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Post by mstgator on Jul 7, 2006 20:09:43 GMT -5
On a pseudo-related note, this is the first of several MST3K movies to be excerpted on another of my favorite shows - look for the laboratory scene in a game of Film Dub on “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” "There are no good roles for Latinos!"
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Post by Cleolanta on Jul 8, 2006 1:44:56 GMT -5
Sorry I haven't been replying much lately (and these are "my episodes", or the era I enjoy talking about the most, too! Just because, as said earlier, hardly anybody ever _does_ talk about them in detail) but I haven't been feeling well. Actually I am feeling rather icky right now, too, but anyway...
"The Slime People: The story of Hollywood in the early years!" (laughs) You pretty much picked up on the bits of it that I liked/remembered best, including my very favourite riff (about finding a blonde hair in a field of wheat...in the fog...at night) and my favourite host segment. I LOVED the one where they end up lampooning their own show's concept. I liked it enough, in fact, that I wound that bit back and typed up a transcript of it on my computer (I was _watching_ it on my computer at the time, which made this easier than otherwise) so that I could remember the lines/show it to my friend sometime. I'm aware you can probably already find typed up transcripts of host segments on several sites, but I wanted to do it myself. I felt like it. :P
Project Moonbase
Oh my GODDESS did this one ever insult the crap out of me. You are, far and away, _not_ the first or only MSTie to be shocked at how chauvanist this movie is, _even for its time_. Sometimes I get the urge to just _reach_ through the screen somehow and STRANGLE a character, well, this movie gave me that feeling in spades. Only I wanted to strangle the whole movie, pretty much. Even Colonel Briteis, who wasn't really acting tough or cool at all ("I'm getting lonely!") She's not a feminist character--she's actually a _reactionary_ character...male chauvanists showing their idea of what would "really" happen if women got rights, making fun of the concept. I've seen other things like this--old fantasy novels, for example, in which yes, we have a Queen ruling the country, but tee-hee, look how _silly_ she is, and weak, and bad at it, tee-hee! Ooh, lookit the silly little _girl_, thinking she can run a country! How funny! Ha ha!
Seriously, it's that vibe.
But enough of that (sorry, I'm a feminist--and in the REAL sense of the word, not the stereotype sense that people tend to think of) so that part of the movie bothers me more than it might bother others...the "playground ball" and "frisbee" bit cracked me up, too. The special effects were BEYOND pathetic! Sheesh.
The water-juggling is truly weird. I've always kinda wondered exactly how did he do that...
And remember: SPACOM! For all your SPACOM needs! Keep an ear out, you'll hear SPACOM! mentioned at least a couple other times I can think of, too. Such as, tossed quickly into a list of ingredients in a host segment in "First Spaceship on Venus", if I remember correctly...
"Robot Holocaust"
This has gotta be one of the _cheesiest_, stupidest, and most PAINFULLY '80s movies (and this is coming from someobdy who actually _likes_ some aspects of the '80s, here) since Hobgoblins, which it somewhat reminds me of. (Well, they both have "monsters" which are really obviously just puppets of some kind...) Is it just me, or is having the evil guy's lair be at the power station in the first place kind of odd? I mean...that's not where the lair ITSELF should be. The power station is the kind of thing that the good guys might try to take out in order to sabotage the bad guy's works, but what self-respecting supervillian would hang out in a grimy old electrical/mechanical type place? You want a PALACE, with velvet carpets and big spacious rooms, yo!
...anyway. Seriously, that just struck me partway through the movie and I couldn't shake the thought...
A favourite bit: "Well, yeah, I _guess_ it's a wilderness, if you ignore that huge CITY right back there!" (cracks up) Oh, man. People, people, do not, repeat, NOT, _ever_ try to pass Central Park off as a "wilderness"! Can't we have a rule that, in the future, films have to be made by film_makers_...?
"What are they looking for, anyway...clothing?!"
We can't just STAND here! CROW: Well, technically, you can. I mean, it's possible.
You're like the second person in a row to describe Torque a "an evil Dr. Zoidberg", by the way...my best e-friend, who is also a bit of a MSTie but doesn't post here, has been watching the episodes in order too, and seems to be about at the same place you are...and _she_ described him exactly the same way in her last letter to me, too.
I've said before that this episode feels like a Sci-Fi episode, and I think you have hit on exactly why: It's got that very '80s look that WOULD have been, and _was_, frequently, ripped to shreds in the Sci-Fi years. Here it wasn't. I don't know if I'd say that I missed that specifically and thought it brought the piece down, but I do know that I just kept feeling like I was watching this episode through a _time warp_, like somehow this movie had been ripped through time and delivered to the wrong SOL crew by accident...
As for the Plant Guy names that were on the show, I think my favourite was the Man from P.R.O.D.U.C.E, but that's just me. Heh.
"Moon Zero Two"
Aha, somebody else who actually kind of _likes_ the movie itself! I agree, I could see myself watching this one un-MSTed, sometime. The really scary thing? If "Moonopoly" existed (and I have the feeling that somewhere out there, a custom-made Monopoly version based off of the Moon _does_ exist, if only in the private collection of the nerd who made it for his own laughs one day)...I'd play it. I would. :P The guy who played Kemp was also in The Andromeda Strain, a "legitimate" sci-fi movie, if that means anything. It does mean that I recognised him right away, at least. And Crow's Cockney Thug voice COMPLETELY cracked me up. I had the hardest time telling whether it was the real guy talking or Crow, with almost every line!--which is one reason why I say that Trace was a pretty good voice artist. And the "zero-G" barfight...
Yet again, it seems like the two of us picked up on/liked the same parts of the episode, at least in some ways, because I referenced the zero-g barfight in one of my text MSTings _and_ had Joel get up and shake his tailfeathers again! (until the 'bots BEGGED him to stop. :P) I just love that bit where he gets up and dances wildly all over the theater...I was on the _floor_.
