Topic: Cinematic FilmTrax 3000 (Read 17232 times)

Thad · « **Reply #80 on:** December 21, 2011, 11:41:52 AM »

Couple good interviews with Joel.

Art of the Title, as its name implies, focuses on the opening titles of the show. Some good talk about how great it is that everything is clearly handmade and rough around the edges.

Geekadelphia has a more general CT interview (I guess they've got a show coming up there). I thought the most interesting bit was where Joel laid out the principal difference between CT and RiffTrax:

Quote

I think people do that, it’s my impression that they think it’s a marketing thing. That if you have seen this movie you might want to see someone riff on it.

So we don’t really do that. I see MST3K and Cinematic Titanic working another side of the street.

To me what I think people like about MST3K and Cinematic Titanic is that we show movies they haven’t seen before. So it’s kind of like a new place, which is part of the value and mystique in it. So we are a lot like your tour guides in this place.

Take something like Manos: The Hands of Fate, when I watch that show it’s not even my favorite riff. But because the movie is so strange and unusual, it just has this bizarre attraction for people.

Ties right into what I was saying last week: Manos is just this fascinating, weird fucking thing that I never would have heard of if not for MST3K. I love RiffTrax, and I love the idea of taking the piss out of blockbusters, but watching Fast and Furious doesn't introduce you to anything new or different that you haven't seen before.

(Course, RiffTrax DOES do quite a lot of weird little ephemera, it's just that it uses those for the shorts, not the features.)

Brentai · « **Reply #81 on:** December 21, 2011, 04:04:33 PM »

I like the fact that they're each covering separate ground, and I wouldn't put one over the other. Making The Last Airbender not only watchable but somewhat entertaining is a rather amazing feat.

Thad · « **Reply #82 on:** December 21, 2011, 08:04:22 PM »

Absolutely agreed; I'm not praising one over the other, it's just interesting to look at the different strengths of each approach.

EDIT: Oh right, covered this two years ago.

Quote from: Thad on December 20, 2009, 12:07:22 PM

Now, since Rifftrax typically focuses on big Hollywood stuff, it misses out on the "Jesus, where do they FIND this stuff?" aspect of MST3K. This show, however, was different, as it was full of bizarre and obscure things I had never before imagined, culminating in a gorgeous but very disturbing Max Fleischer animated Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Thad · « **Reply #83 on:** May 17, 2012, 10:49:08 AM »

So I'm driving home yesterday and my radio says to me, "You may recall the old TV program, "Mystery Science Theater 3000."

Why yes, Mr. Siegel, I can honestly say that I do. So that opening pricked up my ears a bit.

Well, the story is about Hecklevision, which is...pretty much what we've been doing in #outerheaven for the past decade or so, but in an actual movie theater. Watch a movie, text your riffs, and they appear up onscreen.

Likely to get rather messy and hectic, but it's a neat idea.

MEANWHILE: Anyone near Phoenixville, PA?

Quote from: http://www.mst3kinfo.com/?p=12615

Joel Hodgson (creator, writer and star of MST3K) and his students from Riff Camp 2012 are bringing some college-level movie riffing to the Colonial Theatre, 227 Bridge St., Phoenixville, Pa., in a movie riffing battle royale. Four groups will compete on stage riffing some truly horrible short films, and the audience will decide who is the victor! Warm up act Harrison “Dr. Wizard” Lichtner and Dave “Drop Zone” Piccinetti will do battle in an experimental demonstration in the art of “movie clashing.” Also, Joel “The Creator” faces off with Chris “The Ultimate Authority Sampo” Cornell during “Talking MST3K” followed by an audience Q&A. To wrap it all up, Joel will screen one of his favorite MST3K episodes — I Accuse My Parents — and discuss it in a not so scholarly fashion after the live show.

Tickets are $10; $8 for seniors & students; $6 for members & children younger than 13.

There’s also a VIP package ($34) that includes reserved seating, backstage meet & greet with the cast at 7:30, event poster, free medium drink and medium popcorn.

And also meanwhile, Mary Jo has a book out.

Büge · « **Reply #84 on:** June 01, 2012, 02:59:42 PM »

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/06/01/joystiq-presents-rifftrax-versus-final-fantasy-metal-gear-meg/

Thad · « **Reply #85 on:** June 05, 2012, 07:38:41 AM »

The NYT has a good article that's mostly about Joel's riffing class.

Quote

Mr. Hodgson’s first lesson was simple: When riffing don’t be a jerk. (He used a different word.) The 25 students in Riff Camp 2012 were divided into groups. They had two and a half months to complete a film’s worth of riffs before performing at the college’s spring arts festival. They also had to dream up a back story and set it to a theme song. One group, the all-female New Valkyries of Valhalla are Valkyries by day, collecting Viking souls, and students in a women’s studies course at Valhalla Community College by night.

That explains why they would be watching “Consuming Women,” an oddly spooky short billed as a portrait of the female consumer circa 1967. The other films Mr. Hodgson assigned for other groups — from the public domain Web site archive.org, which houses the Prelinger Archives — included “Pennsylvania Fish Commission,” a riveting 1950s tour of trout farming narrated by the commission’s decidedly un-emotive executive director, and the delicious University of California romp “Health: Your Posture,” about a girl ostracized by her peers because of bad posture.

