with. I could stand to be a bit longer with a stronger counterpoint. It’s obvious the reason they selected this short is because it has an angry, ranting old man at the center. Mike, Kevin, and Bill enter ranting old man mode, taking what he says and pushing it to the next level. Because they cross the line that the short doesn’t touch, this short is a must-see gem. And now our feature presentation... Every now and then a sequel comes along that is arguably superior to the original film. The Godfather II. The Empire Strikes Back. 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain. But the makers of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse cleverly avoided such comparisons by just making the exact same movie a third time. You want a slack-jawed girl who can’t choose between some squinty, mopey fellows? We got it! You want a red-headed vampire lady running around causing some sort of unspecified trouble? We got it! You want a consistent mythology, or a story that builds tension and develops in any way over the course of three films? We got...uh...hey look, werewolf nipples!
All our favorites are back: Moustache Dad, Harpo, the Volvo. And really, why should anything change? If you like Big Macs, and you order a Big Mac, you want the Big Mac to taste just like every other Big Mac you’ve ever had. And if you keep eating Big Macs all the time you’ll wind up alone, unloved, with a colon that would make even Louie Anderson’s doctor say “Dear God, you’ve let yourself go.” Just like the Twilight franchise!
So settle in, get a warm plate of muffins, and join Mike, Kevin and Bill for The Twilight Saga: Eclipse!“Thank you, Twilight. Before you where could a twelve-year-old girl go for tales of demonic possession and child murder that were age appropriate?” In the aftermath of New Moon being released I recall a conversation with someone who claimed they had just watch 30 Days of Night and responded “The Twilight series should take notes from that!” I told them “Well you’re in luck because David Slade is directing the next one.” I believe their response was stunned silence. If nothing else Eclipse is the most stylish Twilight movie. Throw in a finale that has a pretty decent action sequence and you have what might be the most guy-friendly Twilight movie. It’s certainly the one I thought was the least painful to watch, and I even liked parts of it. Whenever a girl and I watch a movie together and it winds up being a Twilight movie, I cross my fingers and pray that it’s this one. This one has a somewhat different story than the previous two, thank god. Ginger vampire Victoria is still pissed at the Cullens and builds an army of newly turned vamps to march on them and kill them all. The Cullens reach an uneasy truce with the werewolves to fight the army and keep Bella from harm’s way. Because, you know, everything in the vampire/werewolf world revolves around her simply because she exists. But that’s not enough to get female butts into seats. The true story is about Bella being torn between Edward and Jacob. Even though she’s said countless times that she chooses Edward and Jacob is more or less just a glorified stalker at this point. Mike, Kevin, and Bill don’t hold back on calling this romance out on it’s bullpoopie either. They harp on Jacob’s sexual predator behavior and never let up on him. Bella’s relationship with Edward comes under scrutiny as well, as they laugh in disbelief that they are watching a film featuring a virgin girl begging her boyfriend for sex, only to have him refuse. The riff in general starts out as merely adequate only to build continuous steam throughout the feature to a gutbusting finish. I’d consider this an improvement over New Moon in that the riffs are more varied (in other words, they cut back on the gay jokes), though that riff of the first film is still tops. But that’s almost an impossible bar to reach. But let us celebrate, for what I am told is that there’s only one more book in the series and therefore only one more film, so that means this fad is almost over. Unless a film fad of splitting a finale book into two movies to make more money occurs, but what are the odds of that happening, right? Right? RIGHT?! Oh damn. ::drinks from bottle of whiskey:: This is going to hurt. But before I go, there’s a riff that caught my attention this time around… “Something’s coming…” “Shark Week!” It might not seem like much, but starting tomorrow you’ll see the irony.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Oct 16, 2017 12:03:29 GMT -5
It’s been fun so far, but it’s time to kick things up a notch, baby. Today SCHLOCKTOBER turns into… SHARKTOBERIt’s Shark Week here on my 31 Days of Halloween! For the next five days we’ll be either afraid to go in the water or wettin’ ourselves with laughter in its domain. Five Rifftrax shark films: some good, some bad (well...one good, and the rest laughably bad). Let’s make a splash, shall we? Day Sixteen - Sharktober Day One:Film Year: 1975 Director: Steven Speilberg Starring: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton Riff Year: 2009 Riffers: Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett Selected Short: An Aquarium in Action Aquarium. Translated literally from the original Latin, it means "boredom box". Every day, thousands of aquariums are completely ignored by passersby in our nation's dentist offices and Chinese restaurants. They are also popular suicide destinations for little plastic scuba men. Aquariums are mainly known for making homes smell funny and, sooner or later, winding up empty out in the garage.
An Aquarium In Action seeks to change all that. A rallying point for aquarium owners, or aquarists*, the film demonstrates just how exciting these bacteria farms can be. It does so by simulating the experience of staring at an impressively ordinary grade school aquarium for an extended period of time. Shiver at the intense action as the children struggle to save baby guppies from certain death in the maws of their own parents. Then watch the children wonder why they bothered saving these ugly little things in the first place, when seeing them devoured would have been much more awesome.
Join Mike, Kevin and Bill as they see who can lick the most scum off the sides of An Aquarium In Action!
*Actual word Let’s start off by learning about fish that won’t swallow us whole and gnaw on our corpses, won’t we? An Aquarium in Action is, as promised, NON-STOP ACTION of a bunch of kids yammering by a fish tank. They talk about how to properly take care of fish so the youngsters watching can learn. Wee. So much action. The riffing mostly stays afloat, and is consistent enough to prevent the short from becoming boring. There’s a wide variety of references used, ranging from drugs to sex to mafia to cannibalism. But the short is such a snoozer that I’d really only recommend it to seasoned Rifftrax fans. And now our feature presentation... Just speak the word "jaws" to anyone and their pulse quickens, the hair on the back of their neck stands up as a dim memory rises to the surface of their consciousness - a memory of the first time they saw Murray Hamilton. Most likely it was in an episode of B.J. and the Bear, or perhaps The F.B.I with Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., but if not that, then his turn as the sartorially resplendent, gravelly voiced mayor of Amity in Jaws, the movie that made a generation of people afraid to go into the water (they were justifiably terrified of getting a skin disease from coming in contact with Quint's run-off.) Yes, long before blockbusters like Spider-Man 2, Shrek the Third, or Garden State there was Jaws, the story of small town mayor Larry Vaughn (played by the magnificent Murray Hamilton) and his quest to find the perfect jacket to wear while resisting the whining of Richard Dreyfuss. There is also a shark.
