Okay sorry... spent the whole time laughing my ass off. I live about 2 hours from San Rafael and didn't get home until midnight.
This event was held at the Rafael Film Center... a restored movie house now used to screen art-house and some big budget movies to theater members and the public. They get a lot of guess speakers (Ang Lee was there to screen Brokeback Mountain and Leonardo DiCaprio screened the Aviator there as well). This is not a place to see a movie. You go to watch a 'film'. (Very hoity-toity , as my mother would say). Financial backers include Barbara Boxer, Carlos Santana, Marcia Lucas (George's ranch is just down the road), and Sean Penn.
7:15 - the theater is almost packed and we've still got fifteen minutes to go. Just before coming in, we saw Mike, Bill and Kevin walk past the line heading for a Starbucks.
7:40 - We get a little introduction by some CA Film Institute head honcho followed up by a guy from SFSketchFest (the hosts of the entire, week long comedy festival.)
The guys come out and are greeted by a big applause. They were seated on stage just to the right of center facing the audience. There's a TV on the floor in front of them, thus they are facing the audience while they perform. Three chairs, three music stands with clip lights.
Kevin Murphy is curious as to what they are supposed to be there for. There's a little banter about doing some singing and interpretive dance. The audience is laughing a little... I think everyone is so curious about what film they are going to riff. Kevin and Bill are happy to do a movie, as long as it's NOT 'Daredevil'
And it was. Yep, the guys riffed DD. The audience was quite happy about this. (I was hoping for either DD or Roadhouse)
There's no possible way to recount the jokes... but by far this is was the best show I've experienced. Now, you have to take into account, that I've seen about 75% of the MST3K's produced (working on the 1st two seasons now). And I do realize that sharing an experience with a live audience is different than sitting in your PJ's on a Friday night watching the show on VHS. But overall, I'd say the guys did a fantastic job and the funniest 'MST3K' I've ever seen (in regards to the film riffing).
Jokes were flying at an incredible rate. They had clearly worked the 'script' before hand and their timing was down pat. Ben Afleck took the brunt of the jokes and based on audience reaction, he deserved it. There was good interaction between the audience and the guys and the movie was over before we knew it.
Following the Film, Kevin introduced us to his brother in the audience (who looks like a whiter-haired version of Kevin) and then it was time for Q&A. Questions ranged from
'What's your favorite movie?' (no real answer)
"Do you speak with Joel" ("Joel Who?" not much, he's in LA, we're in MN) (I thought Mike lived in SoCal now).
"Do you find it hard to stay quiet when you go see a movie that you really want to watch?" (We hate people that talk during a film)
"Any chance of having MST3K:TM released by Universal?" (Universal doesn't call me. But they did release it in Germany!)
"Do you preview the movies and still write down scripts while doing RiffTrax" (We used to do it together while at MST3K, but now we are sometimes dividing the film between us. Kevin says it's hard to tell the difference between Mike and Bill's material now)
They commented on how much they enjoy working with their new distributor: ShoutFactory and that "Hollywood After Dark" is leading in votes over at filmcrewonline.com so be sure to watch for the upcoming release.
Kevin also hinted that he had a problem with rifftrax in that it was tough for him to sync up the .mp3 with the DVD... older people may not be attracted to it. The guys said that rifftrax needs to stay focused on more 'popular' movies that you can rent at your local video store and that filmcrewonline would go with older (i.e. public domain) movies.
There was a standing ovation and the crowd dispersed.
Two points:
Seeing them perform live is far superior to watching them on TV or listening to a RiffTrax .mp3
And second, they work better as a group than solo. I watched the RiffTrax of 'The Fifth Element' and noticed a lot of silence. Mike did this movie by himself and I wasn't too pleased. Having the three of them work together is going to be great.
I strongly recommend keeping an eye on their schedule and try to get to their next live performance. It was the best $25 I've spent in a long time.
(Note: the next show... tonight at Cobb's in San Francisco, is already sold out.)
Links:
Rafael Film Center:
cafilm.org/nav1_6.htmlThe Film Crew Online:
www.filmcrewonline.com/RiffTrax:
www.rifftrax.com/DareDevil at IMDB:
imdb.com/title/tt0287978/SF SketchFest:
sfsketchfest.com/home/Shout! Factory:
www.shoutfactory.com/