309-The Amazing Colossal Man

Film Year:  1957
Genre:  Science Fiction
Director:  Bert I. Gordon
Starring:  Glenn Langon, Cathy Downs, William Hudson, Larry Thor
MST Season:  3

The Movie

If people would just read comic books a lot of problems could be avoided.  If Colonel Glenn Manning knew that radiation turns men into giant monsters like the Hulk, he wouldn't have ran right into the wave of a nuclear blast.  But alas, he did, and here we are.  Rather than turning into a beast when he's angry, Glenn just starts growing at an uncontrollable rate.  As he grows he becomes more confused and enraged, until he finally just breaks free and goes on a rampage.

Bert I. Gordon is back with round two, and probably my favorite of his various films features on the series.  The Amazing Colossal Man is about as stupid as a monster movie can get, but there's a beauty to its simplicity.  You don't have to pay for a shabby monster costume, just get the actor in there and shave his head.  No need for tiny sets when you can just super impose him as well.  Because of Colossal Man's lack of ambition in being extravagant there is something charming about it that almost works.

Still, the science is silly, made up of things such as "the human heart is made up of only one cell" and whatnot, but it's a film about a radiated mutant man that drastically changes size depending on what shot we're seeing.  Logic is thrown out the window early and often up until the point where we reach a climax that involves a giant novelty syringe that impales people.  And with such carelessness about what makes sense can you really blame me for having fun with it?

The Episode

The third season pendulum is swinging back now giving us more of what we'll see throughout the mid-section of the season, switching back and forth between Sandy Frank dubs of Japanese productions and cheesy black and white cheapies made by American International Pictures.  Personally I can't complain about that, because they're tapping into two wells that I greatly enjoy.  In the case of Amazing Colossal Man, an AIP Joint, we're given a film about as cheesy as you can ask for.  Riffing remains good-natured ribbing throughout, with a lot of taunting of our lead and bad giant puns.  The old-fashioned scientific naivety comes under fire quite often as well, though mostly with just eye-rolling jabs like "Give me a break."

I'd say this is an episode that just might coast on the movie they're watching, which could have some strong arguments for and against.  The movie is fun and I have fun watching it, which means that this riff was always going to be up my ally no matter what.  But I do contend that the riffing is quite funny at the best of times and I laughed fairly often at great lines.  I especially love the third act of the film, in which somehow the army loses track of a fifty foot man in the middle of the desert plains, and while searching Crow pipes up "Well there's a fifty foot guy but he's got hair so it can't be Glenn."

The host segments are a fair standard.  They're all charming and there's not really a loser in the bunch.  Mike has a wonderful guest spot as Glenn the Colossal Man and Crow and Servo get some wonderful pot shots at Joel during an exchange where they learn about tact ("And we know if you HAD breath mints you'd use them!").  The Invention Exchange offers a cute magic trick turning Kevin into a talking plant, while Joel turns a children's toy into a "Non-Permanent Tattoo" device.

As enjoyable as I find the movie, overall The Amazing Colossal Man is a good, not great, episode.  The movie epitomizes everything the show strives for receiving, though it's not really a endless stretch of laughs.  It's just funny, charming, and enjoyable.  I can't complain about that really, and I can recommend all give it a watch.

Good

The VHS and DVD

The Amazing Colossal Man never graced DVD, but Rhino Home Video did happen to release the episode on VHS.  Unfortunately the release was short-lived, as a lawsuit over the film rights forced them to remove it from shelves.  To this day the episode has yet to be re-released, despite the release of the episode featuring the sequel film, War of the Colossal Beast.

The host segments of the episode were included on the Satellite Dishes compilation featured in Shout Factory's Volume XXXIX collection.

Jurassic World (Rifftrax)

Film Year:  2015
Genre:  Science Fiction, Adventure, Thriller
Director:  Colin Trevorrow
Starring:  Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D'Onfrio, Irrfan Khan, Ty Simpkins, Nick Robinson, Jake Johnson, B.D. Wong, Katie McGrath
Rifftrax Year:  2016
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

The Movie

A fourth Jurassic Park film had been a long time coming, constantly brought up but never delivered upon for more than a decade.  Personally after the fart-in-the-wind way that Jurassic Park III came and went I didn't really think we would ever get one.  But hey, a fourth Jaws movie happened at one point, so I guess anything is possible.

Eventually one would be produced, and wouldn't you know it it was released in a year full of weaponized nostalgia box office flicks, including us all finally caring about Paul Walker's existence for the first time now that he had tragically passed on in Furious 7 and the Star Wars movie Star Wars fans loved until they remembered they're supposed to hate everything new in Star Wars, The Force Awakens.  Hell, there was even a surprise award recognition in the resurgence of Mad Max and Rocky franchises that year.  And yet 2015 still couldn't get a damn Terminator sequel to work even with Schwarzenegger.

The storyline is almost innovative.  Instead of just sending people back to the island just 'acause, the filmmakers create a "What if...?" scenario and base their movie around that.  What if the park actually opened?  Jurassic World shows John Hammond's dream fully realized as a version of Jurassic Park is opened to the public, even after all those people dying making it a reality.  But people have become bored and the fat cat businessmen are forced to create "new" dinosaurs to recapture their attention, starting with the genetically engineered Indominus Rex.  Since this is a story based on another story created by Michael Crichton, shit hits the fan and science runs amok.

In theory I should love this movie.  I love the idea.  There's a story in this somewhere.  I don't think this was it though.  Jurassic World is very derivative of the original film, sometimes to a fault.  When it does branch off into doing something more original it seems to play it safe and keep it expected.  The movie feels bland as a sock drawer and I find my attention wandering during it.  This is the last thing I need to say when describing a goddamn dinosaur movie.  I think it says a lot that this is the only Jurassic film in which I felt no suspense whatsoever.  Even the latest sequel, Jurassic World:  Fallen Kingdom, had some slick pieces of excitement in it despite it being one of the dumbest movies of 2018.  But in this movie everything just feels so sterile and somewhat distant.  I'm not really invested in anything.