Mike, Bill and Kevin cruise the movie like a large squalus grabbing it with their powerful—oh, what's the word for it...mandibles - then, a little shakin', a little tenderizin', and down it goes.We’re halfway through October, so we might as well peak and go all downhill from here. Jaws is probably my favorite film that I’ll be watching this marathon. I’ve been a fan since I was a little kid, watching this movie whenever it came on cable. It’s a wonderful film, starting out as a horror movie and evolving into a high seas adventure for it’s iconic climax. Jaws is about Sheriff Martin Brody, who is dead set on closing the beaches after a shark attack off the coast of Amity Island only to be shot down by the mayor of the town, insisting the beaches stay open for lucrative summer income. When the shark attacks continue, Brody is proven right and they hire a shark hunter named Quint to catch it. I’m not going to delve too much on this one, as it’s iconic stature has assured that almost every film fan has seen it. But even if the movie isn’t your cup of tea it’s hard to deny the pure craft behind it. A notoriously troubled production (there are several awesome documentaries on the blu-ray), Jaws stayed in production through pure ingenuity and improvisation. The blood, sweat, and tears paid off in the end and the film became an all-time classic, becoming known as “the first summer blockbuster,” two years before Star Wars would shatter its records. Everyone in 1975 had to see Jaws. It was that thing you needed to do that summer. Times change and certain things about it feel a bit dated today, which is why you’d assume Rifftrax would tackle it. Surprisingly enough there’s not many “fake shark” riffs to be had in Jaws. I strongly believe the reason the guys riffed this particular movie is Robert Shaw’s character Quint. They light up whenever he’s onscreen and let loose on his gruff, almost incoherent grumbling. Quint’s certainly the star of this riff. When Shaw is offscreen there’s not much inspiration. Jaws is funny in spurts. Occasionally there is a really funny line that hits at just the right moment, but it seemingly falls dead as the film doesn’t give them much to work with. It’s very unfortunate they chose to riff the original and not one of the numerous ripe sequels, especially since they take some digs at Jaws: The Revenge during this runtime yet we as an audience are left wondering why they didn’t riff that instead. By the way, the riff for this one actually runs longer than the movie, as they pad past the end credits with a song called “When a Man Loves a Shark,” performed by Kevin.
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Torgo
Moderator Emeritus
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Post by Torgo on Oct 17, 2017 10:44:23 GMT -5
Day Seventeen - Sharktober Day TwoFilm Year: 2013 Director: Anthony C. Ferrante Starring: Ian Ziering, Tara Reid, John Heard Riff Year: 2014 Riffers: Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett Featured Short: A Case of Spring Fever Finally, the acclaimed smash hit RiffTrax Live event of 2014 is now available to own! Considered by many critics to be one of the greatest movies ever made in the “Tornado full of sharks” genre, Sharknado debuted in 2013 to unprecedented buzz. Not since Snakes On A Plane had the internet been so excited about a movie, and not since the late 90s had anyone been so excited about anything starring Tara Reid.
From the moment it debuted, Sharknado was one of the most requested titles in RiffTrax history. It makes Jaws IV look like Jaws III, and Jaws III look like Jaws. Riffed LIVE from the State Theater in Minneapolis and broadcast to over 700 theaters across North America, this hilarious live event also features an all-new take on the Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan-favorite short A Case of Spring Fever starring Coily the Spring Sprite!
Look, why are you still reading this? It has chainsaws, helicopters dropping bombs, and the aforementioned TORNADO FULL OF SHARKS! Make this new classic a part of your RiffTrax Library today!This Live show was the first of Rifftrax’s then-unprecedented four Live show year of 2014, which also included Godzilla, Anaconda, and Santa Claus. It’s fairly clear from the show itself that this show was used by Asylum as a part of the big hype push for Sharknado 2: The Second One (yes, believe it or not there was a hype push), which debuted on SyFy not long after this show. Whatever the reason this Live show came about, Sharknado was probably the weakest Live event of that year. But it’s hard to compare in hindsight because Godzilla and Anaconda’s Live shows weren’t released on VOD or DVD (thanks Sony!). This show starts out with a reriff of the MST classic short A Case of Spring Fever. This infamous short is about a man who is sick of working on his couch, making the dreadful wish that he never see a spring again. Coily the Spring Sprite springs into action and grants his wish, creating a world without springs. Mildly irritated by mild inconveniences, he takes back his wish and lived his life with a newfound appreciation of springs. The original riffing on Mystery Science Theater was hysterical, this riff...not so much. Honestly I’d call this riff pretty much a complete bomb, because they tread so much of the same ground that they journeyed on when they initially riffed this short, only they do so with jokes that are less funny variations on what they’ve already said about it. I’d personally skip this one and jump straight into the feature. However there were a few un-riffed bonuses in this show. Asylum provided a preview scene from Sharknado 2, which is intact on this VOD version. What isn’t intact is that they also offered a preview of their Godzilla live show, which I distinctly remember because they had audio issues with the film footage they showed and they pretty much improvised a riff on the footage. It’s most likely they edited out this portion because they weren’t cleared to release Godzilla footage through their website, which is a shame because it was pretty funny. Moving on to the movie, which was the launching pad of what became the biggest “so-bad-it’s-good” sensation of our generation. Maybe even of all time, because it’s hard to really think of an exact comparison (unless the Transformers movies count). Even when a movie attains that sort of cult status, it usually is something of an underground cult where only certain people know what you’re talking about. Sharknado somehow branched out to mainstream attention, possibly based on the awesome absurdity of its title. Snakes on a Plane tried that, and it still flopped at the box office. Granted, Sharknado has lower ambitions, being a made for TV movie created by one of the most notorious low budget studios that has ever existed, but it worked. Ian Ziering stars as a man caught up in a massive storm moving in on Los Angeles, which is blowing sharks all over the plays. He and a few wacky sidekicks race to his ex-wife Tara Reid’s house to gather up his children and keep them safe from the looming tornadoes full of sharks. I actually haven’t seen Sharknado outside of this Live show, and I express just a tad bit of disappointment in it. The movie does have a charming spirit of “who cares what people think of us,” but while the spirit is commendable the apathy seems to bleed into the project as a whole. A movie like this needs to be fun, and outside of a few key moments Sharknado isn’t really as fun as it thinks it is. It’s humor often falls flat and it’s shark action is so poorly edited that it’s often hard to tell what the movie even implied happened. The project most likely started out as a title first, branched out into what action sequences they might be able to afford, then awkwardly writing some sort of story around that while casting the cheapest washed up former celebrities that will say yes. But something about Sharknado clicked. They’ve just released a fifth film in five years, after all. Not even Asylum’s Mega Shark series got that far (yet). And Ian Ziering and Tara Reid have starred in every single one, so they at the very least must be enjoying themselves. But I can’t help but shake this feeling that Sharknado was more fun to make than it is to watch. Unlike most Live shows, Sharknado doesn’t have a studio alternative to it, so you either go Live or you don’t get it at all. That’s no biggie for me, since I prefer the energy of the Live shows more often than not. I had concerns about Sharknado being too tongue-in-cheek for Rifftrax, because I feel the don’t really write around tongue-in-cheek very well. However I was impressed with 2013’s Starship Troopers Live show and was willing to give them a chance with this piece of silliness. Much like the movie itself they only have their moments. To be fair, I think I enjoyed this Live show a lot more seeing it for the first time in the theater. I remember a few patches that left me laughing really hard, such as the busty waitress being eaten by a shark and pulled out of it’s stomach still alive at the end of the movie. Moments like these still amuse but didn’t have the surprise factor anymore, so I have to turn to our three riffers. They do a lot to point out the implausibility of the film, but the film is kinda thriving on implausibility, ain't it? That’s pointing out the obvious. “Look out, gin! Tara’s home!” The boys light up the room when Tara Reid is on screen, and they are absolutely savage. They go anywhere and everywhere with her: booze hound, druggie, plastic surgery, airhead, unstable career...seriously the list is endless. Tara pretty much saves this Rifftrax Live by giving the boys something to work with that isn’t really intentional to the film. And for that alone I say give this one a watch, especially if you haven’t seen the movie. Some of the shock value of it enhances the experience, even though it loses something on repeat viewings.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Oct 18, 2017 12:12:16 GMT -5
Day Eighteen - Sharktober Day ThreeFilm Year: 1981 Director: Enzo G. Castellari Starring: James Franciscus, Vic Morrow Riff Year: 2016 Riffers: Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett Selected Short: Aqua Frolics If you were told you were about to see a film that contained turtles bigger than men, cliff-diving Mexicans and a family that eats Thanksgiving dinner underwater, you'd probably complain "But I don't like David Lynch!" Wrong you would be! You'd actually be all set to watch the 100 percent Lynch-free Aqua Frolics, a short from the 1950's whose message is clear: here is a partial list of things you can do that involve a proximity to and/or immersion in water.
