Cinema Playground Journal 2026: Week 34 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

Insidious:  Out of the Further

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre:  Horror

Director:  Jacob Chase

Starring:  Amelia Eve, Brandon Perea, Maisie Richardson-Sellers, Lin Shaye

My confession is that I hadn't seen all the Insidious movies until this week.  I tried to grind them when the fifth one came out, but only had time for the first two.  Well, most of the first two.  I didn't finish the second one, but I got ten minutes away from the end and just ran out of time.  I'm pretty sure I could guess how it ended, though.  But this time I was determined to finish the Insidious journey and watched the third and fourth movies, which I did complete.  And yet, I still haven't watched the last ten minutes of the second one.  It's always nagged at me that I never watched this series in full, because I legitimately always thought the first one was pretty good.  Then sequels came out and they just slipped my mind.  My conclusive thoughts on the Insidious series is that it's surprisingly melodramatic, especially when you get to the ones where Lin Shaye is the headliner.  Shaye is a good actress, but the movies always give her big walls of dialogue for her to deliver with theatrical sadness in her eyes.  This is especially true of the fourth movie, which feels like it was written around monologues that they wanted to give her.  The horror elements are usually creative and fun enough to counter, but this franchise is usually a weird mixture of playfulness and a stone face.

But, long story short, I missed out on the Insidious series for all these years.  Turns out I didn't miss much.

Anyway, this sixth film revolves around a dentist who finds that she has a special link to "the Further," that spiritual realm where all the scary spooks live in.  There is also a malevolent force inside it that wishes to use her connection to help all the ghost people escape into the real world and create havoc.  I like this story.  At the heart of it is that theme of paternal bonds that all the Insidious movies have, even if its themes of generational trauma echo the fourth film more than I think it realizes, but it's a solid and sturdy script.  It's pretty definitively the best Insidious movie since the first one.  It has the best balance between the horror story and the personal drama, without falling into the familiar traps of being too convoluted for the former and too overbearing on the latter.  These things especially hurt the last two movies in this series.

The one let down is that the movie isn't as "scary" as the other films in the franchise.  There are scenes of discomfort, and one lengthy scene that has the sole aim of just being gross, but it's not as creative as the other films in this series when it comes to trying to unsettle the audience.  For a good long while, this movie doesn't have a big suspense setpiece that makes you lean forward in anticipation.  In the home stretch, it starts to fuse typical Insidious spookies with Evil Dead insanity, causing one to wonder where this spirit was the whole time.  I'm going to forgive this because I think, as a whole, this movie has more going for it than the other sequels, but the original is still the only film in this series that got the balance right.

The Magic Faraway Tree

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Fantasy

Director:  Ben Gregor

Starring:  Andrew Garfield, Claire Foy, Nonso Anozie, Nicola Coughlan, Jessica Gunning, Jennifer Saunders, Rebecca Ferguson

Based on the classic children's book series, Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy play a pair of unemployed parents who take their family out to the countryside to start a tomato farm.  As their trio of city kids adjust to the simple life, they discover a tree in the woods that leads to a magical lands in the sky.  The Magic Faraway Tree is pure flamboyant British whimsy, with little reason to be purely cinematic cotton candy other than because it can and you're powerless to stop it.  All the set-design is sumptuous and all the costumes look ridiculous, while both are fulfilled by a game cast who are ready to fill the screen with their over-the-top, giggling personas.  The moral of the story is basically escaping the bubble of indoor tech and learning to play outside, which is both simple and obvious.  It delivers it with warmth and cheer, making this a quality option for any family.

Mutiny

⭐️1/2

Genre:  Action

Director:  Jean-François Richet

Starring:  Jason Statham, Annabelle Wallis, Roland Møller, Adrian Lester

Traditionally, a mutiny takes place when a crew strips command away from their ranking officer and takes a station or vessel for their own intent.  That doesn't happen in this movie.  I'm not sure if the people who made it thought a mutiny was just taking over a boat, but it takes balls to make a movie called "Mutiny" that doesn't actually have a mutiny.  What actually does happen in this movie is that Statham is framed for murder, and his search for answers leads to a container ship, where he does Jason Statham things to bad people who are human trafficking.  If one wants to get into the minor details, Annabelle Wallis is a person in the command chain on the ship and she helps Statham, so technically she's committing mutiny, but it's also kind of a paltry mutiny.  Statham's the one doing most of the work.

But we all come to a Jason Statham movie to see Jason Statham bruise some balls.  Can the action in Mutiny save the fact that it's a conceptual mishap?  Mutiny is pretty bottom-tier Statham.  The plot is meandering and clumsy, as Statham just runs around saving people, abandoning them, saving them again, abandoning them again, only to save them fully in the climax.  It's not a thrilling story by any means.  The action is pretty solid when the movie decides to get dirty, and Statham doesn't disappoint.  You get to see him pick up an ax, a crate hook, and harpoon gun, and that's when you know you're about to see some quality violence.  But for a movie with a script this thin, there needs to be more.  This needs to go full Die Hard (or even Under Seige) to make it exciting.  There is not enough event on that boat to film a whole movie around, which makes you wonder why they didn't just actually make a movie about a mutiny.