But for some reason Jurassic World is considered the best Jurassic sequel.  Sure, why not?  It's probably clear by now none of the sequels are going to recapture the magic of that first film.  Might as well celebrate the most calculated attempt at fan pandering the series has ever offered.  I myself have rarely responded to a film that was made to merely be a series of silver platter money shots.  If I did I would have thought higher of films like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 and the original Avengers movie, both of which are fine but never really jazzed me up all that much.  Jurassic World lies just a bit beneath those movies for me.

The Trax

Jurassic World is a bit of a brick wall of bland, so it's going to take some hard work to riff this thing and make it interesting.  Unfortunately the riffs are a bit run of the mill and there is nothing too spectacular here.  Jurassic World's blandness just makes for a bland Rifftrax.

The first act of this movie is a large amount of boggy nothing to wade through, and for the most part they tend to find themselves commentating on heavy batches of exposition, cliches, and foreshadowing.  I don't really disagree with a lot of what they're saying, but it doesn't really make for an entertaining experience.  The highlight of this section is hands down when Chris Pratt's character is introduced, and Mike pipes up the killer line of "Ladies and gentlemen, 21st century Brendan Fraser!"  Occasionally they'll have a more interesting observation of the park, such as the iconic scene of a great white shark being fed to a mosasaur, resulting in the cheer of "Woo!  Let's feed it another endangered species!  It'll eat anything but let's feed it some pandas!"

When the dino action starts, the riffs become a bit more engaging because the film is actually giving them something to work with.  The funny-meter spikes a little bit, but still Jurassic World struggles to leave an impression.  It's a riff that's way too anchored by the film chosen, and while their observations can be cute at times there is really not that much to see here.

Average

Cindy Goes to a Party (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2015
Riffers:  Bridget Nelson, Mary Jo Pehl

Cindy isn't invited to a friend's party, so she pouts about it and falls asleep.  That night she is visited by a fairy godmother, who dresses Cindy up and takes her to the party herself.  She then teaches proper social etiquette at parties.

I have no idea how this film was distributed to youngsters, because party behavior hardly seems like something to teach in schools.  This may or may not have been a film they had lying around and teachers only showed it because they had ten minutes left in class and their feet hurt and they were just done with the children.  Which probably could have been all week, come to think of it.

It's a strange play of the Cinderella tale, of which a girl is dolled up and taken to a party.  Only instead of being romanced by a prince she's nagged with social behavior rules.  I guess children need to know this, but why is this a short film?  Shouldn't this be something their parents should teach them?  The existence of this film just perplexes me a bit.

Bridget and Mary Jo are present a serviceable commentary on the short, and there's hardly a dull moment with the duo.  The problem is that I don't really think there's much in this film for them to play off of.  They get a good jab every once in a while, but ultimately this feels very average for them.

This is almost a rare instance in which I actually wish I had seen an alternate version of this short where Mike, Kevin, and Bill riffed it, because I think their more aggressive style might have propelled a stronger laugh quota.  But it might not have been better in the end, and Bridget and Mary Jo do fine here.  The question that must be asked is whether or not fine is good enough for a purchase when this duo offers much funnier?  I might have to abstain from answering that, but I'd recommend other shorts before I'd point to this one.

Thumbs Down

👎

Jurassic Park III (Rifftrax Presents)

Film Year:  2001
Genre:  Science Fiction, Adventure, Thriller
Director:  Joe Johnston
Starring:  Sam Neill, William H. Macy, Tea Leoni, Alessandro Nivola, Trevor Morgan, Michael Jeter, Laura Dern
Rifftrax Year:  2011
Riffer:  Matthew J. Elliott

The Movie

Jurassic Park III was a movie made for people who are bored during the other films and just grumble "Just get to the dinosaurs already!"  It's a very impatient movie, getting to the island and letting a carnivore chow down on our hapless crew about twenty minutes into it, as opposed to the hour it takes to get to the big "everything goes to shit" setpiece of the other films.

I personally am lenient on The Lost World:  Jurassic Park for being a mere monster movie, though Jurassic Park III is an even more primal one.  Should I be lenient on it too?  The difference that I can really make between the two films is that The Lost World had some semblance of a story that felt like a logical continuation of the first one.  Jurassic Park III has the bare minimum of what passes for a story and is more or less just an excuse to get back on the island.  Here's what it offers:  A young boy finds himself trapped on Isla Sorna after a parasailing accident.  Dr. Alan Grant (from the first Jurassic Park) is hoodwinked by the boy's parents into traveling to the island and rescuing him.

If one were to watch all the Jurassic Park films in a row (now five as of this writing, with the release of Jurassic World:  Fallen Kingdom), Jurassic Park III would stick out like a sore thumb.  It has nothing really to do with the politics and morality of the island's existence, which has been a huge plot thread since the original, and is just mostly a tourist trap fun house.  Look over there!  Spinosaur!  Look over that way!  Velociraptor!  Yay!  T-Rex cameo!  There's not a lot here to digest, it's just special effects.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.  There's room for spectacle for the sake of spectacle in the filmmaking field.  Jurassic Park III just does it in an unspectacular way.

Joe Johnston takes the reins of the franchise away from spectacle master Steven Spielberg, and personally I wish he were given a better script to shine with.  Johnston's a director that often flies under my radar, but when I look over his filmography I'd be hard-pressed to find a movie he's made that I've genuinely disliked.  Be it nostalgic fare like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Jumanji down to the criminally underrated superhero flick Captain America:  The First Avenger (you thought I was going to say The Rocketeer, didn't you?) and even a mess like The Wolfman wins a bit of points from me in just how handsome it looks.  Jurassic Park III isn't really directed with a lot of flair or logic, but he made a competent monster flick that shows off the monsters and lets them do their thing.

Perhaps Jurassic Park III's biggest sin is that it's a little bit daffy.  I can't really hate the film, because it's just too simple minded to have any strong feelings for or against.  There are some fans out there who at the very least consider the movie a superior sequel to The Lost World, possibly because it's more to the point.  That's cool.  Maybe I just feel a sequel to Jurassic Park should have just a hint of meat on its bones.  But if I have ninety minutes to kill and just want an endless string of dinosaur scenes, Jurassic Park III is painless

The Trax

Matthew J. Elliott threatens to over-saturate his riff early on when he finds himself relying a bit too much on the Rifftrax patented gag of "This is how I reacted to insert popular show/movie here."  The first thirty minutes of Jurassic Park III have more versions of this riff than I could hear in five different Rifftraxes put together.