No doubt a response to the Land Council's propaganda film "Dryness: Stay On Land to Achieve It", Aqua Frolics will have you itching to strap on a life preserver and tuck into a drumstick in your neighbors swimming pool. Known frolickers Mike, Kevin and Bill are on hand for their dampest riffing session yet.Ever wonder what you could do in water when you’re not being eaten by a great white shark? Well here are about fifty or so, including skiing, swimming, and eating underwater (?). This frantic and silly short is one of those reels they’d show way back when as if to say to they audience member “look what you aren’t doing since your lazy ass is in a theater.” The riffing keeps pace, as they mostly play up the safe gag of putting words in the narrator's mouth. The short is consistently funny and amusing, though it’s not very memorable. Except that dinner scene underwater. Seriously, WTF? Mamma mia! Some Italian filmmakers decided to rip off Jaws! The Last Shark doesn’t have the acting talent or music score budget of the original, but it does have a substantially higher percentage of actors with mustaches!
The town’s annual windsurfing regatta is threatened by the presence of a killer shark, and rather than do the sensible thing, cancel it and refund both the tickets they’ve sold, the town presses onward. The result: extremely hilarious shark attack special effects! Tell Mrs. Kintner to stop mourning and get her slappin' hand ready, it’s The Last Shark!For the most part I tried to keep this marathon full of recognizable titles, or at the very least trashy sequels to recognizable titles. This is the one exception I made, mostly because I needed one more film to pad out my Shark Week. There are more recognizable movies I could have done (in fact, dropping a few in favor of others was pretty heartbreaking), but I was pretty dead set on this shark theme since I conceived of this marathon. The Last Shark originated in Italy as Great White, a film that blatantly and shamelessly rips off Jaws. I guess the argument is that it’s difficult to do a movie about a killer shark that doesn’t overlap Jaws a little bit (though Sharknado certainly found a way), Universal successfully had the film pulled from American theaters and essentially banned. Lately it’s kind of bled it’s way back over here, with a DVD release and this Rifftrax VOD, so it’s likely Universal doesn’t care about the film anymore. But the movie is totally different from Jaws. For one, the government official denying the beach has a shark problem is a governor and not a mayor. Totally different. Also the main character’s daughter is attacked by the shark and not his son. Apples and oranges. And finally the film has a scene where the shark pulls a helicopter into the water. That’s a scene lifted from Jaws 2, not Jaws. The film stars Beneath the Planet of the Apes star James Franciscus as a novelist and the ill-fated Vic Morrow (one year before his horrific death on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie) as a shark hunter who both try to convince people there is a hungry Great White shark off the coast. When proven correct they go out shark hunting, but stupid civilians keep putting themselves out in the water as fish food. The film is about a half hour shorter than Jaws but somehow feels longer. It’s pretty drawn out with stock footage of actual sharks interjected into the film to hopefully bring suspense to the piece, but it feels so removed from the film that it never works. Like Jaws several fake sharks are used, and all are hilarious. I love the motionless rubber shark they haul underwater to show the shark doing the absurd things the script needs it to. And the head prop that eats people is so bloated you’d just want to tell him to lay off the people and lose a couple pound. And yet, it’s still better than Jaws: The Revenge. I’d say the riffing is better than the previous films in my Shark Week. It’s not perfect, as their tendency to scream “SHARK! I’m sorry, I was just screaming something entirely unrelated” grows tiresome. But there are some good quips at the expense of this doofy movie. The shark scenes are so silly and fake looking that they can’t help but be given enough energy to make this movie fun.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Oct 19, 2017 12:42:00 GMT -5
Day Nineteen - Sharktober Day Four:Film Year: 1983 Director: Joe Alves Starring: Dennis Quaid, Bess Armstrong, Louis Gossett Jr., Lea Thompson Riff Year: 2010 Riffers: Janet Varney, Cole Stratton (featuring Michael J. Nelson as Quint) Selected Short: Cooking Terms and What They Mean (riffed by Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett) Mario Batali. Emeril Lagasse. Thomas Keller. What do they all have in common? Besides having seen Julia Child naked? That's right, they are all masters of Cooking Terms! Cooking Terms are the first step toward becoming a master chef. Because how can one properly prepare Duck Foie Gras with a Confiture of Meiwa Kumquats and a Balsamic Glaze if you don't know what "boiling" means.
Cooking Terms And What They Mean follows a newlywed named Margie through her first day of housewifery. Margie evidently spent her childhood in a vegetative coma, because she somehow made it to her wedding day without knowing what "bake" means. We observe Margie as she learns the terms she will need to prepare the Culinary Institute of America's four basic dishes: Meat, Cake, Jelly and Scalloped Cauliflower. Will she successfully cook her husband a delicious meal? Or will her spiral of failure expand so rapidly that it consumes our entire known universe?
Mike, Kevin and Bill now understand the difference between braising and blanching, and as a result their Hungry Man frozen dinners have never tasted better.Well, at least she can cook. Oh wait, no she can’t. Cooking Terms and What They Mean seems to be a home economics educational film that depicts a housewife who is determined to bake a cake for her husband while he’s at work, but she doesn’t understand what the terms in her cookbook mean. It takes a narrator explaining to her everything she needs to know before she succeeds. They guys have a ball with this one. They are very much amused by the narrator, who examines terms they feel should be self evident (“Should someone who doesn’t know what ‘boil' means be allowed near an open flame?”). So of course they let loose with the condescending narrator riffs, over explaining every aspect of everything. They also get a lot of mileage in mocking our poor dingbat of a main character. “Remember ladies, there are no truly bad cooks…” “Only younger, prettier women!” Perhaps the shark from today’s movie would like some cooking pointers as well. I mean eating raw humans must get tiring, after all... And now our feature presentation... Et Tu, 3-D? What was once a fairly harmless novelty now seems to have taken over multiplexes across the country. Flying houses, animated dragons, Ga’hool Owls and unleashed Krakens are spilling off the screen, fatiguing our eyes and migraining our headaches. Waaaay back in 1983, audiences experienced a whole new kind of headache with the third installment in the should-never-have-been-a-franchise Jaws film series, in which a baby shark and its pissed-off momma spend more than one afternoon in SeaWorld and thus start eating people (I think we can all relate). If the effects department can’t stop them (and they try), then Dennis “Crap…I’m in this?” Quaid, Lea “Thank goodness Back to the Future is just around the corner” Thompson, and Louis “I JUST won an Oscar and chose to do this next” Gossett, Jr. will. And, yes, it’s all in eye-poppin’ THHHHHREEEEEEE DDDDDDDDDDDDDDD! Except…that it’s not. Not on your home DVD. But shhhhhhhhhh…it still thinks it is!