Spa Weekend

⭐️1/2

Genre:  Comedy

Director:  Jon Lucas, Scott Moore

Starring:  Leslie Mann, Isla Fisher, Michelle Buteau, Anna Faris, Adam Demos

Hoping to attract all the ladies having a girl's night this week is Spa Weekend, a comedy featuring a group of lifelong besties hoping to relax on a weekend that becomes more chaotic as their one friend who doesn't have her shit together shows up.  While I was open to letting this movie just do its thing, ultimately Spa Weekend was a bit of a drag.  Nothing about it has any flow to it, and most of its plot beats feel performative and manufactured, right down to our lead having a love interest whose only personality is to be generic perfect guy.  Even the comedy suffers because of this.  There is a very plastic way all the jokes are delivered in this movie and it stresses me out.  Spa weekends shouldn't raise my blood pressure.  Everyone is doing their best in trying to improve their script by improvising most of their lines, but editing them all together is a janky experience of people saying weird dialogue in a vacuum.  But if I were to give credit to one performer, it would be Isla Fisher.  She storms in with a Peg Bundy wardrobe and plays every scene way larger than she needs to.  Sometimes she overwhelms the movie, but a lot of the scenes she's in kinda need a big presence like hers to kick it in the ass.  There's a scene where she disrupts a group meditation that is pretty fun. It's not laugh-out-loud funny, but it's easily the best scene in the movie.  The movie is painless fluff, but it's not the joyful good time it wants to be.  One scenery-chewing performance can't overturn such a flimsy production.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Drama, Horror, Thriller

Director:  Jane Schoenbrun

Starring:  Hannah Einbinder, Gillian Anderson, Jack Haven, Patrick Fischler

I had to play a Where's Waldo? game to find this movie in my area.  My normal theater has been advertising it extensively, but that doesn't always mean they're showing smaller movies like this.  Sometimes they pick them up a week or two later to fill screens, but it also isn't a guarantee.  This might be partially because Spider-Man is still a guaranteed theater filler, but I'd rather blame a bad movie than a good one.  My theater played that stupid Elijah Peel movie last week but they wouldn't put up Camp Miasma.  That's bullshit.

From I Saw the TV Glow director Jane Schoenbrun, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is yet another allegorical queer film meshed with meta homage to the type of media they consumed during their formative years.  This one is inspired by 80's slasher movies, mostly the Friday the 13th franchise and a dash of Sleepaway Camp, telling the story of a young director hired to helm a reboot of the fictional Camp Miasma franchise.  Her quest for a new approach to the tired slasher story leads her to the doorstep of the original "final girl" star of the first film, played by Gillian Anderson.  And no, the fact that Anderson is in this film while her series The X-Files was obviously a strong influence on I Saw the TV Glow was not lost on me.

The film is another tour of the psychological effect media has on those who view it during their formative years, and, as the title implies, this one is more specifically focused on sexuality.  And what a better way to express sexuality than what Joe Bob Briggs refers to the "blood, breasts, and beasts" of 80's horror.  A lot of 80's teen sexuality is linked to that culture, from making out in a theater to watching people do it on-screen before they get killed, and bringing it all together as a bizarre sexual awakening.  The killer's name in the Camp Miasma franchise is "Little Death," which is derived from a French nickname for an orgasm.  This is very intentional, becoming a heavy metaphor that drives the third act of the film.

As smart and as interesting as this film can get, it never replicates that crawling-into-your skin energy of I Saw the TV Glow.  But it's also very clearly the same creative force pushing for something equally provocative.  The movie is a very specific expression from a very specific artist, albeit one that has less power behind it than their previous film.  The film is flooded with an LGBTQ identity, and even a good chunk of the film's cast identify as queer in one way or another.  Gillian Anderson is also having the time of her life performing in this movie that drives itself against the grain of the hetero-normative cinema experience, and she spends most of the movie overwhelming it with her character.  Sometimes it struggles infusing that queer identity into its homage of Friday the 13th, as the queer Sleepaway Camp elements don't blend seamlessly with the more popular slasher franchise.  It's doesn't resonate with me as strongly as Schoenbrun's previous film, but it's one that is still worth combing through to see what you can find in it.  And it would probably make an interesting double feature with fellow slasher deconstruction In a Violent Nature, if one were so inclined.

I also felt like lighting a cigarette when it was done with me, so it did something right.

Tony

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Drama

Director:  Matt Johnson

Starring:  Dominic Sessa, Antonio Banderas, Emilia Jones, Dagmara Domińcyk, Rich Sommer, Stavros Halkias, Leo Woodall

Popular chef and Kitchen Confidential author Anthony Bourdain is the subject of this latest biodrama, which sees a young and petulant failed writer named "Tony" following a girl to Massachusetts, only to become stranded there.  With few options, he becomes a dishwasher in a restaurant ran by Antonio Banderas, who eventually allows him to work with the food, igniting his passion for cooking.  The movie feels like a good serving of a story about figuring out what one's purpose in life is, though I feel it's a bit too casual to actually hit.  While we do spend a lot of time with these characters, sometimes it feels like their development happens off-camera.  The movie wants us to read the eyes of the actors more than it wants to tell us what their thinking, which can be virtuous when it when it doesn't stumble upon expressing that adequately.  Still, it's an interesting biopic, and it will be of interest to kitchen-philes.  Bourdain was an interesting guy, though this movie is only just a taste of what made him worth knowing about.

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

The Brink of War ⭐️⭐️

The End of Oak Street ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Fast and the Furious ⭐️1/2

The Odyssey ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Paw Patrol:  The Dino Movie ⭐️⭐️1/2

The Rivals of Amziah King ⭐️⭐️

Spider-Man:  Brand New Day ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Super Troopers 3:  Farva's Wedding ⭐️⭐️1/2

New To Digital

Toy Story 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

New To Physical

Backrooms ⭐️⭐️

Coming Soon!