I also count this one as one of my favourites of Season 1, and my friend who got "converted" by Robot Monster would agree--this episode happened to be next on the tape, and since I was sick I was just lying back and letting the tape play whatever...anyway, she had to leave about 20 minutes into the episode, but was _dragging_ herself out the door. Seriously. You could tell--she had to _force_ herself to leave and not keep watching. Bwahaha!
"Untamed Youth"
I should probably keep this short, as this post is already WAY too long! (serve me right for letting the things I want to respond to build up like this...) but I have to say...I don't get this movie either, it's very bizzarre, but there are some great riffs ("Get back to your cotton-pickin'!"/ "My cotton-pickin' _what_?!"), Mamie is cool, but I think so for different reasons (heh), and the girl doesn't really look that much like Greg Brady to me, either. And the downer moments...gah. You really can't tell what the filmmakers were trying to do with this movie, no. Other than show Mamie in her underwear, of course. :P
"The Black Scorpion"
The weenie-roasting sight gag at the beginning made me COMPLETELY lose it, 'cos I had _no_ idea they were going to do that, and while sight-gags with Joel are common, to have all THREE do it at once is really rare. This is one episode that benefitted from the fact that you _don't_ hear about it very often/very much, in my opinion. I mean, that bit wouldn't have made me laugh anywhere near as hard if I had been expecting it...
Some good riffs, including the part about touching the electrified thing with a metal pole ("Here, let me stand in this puddle first") and PANIC DAYS! and selling off people, etc. I really could have done with quite a few less of the drooling-head shots, such as oh, say, none? and I think the movie's title is a little odd. As others have said before me, isn't the fact that the scorpions are _big_ more noticeable than their mere colour?! :P
And the bad subtitles sketch cracked me up, too. I count myself as at least a little bit politically correct, but that didn't offend me. That was still on the "good-natured ribbing" side of the spectrum, in my opinion. (Example, with me and MST, to give you an idea of the borderlines? The Japan-ribbing in the Gamera movies: Funny and okay. The Japan-_bashing_ in Prince of Space/Invasion of the Neptune Men: Not funny and bad. "With loud retort!"=okay, "violent porn comics"=no.) I, too, freeze-framed the subtitles to be able to read them all. Heh.
PHEW! That was long, even by my standards. Shutting up now..._finally_!
...Notorious
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Post by jjb3k on Jul 8, 2006 17:24:50 GMT -5
Ah, Cleo, I always get a kick out of reading your reactions to these episodes - a good kick, that is. We do seem to share a lot of the same thoughts on this show, don't we?
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104 "Women of the Prehistoric Planet" Watched: June 2, 2006
Uugghhhh...I hate this movie. I want to do bad things to it. I can’t think of a single redeeming quality it has...no wait, Linda and Tang end up together in the end. I guess that’s pretty cool. Other than that, it’s just an endless barrage of hurting on my soul. First off, the two spaceships use the exact same set and the crews use the exact same costumes, so I had no idea who was who or what was where or even what was happening for the first half hour of the film. Secondly, I can’t understand a damn word Wendell Corey says. Thirdly, I want to punch Paul Gilbert in the mouth because he’s so painfully unfunny. Fourthly, every character in this movie (except for Linda and Tang, both of whom I actually had sympathy for) is just utterly despicable on every level imaginable. Fifthly, the special effects are insultingly cheap. Sixthly, the “twist ending” makes me want to kick someone in the teeth. I boldly state without hyperbole that this is the worst movie the show has done at this point in the series - I hate it, I hate it, I hate it! And thankfully, all that hate results in a boatload of laughs when Joel and the bots tear this pretentious mother to shreds. From the ribbing at Tang’s name (“Tang gonna go take a powder...wait a minute, Tang IS powder!”) to the induction of “Hi-keeba” into the MSTie lexicon (“Boy, I could watch that all day. Do that again, would ya?”), the guys score hit after hit with this stinkburger. And as Joel notes, why the hell is this movie called “Women of the Prehistoric Planet”? THERE AREN’T EVEN ANY WOMEN NATIVE TO THE PLANET! Bad movie! No cookie! Go sit in the corner and think about what you did!
As for the host segments, I’m a little disappointed that there aren’t any skits based on the movie, because I’m sure that the Brains could have done an extra-good job parodying specific scenes. But still, the Isaac Asimov Literary Doomsday Device still offers up a good-sized chunk of laughs, from Mike Nelson’s performance as the device itself (his first role! Woo-hoo!) to Crow’s attempt at translating the Korean instruction booklet (“Who wrote this? Charlie Callas?”) and the goofy Asimov getups that the guys end up in (I love it when Servo tries to remove his and ends up knocking his whole head off). Plus, we get the winning results of the Name the Plant Guy contest from 110 (I agree, The Man from P.R.O.D.U.C.E. is hilarious), and the invention exchange presents us with one of the best early original songs, the Clay and Lar’s Flesh Barn jingle. Josh is pretty good on the guitar, I must admit.
A worthy conclusion to Season 1. This season had its ups and downs, as well as a special charm all its own. But as we all know, even bigger things lie ahead...
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201 "Rocketship X-M" Watched: June 5, 2006
With Josh Weinstein off in Hollywood to seek his fortune, MST3K goes through a big ol’ revision. Not only do we get Kevin Murphy as Servo’s new puppeteer and Frank Conniff (funny, funny man) as TV’s Frank, but both the SOL and Deep 13 sets are completely rebuilt. The Satellite of Love looks a lot busier now with all that stuff glued to the wall and the Hexfield Viewscreen on the left, while Deep 13 looks more mysterious with the new doors and the dangly pipes. Clearly, the Brains are setting themselves up for lots more fun this season.