Waiting ‘til it’s safe to go back in the water are frequent RiffTrax Presenters Cole Stratton and Janet Varney, who are going to need a much bigger boat to get through this not-so-great-great-white-flick that makes them long for the days of shirtless Patrick Swayze and dancin’ Kevin Bacon. I’m not one of those annoying fans who claims that “The ONLY people who were ever funny in HISTORY were the guys on Mystery Science Theater. No one else who exists, ever existed, or ever will exist will ever be funny. Ever.” Personally I feel bad that I’m not delving deeper into the Rifftrax Presents catalogue for the various riffers they feature, which include Matthew J. Elliott, Doug “Nostalgia Critic” Walker, and old MST favorites Mary Jo Pehl and Bridget Nelson. There are a few more that I would have loved to have featured, especially by Janet Varney and Cole Stratton who often pick the type of films I think Rifftrax should aim for above all else: Ghost, Flatliners, The Lost Boys, ect. If I decide to do this again next year I guarantee you I’ll dive deeper into more diverse riffing groups. Until then, here we have Janet and Cole’s take on Jaws III, which is hands down the funnier of the Jaws riffs. We get off on a fun foot with a very funny intro in which Rifftrax regular Mike Nelson plays Quint, from the original Jaws, haunting these two guest riffers. Mostly he just spouts out variations of famous Quint lines, and they end the riff by singing “Show Me the Way to Go Home” together, but it’s seriously fun. “Riffers go into the booth...booth goes into the movie… shark’s in the movie…” This latest entry in the Jaws saga stars Dennis Quaid as Mike Brody, the eldest son of the Brody clan from the first two movies, now all grown up and working at Seaworld. His brother comes and pays him a visit, and so does a man-eating shark by total coincidence. Mike and his girlfriend capture the shark and attempt to keep it in captivity, only to have it die from spending an entire afternoon with people gawking at it. Soon enough they discover that this shark was actually a baby and the mother is about to rampage on the park (why she waited so long in doing so, who cares?). Jaws III is one ugly movie, but then again most 3D films from the 80s are in general. I don’t know what crappy 3D film stock they were using back then, but the image looks washed out as all hell. This is one of those rare instances where the more definition the film format gets, the worse the film looks. I’ve followed this movie from VHS to DVD to blu-ray and each seems to be a bigger eyesore than the last. I can only imagine what the 4K Ultra disc is going to look like. But it feels somewhat clear that it’s not put together well either. Director Joe Alves was actually the production designer on the first two movies, and he is flung into a special effects movie with a lacking eye for special effects. Everything looks flat and green screened to poopie. This is especially bad during certain 3D effects, which look pretty hilarious. The shark itself is pretty bulky and practically immobile, but the thing is supposed to be a massive 35 feet long. Was this shark supposed to fight King Kong? In the end, people get sucked into it’s mouth and just lie there waiting to die. The riffing is in fun spirits from the get go. Janet and Cole bat this movie around like a kitten with a ball of yarn. But if there’s one flaw it’s that as funny as the movie itself can be, it does have a tendency to drag, and man does it take forever to get going. Janet and Cole seem to work more magic when action is onscreen, and Jaws III doesn’t quite have enough of it. But that’s not to slight Janet and Cole during the film’s dullest moments, as they tend to get creative to keep the experience from getting boring. One of my favorite things they do is that when a character is on the telephone they mock a phony conversation with them. Louis Gossett Jr. has a very funny one at the beginning of the third act. Note: This riff was originally recorded using the DVD edition, with many riffs taking aim at the lack of 3D. Since then the film has been released on blu-ray with a 3D option, which is the version I used. The movie and riff sync fine, however the one discrepancy I have to note is that the riffers react to the title being “Jaws III” whereas the blu-ray features the original title of “Jaws 3-D.” Other than that the riff will play well with this newer disc.
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Oct 20, 2017 12:51:31 GMT -5
Day Twenty - Sharktober Day FiveFilm Year: 2014 Director: Anthony C. Ferrante Starring: Ian Ziering, Tara Reid, Vivica A. Fox, Kari Wuhrer, Judd Hirsch Riff Year: 2015 Riffers: Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett Featured Short: Parents: Who Needs Them? Sharknado 2! Our smash hit summer live show is now available for download and streaming! Including the delightfully bizarre puppet-and-invisible-boy short, Parents: Who Needs Them?, which raises all kinds of important questions regarding parents and the needing of them.
When you heard about the first Sharknado in 2013 you thought, “A movie about a tornado filled with sharks? It’s too good to be true!” But it was true (and you may have even seen us riff it) and then the next year when you heard they were making another you thought, “A second movie about a tornado filled with sharks? It, too, is too good to be true!”
Guess what, it’s true! Internal shark chainsawer Ian Ziering is back, along with Tara Reid as his ex-wife who kind of likes him now, ever since her douche-y boyfriend got eaten by a shark in their living room.
This time the titular weather event hits the city of New York, right as all the gruff and busy inhabitants are trying to walk, over here! And no famous landmark is safe from their wrath, including perennially grumpy New Yorker Judd Hirsch. And there’s a fun cameo from a certain sandwich spokesman who you probably won’t be seeing in too many more movies, if we had to guess!
Live audiences loved it and now you can too, forever and ever in digital form. Join Mike, Kevin, and Bill as they button up their raincoats and dive headlong into Sharknado 2: The Second One!The boys at Rifftrax have a history of rejecting sequels to bad movies that become too self aware for their own good, having been offered a chance to riff both Hobgoblins 2 and Birdemic 2: The Resurrection. The fact that they chose to do Sharknado 2: The Second One is a bit of a surprise. The original was also tongue in cheek, but this movie dials it up to eleven. Would it really lend itself to riffing? As I began rewatching this Live show I struggled to remember, because the biggest thing I remember from the theatrical experience was that my theater screwed up the broadcast and our audience missed a good chunk of the mid portion. This is the first time I’ve seen the show in its entirety (unless my digital download is flapjacksed up too). Sharknado 2 was a part of a line-up of Live shows that Rifftrax dubbed “The Crappening,” which also included The Room, Miami Connection, and Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny. Like the original’s live show the previous year, Sharknado 2’s might have been the weakest. However overall it’s a much funnier show than the first Sharknado. A better short starts us off. Here we have Parents: Who Needs Them?, a typical short about an ungrateful brat who learns just how much his parents do for him by being turned invisible by a possessed puppet. All things considered, Mystery Science Theater’s Appreciating Your Parents is better, both as a short and as a riffing target. However this is a fun one, with a lot of the short’s creepy atmosphere under fire. I also laughed pretty hard at their comparing the mother to Thelma from Scooby Doo. In between the short and the movie they offer up a look at their next Live show, Miami Connection, with an insane trailer that pretty accurately shows off what that movie is. There’s also a sneak preview of Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!, which I think many of us assumed was going to be riffed in 2016. But for better or for worse that never happened. But what to say about Sharknado 2? Well, the subtitle doesn’t lie. It’s the second one. This is indisputable. It’s pretty much the first film again, except it takes place in New York City instead of Los Angeles. Also it’s a bit jokier and it looks like it might have had a few more pennies on its still low budget. This time Ian Ziering and Tara Reid are now patching things up due to the romantic events of the previous Sharknado when a new Sharknado erupts. They run around in New York looking for Ziering’s sister’s family and are aided by one of his ex-girlfriends in putting a stop to the storm. Judge not lest ye be judged. If you liked the first one then you’ll probably like this one too. I can’t argue with that. Personally this one tries a little too hard to recreate those silly “flapjacks yeah” moments from the first. Ian Ziering chainsaws through quite a few sharks this time around, reminding us of that one scene we thought was hilarious in the first. There’s a scene where Tara Reid’s hand is bitten off and then pulled out of a shark’s mouth (and funnily enough tossed away like garbage), bringing back memories of my favorite moment from the original: the waitress being swallowed whole and pulled out in the climax. The one new thing this one does it Ziering riding a shark through the air and impaling it on the top of the Empire State Building. That’s pretty new. But is it worth it for one new crazy scene in a movie that is pretty much the same, just with a few celebrity cameos? I gotta say, I love bad cinema, but Sharknado has yet to truly win me over with it’s badness. Bad cinema usually works best when it has a passion behind it, like Ed Wood or Paul WS Anderson. Sharknado seems to be a concept that’s fun and a behind the scenes crew that is just going through the motions. It feels more often than not these movies were made with an indifferent shrug and a “why not?” other than any actual desire to make them. But watching this movie I find myself sympathizing with Ian Ziering, not his character but the actor himself. It’s a self-aware dumb movie that is a trap for washed up actors who need a quick paycheck. However, this seems to be a little bit more for him. He does so many action poses and such crazy poopie in this movie that you’d have to wonder if he’s doing it because when the hell else is he going to jump through a shark with a chainsaw? Some might wonder why he sticks around to star in every single one of this movies, but I don’t. He clearly loves it. The riffing still takes aim at the logistics at play, though to a somewhat lesser effect than the original. I find this riff to be a bit more colorful than Sharknado. I partially think it’s because there are more name faces in this movie as cameos, which gives them something familiar to draw upon when coming up with a joke at their expense. They don’t seem entirely reliant on the movie’s absurdity for whatever the reason, and it comes off a bit better for it. One thing I noticed while watching this Live show is that normally these shows usually have windows that pop up with Mike, Kevin, and Bill on the right hand side of the screen. This one minimizes that the the barest minimum I’ve seen from these shows. Most of the time the screen is just the movie. I don’t know if there’s a reason for that (maybe Asylum wanted the movie to be the star), but it makes the show feel less Live and more like a normal Rifftrax. And thus Sharktober comes to an end. We now return you to our regularly scheduled…SCHLOCKTOBER!