Fortunately Mr. Elliott is a genuine riffing talent, with a killer dry delivery and has some lines that slay me.  During the big plane crash scene he chimed in with "And on the left side you'll see my left side...SOMEBODY HELP ME!" and I just lost my shit for about three minutes.  Same with a riff halfway through with the Peter Pan inspired setpiece of a satellite phone ringing from inside the belly of a Spinosaur, to which he responds "And I can't get three bars in a light drizzle?"  That's some grade-A riffing right there.

I do feel that this immensely riffable film might have been done better justice with a group effort, but as a solo act Matthew does well.  Of course the movie is not intimidatingly bad, and so it's not hard to hold one's ground against it.  Matthew J. Elliott may not be everyone's style however, with his dry wit and high reliance on the obscure.  But I feel constantly amused by observational and self-depreciating gags like "I'm watching people in a below average movie watching people in a worse movie.  Congratulations, irony.  You win."

Good

Say No to Strangers (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2013
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

I remember being a kid and being told to say NO to strangers and drugs and whatever.  Nobody ever bothered to tell us why, all we knew was "No!"  Maybe you could argue children wouldn't understand, and I guess we wouldn't.  Still, this short doesn't really hammer home the point it makes.

In Say No to Strangers a teacher lists four rules in class about not accepting anything having to do with strangers.  Then we see a brother and sister wandering around and being put through the most adorable instances in which these rules would be practiced.  Always say "no" to strangers, even though there is absolutely nothing dangerous in the world.

Seriously, the scenarios at play are pretty funny on their own.  The kids pet a puppy an old man has, then the old man offers it to them as a gift.  I also chuckled quite a bit as the fourth rule is put into play, which tells us that policemen are friends to children (they're number two behind Gamera), so the kids put this to use by turning one into their own personal chauffeur so they aren't late for dinner.

The short then climaxes as we watch the kids draw and hang up pictures of the four rules in real time.  Ugggggggggggggggggh.

There's quite a bit of opportunities to go dark with this short, but mostly Mike, Kevin, and Bill keep things as pleasant as the short presents the world.  There might be a bit of a missed opportunity here, but some edgier riffs on children and strangers may have strained good taste so it's no biggie.  Riffs are generally funny regardless, especially during the classroom setting at the beginning.  Music period teaches "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath while the children's book assignment is 50 Shades of Grey.

There are plenty of silent spots to get riffs in, especially during the ending drawing portion.  When the short just screeches to a halt in these final few minutes the guys struggle a bit.  But for the most part Say No to Strangers stays funny.

Thumbs Up

👍

The Lost World: Jurassic Park (iRiffs)

Film Year:  1997
Genre:  Science Fiction, Adventure, Thriller
Director:  Steven Spielberg
Starring:  Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Vince Vaughn, Pete Postlethwaite, Vanessa Lee Chester, Arliss Howard, Peter Stormare, Richard Schiff, Richard Attenborough
Riffers:  Mocktails (Scott, Joe, Chuck).

The Movie

Initially Michael Crichton didn't have plans to write a sequel novel to one of his most popular bestsellers, Jurassic Park.  It wasn't until after the massive box office of the film adaptation and personal pressure by Steven Spielberg did he reconsider.  He then came up with the innovative idea for a sequel book where "Hey, there's an island with dinosaurs on it.  Let's go BACK to it!"  Despite Spielberg's insistence that Crichton develop his own sequel to his book, I always found it a little funny that Spielberg wound up throwing much of it out anyway.

In a storyline that is more or less kinda what happens in the book, just told in a different way, The Lost World:  Jurassic Park finds Ian Malcolm, the one character from the original least likely to wind up back with the dinos, back with the dinos.  But this isn't the same island from the first book but rather a free range breeding island that was part of the same island chain, despite the fact we saw the dinosaurs being bred in the original on the first island.  Confused yet?  Anyway since the dinosaurs were genetically designed to die without human interaction, Malcolm is sent with a team to observe the dinosaurs on this island to find out why they're still alive.  Meanwhile another team is sent to capture dinosaurs and to bring them to the mainland in an ill-advised attempt to rebuild Jurassic Park on the mainland.

I remember being a kid at school when somebody made the remark that the original Jurassic Park was way better because it had a story while The Lost World was just a monster movie.  I didn't see his point.  Still don't.  I grew up loving monster movies, so the fact that a movie is just a monster movie doesn't phase me.  Is the movie redundant?  Sure.  But it's well made, and has some brilliant sequences of suspense that equal some of the best sequences in the original.

The dinos look even more impressive here than they did in the first, with just as much showstopping animatronic work coupled with more confident CGI.  I always get a kick out of The Lost World when I watch it, so I've never much understood the criticism leveled at it.  It's not an innovative film by any means, but as far as dinosaur adventures go it's ahead of the pack.

The Riff

Reviewing fan riffs is going to be a tricky business, and often I find myself thinking long and hard about whether or not this is a road I want to embark upon.  Especially while I'm watching them.  In the case of this riff I desired to do a Jurassic Park marathon in anticipation of the release of Jurassic World:  Fallen Kingdom, but I lacked a riff of The Lost World to do a full series.  Another riff group, Quiptracks, released one a while back but for whatever reason it's no longer available.  Instead I had to make due with a group called Mocktails, who as far as I can tell have only released this one riff.  Dropping a fan-made riff in the middle of a Rifftrax marathon is tricky enough, but do I want to judge a one time hit-and-run riff?  Is that a can of worms I want to open?

But I don't want to condemn something without having viewed it.  So here we are with the Mocktails riff of The Lost World:  Jurassic Park.

The thing I found myself most curious about as I watched this riff is what their script editing process was.  The flaw that I feel comes up the most in this iRiff is that I found it very cumbersome.  The group throws out a large amount of jokes at the film, but more of them feel like they're going for quantity over quality.  They speak because they feel as if seeing which portion of the volume they're throwing out sticks to the wall.  I really want to know how many versions of the script they come up with, if there were any jokes they threw out, or if they just put together a draft without a real filter for what works and what doesn't.