But first, the movie. I’ve heard stories about how “Rocketship X-M” was supposedly this landmark film in the science fiction genre because it was the first one to plausibly depict space travel as something real. I’ll give it that, but damn, they sure make it look like a bad idea, don’t they? Meteor showers, engine malfunctions...plus, the poor schmucks overshoot the moon entirely and land on Mars, where a bunch of cavemen pelt them with rocks (this is about where I stopped taking the movie seriously). Lloyd “By this time my lungs were aching for air” Bridges professes his love to Osa “Don’t call me a chick” Massen before they all crash and die. Yeah, now I’m really upbeat. But Joel and the bots have no problem - right away, you can tell that the writing is getting sharper and smarter. Riffs come faster, there are fewer dead spots, and the guys deliver their riffs with a stronger sense of clarity - no longer does it have the air of improvisation that I detected in several Season 1 episodes. There’s still some stuff to iron out (the “Valderee, valdera”/”boom-shaka-laka-laka” bit drags on a little bit too long for my tastes), but it’s still a big step up.
That’s your movie, how about the rest of the show? I got a kick out of the explanations for all the changes on the show - Joel redecorated the SOL and installed a new voice in Servo (though at this point, it sounds a lot like Kevin is trying to imitate Josh), while Dr. Erhardt went “missing”. Right from his first skit, Frank makes it apparent that things are gonna be different in Deep 13 from now on (boy, where did they come up with the rope-through-the-hinder thing?). I love Joel’s BGC-19 drum machine, the overwritten bombastic qualities of “The Reporters of Rocketship X-M”, and the showcase of the Best Brains sensibility in Segment 3 (“Uh, you keep meat in this...” “Your mouth?”). And Segment 4 puts the very early and very primitive Hexfield Viewscreen to work with Mike Nelson’s first onscreen appearance. I can imagine what this skit must have been like for people who missed 110; they must have been totally in the dark. At least it’s made apparent that Mike is quite the actor. Finally, I got a kick out of Joel’s line “Why didn’t you just send us ‘Marooned’?”, knowing that he’ll basically get that very movie to launch Season 4.
Fun stuff all around. This is truly the start of the modern era of MST3K, where everything starts to fall into place.
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Post by jjb3k on Jul 10, 2006 23:19:13 GMT -5
202 "The Sidehackers" Watched: June 6, 2006
Looking in the opening credits, I noticed that this movie gave special thanks to something called the “California Sidehack Association”, which leads me to believe that sidehacking was actually a real sport at one point. Whoever decided that it was interesting enough to carry a movie was dead wrong, however. This movie has nothing to do with sidehacking, and unfortunately, it has everything to do with rape and murder and revenge and all sorts of nasty stuff. I don’t like anybody in this movie, but I especially despise the snake-in-the-grass known as JC (which I suppose is a success on the movie’s part, since he’s a character whom you’re not supposed to like). Watching him smack his cohorts around and strangle Paisley to death, this was the first time in my marathon that a movie actually made me feel physically uncomfortable. The movie is just a humongous downer with no redeeming qualities at all (the attempt at comic relief - namely, that lame joke that Crapout tries to tell - just crashes and burns on every level imaginable), and that really hurts the riffing. I found myself actually forcing bigger laughs in order to keep my mind off the filth of the movie. That’s not to say that it’s a totally lost cause, because Joel and the bots do manage to score some good zingers, and even Cambot gets in on the action in a bit that I really liked. But ultimately, the slimy underbelly of the movie manages to overpower the humor, and I left this one just feeling flat-out depressed.
The host segments at least offer some saving grace. I love it when the bots act like little kids around Joel, so the intro made me smile. I also adore Gretchen the Slinky - Joel has some great line reads during this bit while he once again keeps his eyes firmly on the monitor. I guess this episode firmly establishes that Gerry and Sylvia work the cameras down in Deep 13 now, which is nice, because seeing Dr. F fiddle with the controls all the time got kinda distracting. “Sidehackin’ is the Thing to Do” and “Only Love Pads the Film” are both wonderful examples of Mike Nelson’s songwriting abilities, and despite a slightly overkill use of the race footage from the movie, Segment 3 still scored a good deal of laughs. Of course, the best bit here is Segment 4, with Mike back in the Hexfield as JC (again, the man can really act). I notice that Frank seems to be utterly bewildered as Gooch - I guess they originally planned to have Frank portray a number of side characters, but after this, they decided that he worked best as Dr. F’s sidekick. Probably a wise choice, if his eye-darting performance here is any indicator.
Despite some decent host segments, the movie drags the episode down into a painful abyss of doom and gloom. Thank God BBI started screening their movies beforehand after this one.
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203 "Jungle Goddess" (With short "The Phantom Creeps" Chapter 1) Watched: June 6, 2006
With short movies come short subjects, and with Commando Cody all burnt out, BBI moves on to what has to be the lamest serial ever produced, “The Phantom Creeps”. Bela Lugosi humiliates himself again, the poor dope, with a fake beard and a coupla fakey exploding spiders - where the hell do they come up with this stuff? He’s also got a giant butt-ugly robot and a big honkin’ invisibility belt, but frankly I have no idea what the Sam Hill he plans to do with all of this because the film is so washed out that I can’t understand a damn word of the dialogue. I smell another paper-thin plot to be stretched over 12 installments...thank God the Brains only did three of them.
As for the movie, it’s another one of those blasted Lippert films. Fortunately, it’s a fairly straightforward story, so there aren’t many lame optical effects (save for the incredibly stupid binoculars scenes - didn’t anybody in post-production realize how dumb it was to show stock footage of jungle animals in gobo shots from a freakin’ airplane?). Instead, we get a tale of white male supremacy, which I understand was all the rage in 1948. I’m surprised that MST3K was allowed to do this movie in the extremely PC early 1990s, but they do manage to do a good job of exposing its every patronizing weakness, and it’s got a lot of them, from the impressionable Manama to the weird native guy who yammers incoherently with little or no provocation. And of course, there’s the fact that the natives only worship Greta because she’s white...and then there’s Ted, shooting everything he doesn’t understand...dang, this is an insulting movie on so many levels. However, it did manage to make me hungry for a hamburger sammich and some french-fried potaters.