“It had nothing to do with posture,” said Stephanie Drejerwski, 20, one of the riffers.

Mr. Hodgson instructed students not to riff more than once every three seconds, so that the audience could absorb each joke. As on “Mystery Science Theater,” scripts were time- and color-coded to indicate when the film’s narrator was speaking (“You need a thorough checkup by your family doctor to discover the cause of your posture defects”) and when the riff was interjected (“Sir? We don’t have insurance?”).

Some great points. Part of why MST3K succeeded where imitators failed is that it was (almost) never mean-spirited. And the problem with something like Rocky Horror where everybody's just shouting out riffs wherever is that you can't fucking hear most of them.

Thad · « **Reply #86 on:** June 28, 2012, 07:27:33 AM »

http://www.hulu.com/cinematic-titanic

Quote from: http://www.mst3kinfo.com/?p=12955

There goes your productivity for a while[.]

Thad · « **Reply #87 on:** July 10, 2012, 09:43:37 AM »

So there's a live RiffTrax cast of Manos coming up Aug 16. Here is a list of participating theaters.

And here is an interview!

Thad · « **Reply #88 on:** July 23, 2012, 11:10:07 AM »

Manos iPhone game coming this Thursday. Visually it resembles Zelda 2.

Thad · « **Reply #89 on:** July 26, 2012, 10:39:35 AM »

Info Club interviews the game dev.

Quote

In the research stages we noted how movie adaptations on the NES took even the most basic concepts from a film and turned them into hazards and enemies – for instance, Home Alone 2 pretty much takes any object you could imagine to find in a hotel, from vacuum cleaners to lamps to room keys, brings them to life and has them attack your character – and the whole idea of bringing events from the movie to life as obstacles in the game was born. The long, lingering and somewhat pointless shot of the fireplace in the Valley Lodge (with two musical stings for the price of one for some reason) became a boss battle with angry fireplace ornaments, the (completely pointless) scenes of the kissing couple knocking back the booze was turned into an enemy, Mike’s tussle with some stock footage of a snake became the common desert snake enemy (named “Squirm” in the end credits, as a nod to MST3K fans) and so on.

Quote

It’s $1.99 on the iTunes store, if you have an iPhone (3GS or later), iPad or iPod Touch (3rd generation or later), you can play it right now! Anybody without a shiny Apple device can get the Android version, coming later in the year, and failing that we’re hoping to get it out on PC and Xbox Live Arcade by the holidays.

Thad · « **Reply #90 on:** August 03, 2012, 01:20:23 PM »

Restored version of Manos premiering in El Paso this Saturday; that's distinct from the Rifftrax version showing on the 16th.

The article also makes for a pretty good profile of Jackey Neyman-Jones, who played the little girl.

Thad · « **Reply #91 on:** August 13, 2012, 08:45:36 AM »

Single-ep DVD's, $5 a pop at Woot, through tomorrow.

Wild World of Batwoman, Girl in Gold Boots, Touch of Satan, Atomic Brain, Unearthly, Red Zone Cuba, Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies, Hamlet, Gunslinger, and Beginning of the End all available.

Bears noting that many of these are on Netflix. But still, some good episodes in there. (And Hamlet.)

Thad · « **Reply #92 on:** August 13, 2012, 01:14:16 PM »

Also: BoingBoing's Jamie Frevele has a quite good Mike interview up; mostly about this Thursday's Manos show of course but hitting a number of good Rifftrax beats.

(And Jesus, has it really been 13 years since the show ended?)

Thad · « **Reply #93 on:** August 16, 2012, 09:25:46 PM »

TORGO - World Premiere Music Video: "Take it Easy (Torgo Style)"

Defenestration · « **Reply #94 on:** August 20, 2012, 10:03:53 PM »

What is this pile of dog shit and how in the world did they get these people to VA while looking like a PS2 FMV?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uROQ9nplxIY

Beat Bandit · « **Reply #95 on:** August 21, 2012, 02:37:45 AM »

I'm confused. Which one of those actors wouldn't do a day's worth of VA work for the kind of paycheck a movie about corporate mascots would produce?

Büge · « **Reply #96 on:** August 21, 2012, 08:12:08 AM »

Quote from: Defenestration on August 20, 2012, 10:03:53 PM

What is this pile of dog shit and how in the world did they get these people to VA while looking like a PS2 FMV?

It appears to be a cash-in on Wreck-It Ralph.

Thad · « **Reply #97 on:** October 24, 2012, 08:14:51 PM »

Birdemic tomorrow (Thurs) night, guys.

Thad · « **Reply #98 on:** November 19, 2012, 03:33:46 PM »

Sale at Shout Factory.

Only a dollar difference between the standard and special edition of vol 16.

Thad · « **Reply #99 on:** December 14, 2012, 09:25:32 PM »

BTW if you want some Christmas-themed streaming riffing, Hulu's got CT's version of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and Rifftrax's Christmas Shorts-Stravaganza and Magic Christmas Tree. And a bunch of others too if you're not into the whole holiday cheer thing.

Looks like MST3K's disappeared from Netflix but a bunch of them are on Amazon streaming now. ~~No Christmas episodes as far as I could see, though.~~ EDIT: Santa Claus is free with Amazon Prime.

News:

Author Topic: Cinematic FilmTrax 3000 (Read 17232 times)