The uncertainty of the riff comes from a variety of places.  There are way too many jokes that feel safe and bare minimum, while others don't quite match up to the scene and give off a joke that's a huge stretch.  The worst offender in the latter subject comes early on as they riff a bed-ridden Richard Attenborough when one of the riffers lays down "Enthusiasm or Parkinsons?  You decide."  I just sat there flabbergasted at this riff.  First, Attenborough didn't do anything to set it up, and it was delivered as if it were a misplaced attempt at shock humor.  I was less shocked by the poor taste than I was that they had completely misjudged the context.  If the rest of the experience continued like that it would have been a Titanic level disaster.

But when the film delivers some dinosaur action the riffers are more likely to deliver something funnier.  Probably the moment that made me laugh the most comes early on when Richard Schiff sees a Stegosaur for the first time:  "Stegosaurus fetish comes to a climax!"  This is incredibly well played, because the visual on the screen supports the joke they're making.  Unfortunately moments like these are few and far between, and the riffers more or less just feel like they just threw most of it together.

And that's just the technical details.  Truth be told their delivery is underwhelming and not very enthusiastic.  The trio needs to emote with their voices more, and maybe a greater push will make their lines funnier.

Halfway through the riff they try to knock Family Guy for just referencing random pop culture moments and pretending it's clever and funny doing so.  Maybe this joke would have been funnier if that wasn't the impression I had of this riff as a whole.  There are a lot of jokes that are just said so they can exist, and there never feels like there's a particular vision for this riff.  The movie feels like it was selected simply because they didn't like it as opposed to them weeding out potential as to what they could do with it.  This is probably the biggest mistake a first time riff group can make, because you need to pick an easy target for your amateur status to learn from as opposed to a lengthy, mediocre film you dislike that could take you down with it.  There are a few occasional glimpses of a diamond in the rough for the Mocktails group, but there is a huge refinement process that needs to be put into effect if they really wanted to continue this.

Not Recommended

Duties of a Secretary (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2016
Riffers:  Bridget Nelson, Mary Jo Pehl

You see in the good old days women knew their place.  They had to cater to the man's every whim and that's why if they had to get out of the house and get a job secretary was perfect for them.  This instructional film was made so women wouldn't muck up as badly as they normally do.  A new secretary is hired at a real estate office and is given a crash course on what to do and what not to do.  That night she goes home and has a nightmare of what would happen if she did everything wrong, underlining the importance of her job.  She then wakes up and proceeds to do her job the correct way.

I actually thought Duties of a Secretary was more interesting than you average instructional film.  It didn't merely spell out what needed to be done, but rather enforce that not following the rules could have consequences.  The majority of the short gives us a straight look at worst case scenarios one after another and has an interesting theme of paranoia.  One mistake leads to another, leaving our lead girl more unsure of herself after each mistake is made.  There's an interesting theme of self-doubt here and sometimes we genuinely feel for her, though deep down we know she probably should be fired.

But it was all a dream.  We're then given an example of each of these scenarios done properly and it's so much simpler.  The theme suddenly switches to confidence, and I'd dare say the entire thing is fairly well done.

Bridget and Mary Jo tackle this short like it's a horror film.  They get into it, wince at it, get on the edge of their seats, and just seem to be on the edge of their seats.  Why Bridget even remarks the short is more torturous for her than Saw!  The way they play up their reactions to the tensions of the piece is constantly amusing and quite hilarious.

I also enjoy the way the duo discuss getting into the biz of being secretaries as well, putting on a little skit in which they might be watching this film just in case they're fired from Rifftrax.  Bridget thinks she'd make a great one because she knows the alphabet and can be nice to guys with mustaches.  If they are constantly as funny as they are in this short I'd hire the duo in a heartbeat!

Thumbs Up

👍

Jurassic Park (Rifftrax)

Film Year:  1993
Genre:  Science Fiction, Adventure, Thriller
Director:  Steven Spielberg
Starring:  Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Laura Dern, Ariana Richards, Joseph Mazzello, Bob Peck, Wayne Knight, Samuel L. Jackson
Rifftrax Year:  2008
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Weird Al Yankovic

The Movie

Steven Spielberg exploded into cinematic pop culture in 1975 with Jaws, and while he established a diverse career in the years since spanning films like Raiders of the Lost Ark to E.T. The Extra Terrestrial to The Color Purple, in 1993 he was provided with an opportunity to bring forth something of a spiritual successor to his man vs. nature film.  Based on the novel by Michael Crichton, which was a retooling of a concept he had used in the 1973 film Westworld (yes, it was a movie before it was a TV series), Jurassic Park tells the story of a theme park that has brought dinosaurs back to life via cloning techniques and presents a zoo unlike any other full of extinct creatures.  True to any Michael Crichton story, if something can go wrong with science it will.  During a pre-opening investigative tour of the park the power shuts down, leaving visitors stranded outside of safezones with carnivorous beasts on the hunt.

A lot of fuss has been made about Jurassic Park's use of computer graphics which, while not the first film to use such, were innovative at the time.  CGI has often come under attack in the years since, with many stating that Jurassic Park's CG dinos have never been topped.  This is hyperbole.  Take a look at the first full dinosaur we see in the film, a Brachiosaur which is entirely a CG creation.  It looked realistic enough back in 1993, but reinvestigating the film on it's 4K transfer one can clearly see its age.  Many films in the years since have improved upon the texture seen here.

But Jurassic Park is more or less celebrated for the fact that it didn't entirely rely on computers to get the job done, but mixed it in with animatronics by Stan Winston, which still look spectacular to this day.  Most of the dinosaur shots I remember in hindsight are the shots where the creatures were puppets, and the blending of the two techniques works in the film's favor.

The story itself is filled with a few bits of conveniences.  For the entire disaster at the park to work one needs to believe in Dennis Nedry's subplot about smuggling dinosaur embryos off the island.  While this is a fine excuse, one also needs to buy that Nedry's only real window for this was during an inspection tour, which feels like a majorly conspicuous time for him to be doing this, although granted the flaws in the park do provide a diversion for him.  Spielberg does have a great knack for turning contrivance into natural story flow.

