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Post by callipygias on Jul 3, 2010 11:18:23 GMT -5
I found the weather pretty boring (sorry CH) and not so funny, but the Paragraph's piece was a hoot, full of mean little jabs. I liked the paragraphs one, but the weather is one of my favorites among the recent ones. Go figure. Overall I'm really enjoying the shorts, I especially like seeing more of the '70s stuff popping up.
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Post by callipygias on Jul 6, 2010 18:10:23 GMT -5
www.rifftrax.com/shorts/are-people-all-sameTeaching kids about the evils of racism in a clear, culturally-sensitive manner is a difficult task. Fortunately for us, it’s something the makers of educational shorts from decades past were woefully inept at! Are People All the Same? takes an interesting approach. In order to illustrate that people are all fundamentally the same, they go to great lengths to help you differentiate people based on race. This includes side-by-side comparisons of Japanese and Chinese children (no, really!) presumably so that kids can sort people out, and be sure to only use “pee pee in your Coke” based insults at the appropriate time. It’s a methodology that noted sensitivity expert Mel Gibson would support, saying “It’s [expletive deleted]-filled [expletive deleted] [expletive deleted], oh hey there sweetheart.” After building its argument, the film comes to a logical conclusion: a bunch of kids gather for a scream-filled, parent-free birthday party in an abandoned hovel. Proving that, ultimately, it doesn’t matter if people are all the same, because life is a chaos-filled nightmare with no one in charge. Are People All the Same? Mike, Kevin, and Bill sure hope not, because that would mean that we are all roughly equivalent to Kevin Federline.
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Post by Mighty Jack on Jul 13, 2010 5:38:07 GMT -5
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Post by Mighty Jack on Aug 4, 2010 0:51:54 GMT -5
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Post by callipygias on Aug 6, 2010 21:32:14 GMT -5
I liked all of the long shorts they've done, but this one might be my favorite. Very strange. www.rifftrax.com/shorts/williams-dollIt's every parent's nightmare: You're woken up at 3AM by a knock at your front door. When you open it, there's a somber looking policeman standing there, his hat in his hands. He avoids eye contact with you, and his voice quivers as he begins to speak. Before he even gets a word out, you know what he's going to say. "Sir," he quivers. "Your son...wants a doll." The producers of William's Doll want you to believe that a boy with a doll is perfectly normal. For some reason, they made a film that convinces everyone of the exact opposite. We here at RiffTrax are as open-minded as they come regarding childhood toys. Some of us even grew up playing with a toy called Stinkor: The Evil Master of Odors, and we turned out alright.* But by the time the train wreck of William's Doll comes to its unspeakable conclusion, you'll be taking to the streets with your fellow Doll Party members, seizing and burning every doll you find just so they never end up in the hands of a boy.** The twisted minds behind William's Doll made their defense of boys playing with dolls by combining two of the most loathsome things our planet has ever known: warbly 60's folk music and senior citizens. The guy who sings the William's Doll Theme sounds like Donovan singing Hurdy Gurdy Man after several months of gender reversal hormone treatment and a kick from a mule in what remains of his nads. But even that pales in comparison to William's grandfather, who walks in the door looking like the sun-dried corpse of Larry David and immediately begins his fiendish doll-enabling. Bright spots include William's Dad, a grown, presumably employed man who wears a red mesh hat with a Goofy patch, who would rather let his son play with a Super Soaker Oozinator*** than a doll. If you can find one of these hats, please let Mike, Kevin and Bill know. They'll trade you an Oozinator for it. *Slightly stinky though **Stay away from that Cabbage Patch Doll that devours your hair though**** ***Google it ****Or better yet, give it to William's grandfather
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Post by Mighty Jack on Aug 7, 2010 4:45:38 GMT -5
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Post by davidmello on Aug 9, 2010 19:12:46 GMT -5
Just got the Shorts-a-Poppin DVD. It includes "What About Juvenile Delinquency?", a fave from the MST3K days. I wrote something about it at impalergeneral.blogspot.com/2010/08/rifftrax-what-about-juvenile.html. It's kind of dry, but it shows how Mike emphasized the film series rather than Jamie's dilemma over choosing between his gang and saving the town from his wild gang. The rest of the DVD is very funny, especially the creepy Tommy Tucker short
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Post by callipygias on Aug 10, 2010 22:07:24 GMT -5
www.rifftrax.com/shorts/decisions-decisionsAs any dorm poster covered in photographs of shots that no adult would actually order at a bar could tell you, “Life is full of difficult decisions.” Tommy, the hero of Decisions, Decisions, would surely agree. His life has recently been rocked, as he was forced to move to a decrepit farm in the middle of nowhere for the sake of his remarkably effeminate father’s “good job”. Tommy will get little support from his mother, a dazed, gin-soaked woman who would probably tell a stranger at the library about her favorite handkerchief for 30 minutes before nodding off between some plants (you know the type). One gets the feeling this is a family hiding from a dark and shameful past. Given this background, Tommy is ill-equipped to handle even the most basic decision. In this case, the decision is whether or not to hang out with Joey, the most horrible boy on the planet. Whiny, irritable, ugly, unpopular, and obsessed with painting his grandmother’s chicken coop, Joey is the kind of kid who wouldn’t even be welcome in a World of Warcraft community. Joey, with his offer of apples in exchange for friendship and coop-labor, distracts Tommy from the more important decision he should be making: to run far, far away. Mike, Kevin, and Bill decide, decide, to riff, riff, this short, short.