Cinema Playground Journal 2026: Week 33 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

The Brink of War

⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Drama

Director:  Michael Russell Gunn

Starring:  Jeff Daniels, Jared Harris, J.K. Simmons

It had to come to this, didn't it?  I'm still reeling from that fuck-awful Ronald Reagan biopic with Dennis Quaid and now I have another Reagan movie breathing down my neck.  I'm still dealing with trauma, here.  This isn't helping.

This one has a narrowed-down scope, focusing on the meeting between Reagan and Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev over nuclear disarmament in 1986.  The movie feels like it's only ambition is to be a "movie day" film for history classes in middle school, opting for hammy stage drama instead of anything meaty.  The movie never breaks free of its overwritten dialogue, hamfisted attempts at human relation schmaltz, and uneven casting.  I like Jeff Daniels, but he is very miscast as Reagan.  He is sometimes trying too hard to push that Reagan impression into his own screen persona, and at other times he just gives up, walking in a room like regular Jeff Daniels and is all "I'm Ronald Reagan."  Jared Harris, on the other hand, is excellent casting as Gorbachev.  He takes a script that a lot of actors in this movie are struggling with and he is fully locked-in, ready to sell it.  So half the movie has the heart it needs and half of it feels artificial.  I'm really struggling to compromise with this movie, which is probably fitting, giving the subject matter.

The one thing that makes me softer on its weaker aspects is that the film goes out of its way to actually have some humanization and empathy for the Russians, treating them as real people instead of just the enemy.  Compare this to the Dennis Quaid movie, which portrayed them as blubbering buffoons who were destined to fail because they weren't American.  This aspect of The Brink of War gives the movie a backbone, taking its tricky subject of dramatizing a debate table and giving it a form of dignity that the propaganda of that other movie wouldn't allow.  After all, nobody wants nuclear war, but also nobody wants to give up their nukes.  It was a tricky thing to compromise on and I'll give the movie some credit in understanding that part of the assignment.

Elijah Peel

⭐️

Genre:  Drama, Faith

Director:  Nathan Ross Murphy, Kevin D. Sepe

Starring:  Robert Malcolm Cumming, Evelyn Grace Kite, Kevin Sorbo, April Billingsley, Princess Elmore

The poster for Elijah Peel says it's inspired by a true story but, for the life of me, I can't find any information on what that true story is.  As far as I know, Elijah Peel is not a real person.  Google's AI says the movie is just a loose translation of co-director Kevin D. Sepe's born again experience, but it will be a cold day in hell when I trust an AI summary at face value.  But if that is true, I'd say that is some heavy duty bullshit advertising, up there with claiming Texas Chainsaw Massacre is inspired by a true story because, technically, serial killers exist and they might live in Texas and own a chainsaw.

So, this fake true story is about a hard drinking, hard partying rock star name Elijah Peel who has a heart attack and finds himself in ICU, visited by a young girl with cancer who wants him to know that Jesus loves him.  They become friends and this convinces him to become a Christian rock artist.  If you think any of this happens gradually, you'd be wrong.  The movie does nothing with subtlety.  There is melodrama and then there is whatever this movie is doing, where it portrays dramatic beats by hitting sudden mood swings, dropping to its knees and bursting into shrill wails.  Even Al Jolson would tell it to calm the fuck down.  The drug scenes are so brazenly in-your-face that it almost feels like a stern warning by people who have never done drugs in their lives and it becomes a movie about conquering drug addiction that feels like it was made by someone whose experience with it was limited to watching Reefer Madness and thinking it was a biting commentary.  After all of this, our title character spends thirty seconds with the little girl and becomes completely obsessed with her, going through a Patch Adams phase where he just clowns around the hospital with her.  Then the movie hits lows where everyone is on the floor and crying because of "the power of music" or something.  This somehow forces him into a relapse, where instead of being given drugs, some dude just locks him in a room with a girl who is OD'ing.  Even after-school specials  would think it's too much.

This isn't even mentioning the various things in this movie that are odd.  The movie's portrayal of nurses is strange, because some will wear proper scrubs and others will dress in uniforms that feel like they were rented from porno sets, with short skirts and cleavage bearing, to show "temptation."  The movie has a long (humorous?) montage of him rejecting personal nurses because they're all too sexy.  Then there is a scene where a nurse threatens to give him strychnine instead of morphine after he won't stop flirting with her, which I'm pretty sure could get her fired even if she was being sexual harassed.  Then comes a late revelation that the movie is pro-stem cell research, which is usually the exact opposite of what a faith film would normally do because that also implies that it's pro-abortion by association.  But then again, maybe the filmmakers just don't know what stem cells are.  They aren't rocket scientists, they just want to make a movie about a magical sick girl who knows everything about life.

This leads to an ending that is very strange and I can't tell if it's trying to be ambiguous or not because it's shooting too many conflicting ideas at the audience.  I'm just going to spoil the fuck out of it because I'm the only person who will ever watch this movie, so you've been warned.  This being a movie about a cancer patient, the movie obviously is going to get to that point where cancer is going to do what it does.  But then it presents the that experimental stem cell treatment and then it flashes forward to our titular musician singing a song because he promised the girl he'd "sing at her funeral," then it cuts to the audience and she's just sitting out there.  Maybe the intent is that we're supposed to decide whether she lived or died by ourselves but there are so many aspects to this movie that are underdeveloped that this ending just comes off as the movie just being done with itself.  To be frank, it's hard to hate a movie that presents a trite story as stupidly as this one does.  I just don't have the energy.  But nobody who worked on this film had any ideas of how to pull off something that has been done a thousand times, and that's just mind-numbing.