Jurassic Park is a fantastic example of movie magic.  In a lot of ways it has shown its age.  Our knowledge of dinosaurs has grown since 1993, making the film's creatures look archaic, not to mention its portrayal of dinosaurs wasn't 100% up to date with what we did know at the time (the size of Velociraptors and Dilophosaurs are not accurate).  But in many of the places it counts it ages like fine wine.  It's fine adventure spectacle, and one worth watching more than once.

The Trax

Parody songwriter Weird Al Yankovic gets to play in the riffing booth today and he showcases a great chemistry with Mike.  The duo riff away on this classic film with a casual flair, not being tortured by it but rather observing it.  Unfortunately for the most part while the pair demonstrate that they could provide a great commentary, they've either picked the wrong movie to pump their creative juices or they're just not trying hard enough.

Things threaten to derail early as we're introduced to our main character of Dr. Alan Grant.  The "boy or girl?" riffs on the bratty kid who annoys him start out funny but get drug through the mud until they're irritating.  When the scene mercifully ends you cross yourself and thank god that you may not hear another riff on the subject, but Al doesn't let go of it that easily.  He continually brings the subject up throughout the film, much to my discontent.

Fortunately that's not all the Trax is made up of.  However a good portion of it is bland safe lines that don't really amount to much humor.  Occasionally there's a good laugh thrown into the mix.  During the famous "Welcome to Jurassic Park" scene they come up with the killer quip of "Now to swoop in with that timeshare sales pitch!"  I was also quite fond of the no-show T-Rex sequence in which Mike states that "A crowd has gathered to watch a goat lie down.  They should have called this Kansas:  The Ride."  But most of the riff coasts on the watchability of the movie with some cute jabs at it mixed in with some mediocre ones.  I was rarely groaning unless Al brings up his "boy or girl?" inquiry again.  Jurassic Park is okay.  Nothing worth going out of your way to see.

Average

Self-Conscious Guy (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2009
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

In this companion piece to Shy Guy, Marty is a self-conscious teen who struggles when he is forced to give a speech in front of his classmates.  He begins to become aware of how self-conscious he is and looks at ways of improving it.

The advice in this short ranges from under-developed to mediocre, though I suspect half the intention of the short was to push students into seeking more thorough advice from teachers or guidance counselors.  There's not a lot to really say about this short as a result because it's pretty self explanatory and not really that noteworthy.  It does however come up with an adequate portrayal of self-consciousness, which is maintained throughout the short.  Sometimes one can even feel it in the points where our main character isn't supposed to be self-conscious, but that might be attributed to stiff acting by performers who just might be, ironically, self-conscious.

The riffing is par for the course on Coronet instructional shorts like this.  There is not a lot of lines that go above and beyond, but the laughter is there to make it worthwhile.  There are jokes at the expense of Marty's self-consciousness (as expected), as well as embellishing the rewards of working past it ("The result:  Two chicks at once!").  Self-Conscious Guy is worth watching, though don't expect it to be anything extraordinary.

Thumbs Up

👍

Space Mutiny (Rifftrax Live)

Film Year:  1988
Genre:  Science Fiction
Director:  David Winters
Starring:  Reb Brown, John Phillip Law, Cisse Cameron, Cameron Mitchell
Rifftrax Year:  2018
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett
Featured Short:  "The Magic Shop"

The Short

Based on an H.G. Wells short story, The Magic Shop is about...well guess.  A father and a son walk into a magic shop and the magician behind the counter puts on some pedestrian magic tricks that slowly escalate into something more magical.

I had never heard of this story and if I were to believe IMDB it looks like it was only adapted to film twice, once seen here and the other as an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.  I have yet to see that episode of Hitchcock, though this short is pretty okay.  It has a simple and straightforward story and it never really aims too high or two low.  It just accomplishes its mission, which is to just put on ten minutes of whimsy.

If I were to nitpick I guess the short tends to get a bit noisy and incoherent at times.  But it does feel like it's in the structural nature of what is going on, to just get crazier.  Crazy it is, but the short is just fine.

The Movie

Shamelessly stealing it’s spaceship footage from the far superior Battlestar Galactica, Space Mutiny also tells the tale of a group of refugees from a dead planet looking for a new home.  Though it’s more in tune with Lost in Space than Battlestar Galactica.  And by Lost in Space, I mean the nutso Goth punk Matt LeBlanc movie.  Only much cheaper.  Cheaper than the original Lost in Space, in fact.

Damn.  I really want to watch either Battlestar Galactica or Lost in Space now.  And I can’t figure out which.

Anyway, a group of people on our spacecraft succumbs to…SPACE!  MADNESS!

…And revolts against the Captain Santa Claus and his faithful underlings.  The events send former Diabolik John Phillip Law and former TV movie Captain America Reb Brown on a collision course!

What can be said about Space Mutiny that isn’t plainly obvious?  The only reason it’s not the worst movie ever made is because it’s too damn unintentionally funny!  Whether it’s the sets, the actors, or our macho hero screaming like a girl, this flick is sure to get a laugh out of you.  That’s the difficulty of reviewing a film that pretty much speaks for itself, because there’s nowhere to start because everything is so haywire that you can’t find a starting point.

But honestly, if there were ever a movie to watch outside the show for a Mystery Science Theater home experience, this is the film to do it on.  It’s painless, funny, and kind of fun to watch.  That doesn’t redeem its worse aspects, but it’s better than nothing!

The Live Show

Our Live Show experience is enhanced straight away as Kevin makes a dramatic entrance in cosplay.  Based on Cameron Mitchell's character from the film Kev marches out with a fuller beard and a flashy blue muumuu-type number that he totally rocks.  This costume was done as a promise to the Kickstarter backers and I believe it is worth every penny.

Kicking off our show, Mike, Kevin, and Bill riff upon The Magic Shop short film, which appears to have been selected because it may or may not have some nostalgic echos to another MST episode (which I guess is welcome in a reriff Live Show like this) Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders.  There's even toy monkeys with symbols, inspiring the fan service callback riff of "Rock'n'roll Martian!"  The short for the most part delights in spurts, though never becomes outright hilarious.  Still it's a pleasant start to the show.