This episode’s fist two host segments are among my favorites - from the game of hide and seek (“Ready or not, here we exist!”) to the hilarious invention exchange. I love the campiness of that mirror box, and even though you can see the joke coming a mile away when the RC saw starts circling around Joel’s feet, it’s still hilarious when it happens - the coughing up of the sawdust was the kicker for me. Segment 2 is a little long, and the special effects are even cheaper than in the short, but I love Crow and Servo’s English accents. In that same vein, Segment 3 contains some of my favorite impressions from the ‘bots (their Hoke and Daisy are especially funny, considering I had to study the screenplay for “Driving Miss Daisy” for an English class years ago), and Segment 4 is another hilarious Hexfield visit, this time from both Mike and Jim as the movie’s white devils. And “My White Goddess” is a great capper for the episode, as is Frank’s puny little mocking voice (“Just push the button...just push the button...”). I notice that, even though this is Frank’s third episode, this is the first time that he himself actually pushes the button.
A highly satisfactory episode, in spite of the heavily pretentious movie. In cases like this, it helps to be able to stick it to the filmmakers like that.
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Post by jjb3k on Jul 13, 2006 22:55:26 GMT -5
204 "Catalina Caper" Watched: June 7, 2006
Every so often, I wonder what life was like in the 1960s. Then along comes a movie like this that pretty much spells it out for me - apparently, it was just bikini babes and not much else. Judging by most of the ‘60s movies I’ve seen before, having a plot wasn’t considered cool back then. This movie, however, does have a plot, but it doesn’t really care about it. In fact, if you cut out the subplot and all the padding/musical numbers, I think the actual “Catalina caper” part of the movie would only be about 15 minutes long. The rest of it gets filled out with pointless musical numbers, worthless cameo appearances, Robert Donner making a fool of himself (ha ha, he fell in the water with all his clothes on! It’s funny!...the first time, maybe), and the bizarrely-hairstyled Ulla “Creepy Girl” Stromstedt yammering about a fish or something. This is like an acid trip without the groovy colors...unless you count that one guy’s hat. Add to this a Jim Backus-wannabe sea captain, a bald guy named Lakopolous, a poorly-animated opening credit sequence, and about a million failed attempts at humor, and you get the main reason why everyone’s happy that the 1960s only lasted ten years. It’s a real deviation for Joel and the bots, though - not only is it not science fiction, but it’s a comedy (or at least it’s supposed to be). Can the guys fight failed humor with their own humor? Yes, but not very well - the riffing stays firmly in the middle of the road, neither veering towards horrible or spectacular. A lot of it is sarcastic courtesy laughs at the thoroughly unfunny antics of the characters, though the musical numbers do offer up some of their better efforts. It’s hard not to point out the stupidity of a scene in which the guys win back their angry girlfriends by dancing.
Of course, when you mention this episode, the first thing that comes to mind is Servo’s “Creepy Girl” song. For the past three episodes, Kevin Murphy has basically just been following in Josh Weinstein’s footsteps - he hadn’t really done anything special with Tom Servo’s personality. Here, however, Murphy puts his lavish tenor voice to work as he instills Servo with a performer’s spirit, setting him towards the transformation to the lovably acerbic and boisterous little fireplug we all know and love. As for the rest of the host segments, they generally score some good round laughs. I love the Mads’ Tank Tops - bitterly evil, yet undeniably genius - and Joel’s neverending vapor-locking account of 1960s culture (“You’re getting a shopping cart for your birthday!” is another line I need to start using more often). Frank’s Tupperware party in Segment 4 doesn’t really go anywhere and only elicits mild chuckles, but it’s worth it for the payoff at the end with Frank’s eye in the fruit salad - gross, but it still made me guffaw.
Teen movies are usually a veritable goldmine for the Brains, but it usually helps if those films deal with easily lampoonable teen angst. When it’s all parties and beach babes, it doesn’t fuel the riff fire too efficiently. Well, live and learn.
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205 "Rocket Attack USA" (With short "The Phantom Creeps" Chapter 2) Watched: June 7, 2006
Bela Lugosi’s back, and this time he’s shaved. There’s more stuff with exploding spiders and giant robots and invisibility belts, but really, I’ve now watched two chapters of this thing and I still have no friggin’ idea what’s going on. There’s a guy and a thing, and some more guys who have some stuff, and everyone wears the same hat...at one point, I just stared at my shoes for a while, and I was more entertained than the serial could have hoped to make me. Joel and the bots have a ball, though, whipping out their Bela impressions at the drop of a hat - really, I think the only reason that BBI did this serial was so that Joel, Trace, and Kevin could talk like that.
Now, onto the movie, which reminds all us innocent Americans that the Commies will kill us all if we don’t crush them now, now, NOW! God help me, but I love overblown propaganda, and this fits the bill nicely. It also helps that not only is the movie’s message thoroughly pointless (did Communism ever really threaten to tear America apart at the seams in the 1950s? I didn’t think so), but its production values are hysterically low. Note how brief the shots of the rocket are when it’s in space, no doubt to draw attention away from the fact that it’s so butt-cheap. Lots of nothing goes on in this movie - American spy hangs out in his female contact’s closet while she goes boinkski-boinkski with the Russian equivalent of Tor Johnson, then they both fail miserably in their attempt to blow up the rocket (love that positive portrayal of American government intelligence!) And then, much much slower than you can say “Duck and cover”, the Soviets bomb the phrack out of New York, vaporizing the fat couple and the blind guy - assuming nobody stopped to help him like he wanted. It’s all so utterly stupid, and Joel and the bots tear into it with grim accuracy, whether it’s pointing out the fact that the missile casts no shadow whatsoever or poking fun at the intermittent narrator. Loud, booming laughs - that’s what this episode offers.