The End of Oak Street

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Science Fiction, Adventure, Thriller

Director:  David Robert Mitchell

Starring:  Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor, Maisy Stella, Christian Convery

Oh, that's cute.  Someone remade The Day Time Ended.

An entire neighborhood goes on an "Excellent Adventure" as it's hurdled through time, transplanting both it and its residents in the prehistoric past, where they fend off dinosaurs and other dangers.  The movie is very Speilberg-coded, centering on a singular family trying to navigate the carnage as everyone dies around them.  In that aspect, it actually reminded me of Spielberg's version of War of the Worlds the most, even though it's a more majestic-minded film, wanting to be a cross between E.T. and Jurassic Park.  Speaking of the latter, The End of Oak Street is actually quite a bit better than that franchise has been of late, being preferable than...honestly, about all of the sequels, maybe?  If anything holds the film back, it's that the scenario it creates is so chaotic that some of the plot set-up in the film is cut shor and never paid off.  Focusing on a single P.O.V. then giving glimpses of others surrounding them who are having their own experience that we know near nothing about makes the story feel like Swiss cheese, which is technically whole but full of empty space that offers nothing.  And it leads to an ending that is presented as sweet but is honestly very problematic if you think about it, but I can't rant about that unless I laid the entire thing out and explained what was wrong with the entire idea.  But the movie mostly works on a solid foundation of weird adventure candy cinema that can be fun one moment and savage the next.  It's more worthwhile of the price for your ticket than all of the Jurassic World movies, so that's something.

Nimrods

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Comedy

Director:  Lee Kirk

Starring:  Mason Thames, Kylr Coffman, Ryan Faust, Mckenna Grace, Jenna Fischer

Nimrods is one of those self-promotional movies that popular bands make about fans having misadventures on their way to a concert.  Today's group of the day is Green Day.  The film follows a teen band that has been pranked into thinking they're opening for Green Day for a big New Year's concert across the country, so they steal a car and go on a road trip to make the non-existent date.  From my understanding, the film is partially inspired by Green Day's early experiences before breaking out, with some loose inspiration also from another band called Waterdog that opened for them in the 90's.  As to what is true and what is bullshit, I'm not familiar enough with "Green Day lore" to tell you, but the fact that Green Day made the movie semi-autobiographical makes this movie feel slightly more personal than other films of its ilk.  There is heart and care put into it, and the film can be really funny at times.  It can also digress into oddity, notably in a section that is a horror movie parody halfway through that is more strange than humorous.  The film has these small blemishes that feel odd in the moment but don't take away from the experience, like Mckenna Grace's character serving zero purpose other than to have a love interest for five minutes, but she's a pleasure to have in any movie, so it doesn't really matter.  It's a series of comical scenarios that are mostly successful at creating smiles, while also ending on an emotional beat that I'm not fully convinced the movie was properly building to, but still kinda hits.  The movie works in spite of itself, resulting in an uneven joy.

Paw Patrol:  The Dino Movie

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre:  Adventure, Fantasy, Superhero

Director:  Cal Brunker

Starring:  Carter Young, Ryan Janjua, Mckenna Grace, Hayden Chamberlain, Henry Bolan, Lucien Duncan-Reid, William Desrosiers, Nylan Parthipan, Terry Crews, Jameela Jamil, Paris Hilton, Snoop Dogg

This is both the second movie this week with Mckeena Grace, as well as the second movie with dinosaurs.  I don't know if that means anything, but this one has talking dogs, so...win?

The Nickelodeon sensation is back on the big screen for the third time, this time seeing the rescue pups discovering a lost island full of dinosaurs.  Because kids love Paw Patrol and kids love dinosaurs, but not every kid is old enough to see The End of Oak Street, so we'll take them to see the one where even the carnivorous dinosaurs make friends with puppy dogs.  I'm assuming these Paw Patrol movies are made to center around one specific dog from the team with each movie, offering an origin story and a specific character flaw to overcome.  The last movie focused on Skye, the flying pink one, and, while I haven't seen it, I'm assuming the first movie featured Chase, who is the blue police dog.  For The Dino Movie, the pup of the hour is Marshall, who is the one with the red firehat.  Marshall is portrayed as very clumsy and accident prone, having a hard time to work past his mistakes.  I'm not sure if those aspects are actually a thing in the TV show, but if they were, I've never noticed while babysitting and playing on my phone.  But the message of the movie is failure is what we need to learn how to succeed, which is why we never give up, and that's nice.

The one small thing that was nagging me about this movie is that the Paw Patrol are a rescue squad.  It's kind of the one thing that they do.  So when the premise of your movie is that they find a lost dinosaur land, the film needs to convolute ways of getting them to do that one thing and not just stand around an island while playing with dinosaurs.  Ultimately, the dinosaurs are just an aesthetic choice, providing a backdrop where they maybe will sell a few toys in addition to the shiny new Paw Patrol vehicles and outfits (they wear pants now!) and the all-new team member Rex, who rides a T-Rex ala Dino-Riders, and Marshall's new dino friend Rubarb.  It feels like the movie can be blatantly toyetic in that regard, but Paw Patrol has always been a high merch seller, and the last movie had them as superheroes, so I can't blame the movie for being what it is.