Up next we're given a riffed preview of the next Live Show, Krull.  This segment will most likely be edited out of the DVD, so if anybody who is viewing this at home doesn't know what I'm talking about, there you go.  The segment is mostly okay, with a shout-out to a young Liam Neeson in the film probably highlighting.  I have not seen Krull so I didn't really understand what was going on in the clip, but it looks like it will be good fodder.

Next we're off into the main event, and the answer is yes, they do finally address the Battlestar Galactica footage in this riff of the film, but only in one line.  Mike just lets loose something I'm sure he's been dying to say for twenty years:  "Yes we know it's the ship from Battlestar Galactica, you nerds."  After that they let it slide, but what a glorious in-joke it was.

But for the next twenty minutes I began to fear that Space Mutiny was degrading into another Time Chasers style disaster of a Live Show.  New jokes weren't provoking a reaction (especially a really lame interchange about chicken fajitas which the guys do for a full minute) and the audience was laughing at empty space, recalling riffs from the MST version.  I started to settle back and say "Oh well.  At least we finally got a BSG riff."  And there was even a riff on Reb Brown's failed Captain America pilot, so that made me happy.

However as the movie ramps up, the more jazzed about it our trio get.  Riffs progressively become more fun, even though there are a few times they pretty much do a new version of a riff that was in the MST version (the "dead crew member resurrection" scene and "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" pretty much provoke the same response, just phrased differently).  In the end I didn't really mind the rehashed material.  It just became a nostalgic experience mixed with new laughs.

And the answer is yes, we get a whole slew of new Dave Rider beefcake names.  I don't think many are as memorable as the original group, but it's good to have them back.  The Gorilla Gram from the Starship Troopers Live Show is also back, revamped a tad to help cover up some naughty bits.

Overall I'm not convinced it was worthwhile seeing Space Mutiny riffed again.  If anything one of the major things I got from this experience was seeing Space Mutiny on the big screen really emphasized how cheap it is as a movie.  There's a point in this film that I've never noticed where Reb Brown and Cissy Cameron walk past the end of the set and you can see a good portion of the back of the set while they're continuing the scene.  It helped me appreciate what an amusing clusterfuck this movie was if nothing else.  The new riffing starts a bit meh but grows into something better as it goes on.  This isn't the best Rifftrax Live by any means, maybe middle of the pack to lower tier, but it's a solid one to check out.

Good

"Where's Your Big Bad Apocalypse Now?" (ICWXP)

Featured Short:  "Soapy the Germ Fighter"

The Short

Our child Jimmy is upset about washing up when he gets dirty, afraid it'll make him a "sissy."  But a specter named Soapy, a giant talking soap bar, projects himself into Jimmy's room to clear up a few misconceptions about cleanliness.

Shorts like this where a talking mascot sells us viewers on the wonders of a particular product/activity of the week are a dime a dozen.  Soapy the Germ Fighter is just the latest.  What makes Soapy stand out is that unlike a lot of shorts Soapy isn't a cartoon character, just some guy in a cardboard box pretending to be a talking bar of soap.  Somehow this makes the short even creepier than it would have been, because it sucks the whimsy out of the attempted education.

The short's point is put across well, though it tends to drone and nag a little.  Soapy is fine as an educational short, I suppose.  It just has hilariously ill-conceived title character.

The Episode

When we last saw the Cine-Sorrow gang, they had just received a message from a mysterious stranger and they have uncovered a new bot named Flux Namtari.  This latest episode starts out with Topsy and Cylon uploading fifty years of pop culture into his head, a lot of which is expected, some of which isn't.  I'm not ashamed to say it, I laughed really, really hard at the Sesame Street parody where the Count sings to the tune of "Bodies."  As for Flux Namtari, I wish I could say more about him, but honestly he does next to nothing in the episode.

Meanwhile Rick is sick of life at the theater and decides to take on the zombie apocalypse head-on.  Gearing up with weapons he charges out into the streets and finds that there is only one zombie present, a Star Trek cosplayer.

I mentioned in the previous ICWXP review how I hoped after the previous episode's expository setup that the series might find this grander view of the host segments and achieve something special.  To an extent they do.  These segments are pretty good, and I laughed a lot.  Though I feel ICWXP needs to evolve it's riffing style if it wishes to really impress me.

The riffing starts off by riffing a string of commercials, the best of which is a bizarrely upbeat commercial about S.T.D.s that sings "V.D. is for Everybody!"  The commercial is so bizarre and the reactions by Rick and the Bots are so genuine that I found myself laughing throughout.  There is also an interesting period where they play with the theater format and have one of their commercials get hijacked by popup ads.  It's hit and miss, but it's clever and innovative.  I really do like that these guys aren't afraid to play around with and expand the format like this.

Moving on to the main event, after the V.D. commercial and the popups, Soapy the Germ Fighter feels a tad bit humdrum by comparison.  The riffing isn't really below par for ICWXP, but I felt that the energy that was in the room from the warm-up offerings was suddenly drained.  There are some good jabs, though mostly the guys seem to have a one track mind in this offering (pedophilia among other jokes of a sexual nature), and there's not a lot of joke diversity.  Rifftrax also riffed this short during their Live show of Mothra, which I remember being quite funny.  I was hoping ICWXP would knock it out of the park, but it just kinda sat there for the most part.

Dropping out of the theater we're given the weakest host segment of the bunch in which Soapy pays a visit to Cine-Sorrow, which de-evolves into one giant unfunny poo joke.  I understand the concept, and I get why it's supposed to be funny, but it runs way too long and it's amusement dries up quickly.  From there we begin to set up further exposition which threaten to flesh out the world of ICWXP, though we fade to black and the episode ends first.

While I had some problems with this episode, I'd say between the Count sketch and the V.D. commercial I've probably laughed harder at this episode than I have at any ICWXP entry thusfar.  I really want to recommend the episode on the basis of that, but the centerpiece short is a disappointment and the accompanying Soapy host segment is a dud, leaving the entire middle portion of the episode to be a drag.  But the beginning and the end of the episode are quite good, making this one an episode worth seeing.  However I find myself a little impatient and feel that I might not be so lenient on the series if it stays this inconsistent.