Servo goes for the cylindrical look with a new gumball dispenser, which apparently served no real purpose according to what I’ve heard (Kevin Murphy said they only did it ‘cause they could). These inventions are getting more extravagant - dig the little Forresters and Franks on the water polo foosball table. While most of Joel’s “artist’s renderings” host segments tend to be hit-or-miss for me, this one cracked me up - primarily because I’ve studied 1950s television before and I’m familiar with all those puppets and other various characters. The Civil Defense Quiz Bowl is a hoot, too, and again, it helps that I’ve studied the stuff they’re making fun of (the paranoia of the Cold War, in this case). And then, talk about serendipity - Mike’s back in the newly-perfected Hexfield as a guy (albeit a Russian guy) trapped in space with two robot buddies, and he’s once again hilarious (“Tell your American glory vocalist Billy Joel that he did nothing for Glasnost”). But the real kicker - we get the first stinger! I don’t think there was any better choice for the inaugural stinger than “Help me.”
Funny, funny stuff. This is the sort of movie that MST3K does best - loaded with pretension and shoving its beliefs down the audiences throat. And Joel and the bots are right there with the Ipecac.
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Post by Cleolanta on Jul 13, 2006 23:52:58 GMT -5
I'm afraid I don't have much to say about your reviews of Jungle Goddess, Catalina Caper and Rocket Attack U.S.A...'cos I pretty much agreed with most of what you said. (That, and I've been typing a lot these past few days--my hands are tired!) But I will say a little trivia bit...did you get a good look at that jumpsuit that Mike the "Cosmonaut" was wearing?
...didn't it look, oh, I don't know, just a smidge FAMILIAR?
;)
Anyway, I like Rocket Attack USA. It was one of my first episodes (through reruns, obviously, since I came in when Season 4 was current.) and therefore is one of the ones I've seen the most often...and I still like it anyway. :) If you like overdone propaganda, wait 'til you hit "Invasion U.S.A." OH my freaking flying flipping _goddesses_...
...Notorious
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Post by jjb3k on Jul 13, 2006 23:58:06 GMT -5
But I will say a little trivia bit...did you get a good look at that jumpsuit that Mike the "Cosmonaut" was wearing? ...didn't it look, oh, I don't know, just a smidge FAMILIAR? ;) Indeed it did - clearly, the Brains held on to more KTMA souvenirs than I thought. I think I also spotted it flying through the SOL during Segment 4 of "Pod People", and I think Frank throws it in with Dr. F's lab coats in Segment 1 of "The Creeping Terror". Boy, it sure gets around...
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Post by Truck Farmer on Jul 14, 2006 0:31:02 GMT -5
jjb3k you're doing a fine job with your reviews, but I had to bring up something from Rocket Attack that I really liked. I just watched this one for the first time in the last week, and the host segment with Mike was great. But what really got me there was Booga, Booga, Booga.
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Post by jjb3k on Jul 16, 2006 13:44:25 GMT -5
Indeed, I too got a laugh from Mike's booga-ing. He's just a funny guy overall, no matter what part he plays...
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206 "Ring of Terror" (With short "The Phantom Creeps" Chapter 3) Watched: June 8, 2006
The first time I saw this episode, I didn’t dig it much. It primarily had to do with the fact that I just had it on in the background while I was doing other stuff. So when the time came to rewatch it for my marathon, I vowed to give it an honest chance - and it floored me! What was once at the bottom of my Season 2 rankings is now another hilarious winner for the series. And why? Well, for starters, the movie is hopelessly inept on every level imaginable, some of which haven’t even been discovered yet. I mean, it’s not really a scary movie, so what is it? Comedy? Action? Romance? A piece of lint? We first have to sit through about 10 minutes of this John Carradine wannabe running around his graveyard looking for his cat (I thought I’d never get the word “Pyuma” out of my head) before we get to the movie itself, which is about...nothing. Well, there’s a fifty-year-old college student involved, and I know that he does stuff, but damned if I can figure out what, let alone why I should care. There’s a band, and some fat people who love to eat (see, ‘cause they’re fat), and something about a corpse with a ring and the ring means something or maybe not and...oh, screw it, it’s just a bunch of stuff that happens. Guy goes to a morgue, scares himself, and gets dead. The end.
Or is it? What’s this? A short AFTER the movie? And yes, it’s one more installment in “The Phantom Creeps”. In contrast to the previous two installments, we actually get a plot point in this one, in which Bela Lugosi’s chauffeur thinks that he’d be better suited to taking over the world (oh, is THAT what Bela’s been trying to do all this time? How he expects to do it with exploding spiders, I’ll never know). Unlike Commando Cody, this final MSTed installment doesn’t get some kind of send-off, it just drifts away into obscurity. Fortunately, I really don’t care what happens to it.
So why did they do the short at the end? Probably to accommodate Frank’s wonderful musical number “If Chauffeurs Ruled the World”. This is such a perfect Frank moment, and you get a sense of the chemistry (explosive as it may be) that he and Dr. F have - it’s a great capper to the episode. As for the other host segments, I dig the intro with the bots tricking Joel into thinking it’s Movie Sign; aside from the opening sequence, I think this is the only time we ever see him actually use the Spiral-On-Down. More kooky inventions this week - “pin-bolus” is such an “it could only come from Joel’s thought process” kind of thing. The Old School skit just busted me up laughing. Yeah, geriatrics are an easy target for humor, but I don’t think it was too vicious, and it wasn’t aimed at old folks - just at the fact that the filmmakers tried to pass off forty-somethings as teenagers (was that, like, a requirement for movies in the 1950s? Did teenagers just not know how to act or something?) The guys then dissect Mr. Hoover, in a pretty well-done parody of the autopsy scene. I particularly liked Crow moving the clock’s hands forward. And yes, I feel the bots’ pain - there’s nothing good to say about this movie. And it may have been short, but it feels like it lasts for days. (The fact that there was no upside to this flick is probably the sole reason they brought back the RAM chip bit, anyway.)
A fine funny episode all around. Proof that a second chance is sometimes all an episode needs to become a classic.