The real test case for these movies is the audience they were made for.  The six-year-old I took to see it thought it was the best movie ever.  He got a lunchbox full of popcorn, a little cup with Marshall on it, and a Paw Patrol poster and pin-on button.  He's living his best life.  Paw Patrol:  The Dino Movie gave him a good day.  Thank you, Paw Patrol.  You saved the day again.

The Rivals of Amziah King

⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Drama, Comedy, Thriller

Director:  Andrew Patterson

Starring:  Matthew McConaughey, Angelina LookingGlass, Scott Shepherd, Rob Morgan, Tony Revolori, Kurt Russell

Matthew McConaughey plays a beekeeper who reconnects with a foster child he used to care for, played by Angelina LookingGlass.  After his bees are stolen, McConaughey dies of a heart attack, leaving LookingGlass as an heir to a bee colony that has no bees.  LookingGlass then seeks out those who might have taken his bees and tries to get them back by any means necessary.  To be frank, I'm kinda disappointed in myself for not liking this movie.  The movie started out as a vibe, and I was enjoying it.  Then the vibe shifts.  Then it shifts again.  And again.  The type of movie this was kept changing.  By the end, I was very disengaged.  Maybe it's my fault.  Maybe it's the movie.  I'm not quite sure.  This movie almost feels like it was two movies that were spliced together in an editing room and presented to its audience as if they mixed peanut butter and chocolate together and made something delicious, but the taste is so bitter that I can't appreciate it.  The movie starts out as a happy little movie about family.  Then it becomes sad.  Then it becomes angry.  It seems to me, to the best of my media literacy, that the movie is trying to be a folk tale that is mixed with the presentation of a mafia movie.  The movie becomes a story of "they who control the bees controls the honey," which is an interesting prospect.  I don't think it forgives the many tonal shifts of the film, as we venture down some dark paths that are glossed over too quickly in favor of shifting the tone for the next scene.  At no point during this movie did I feel like I understood what the movie was.  I was okay with that for a little while.  Movies that try for unique experiences should be encouraged.  By the end, the experience I was having felt like enduring instead of experiencing.  That's of no fault of the creatives or the actors, because this movie feels like exactly the movie they wanted to make.  The honey just didn't taste very sweet.

The Wrong Girls

⭐️1/2

Genre:  Comedy

Director:  Dylan Meyer

Starring:  Kristen Stewart (line?), Alia Shawkat, LaKeith Stanfield, Tony Hale, Zack Fox, Seth Rogen, Kumail Nanjiani, Kate McKinnon, Geena Davis

This oddball comedy is a professional collaboration between Kristen Stewart and her wife, Dylan Meyer, who wrote and directed the movie.  The movie follows Stewart, who is confused with a woman who looks exactly like her at a nightclub, and is passed off a suitcase full of an unknown substance while she is too drunk to realize what's happening.  She then drinks it with her roommate/bestie Alia Shawkat, and the two become telepathically linked.  They then venture off to sell it for rent money, oblivious to the fact that they might now be the most powerful people on the planet.  If that sounds dumb, that's because it is dumb.  I'm pretty sure the movie's only goal is to be dumb.  The Wrong Girls plays like it was made by someone who really loved The Big Lebowski and Dude, Where's My Car? and decided to mash them together for the ultimate dummy stoner comedy.  Maybe they're a tad aggressive on it, as its aesthetic is overbearing and sometimes hard to pay attention to because of how much they're throwing on the screen.  And, as stated above, the movie is really stupid.  That's not a bad thing if it's funny enough.  There are laughs to be had, but as the movie indulges itself in getting weirder and weirder, it seems like it has gotten high on itself and is stuck in a loop of giggling at a joke that it never says out loud.

But I'm pretty sure that's part of its vibe, willing to be its awkward self because it's better than being like everyone else.  I respect that.  Despite the fact that the movie didn't really vibe with me, it does have this tone to it like it's one of those dumb movies they'd play on the 2000's era USA network over and over again until it accumulated a proper cult following from teenagers who would just lie on the couch with a bag of Doritos handy.  Maybe the same fate will be bestowed on The Wrong Girls, because it's nothing if it's not a midnight movie targeted at a very specific demographic.  After all, any movie that casually drops a Sliders reference can't be all bad.

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

Ice Cream Man ⭐️1/2

Minions & Monsters ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Moana ⭐️1/2

The Odyssey ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

One Night Only ⭐️⭐️

Spider-Man:  Brand New Day ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Super Troopers 3:  Farva's Wedding ⭐️⭐️1/2

Toy Story 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Train to Busan ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

New To Digital

The Invite ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Jackass:  Best and Last ⭐️⭐️1/2

Minions & Monsters ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Young Washington ⭐️⭐️

New To Physical

Barbarian ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Dolly ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Furious⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Hokum ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Project Hail Mary ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Tuner ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Coming Soon!

K03-Star Force: Fugitive Alien II (FOUND EPISODE!!!)