Good

The DVD

"Where's Your Big Bad Apocalypse Now?" is available on icwxp.com as a single disc or a part of their Season 2 Collection 1 pack, with the first and third episodes of this season.  Video is a crisp animorphic widescreen (with a horizontal stretched presentation in the theater), though audio can come off a bit soft.

Like the last two ICWXP releases, special features are plentiful.  First up is a 25 minute blooper/behind the scenes reel, which offers some okay blunders and cool behind the scenes shots.  I especially enjoyed the look into how they film the theater scenes, which is charmingly low tech.  It helps one appreciate just how much effort these guys put into the show and how much they squeeze out of a low budget.  There are also some great extra jokes with the Count.

Next up is a 30 minute Q&A with the cast, where they answer the question everybody has been wondering:  "ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL?"  Subjects range from interactions with the MST cast, movie selection, and possible expansion of the series.

Coming up next is a short from ICWXP writer Josh Way's solo series Fun with Shorts, "The Benefits of Looking Ahead."  I plan on covering Josh Way in the future but am still working out how exactly to tackle his tremendous output, so I won't be giving a full review of this short.  The short itself stars Nick from What to Do on a Date as he plays a teenager without drive deciding what to do with his life.  The riffing, while not perfect, is a step up from the riffing on the Soapy segment in this episode, giving me a more satisfying experience with the riffing on this disc as a whole.

Up next is a heavy metal video of a band called Sicadis.  Not my speed.  Moving on.

Finally we have another audio commentary by Rikk Wolf and Nick Evans.  Like normal the audio commentary skews technical, so people who are interested in independent production may want to give it a listen.  They talk the choice of short and the conception of the web ad segment as well.

When Should Grown-Ups Stop Fights? (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2013

Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

It's a fact of life that children fight.  It is important to know which fights may actually be harmful and what kind of adult response is demanded of them to .  Unless the children are the Jets and the Sharks.  Then just let them rumble.

This short doesn't provide any answers but is actually a discussion piece for teachers on how to work around playground behavior.  We are given four scenarios:  a fight over a tricycle, a disagreement on physics, random outbursts from a single source, and sand being tossed around.  The short then asks us to review and discuss each scenario with our fellow teachers.

Except I'm not a teacher.  So...

Yet this short might be interesting to parents as well.  As someone who has lived with children ages 2-4, a lot of what is covered in this short is true to crash course that is dealing with children.  These scenarios and potential discussion help us prepare for occasions like this, which I assure you WILL happen.

This short has a monotonous narrator who only intermittently discusses what's going on onscreen.  This allows Mike, Kevin, and Bill to get plenty of jokes in at this short's expense.  Childish fighting and temper tantrums allow for some fun and creative riffs over what could cause such rifts, with my favorite probably going to the children getting into a sandfight while playing boat, which our riffers ponder probably started because they were fighting over "who gets to play Ginger and who gets to play Mary Anne."

There is a point in which we are forced to sit through the same footage twice in a row in order to study it more closely, which gives them the opportunity to offer new riffs for the same scenes.  This might be a point of struggle, but our trio seems game for it.  If nothing else it might give them an opportunity to bring about lines they couldn't fit in earlier that they might have had to cut.  The second round isn't as strong as the first, but this short is pretty funny over all, making it an easy recommend.

Thumbs Up

👍

606-The Creeping Terror

Film Year:  1964
Genre:  Horror, Science Fiction
Director:  A.J. Nelson (Vic Savage)
Starring:  Vic Savage, Shannon O'Neil, William Thourlby, John Caresio, and Larry Burrell as the voice of everyone
MST Season:  6

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

One of the most infamous bad movies of all time sees a giant carpet monster unleashed upon planet Earth by alien invaders.  It's mission:  to devour human beings...very...slowly...  The movie isn't all that different in premise than The Blob, which was another low budget sci-fi horror from the same period which was also about a creature from outer space that set out to ingest everything in sight.  The key difference is that the people who made The Blob knew how to work with the budget they had, whereas The Creeping Terror just does whatever whether it looks good or not.

One can easily tell by watching this production that something is off.  It wasn't made by real filmmakers and it shows.  Acting is often stiff and dull, and that's when they let the actors act at all.  Most of the time the film goes silent and lets a narrator spoonfeed what's going on to the audience, even dubbing the actors himself.  Legend has it that most of the film's soundtrack somehow wound up at the bottom of a lake, though the docudrama The Creep Behind the Camera implies that it was lost when the film switched possession in post.

All of this is without mentioning the monster scenes themselves.  Probably an entire book could be written about the ineffectiveness of the titular Creeping Terror, which looks ridiculous and just crawls around, lets its victims stare at it, and then they scream and crawl inside.  A smart filmmaker might improvise a reasoning behind this to cover up their budget limitation, like the monster creating a hypnotic state for its victims, but nope.  The people he eats are just suicidal.

As we examine these monster scenes, we find that the film might be successful in being a horror film in all the wrong ways.  The movie isn't scary, but it does make the audience uneasy in it's voyeuristic qualities.  A lot of the time the victims of the Terror are young women in skimpy clothing being dragged into it headfirst as we get a grand look and their hinders and bare legs as they are devoured alive, being devoured in an erotic fashion we haven't seen since Legend of Dinosaurs.  The film is filled with peeping tom imagery like this that may indeed succeed in making the viewer uncomfortable, up to and including a mother of a sick infant being devoured and leaving a baby all alone screaming for his mother.

It could feel that all of this is intentional, which may make it arguable that the film achieves its goals, but then we come back to the shoddy production of the film itself.  At this point the final conclusion becomes "No, it's just a shit movie."  Even worse, it was reportedly a bit of a scam movie as well, with some shady dealings being done to get it made by director, producer, and star Vic Savage.  The making of The Creeping Terror was retold in a stylized manner in the independent film The Creep Behind the Camera.  If one enjoys films like Ed Wood or The Disaster Artist, it's worth a look.