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Torgo
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Post by Torgo on Oct 21, 2017 13:05:02 GMT -5
Day Twenty-OneFilm Year: 2011 Director: Bill Condon Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Anna Kendrick, Maggie Grace, Michael Sheen Riff Year: 2012 Riffers: Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett Selected Short: Know For Sure You think you don't have syphilis, but how do really know? Has anyone you trust told you you don't have it? Have you been in contact with anyone from a big city in, say, the last year? Then you almost certainly have it! Talk to your doctor immediately, or at the very least, a silver-haired white guy with an authoritative voice. He will put your shame under a microscope and make you look at it and if that doesn't change your ways, than I don't know what!
Or you can just watch RiffTrax latest hilarious short subject Know For Sure.Hahaha! Stillborn children, penis sores, and sexually transmitted diseases! Comedy gold! As sarcastic as that may seem, this short is actually a lot funnier than it has any right to be. The subject matter is grim and dire, as they try to hammer it into your head the syphilis is a bad thing (no poopie) and you should get checked out whenever you make human contact. All this talk about penises, dead children, and promiscuous sex, it almost seems as if everyone had syphilis in 1941! Mike, Kevin, and Bill are at the top of their game here. While the jury might be out on whether or not someone who actually has the disease might find it funny, there’s certainly enough here to make fun of. They relish seeing something of this age talking about taboo material so stiffly and like a play, with the accordion drop being a definite highlight. They seem careful to never make fun of the disease itself but rather the way it’s presented here. I think all things considered this short turned out hysterical. Something I didn’t know until researching what year this short was made, but it was directed by Lewis Milestone, who directed All Quiet On the Western Front, Mutiny on the Bounty, and the original Ocean’s 11. But enough talk about doomed pregnancies stemmed from diseases. Let’s watch a movie about a...doomed pregnancy stemmed from a disease.... When word leaked that the final Twilight movie would be split into two parts, most people assumed that this was done by the studio as a cynical cash grab. Not so. The last chapter in the Twilight saga is so vast, so detailed, that it demanded the lush, panoramic two movie treatment.
Okay, maybe they could have trimmed some of that twenty minute wedding because it was very straightforward and didn’t impact the story in any way and essentially could have been a wedding from a Reese Witherspoon movie. And we probably didn’t need every single one of the scenes where Jacob visits the Cullen’s house and shouts at someone. And dear god, they are showing them playing chess on their honeymoon AGAIN!
Fortunately, the remaining twelve minutes of the movie that advances the “plot” in some fashion makes up for the slow pace of the rest of the movie by being disgusting and incoherent. The birth of Bella and Edward’s horrible mutant spawn is repellent, nasty and vile, and yes, we are just referring to the decision to name it Renesmee.*
Also, this time the wolves go to a logging plant and communicate via telepathy.
Mike, Kevin and Bill love to hang out at the logging plant too, or at least they did until that lame foreman called their parents and ruined all their fun.
*DO NOT NAME YOUR CHILD THIS OR ALLOW ANYONE YOU KNOW TO NAME THEIR CHILD THIS“Ah, a romance for the ages: a gaunt, pale man reluctant to make love to his wife.” It’s the moment all Twilight fans have been waiting for: Bella and Edward screw the living crap out of each other. Oh and get married and have a kid too, I guess. It’s the wedding of the century...or, well, the afternoon. Bella and Edward finally wed and honeymoon in Brazil. While there, Bella against all odds becomes pregnant with a half-vampire child. They return home to care for Bella, but the news outrages the werewolf clan who vow to destroy the unholy abomination. Damn you Harry Potter! The fad of breaking a finale movie into two films has reached Twilight, just before infecting The Hobbit, The Hunger Games, and finally going complete erectile dysfunction on Divergent. Whatever you think of this blatant attempt to double profit, and I’ve disliked it even when Potter was doing it, for the most part this first portion of Breaking Dawn works well as an actual movie (part two on the other hand...we’ll get to that in about a week). Looking at it from the point of view on what Twilight fans would actually desire, we have a movie devoted to the leads getting married, consummating their relationship, and giving birth to their child, which is really what is the ultimate satisfaction of any love story. For better or worse, Breaking Dawn Part 1 delivers what it needs to, and that probably makes it the second best Twilight movie behind Eclipse. “Best” being a relative term, of course. Twilight wouldn’t be Twilight if it didn’t screw the pooch on execution and be unintentionally funny in doing so. There was a time when I considered Bill Condon a pretty good director, though granted it was on the basis of Gods & Monsters alone. Since then I’ve seen him direct two Twilight movies and a surprisingly unlively Beauty and the Beast live action remake. Now I just want to stop him before he directs large budget trash again (as a Frankenstein fan I find myself nervous about his Dark Universe Bride of Frankenstein movie...and that was BEFORE The Mummy came out). Condon provides a beautiful looking movie, but has trouble translating the story without going into bizarre territory. Case in point… Hmmm...why does this seem so familiar…? Ultimately the more the series tries to flesh itself out and make itself more interesting, the dumber it seems to get. It’s weird that something is finally happening in this movie series and it makes me feel that Bella and Edward staring at each other in a flower patch with Jacob glaring at them from the corner was somehow better storytelling. Breaking Dawn gets nuttier as it goes on, before climaxing with a pants-crappingly insane ending where Edward chews a baby out of Bella’s womb, injects her Pulp Fiction style with a syringe full of his vampire venom, and Jacob gets on some sort of sex offender list by falling in love with a baby and peeing on it (or something) which connects him to it for life. Holy poopie. “Well we wrecked the bedroom. I guess it only makes sense to wreck the toilet.” “Way ahead of you, honey!” In my opinion Breaking Dawn Part 1 is second to the original as the best Twilight Rifftrax. Let it be noted I’ve only watched Part 2 once, but I don’t recall enjoying it half as much as this one. But that could be subject to change. What really puts this Trax over the top for me is the wedding scene, which is quite possibly the funniest riffing of this series. With all the long slow mo shots and patented Twilight pauses there is too much room for jokes here, and Mike, Kevin, and Bill deliver wall to wall winners. After that the riffing takes a bit of a dip, but mostly stays consistent. The movie keeps getting stranger and stranger and Mike, Kevin, and Bill just find themselves reacting to it. And really, that’s kind of enough. As Twilight nears it’s end it’s hard not to get a little teary eyed. There were so many great laughs at the expense of these stupid movies, why did they have to end? I find myself reminiscing upon the good times. Of course the highlight of this series came with this entry, as Bill noted... “Best part of the movie so far! Door slams on chalk face and TWO SECONDS OF FOOTBALL!” On a side note: stay with the Rifftrax through to the mid-credit scene for more riffing. Then Mike and Bill sit through the next ten minutes of credits doing their Volturi impressions.