Film Year:  1987 (compiled from a 1978 TV series)

Genre:  Science Fiction, Adventure
Director:  Kiyosumi Kukazawa, Minoru Kanaya
Starring:  Jou Shishido, Tatsuya Azuma, Miyuki Tanigawa, Choei Takahashi, Tsutomu Yukawa, Hiro Tateyama
MST Season:  KTMA

The Movie

Because who gives a shit about proper story context, Mystery Science Theater offers up the sequel before they touched the original.  But getting up to speed, when we last saw the crew of the Bacchus 3, they had adopted the former alien warrior Star Wolf known as Ken into their crew (with only Captain Joe knowing of his past).  Now they must survive an exploding star, then destroy a diabolical weapon, and face down the leader of the Star Wolves.

There's not a lot to say about Star Force that you can't say about the first Fugitive Alien.  If you want my two cents about the series in general, one might find it in those reviews.  What can I say about Star Force that I can't about the first?  It's a bit more inane (which is saying something).  The first three quarters of the film have a reasonable plot thread that connects them before it compiles the conclusive episode of the series in an out of nowhere final act.  Given that this film isn't really the way the Star Wolf series is intended to be seen, I can be somewhat forgiving of it, however.

I love these Japanese effects shows, and I'd hate to disappoint anybody who clicks these reviews expecting me to tear them a new one.  I don't have that anger within me.  They're fun escapism, and I give this Fugitive Alien saga a pass.

The Episode

It started like any other day.  I woke up in the afternoon, because I work nights, and planned on taking my mother to see Project Hail Mary because it stars her secret husband Ryan Gosling (I'm not one to judge, because I've similarly imprinted on the AT&T Girl, who was also in Project Hail Mary).  I logged in to see if there was any new Mystery Science Theater 3000 news that I slept through, seeing how we had just funded the new RiffTrax Experiments episodes.  First thing I see was "K03 found at garage sale."  I smirked and thought, "Nice try, April Fools Day," completely forgetting that it was March 20th.  Eventually, I clicked the link just to amuse myself, greeted with a video that was undoubtedly a RickRoll.  I looked at the time on it, it said one hour and forty-two minutes.  Okay, so they looped "Never Gonna Give You Up" over the span of a hundred minutes.  I started skimming the video.  It most definitely was a Fugitive Alien movie, and it most definitely was a KTMA era MST3K episode, but its quality was way better than any copy of K12 I've ever seen.  Was it a cleaned up copy of K12?  No, this footage is from Star Force.  Did that mean...?

...

Oh my god.

Holy SHIT!

This actually was K03.  The lost episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 had been found, and there I was sitting in my underpants trying not to look like I was dead.

I flashed back to the day where I witnessed the lost host segment of Superdome found on the MST3K message boards.  Years pass, and the Cinematic Titanic crew shares the pilot film of The Green Slime publicly.  A few more years go by and Joel shared official copies of Invaders from the Deep and Revenge of the Mysterons from Mars as a reward for the 2015 Kickstarter.  A decade after that, having thought this episode was lost to time, we found the final lost MST3K episode.  Our beloved series is finally complete.  Suck it, Doctor Who.  We win.

It's been such a long road.

That doesn't mean we're done.  There is still media worth trying to find.  The unused CD-ROM short Mylar:  What's It To You? is probably the new Holy Grail.  There are also live shows from MST3K and Cinematic Titanic that are unlikely to surface, but never say never.  Weirder things have happened, and with this amazing find, there is definitely optimism in the air.

And with all the positivity going around, since this is the last slice of the classic series a lot of us die-hards will ever consume, that obviously means that this will be the greatest episode of the entire series!  Otherwise it will be a bitter disappointment.

Let's cool our jets and re-center ourselves.  Reminder:  this is a KTMA episode.  And it's an early KTMA episode.  There is a ceiling on how good this episode is going to be.  The entire reason this episode is important has more to do as a historical artifact.  Indiana Jones voice:  "That belongs in a museum!" and so on and so forth.  This is the last visual piece of the show's evolution that we didn't have.  That doesn't mean it's going to be much as an episode by itself.  Most KTMA episodes weren't, and this one doesn't even have the benefit of featuring a movie that we haven't seen in the show's format outside of this episode, which arguably makes it less important than the two episodes before it that were also missing for decades.  Arguably, the only actual point of interest in this episode is Servo's trasition between the drawl he used in Revenge of the Mysterons from Mars and the high squeal he sported in Gamera vs. Barugon.  And indeed, that transition happens in this episode.  Is it addressed?  Nope.  He's just speaking in a different voice than last week and they never acknowledge it.  Okay, cool.  That's all I wanted to know.  Also, this was the episode that one guy watched.  You know, the one who called and complained about and had his message played on the air during Gamera vs. Barugon.  Good to finally see what pissed him off.

Other than that, the highlight of the episode is the movie featured.  I love Fugitive Alien.  I love Star Force.  I'm going to have fun with this episode simply because I care for this weird brand.  I don't know why they riffed the second one first, though I assume that in the early days of KTMA, they just pulled tapes, looked at the titles, and chose what sounded funny.  Also, Joel just introduces this movie as "Star Force," which leads me to believe that was all the network's tape was labeled as, so it's possible that they just didn't know it was a sequel.  If they're lost in what this movie is doing, they don't point it out.  The dense lore of Fugitive Alien doesn't seem to bother them too much, though Crow does get more confused as it goes due to the sudden story arc change in the climax.