The Episode

With a narrator constantly jabbering in this movie one might initially conclude that Mike and the Bots are in trouble with this one.  However they seem to realize that most of what the narrator says is empty and not important, to which they decide it's safe to talk over him.  They have a lot of fun with this movie, as the constant lack of dialogue means the trio can safely dub their own voices into the main characters and when they do decide to pay attention to the narrator, they delight in adding their own inanities into his mouth.  And still there is a lot of downtime where the narrator just gives up on describing what's onscreen, and our riffers cut loose.  In the sequences of silence when the Terror just wanders around and eats people the guys never leave a silent moment, and the results are constantly funny.

The host segments are something of an acquired taste.  Personally I think they're pretty funny, but I could understand why most wouldn't.  My favorite is probably Servo as a security guard, which is a wildly fun way to open the episode.  Another I quite enjoy is Mike's stereo system which only plays the repetitive music from the film.  It's pretty lengthy, but for people like me who understand the hobby Mike is portraying here it's a fairly amusing parody.  I also quite like the way they "stick it" to Love American Style, which is an amusingly out there sketch of them venting about a series that hasn't been relevant nor has really been thought about for about twenty years by the time this segment aired.

I wouldn't argue with anybody who might consider The Creeping Terror one of the best of the series, as it's very consistent with its laughs and has an infamously silly movie as its centerpiece.  Despite thinking highly of it myself, it's not really one I think of when I list my favorites of the series.  I'm not entirely certain why this is but if I were to hazard a guess I'd say it's because while the episode is wildly funny it's not a tango dance between the commentary and the movie like I always claim the best episodes are.  The question is do I lump it with the greats or do I just say it's a solid one worth watching?  I'm going to round down on this one, though it's definitely split decision.

Good

The DVD

The Creeping Terror crawled it's way onto DVD in Rhino's Volume 1 set.  Audio and video were both solid, while special features offered the feature film unriffed.  The transfer of this film seemed to be the exact same one used in the episode.

Shout Factory re-released Volume 1 themselves with The Creeping Terror also with solid audio and video, though the unriffed film is no longer present.  The bonus features lean quite heavily on the docudrama The Creep Behind the Camera, which includes a trailer for it and a Q&A after a screening of the film, which has Frank and Trace in attendance (Frank contributes to the discussion, Trace sits silently).  There's also a 2014 trailer for The Creeping Terror.

304-Gamera vs. Barugon

Film Year:  1966
Genre:  Kaiju, Adventure
Director:  Shigeo Tanaka
Starring:  Kyoko Enami, Kojiro Hongo, Akira Natsuki
MST Season:  3

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED!*

I’m a Godzilla fan, but the appeal of Gamera has pretty much eluded me.  I saw the original film (Sandy Frank dub) at about age 12 and thought it was beyond lame (a turtle that turns into a flying saucer?  Pfft).  I saw the critically praised Guardian of the Universe a few months later, and wasn’t impressed with it either (special effects were good, but the story was as uninteresting as they come).  Ultimately I guess I just don’t care for the turtle.  I did love Revenge of Iris and enjoyed Gamera the Brave though, so I’m not a total Grinch.

As far as Gamera movies go, Gamera vs. Barugon isn’t that bad.  Of the ones featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000, I think it’s clearly the best (the only one of the early series I’d probably say I liked just as much was Gamera vs. Jiger).  It has a more serious tone, and the main characters are actually adults instead of little children.  The premise follows a group of treasure hunters who uncover a giant opal from a native island.  Taking it back ashore, the opal turns out to be an egg that hatches into Barugon, a giant gecko with a killer rainbow and a freezing tongue.

Yeah, the anatomy behind these Gamera monsters is pretty stupid.  This one at least looks kind of cool, even if it is a pretty stiff costume he’s wearing.  Mankind’s only hope to save them from this threat is Gamera, a giant turtle they tried to shoot off into space for some reason.  Since we watched this sequel before the original, we’re not all that familiar with Gamera yet.  Speaking of, Gamera’s hardly in the movie, and his brawls with Barugon are very brief.  I guess this bored the target audience of children, so all future productions brought in more turtle showboating.

As an adult, however, the plot of this movie is pretty strong for its type.  But Deiei’s shortcomings in the kaiju genre make it feel stiff and long.  However, if I’m going to watch a Gamera movie unriffed, I’d more than likely watch this one.

The Episode

Another helping of Gamera?  Well if we must.  At the very least a kaiju movie would be a pallet cleanser after the previous episode this season.  But living up to the previous Gamera episode is a bit of a tall order, and while Gamera vs. Barugon isn't as bad as the original film it doesn't quite leave itself open as much.  There are still riffs on fakey special effects galore, but the rest of the production doesn't quite have as much to offer them with the exception of the occasional spurt of weirdness (the female lead bloodsucking scene is probably top of the list of WTF).  This riff can be a tad bit low-key, though there are solid chuckles and some big gutbusters spread every so often.

The host segments are also a bit low key.  They're mostly not very funny, though sometimes clever at the very least.  Probably the most obvious example is the second segment, where Servo and Crow play monsters dining in to "eat a city."  It's cute, though a tad bit perplexing in it's execution.  There is some fun in Joel identifying "big stars" in today's movie and the toy set commercial as well.  Probably the most amusing segment is the very first, which sees the Servo and Crow debating computers.  Our Invention Exchange sees a re-adaptation of the Cumber-Bubble-Bund and Joel shows us a dancing soda can.

Gamera vs. Barugon is something of an episode that's easy to look over, as it's coming off a string of fan favorites and other Gamera experiments tend to overshadow it.  I think a lot may ride on just how much you enjoy kaiju films on the series and how patient you are with your riffing.  If you expect to be rolling in hysterics constantly then this probably isn't the episode for you.  This is more in line with thinking "Heh, that's amusing" constantly instead.  Judging it on that spectrum, it's pretty funny.

Good

The DVD

This episode was one of the episodes released on Shout Factory's all-Gamera celebratory set of Volume XXI:  MST3K vs. Gamera.  Audio and video were both fantastic.  Bonus features include a twenty plus minute interview with the Chiodo Brothers, the special effects artists who worked on such films as Critters, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Theodore Rex, Turbo:  A Power Rangers Movie, and Team America:  World Police.  These suitamation experts discuss the man-in-suit monster movie technique and nerd out about various monsters throughout the years, as well as discussing their own work.  Concluding the disc is a Japanese trailer for the film in a double feature with Diamajin.