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207 "Wild Rebels" Watched: June 8, 2006
What is the obsession with “kicks” in this movie? These slobs beat up college preppies for kicks, stick up a gun shop for kicks, rob a bank for kicks...hell, I even think Linda got a kick out of being arrested at the end. If this is the motivation of all biker gangs, then I had no idea that they were all so hedonistic. That being said, this isn’t such an awful movie (it’s still pretty lame, but not as lame as others) except for the fact that Rod does absolutely nothing as the hero. Well, he flashes his headlights to signal the cops, but that’s about it. Hell, I could have done that. The rest of the time, he just kinda shuffles around looking awkward...when he’s not attempting to sing or dance, anyway. Whoever told Steve Alaimo that he was talented in these fields deserves a smack upside the head. I found the bikers to be much more likeable, and they were the bad guys - Jeeter’s and his vocabulary to rival that of Stephen King, Banjo and his temper as short as the space between my thumb and index finger, Fats and his...well, fatness, and Linda and her sorta-attractive-but-in-a-much-bigger-way-not-really face. Actually, everyone in this movie is ugly. And the dialogue is pretty insipid...and the plot isn’t very engaging...ah, who am I kidding? This movie reeks out loud! Ultimately, it proves to be ample fodder for Joel and the bots, digging deep into this turkey and pulling out the most ridiculous aspects. Where did Jeeter learn all them big words anyway? Why is Rod such a wuss? Where’d that guitar disappear to between shots? And how did that band manage to fade out together like that?
Jim Mallon is listed in the credits as This Week’s Creative Pit Boss, which probably explains why Gypsy is in four out of six host segments and makes a cameo appearance in the theater. I have no complaints with this - Gypsy is one of my favorite characters, and it’s good to see her purpose finally laid out for all those wackadoos who wanted more robots in the theater segments. Her intelligent conversation with Joel is great, particularly afterwards when Joel’s all woozy from holding his breath so long (I believe that’s why he’s all wonky, anyway - I would presume that oxygen is one of the higher functions of the SOL that Joel had to shut off). The Mads’ hobby hogs are pretty good, but the big laughs come from Dr. F’s questions about that “eeyukayee” thing that Frank keeps doing (“Is it about me? It’s about me, isn’t it?”). I don’t know what that thing is either, but it’s funny, dammit. This week’s “artist renderings” are just sorta okay, but Wild Rebels Cereal is hysterical - that jingle is still stuck in my head. And then there’s that sweet little scene where Joel sings to Gypsy, then Crow and Servo beat him up for no reason. It’s pretty good stuff all around.
The second installment in the Biker Flick Trilogy is the easiest of the three movies to swallow. But then again, after the reprehensible little cowpie that was “The Sidehackers”, any biker flick must be better by comparison.
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Post by Donna SadCat Lady on Jul 16, 2006 19:01:25 GMT -5
The Mads’ hobby hogs are pretty good, but the big laughs come from Dr. F’s questions about that “eeyukayee” thing that Frank keeps doing (“Is it about me? It’s about me, isn’t it?”). I don’t know what that thing is either, but it’s funny, dammit. Yes! That made me crack up when I first saw it. Let's admit it, Frank's little noise is something we've all wondered about. Plus, Dr. F's comment is so exactly what he would say. It's great when the guys show what a firm grasp they have on their own characters.
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Post by apocalypse1986 on Jul 16, 2006 22:51:45 GMT -5
I always thought that Frank's "sound" was meant to stand in for a sort of back ground noise that sometimes comes after something unfortunate/funny happens, like a "waa waa waaaaa" sort of thing.
I saw 207 for the first time recently as well. I thought it was a pretty solid episode, especially for it being so early in the series. I love the season 2 trilogy of biker film episodes(even 209- Hellcats!) with Sidehackers probably being one of my all time favorite episodes.
I've noticed it's a common thing for the "heroes" of MSTed movies to never do anything heroic at all. Such as Kevin from Hobgoblins.
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Post by jjb3k on Jul 20, 2006 22:04:12 GMT -5
Huh, haven't updated in a few days, have I? I probably oughta be more frequent with these...well, regardless, here's some more reviewy goodness.
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208 "Lost Continent" Watched: June 10, 2006
Starring Hugh “Ward Cleaver” Beaumont! Cesar “Joker” Romero! Sid “Shoot me, he’s that unfunny” Melton! And lots and lots of rock climbing! Really, the mountain deserves top billing in this movie - it gets more screen time than everyone else put together in this turd of a Lippert picture. So, there’s this rocket that blasts off from the same space center that Rocketship X-M took off from, and it crash-lands in the same jungle that Greta’s plane went down in from “Jungle Goddess”. And it’s up to this ragtag group of men (‘cause, you know, it’s a Lippert movie and women can’t do anything in Lippert movies) to find the rocket and its inhabitants or some such nonsense like that. The movie quickly realizes that it can’t stretch itself over 90 minutes, so 45 of those minutes are wasted while we watch these six dolts climb up the “sacred mountain”. After a while, I really began to believe that this picture was supposed to be a star vehicle for tectonic plate shifts. Hell, even the music gets up and leaves at one point. And what do this ragtag bunch of misfits with nothing to lose find at the top? Naturally, a lot of cheap optical effects. Some pretty lame stop-motion dinosaurs duke it out for a while (and I mean “lame” even by the standards of the time this movie was made - the Black Scorpion looked way better than these things) before one of them thankfully eats Sid Melton and everyone can go home. Well, his fantasies about fondling his plane were starting to weird me out anyway. God, this is a screwed-up movie, and Joel and the bots smash it to pieces. Granted, they take their share of blows too - just watch them try to maintain their sanity during the three-day rock climbing sequence. It’s especially hilarious when Joel tells the bots to calm down, then proceeds to explode himself. Poor guy. Favorite riff? One poor schlub loses his grip and falls to his death, and Crow (as the guy who dropped him) quips “Dang, he has my keys.” And listen closely for a callback to K13 “SST Death Flight” when the guys theorize that the plane’s engine troubles might be due to “soap in the hydraulics” - guess those olden days aren’t entirely outside the BBI canon after all.