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Torgo
Moderator Emeritus
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Post by Torgo on Oct 22, 2017 12:33:28 GMT -5
Day Twenty-TwoFilm Year: 2004 Director: James Wan Starring: Carey Elwes, Leigh Whannell, Danny Glover, Tobin Bell, Michael Emerson, Ken Leung, Dina Meyer, Shawnee Smith Riff Year: 2008 Riffers: Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett Selected Short: Shake Hands With Danger (also riffed by Michael J. Nelson) The world of Safety Instructional Films breaks down into two distinct categories: Shake Hands with Danger, and everything else. If you like your hair feathered, your glasses huge and your moustaches grown at an eighth grade level, this is the short for you.
Narrated by a guy who was rejected from the Dukes of Hazard narrator job for sounding too much like a cotton-pickin' bumpkin, Shake Hands with Danger explores the terrifying world of construction work. Sponsored by the Caterpillar heavy machinery company, it chronicles the myriad of ways you can hurt, dismember, maim or kill yourself using Caterpillar brand heavy machinery. No action is free from potentially life-ending consequences! Even if you stay home and lock yourself indoors, the bulldozer will just barrel your house over before seeking out the rest of your family!! Nobody is safe!!! Nobody!!!!
Yes, riff fans of all ages will enjoy this lighthearted timecapsule of the 1970s, set to one of the catchiest Industrial Safety-based jingles we've ever heard.
Mike, Kevin and Bill have never shaken hands with Danger, but they did give Danger that "fist bump then explosion" thing, and then Danger called them all "Bro-seph."Leading into the gory and deadly world of Saw is the gory and deadly world of Shake Hands With Danger, a fan favorite Rifftrax short about safety in construction. This short was actually directed by Carnival of Souls director Herk Harvey, who was primarily an educational short director responsible for such MST classics like Cheating, Why Study Industrial Arts?, and What About Juvenile Delinquency? Shake Hands With Danger has a groovy redneck tune as we follow a bunch of careless nuts operate heavy machinery. Unlucky for them everything that can go wrong will go wrong, and all to the catchy theme song. Mike, Kevin, and Bill play up the stupidity, which is easy to do because it’s abound. They always thrive on characters that lack common sense and if a short is about lacking common sense then all the better. While I think the short is a tad overrated, it’s definitely a funny one worth watching. Note: My copy of the short is from the Best of Rifftrax Shorts Volume One DVD, which is where it premiered with an added treat: bonus animation avatars for Mike, Kevin, and Bill watching and reacting to the short. While the short is annoyingly shrunken in favor of this (the bigger the TV the better, if this is the version you own), it’s a fun addition. Mike’s avatar is his normal self, only animated, while Kevin has been fused with a bag of popcorn and Bill bizarrely enough with an inflatable toy. We also get to briefly see Rifftrax staple Disembaudio in motion. The VOD version of the short does not feature the animation. Additionally Shake Hands With Danger was also riffed during 2016’s MST3K Reunion Live show. And now our feature presentation... Not since Beckett’s immortal Waiting for Godot has the drama of two men locked in a filthy bathroom and brutalized by a crude ventriloquist dummy on television captured the hearts of audiences everywhere. RiffTrax Presents Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett riffing on the original, jaw-splitting, skull-drilling, Danny Glover-ing, fat naked dead man-showing movie that started it all, if by “all” you mean a five-movie franchise that’s now as tired as Bruce Willis at the end of 16 Blocks.
PARENTAL ADVISORY!!!: The Movie Saw is rated R for its extremely graphic and grisly violence and excessively foul language. This RiffTrax is intended for Mature Audiences only. Parental discretion not only is strongly advised, it just makes plain good common sense.It’s getting way too hard to get away from James Wan. Nowadays he’s popular for being the director of the highest grossing installment of the inexplicably popular Fast and the Furious franchise, mastermind behind the Insidious and The Conjuring franchises, and future director of Aquaman. And me...I’m kind of a weirdo who liked Death Sentence better than any of that stuff. But Wan got his start in a low budget thriller called Saw, which involved saws by some sort of association. Mostly it’s about blood and feces smeared on the wall, but Blood and Feces wouldn’t have been a marketable title. The story is of Carey Elwes and Leigh Whannell (who co-wrote the movie with Wan) locked up in some sort of basement bathroom, trying to figure out the puzzles of the Jigsaw killer and escape. Saw was something of a horror sensation back in 2004, and spawned six annual sequels in the following years. There’s a brand new eighth film debuting next weekend as Lionsgate tries to bring it’s Halloween cash cow back into the picture post Hunger Games. But these are the same guys who thought Blair Witch would make a comeback last year, so don’t be surprised if it bombs. This first film is in many ways probably the best of its series, and while I wasn’t as obsessed with the movie as others were, I liked it enough. It has an interesting storyline, and the little mysteries and puzzles keep the viewer invested in trying to solve them. The film doesn’t always work in the moment. The primary storyline features a “game” far more elaborate than the scaled down traps the it establishes as Jigsaw’s track record, and is quite a step away from simply trapping some girl’s head in a reverse bear trap or covering them in flammable liquid. Also as the events unfold, the logistics don’t quite hold up to scrutiny. And let’s be honest, Leigh Whannell almost ruins the movie. It’s clear he isn’t an actor, and when I found out he was actually the film’s writer I wasn’t a bit surprised. He is to Saw what Micah was to Paranormal Activity. And yet I have something of a fondness for Saw. As a child in the 80’s I had friends who would boast about how their (questionable) parents let them watch Freddy and Jason movies. My parents never did, and I was too much of a coward anyway. In the mid-2000 I had started catching up with those 80’s horror icons (I think Freddy vs. Jason had just came out) and Saw came out and started pumping out endless sequels, followed soon by Paranormal Activity. To an extent observing these two franchises helped me cope with that childhood jealousy of an experience that I was always curious about. I heard a rumor that Mike was against doing Saw due to its subject matter, which is why Kevin and Bill riff without him in this feature. And while I don’t have a source to cite, I recall Kevin saying he regretted doing the film in retrospect. I hadn’t listened to this particular Rifftrax until now because the word was hard to pinpoint (that and I had to find a copy of the theatrical version, which is less circulated than it used to be). A lot of it leaned toward negative, but one thing I noted from negative reactions to this Trax usually voiced disdain for the movie, and I know a lot of people who flat out refused to watch it even with Rifftrax. It reminded me a bit of the reaction to the Mystery Science Theater episode of Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies. I know a lot of fans who hate that episode solely for the movie, and yet I and many others find the episode hilarious. I was curious as to whether Saw would be a similar experience. While Saw isn’t as hilarious as Incredibly Strange Creatures, I will say that I had a constant stream of giggles throughout the film. Kevin and Bill waste no time in pointing out how filth-layered every set seems to be, and there is a lot of jokes about the lack of cleanliness. There are some great shots at both Leigh Whannell and Danny “Too Old For This poopie” Glover as well. Probably my favorite run of riffing in this Trax is Shawnee Smith’s flashback to her trap in the headgear. The riffing is positively spot-on throughout. They especially love Jigsaw’s puppet, noting he looks like the spawn of Ross Perot and John Malkovich. I’d suggest watching the riff just for this sequence. This is, of course, pending if you can stomach the movie. I had seen Saw several times before so it held no surprises for me. And personally I think the Rifftrax is above average, far more so than most would have led me to believe. It’s an old riffing theorem, sometimes if you’re not enjoying yourself it might just be the movie’s fault.