For the longest time, the only surviving riff from this episode was a small clip where Servo said "They must have spent tens of dollars on this."  It's a pretty good joke.  Presumably, this was the best joke of the episode, and yeah, it kinda was.  One thing I noted was that the group has trouble getting out of the gate.  Servo is the first to riff, and he's also the last one in the theater, as he just pops up about a minute after Joel and Crow enter.  Servo makes a joke.  Then he makes another.  And another.  And another.  There is like good long stretch of this, as if Josh is trying to push some momentum into the comedy.  Once the ball gets rolling, they all start quipping when they can.  Being early KTMA, the episode can feel very empty, but a few good lines hit.  I liked Servo commenting on Tammy's eyewear during her sickness early in the movie:  "I always find it easier to sleep with a Viewmaster on my face."  Crow has a good joke about the score of the movie, as the Bacchus crew is stuck in a sandstorm and the music swells with vocals as the wind picks up, prompting him to say "It's not the wind; it's a men's choir!"  There is also an early example of a reactionary riff, where a spaceship flies toward the camera and they try to dodge it.  Trace practically tosses the Crow puppet straight off camera.

"Danger, Will Robinson!"

"That's a robot joke."

"Well, it's kind of an inside thing."

Most of what we had seen before of this episode were a handful of host segments (I took a look at surviving footage of the episode here).  We've seen the intro, where Joel shows off a few prop inventions in what is an early prototype of the Invention Exchange, which featured "Nunclucks,", the "Pointing Gun," and the "Chiro Helmet" (which was borrowed from the Green Slime pilot and also reused in season one).  Other host segments that we had access to were included Crow explaining Thanksgiving to Gypsy/Gypsum (poorly) and another had Joel explaining drugs to Gypsy/Gypsum, which is just an excuse for Joel to use his psychedelic glasses.  As for the two host segments we hadn't seen, they're nothing really special.  They must have had drugs on the brain (not like that), because another also deals with drugs, only this time as a parable because Crow and Servo are "using" hairpins and Joel scolds them for it like a disapproving father.  I don't get it.  The other new segment has Crow and Servo in false beards because they misread "breaking bread" as "breaking beard."  Okay, sure.  The one thing I find interesting about the host segments is that they are Thanksgiving focused, even though Thanksgiving was already over.  Hell, the show debuted with two episodes on the actual holiday.  Part of me thinks they just didn't know when they were going to debut and just assumed this would air the same weekend as Thanksgiving, which technically was true.  The first two episodes came out on Thanksgiving Thursday and this one aired the following Sunday.  I think, in their mind, this was supposed to be the Thanksgiving special and scheduling screwed up.  But it doesn't really matter anymore.

If one were to put aside the importance of what this episode represents and ask my opinion of it in a vacuum, I'd simply say that I think the riff itself is probably the weakest of the first three episodes but the movie is the most ridiculously entertaining one they've shown yet.  These two aspects kinda balance each other in a weird way, making the episode fun in spite of it being a weak example of what this show is and what it can be.  I might even still say that this one of the weakest episodes of the season in the face of that.  As stated above, I have a personal fondness for Fugitive Alien, which does a lot of heavy lifting for me.  In light of that, that means I can't actually recommend this one because its strengths are perfectly suited to me not not many others.  If one is of a likened mindset, then yes, watch this one.  Or even if you're just curious.  But I can also say that of any episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.  That type of recommendation isn't that enticing, because it basically amounts to "If you're going to watch it, then watch it."

But, if nothing else, I need to say this.  I've been a fan of this show since 1997.  During that particular period of my life, I was obsessed with the Sci-Fi era of the show because those were the only episodes I had access to.  After the show was canceled, a lot of my life was devoted to discovery, working my way backwards through what episodes I could get my hands on (mind you, this was long before every episode was easy access on YouTube and Internet Archive).  I spent a good portion of my twenties piecing together this show like a puzzle with the knowledge that there will always be pieces missing.  As of 2026, I can say I've seen the entirety of Mystery Science Theater 3000.  After the better part of three decades, I don't know if I can wrap my head around the fact that I now have every single episode at my disposal and can watch them at leisure.  That feeling is...really weird, to be honest.  And I don't think it hit me as to what was bothering me until a random memory popped into my head.

Way back in the day, I was really big on the show Sliders.  I once met a guy online who had a copy of every episode but there was one he refused to watch.  It wasn't because of the content of the episode, and it wasn't even the finale or anything important.  It was just some random episode that he never got around to and said that he probably wouldn't watch it anytime soon.  When asked why, he responded that as soon as he watches that episode, that means the show is over and there will be no more to look forward to.  I always thought that was strange, because my reasoning was that if you've not going to watch it, then you can't really look forward to it.  I don't think I've related to his mindset more than I did the minute I finished this episode.  It's like a strange feeling of satisfaction and the emptiness of "Wow, I guess that's it.  It's over.  I'm done."  The world could have easily never had seen this episode again, and I would have gone to my grave saying "Mystery Science Theater 3000 is never over, because there is one episode left."  Now that just isn't true anymore.  I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to look at this episode normally because I'll always associate it with that.  The only thing left is the uncertainty of whatever gets made in the future, be it the RiffTrax Experiments, Season Fourteen, or otherwise.  Until those days come, Mystery Science Theater 3000 is over.  That's bittersweet.  But it is also complete.  I'm happy about that.