In terms of host segments, the episode remains thoroughly enjoyable. Dig the pep talk at the beginning, where Joel tries to psyche the bots up for the experiment - it seems to be a running theme in Season 2 that Joel and the Mads are in direct competition with each other regarding whether or not Joel will finally snap. Frank presents a pretty pointless invention, then Dr. F doesn’t let Joel do his. This surprised me a bit, but I guess when you know that your test subject is about to be victimized by rock climbing, you’re allowed to be a little sinister. Then Mike shows up in the Hexfield in a brilliant turn as Hugh Beaumont, Horseman of the Apocalypse. Once again, the guy can really sell a role. “The Explorers” pretty much sums up the condescending nature of every Lippert film all at once, and the introduction of the Cool Thing initiates another contest while lampooning the “look at something offscreen so we don’t have to pay for more special effects” approach of the movie. I can relate to the guys in this episode - keeping an upbeat attitude in the face of such bull honkey results in a solid “victory” over the Mads. And hey, the stingers are back after their one-episode hiatus.
Even with all that tedious rock climbing, there’s a plethora of stuff to work with in this episode. Joel and the bots take pretty much every opportunity and find the funny, even when faced with the most brain-grindingly awful cinematographic atrocities imaginable. Rock climbing, folks. Rock climbing.
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209 "The Hellcats" Watched: June 16, 2006
The third and final film in the Season 2 Biker Flick Trilogy isn’t the worst of the bunch, but it is the most pointless. By which I mean this movie serves no purpose. It does not educate, it does not entertain, and it does not preach - it merely exists and nothing more. There’s a plot somewhere in here, but dang it if I can figure out what it is. Something about Ross Hagen avenging his brother’s death, I think. How he plans to do this by hanging out with a bunch of sleazeballs like the Hellcats is beyond my reasoning abilities, but whatever sells tickets, I guess. I mentioned in my review of 204 “Catalina Caper” that the 1960s were made to look like a boisterous, party-filled time. Well, this movie makes it look like a decade of unmitigated unattractiveness. Remember how I said that everyone in “Wild Rebels” was ugly? Everyone in “The Hellcats” is even uglier. Even the women who are supposed to be attractive are covered with a sheen of unpleasantness. Perhaps this movie was just shot through an ugly filter or something. Its soundtrack was clearly recorded through a banality filter, I know that much, since what little dialogue I can decipher makes no sense whatsoever (the humorously monikered Hiney is the worst offender in this field, followed closely by that shaggy guy with the trumpet who’s completely unintelligible). More than half of this movie is just a bunch of stuff that happens - I think they go for two whole movie segments without even referencing the plot at all. And that includes that long three-part movie segment between Host Segments 3 and 4. Speaking of the movie segments, they’re pretty interesting this week. Alongside the usual high-octane riffing (“We’re born, we die, and there’s a lotta padding in between” says Joel, trying to find the message of the movie), the guys are constantly at each others’ throats. Joel hisses at Crow to shut up for riffing on the credits, then Servo tells the both of them to shut up by making an “obscure pop culture reference”. If the movie has the guys turning on each other, you know it’s gotta be bad.
The last time the Brains did a clip show, it was in the KTMA era, and only one clip and a quick montage were used. This time, apparently in lieu of the fact that most of the writers were out of town this week, Segments 2, 3, and 4 are used as framing tools for clips from 106, 201, and 203. A bit of a cop-out, sure, but at least I got some chuckles out of seeing Josh Weinstein’s Servo again. In the non-clipped host segments, we get the guys with a cold (Magic Voice all stuffed up is hysterical, as is Servo’s high-powered sneeze that blows him off the table - how would you spell that Kevin Murphy sneeze anyway? “Wa-kshleaugh”?). And the Mads recycle their Hobby Hogs, but Joel gets to do the invention he got fleeced out of last week, the Sign Language Translator. It was probably funnier when it was part of his stand-up routine, though. You can kinda tell that most of the usual writers didn’t do the host segments this week - they kinda have the air of being written by someone who just had the loosest comprehension of the characters, without exhibiting many of their trademark characteristics. At least the riffing was pretty steady.
It’s a decent episode, despite the shortcutty host segments. Still, I’m glad to get the biker flicks out of my system - I’ve had enough ugly dumb people in leather for now, thank you.
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Post by jjb3k on Jul 24, 2006 19:50:58 GMT -5
Here we go again!
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210 "King Dinosaur" (With short "X Marks the Spot") Watched: June 16, 2006
Finally, the serials are gone, and MST3K strikes short subject gold - informational shorts! Some maniac named Joe crashes his car and is assumed into Heaven by his Noo-Joysey native guardian angel. Arraigned before God in the most boring-looking office ever, the guy has his entire blemished driving record poured out in front of him. Man, the guy’s already dead, but you gotta wrench his stomach like this too? The guys get plenty of mileage out of the Jersey angel’s narration and Joe’s blatant disregard for the rules of the road (Servo especially gets a kick out of Joe’s maniacal skid through an icy intersection). And Crow even really gets into the ending, wherein God himself asks the audience if they’re “qualified”. For what, I’m not sure if I care.
But that’s just the introduction to what’s got to be the looniest MST3K movie to date. Bert I. Gordon crashes onto the scene in a B.I.G. way, escorted by the Man of a Thousand Feet of Stock Footage, Robert Lippert. In this preposterous picture, astronomers discover a planet called Nova that’s identical to Earth in every way, so some hideously underqualified scientists go there to check things out. All they find is a lot of public domain National Geographic footage, bees the size of Buicks, and a squeaky little kinkajou named Joey the Lemur. If this isn’t enough to make your head hurt, they also swing by an island and get attacked by a humongous iguana. Oh, sorry, my bad - it’s a “Tyrannosaurus Rex”. Right, sure. You just keep telling yourself that, Bert. Anyway, the iguanasaurus tangles with a baby alligator in some truly icky fight footage that obviously isn’t staged in the least, while the men act all big and buff and the women scream and fluster and get pushed around (I’m guessing this was Robert Lippert’s main contribution to the movie’s plot). Finally, the island gets blown up real good and everyone can go home happy. Everything in this movie goes drastically, dreadfully wrong, and it might just be the quintessential MST3K movie - Joel and the bots pound it into the ground with their barbs, and they barely even have to do more than state the obvious (“IT’S AN IGUANA!” screams a frustrated Crow, after one of those “scientists” refers to the lizard as a dinosaur for about the hundredth time). Fortunately, they do so much more than that, from providing Joey’s dialogue to adding “The Teddy Bear’s Picnic” to the soundtrack and betting on the outcome of the lizard fight, and it’s all absolutely hysterical.