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Post by Afgncaap5 on Oct 22, 2017 23:26:18 GMT -5
You know... I've avoided watching Saw on principle, but maybe Rifftrax is the way to do it.
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Torgo
Moderator Emeritus
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Post by Torgo on Oct 23, 2017 13:24:43 GMT -5
Day Twenty-ThreeFilm Year: 1998 Director: Roland Emmerich Starring: Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Maria Pitillo, Hank Azaria, Kevin Dunn, Michael Lerner, Harry Shearer Riff Year: 2014 (Live riff also in 2014) Riffers: Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett Selected Short: Molly Grows Up There are some conversational topics that most men will avoid at all costs. Guessing a woman's age, Barbra Streisand's Yentl, and the appeal of Justin Bieber rank high among them. But there is one subject that rises above even these, one issue guaranteed to turn even the proudest male into a red-faced, mumbling fool. And that particular health concern is...well, you know. With the discomfort, and the products...come on, don't make me. Lunar cycles, and that thing you hear about girls living in the same dorm--oh YOU KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!! Go to your room.
Molly Grows Up is the story of a girl asking the tough questions. Like most children, she can't wait to become an adult, despite all evidence that it's really not all it's cracked up to be. When will it be her turn? When will she finally get to be encumbered by a cruel monthly beast hell-bent on her misery and embarrassment? There are plenty of women in her life ready to provide ambiguous information that hardly qualifies as "advice". There's the school nurse, who is far too interested in Molly and probably smells like cats. Then, Molly's mother, who seems to be sedated with those "nerve pills" they used to give unsatisfied housewives. And of course, Molly's sister, the middle-aged teen. Will Molly learn the horrible truth? Will her father successfully avoid the conversation altogether?
Join Mike, Kevin and Bill as they try desperately to be excused from Health Class before the showing of Molly Grows Up.Initially I had Molly Grows Up paired with one of the Twilight movies, because I thought the idea of pairing a menstruation short with a Twilight film was crudely hilarious. But I had a bit of difficulty finding a short for Godzilla, but remembered the fanboy controversy about the title lizard laying eggs in this movie. So I thought this short would be very handy for any you Godzillas who might be growing up into fine young ladies. Hahaha? Okay it’s not that funny, but I still needed a short. Needless to say Molly Grows Up is that dreaded “other film” they showed the girls in another room when the school decided we needed to be warned about puberty. Almost thankfully the short isn’t too graphic, with one line about bloody panties being about as detailed as it gets. I don’t quite know how helpful this short really is, because it doesn’t quite answer any questions. It mostly spends its runtime with a lot of dreamlike glaring at Molly by older ladies saying “My my, Molly is growing up.” If the guys are phased by doing a menstruation short, they don’t show it. They might be almost a bit too enthusiastic about it. Still the riffing is quite good, and there’s a lot of dead space for them to do it in too. Like myself, they question some of the advice given in the short. But I’m not a woman, so I don’t know why it’s good to dance but not okay to square dance while on my period. Decades before somebody had the revolutionary idea to do a Godzilla remake that was “good” or “cool”, Hollywood hired the director of 2012 to make one that would be neither of those things but would instead have an ad campaign co-starring the Taco Bell chihuahua.
Matthew Broderick stars as Dr. Niko Tatopoulos, because obviously when you have a character named Niko Tatopoulos, you get Matthew Broderick to play him. Co-starring is the hit Puff Daddy single “Almost Certainly the Low Point of Jimmy Page’s Career” (Sample lyrics: Uh-huh, Yeah, uuh / Uh-huh, Yeah, uuh.) And in all the commercials they showed that part where the guy gets stomped on. Somehow this is a two and a half hour long movie.
About as scary as the Tamagotchi you had back in 1998 and about as loud and obnoxious as the Prodigy CD you were listening to that summer, Godzilla was one of the biggest RiffTrax Live titles we’ve ever done. Join Mike, Kevin, Bill, and roughly 82% of the cast of The Simpsons for this studio MP3 version of Godzilla!(Oddly enough I can’t find a sample of the riff on YouTube, though Rifftrax has one on their page here) It was about eight years before Rifftrax got to one of their most requested titles, the 1998 Hollywood remake of Godzilla. For some weird reason the stars really had to align for this one, because not only did they establish a relationship with Sony the previous year, but really the Live riff of this movie was really only done because Godzilla was re-remade in 2014 and they used that hype machine to help build to this Live event. I don’t really have an explanation for why all of this needed to happen for them to riff this reviled film, but it’s really strange when they already had other Roland Emmerich films like Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow under their belts. As for my opinion on the movie, I don’t really have one. I’ve never hidden the fact that I’m a fan of the Godzilla franchise and I’ve been told time and time again by fans (most of which who are much younger than I am, I might add) that I have to hate this movie. I find it silly to hate it, and hilarious that people get angry at it. It’s a big, dumb movie. So what? I was thirteen when this movie came out, and I can say pretty definitively that almost all thirteen-year-olds that I knew at school really liked this movie. That might be the case for a film snob to scoff at, “A movie made for thirteen-year-old boys,” but hell, thirteen-year-olds like to watch movies. What’s so wrong about them liking a silly destruction porn flick about a giant lizard? If that was the movie’s aim then it hit a bullseye. As to the claim that it “destroyed” Godzilla’s legacy...did it, really? Mainstream Americans think of Godzilla as a silly low budget monster movie with a sweaty Japanese guy in a rubber suit. What was there to destroy? Mostly I think the intention with the film was to make Godzilla a bit “sexier” (for the lack of a better term) for the mainstream moviegoer by fusing it between the two biggest box office juggernauts of the 90’s, Jurassic Park and Independence Day. Does it go against Godzilla’s traditional character? Sure, I guess. It tried something different for the character. It failed, so there’s that. Mostly the movie just exists. I thought it was fun when it came out, though as I got older I really just kinda grew out of it. But I never hated it. I’ve never really hated any Roland Emmerich “poopie blowing up” movie. And I’ll be honest, I’d rather sit through Emmerich’s style of explosion over that of Michael Bay. Given the choice between Godzilla and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, I’ll pick Godzilla every time. I wish I could say I watched the Live version of this riff, but since Sony plays hardball with VOD rights Godzilla is one of a handful of Live shows that hasn’t seen a VOD or DVD release. Also of this lot: Starship Troopers, Anaconda, The Room, Mothra, and (presumably) Doctor Who: The Five Doctors. A few months after the Live show a studio riff was posted on the website, but how does it stack up? I saw the initial Live show in theaters and it was a hoot. From what I remember this studio Trax is pretty faithful to the script from the show. Unfortunately it just doesn’t have the energy. There’s something of a lack of enthusiasm, but that might be because I’m missing the Live energy flowing through the room. If Rifftrax were to release a Live audio riff like they did with The Room, I’d definitely be interested. It’s not without it’s fun moments. There’s a noticeable pick-me-up whenever Godzilla is running around. They also do well at pointing out the logical flaws and silly dialogue. It’s a riff that’s worth checking out for it’s high moments, but given the movie bloats itself well past two-hours, when the riff gets slow you can feel it.