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Post by callipygias on Aug 13, 2010 21:19:43 GMT -5
www.rifftrax.com/shorts/library-worldSchool's out, and this summer, there's only one place to find elementary school children. No, not the basketball courts. No, not the movie theater. No, not the swimming hole, they cut down the rope swing after Tommy broke his leg. No, not the mall. No, not skateboarding in the parking lot. No, not knocking over a casino. No, not freeing giant killer whales from captivity. No, not protesting in advance the 2016 Sochi Winter Olympics. No, not recreating Jersey Shore episodes shot by shot with Playmobil figures. No, not... **TIME PASSES** No, not poaching rare California Condor eggs. No, not participating in college health department cold studies. No, not picking up Kanye West's dry cleaning. No, not the swimming hole, LOOK, WE ALREADY TOLD YOU THEY WEREN'T AT THE SWIMMING HOLE! THEY CUT THE DAMN TIRE SWING DOWN AFTER TOMMY BROKE HIS LEG. THEY ARE AT THE LIBRARY, OK? THE DAMN LIBRARY!!!! Yes, the library, or liberry, if you're an idiot, is the hot spot in town for fancy book learnin' (replacing Luigi's PizzaMat, which held the title from 2004-2009). Library World tells the story of two children who are on the verge of making this discovery: A little boy who's skeptical of how much fun you can have at the library and his friend, a more enthusiastic boy or girl who is well versed in the library-going experience. With the help of a hot rod stealing 70's tool, who breaks new ground in the field of "having nothing better to do", they'll learn that the library isn't just a place you can check out books from. It's also a place where homeless people can escape nasty weather because the librarians are too meek and defenseless to kindly ask them to leave because they're frightening other patrons. Mike, Kevin and Bill head on down to Library World, where they tried to find out where they keep the old stacks of National Geographics, but were too embarrassed to ask the librarian.
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Post by Mighty Jack on Aug 17, 2010 4:45:03 GMT -5
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Post by callipygias on Aug 21, 2010 11:44:49 GMT -5
What a strange short. It reminded me of an unbelievably lame version of the public "battle" between Neil Young and Lynyrd Skynyrd. I wonder if Atkins countered with his own ridiculous short film. www.rifftrax.com/shorts/fad-diet-circusIn preparation for working on Fad Diet Circus, we here at RiffTrax decided to try out a few of the more popular fad diets. We started with the “Macho Man Randy Savage Diet”, which allows only foods that you can “Snap into!” Then there was the “Soup-Made-From-the-Cheez-It-Crumbs-At-The-Bottom-Of-The-Box Diet” (use your own tears for broth). And of course the “Villain from the Muppet Movie Diet”, which consists entirely of Kermit the Frog’s legs (this one is known to true dietary insiders as the “Doc Hopper”). Finally we came to the “Penelope Cruz Diet”, permitting only food items you find while going through Penelope Cruz’s garbage. Thanks to this rigorous regimen, RiffTrax HQ has been temporarily relocated to the hospital, with one of us working remotely from prison (FORGIVE ME PENELOPE!!!!) You might expect a film called Fad Diet Circus to cover several different diets, or at least something, you know, “circus-y”. You silly fool! The filmmakers instead focus on the low-carb Atkins Diet. And by “focus on” we mean “aggressively attack”: one gets the feeling this hit piece was commissioned by Betty Crocker and the “time to make the donuts” guy. They even wrote an anti-Atkins torch song (really, we’re not kidding) and dressed the kindly old doctor up in a heinous plaid coat (there’s no way that coat was a voluntary choice) just to discredit him. Mike, Kevin, and Bill are willing to try any diet plan as long as the words “pork fat smoothie” are involved.
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Post by Drunken Fist on Aug 30, 2010 15:23:15 GMT -5
I downloaded and watched "Decisions, Decisions," "Are People All the Same," and "Beginning Responsibility: Taking Care of Your Own Things" last night. (Yeah, I fall way behind on these shorts sometimes.) "Decisions" kinda lagged, but it was decent. "People" was a good, middle-of-the-road short. I really enjoyed "Beginning Responsiblity," and it was easily the best of these three. This is one of those that makes me really miss the host segments, as I have no doubt they would have had great fun with that horrific Devil Pillow. And was I the only one who was surprised to see so many badass Frazetta posters on that kid's wall? His interior decorator's got class.
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Post by Mighty Jack on Sept 8, 2010 1:24:25 GMT -5
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Post by Mighty Jack on Sept 22, 2010 2:48:01 GMT -5
More riff reviews... Fire and Ducks!I liked the fire short, but the ducks really quacked me up (er, sorry)
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Post by Drunken Fist on Oct 4, 2010 1:22:41 GMT -5
I watched the fire on a few days ago, it was all right. My favorite one I've watched in the last few months (aside from the Grass short at the live show, anyway) is still "Beginning Responsibility: Taking Care of Your Own Things." Crazy, hilarious, and terrifying, all at once. I've still got the Cops short to watch. Keep forgetting about it.
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