A screwy movie deserves screwy host segments, and this episode flies high with them. Right from the start, when Joel reads beat poetry, you get the sense that this is gonna be one weird ride. The invention exchange is kind of a cop-out, but it’s still funny, what with Dr. F all squooshed and stuff. Crow’s tirade on qualification is hilarious and full to the brim with neat little quotables (“Crush someone with an emotional word or enigmatic look!”). Then there’s the infamous and immortal Joey the Lemur song, which just simmers over with “This is going nowhere and we know it, but what the hell”. Just try not to laugh at Joel’s slightly insane method of puppetry, getting all wrapped up in his voice for the “most magniforous lemur” and steadily going from bouncing the puppet to literally slamming it on the table. In the following segment, the guys get a little self-referential with “The Emotional Scientist”, a skit so utterly ridiculous that even they can’t get into it. And finally, the bots slam Lippert to pieces while Joel goes theremin crazy and Dr. F smashes Frank’s head on the button (“Missed...”). God, I don’t think I stopped laughing once throughout this entire episode.
Best episode of Season 2, hands down. Smart, goofy, and funny - the three traits I love about MST3K, and all of them are front and center in this one.
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211 "First Spaceship on Venus" Watched: June 17, 2006
There’s something about this movie that oozes ickiness. Whether it’s the bad lighting, the herky-jerky pan-and-scan technique, or just the thoroughly annoying Ahmegal, this is the kind of movie that should not be watched on a rainy day...or under any other circumstances (except this one, of course). It’s basically “Rocketship X-M” with a budget and a lot of weird imagery - buncha astronauts go to Venus, where they meet bouncy spiders and carnivorous black goop. Some stuff goes on that isn’t bouncy spiders or carnivorous black goop, but I had no idea what it was and I really had no inclination to care about it either. I was too busy hating Ahmegal to be bothered. Admittedly, this movie probably has the most ethnically and sexually diverse cast of any MSTed movie, but when that cast also includes a mob of guys with letters on their chests who seem to serve no other purpose that transporting these letters from one place to another, it’s kinda hard to take it seriously. Some guys die, and the black guy gets left behind (oh, I see how it is...), but not before I slap myself in the face a few times under the mistaken assumption that this was all just a fever dream. Regardless, Joel and the bots have fun with this one, riffing on the utterly bizarre look that everything and everyone in this movie has. Really, it’s like the graphic designer gave the plot outline to his preschoolers and said “Hey, go nuts.” More laughs are mined from the butt-poor dubbing job and the uppity Twikki-wannabe that is Ahmegal, and it’s a solidly entertaining riffing all around.
The host segments this week are just as weird as they were last time, and we start off with Joel tinkering with Servo’s sarcasm sequencer. As funny as Kevin’s “OOOOOHHH” is, the sporadic sarcastic riffs from Servo in the theater did kinda wear out their welcome after a while. The Mads have lotsa weird stuff in their junk drawer, including a non-sequitur-and-thusly-hilarious appearance from Mike as the back of Abe Vigoda. For the first time, we get a one-off appearance of a new robot for the SOL, with a hilariously cheap “bridge fills up with foam” joke to go with it. Then there’s a random appearance from a gorilla in the Hexfield for no apparent reason, and this segment almost takes a nosedive until Servo saves it with his great rendition of “Oh, Sweet Mother of Mine” - again, Kevin can really sing. And he can really announce, too, as the KLACK commercial had me rolling. I’ve never even seen those Kraft ads that they’re slamming, and it still busted me up. Finally, Tom’s head explodes, which is always fun, and the only off-setting thing is really just Dr. F yacking into the junk drawer over the end credits (even I have my limits, folks).
Pretty good all around, with a few blemishes here and there. Still, it’s not enough to spoil the episode, which has a decent amount of rewatchability for me.
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Post by Cleolanta on Jul 24, 2006 22:16:15 GMT -5
I know I haven't responded in a while (it's this blasted heat wave--I don't have enough energy to type much lately!) but I have to say...I agree with practically EVERYTHING you said about King Dinosaur. The quintessential MST episode...? I'd say that if it isn't that exactly it's definitely in my top ten candidates for the position. It's a cheesy black and white science fiction flick with ridiculous plot and even more ridiculous special effects, way outdated notions/morals...which, as I've said before, is THE type/genre of movie to be MSTed, for me. Even better, it was made by not one but TWO multiple-times MSTed movie offenders. AND the riffs cracked me up. AND the host segments.
Azwarwilf, you want to know what _I_ thought of the episode? Just read jjb3k's review here. He said it all for me. Not only that I love it, but _why_ I love it. But then again, we are two different people. The old black and white movies that bring you down, make me crack up... But I'm sure that the plotless '70s TV movies where you never know what's going on and frankly don't CARE, 'cos none of these people are likeable at all, and the horribly disgusting sleazy '80s movies that caused me INTENSE pain and which I almost didn't make it through, will make _you_ laugh. It goes both ways...neither of us is going to suffer terribly through _every_ movie. It'll eventually balance out.
Anyway.
...Notorious
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Post by Arizona Warwilf on Jul 26, 2006 5:42:49 GMT -5
"Oh, King Dinosaur, it's not you, it's me!"
Really, I need to watch this one again. I hardly gave it a chance.
First Spaceship, though, I loved. I don't think I have a distaste for black and white . . . Just an unfortunate coincidence on my emotional roller coaster: my emoroco, if you will.
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