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Torgo
Moderator Emeritus
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Post by Torgo on Oct 24, 2017 12:22:39 GMT -5
Day Twenty-FourFilm Year: 1979 Director: Ridley Scott Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Yaphet Kotto, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, Ian Holm, John Hurt Riff Year: 2008 Riffers: Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett Selected Short: Safety: Harm Hides at Home (also riffed by Michael J. Nelson) Your home is crawling with hazards! You are not safe! EVERYTHING WILL KILL YOU! In fact, never mind, because you're already dead; killed by your stupid house. That, at least, is the heartwarming message of the short Safety: Harm Hides at Home. "But RiffTrax," you say, "many shorts have already exposed the obvious truth that my home is a deadly, sinister trap, ready to spring at any moment. What's so great about this one?" Aha! Do other shorts feature the groovy safety dominatrix Guardiana? Well, one other one does, but then so does this one!
So buy it and laugh* along with Mike, Kevin and Bill.
*A thin, strangled laugh designed to cover up your growing panic as you realize your house is trying to murder you.Aware! Alert! ALIVE! Not all aliens are out to kill you. This short features friendly extraterrestrials seeking out every worthy crossguard on the planet and bestow superpowers upon them. This particular crossguard becomes Guardiana the Safety Woman! In this short she saves a kid from cooking a hamburger and scolds a refrigerator vandal of handling a gun. This ill-advised attempt at making safety “look cool” is pretty hilarious on its own. If anything the riffs are just seasoning, but they do love to pick at the funny effects, squeaky alien voices, and Guardiana’s knack for digression onto different safety topics that aren’t relevant. This short is an all-time favorite and Guardiana has since become one of my favorite Rifftrax characters. And now our feature presentation... Hey you young whippersnappers -- you thought that "Alien" was just Predator's sparring partner, didn't you? Not so, Padawans. "Alien" (who, in a series of HUGE coincidences, happens to BE an alien, AND stars in the movie ALIEN! Weird!!) first took Hollywood by storm during the heady, Jimmy Carter-filled days of 1979....back when a long, long pan over a hot-glued spaceship miniature made the first generation of geeks wheeze in delight, and reach for their inhalers. ALIEN starred a pair of plain white underpants worn by a young, little-known actress named Sigourney Weaver.... who later went on to start in ALIENs 2 though 37. (The underpants retired to Sedona, AZ. shortly after filming.) It also featured a pre-Hobbit Sir Ian Holm, a pre-wand-wizard John Hurt, and a pre-Mormon Mafioso Harry Dean Stanton. And you'll never forget Bursty, the impish-but-loveable little chestbursting alien baby! Join Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy as they riff on this sci-fi / horror / underpants classic. NOTE: This RiffTrax Presents will only work with the Director's Cut of Alien!Kevin and Bill find themselves Mike-less once again in this riff of the sci-fi classic Alien. Well, to be more specific it’s the 2003 re-edited version of the sci-fi classic Alien which almost everybody ignores. I’m actually somewhat amazed they chose the director’s cut to riff for this Trax, since they usually go straight to the theatrical edit (except in those cases where they use an alternate cut by accident ::cough::Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country::cough:: ). In the case of Alien, using the director’s cut doesn’t really make a lot of sense, since every DVD of the flick had the theatrical version and only special editions carried the director’s cut. But whatever the reason, this riff exists and hey, I just happen to have a director’s cut of Alien to watch, so I win either way. Personally for me, Alien is one of those movies I respect more than I enjoy. Honestly I have that reaction with a lot of Ridley Scott’s movies (save the occasional Thelma & Louise or Matchstick Men). Like a lot of his work, Alien is very pretty to look at but the plotting, characters, and construction of it just aren’t my tempo. It’s a movie I find very little interest in outside of how well made it is. Even Sigourney Weaver, who is a great actress, doesn’t do much for me here. Her iconic character of Ripley is basically just another asshole in a cast of assholes. It wasn’t really until the sequel that I started to enjoy her as a character (and most of that is regulated to extended cut of that particular film). I wasn’t sure how well Alien would lend itself to riffing, because of the pure craftsmanship involved there’s not a lot to poke fun at. One thing I didn’t take into account is just how little dialogue is in the movie, and the Rifftrax for it is saturated if nothing else. If you want bang for your buck on jokes, this Alien riff will provide you with almost nonstop dialogue between Kevin and Bill. And during the lengthy portions of the film where little to nothing is going on except searching or running, Kevin and Bill even put on little skits for our amusement. But are there jokes at the movie’s expense? Yeah, of course there is. There’s a lot said about how drawn out the movie is, but what pleased me is that they don’t fall back on generic “I’m bored” riffs. They turn it into something of a gag where they portray themselves as an audience with ADD, and it’s pretty funny. There’s also reference to how dated the film is technology-wise, with a great quip early on that this technology pre-dated Windows...and it ran better. Alien pleasantly surprised me. This was a Trax I’ve had for a while because I wasn’t convinced that the movie was workable, but this is a really solid effort. Occasionally it does lapse a bit as the movie drones on a bit, but this is a wonderful entry in the Rifftrax Presents catalogue.
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Post by majorjoe23 on Oct 24, 2017 12:44:31 GMT -5
The fact The they riffed I’m the directors cut of Alien reminds me of another odd choice they made: splitting the riff of the theatrical version of Fellowship of the ring into two MP3s. The most common DVD Release of the film was on one disc, but I guess they thought people would be getting the then-newly released set that housed seemless branching to split both the extended edition and the theatrical cut over two discs.
It made the riff a pain to watch for me.
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Torgo
Moderator Emeritus
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Posts: 15,420
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Post by Torgo on Oct 24, 2017 13:39:11 GMT -5
The fact The they riffed I’m the directors cut of Alien reminds me of another odd choice they made: splitting the riff of the theatrical version of Fellowship of the ring into two MP3s. The most common DVD Release of the film was on one disc, but I guess they thought people would be getting the then-newly released set that housed seemless branching to split both the extended edition and the theatrical cut over two discs. It made the riff a pain to watch for me. I think now they have both the full edition and split version offered now. At least last time I checked my Lord of the Rings page I think that was there. Could be wrong. (Edit: Just double checked, and yes there's a single disc version there) The edition I had back when they were first released was the split version, because I got those real cheap. It worked out fine for me, but I thought to myself "man this must be a pain in the ass for those with the single-sided disc."
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