⭐️⭐️

Average

Cinema Playground Journal 2026: Week 32 (My Cinema Playground)

Multiplex Madness

Ice Cream Man

⭐️1/2

Genre:  Horror, Comedy

Director:  Eli Roth

Starring:  Ari Millen, Charlie Zeltzer, Shiloh O'Reilly, Kiori Mirza Waldman, Sarah Abbott, Benjamin Byron Davis

I took in the Monday Mystery Movie for the first time in a few years because it was advertised as "Horror Edition" and I thought there was a non-zero chance that it would be Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.  I knew the only other likely film it would be was Ice Cream Man, but I took my chances.  Oh well, if a gamble always paid off, it wouldn't be a gamble.

In spite of the title, Ice Cream Man has nothing to do with the Clint Howard classic of the same name (which was also turned into RiffTrax fodder), and director Eli Roth comes up with his own story to fit this unconventional horror antagonist.  His version has a mysterious ice cream man appear in town whose ice cream creates a sort of Pied Piper effect on the children.  Eventually, the kids of the town fall into a trance and start murdering all of the adults in a playful manner.  This movie is basically a zombie movie with sugary aesthetics, told from the perspective of thirteen-year-olds who all know if they eat dairy, they become "one of them."  I won't lie, there is some entertainment to be had in the movie's relentless "no fucks to give" approach.  The movie has base camp appeal in the idea of children gleefully causing death and mayhem in mass and with laughter.  It can't maintain it as it stretches its high-concept short film idea into a very thin feature film.  Very little happens in this movie outside of someone new popping up every five seconds to set up an elaborate death scene.  As playful as the movie is, it gets exhausting because for a movie that is intent of being outside-the-box, it's too one-note.  The shock laughs end after five minutes because the movie just keeps repeating the same beats over and over.  As far as off-beat outsider cinema goes, I didn't have a bad time, but it can get pretty boring.

One Night Only

⭐️⭐️

Genre:  Comedy, Romance

Director:  Will Gluck

Starring:  Monica Barbaro, Callum Turner, Molly Ringwald, LeVar Burton, Maya Hawke, Julia Fox, Michelle Hurd, Charlie Gillespie

Hey, look.  It's that movie that is "The Purge but horny."  Some movies are only designed to have a premise that is destined to become a meme, and One Night Only is not only one of those movies but it's so brazenly an attempt at one that the idea that it exists at all is what accidentally became the meme.  So, in case you weren't aware of this movie, the concept is that premarital sex has been outlawed except for one night a year.  That night has Callum Turner being dumped by his girlfriend and Monica Barbaro seeking a fleeting romantic connection with whichever partner she finds herself with.  The pair constantly bump into each other during a series of sexual misadventures that always end in disaster.

To be frank, this law doesn't seem very enforceable.  Sex isn't like drugs where you can catch people with weed or paraphernalia.  All that's required of it is two people going into a room and taking their pants off.  It tries to cover itself with "lore" about some magic tattoo, but somehow the tattoo can tell the difference between actual sex and masturbation, which is borderline nonsense because if brings up a whole host of questions about how it functions.  Is it about simultaneous build-up of stimulation in the same vicinity?  Or is it some form of male/female penetration sensor?  How can it tell when two people aren't just turned on in the same room?  How can it tell when gay men or lesbians are having sex?  How does it sense oral?  How does it sense...ya'know, butt stuff?  What about people who like feet?  And if the you have achieved married status, can it sense when you are having sex with another married person who isn't your legal partner?  Could everyone get legally married and then just hook up, changing the idea of marriage into just a word that makes it legal to have sex with other people who have achieved the same status?  This is some Starship Troopers "Citizen" shit.  There is so much to cover here.  And honestly, even if this tattoo did work the way it claims it does, this law is destined for failure.  Human nature, by design, would completely reject it, people would ignore it on mass, and jail space would be so minimal for violators that this law would be repealed within months.  I think the movie has convinced itself that it's being a parody of prudish lawmakers taking away liberties regarding sexuality amd birth control, but the movie honestly isn't that smart.  The movie isn't interested in having this discussion because we could have a raunchy romcom insteaf.  It's just an excuse to set up setpieces of sex jokes and romantic tension.

But until proven otherwise, I firmly believe that butt stuff is the way to beat the system.

Taking the film's commentary failure out of the equation, one has to judge the movie as a romcom, and it isn't very romantic nor funny.  One can see the ideas they're playing with, as a mutual force of romantic attraction overcomes a night of lust between the two leads.  It doesn't hit very strongly because, as a sex comedy, it doesn't deliver the goods.  The movie teeters between being moderately amusing and awkwardly strange in all of the scenarios it pummels its characters with, ending more than one scene with that nagging thought of "But why would you...ugh, nevermind."  It's trying to be wacky and sexy at the same time and both aspects rob each other of their strengths.  Each detour gets more forced as the film goes on and the movie accidentally winds up confusing as a result.

It's a shame because Monica Barbaro probably deserves a big spotlight movie, and she's suitably charismatic in this.  Callum Turner has had his time to shine in other movies, but Barbaro's career highlight is Top Gun:  Maverick and she wasn't even in it that much, and her last starring role was a different mediocre romcom that wound up deleted from the streaming service it was made for and reduced to a tax write-off.  Maybe one day she'll find something that works for her.  Even if this movie hits it big, it's easily forgettable and would only be a pathway into even more forgettable romcoms.  The road to the Hallmark Channel is very dangerous and I wouldn't wish it upon anyone.

Super Troopers 3:  Farva's Wedding

⭐️⭐️1/2

Genre:  Comedy

Director:  Jay Chandrasekhar

Starring:  Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske, Hannah Simone, Nat Faxon, Chace Crawford, Brian Cox

You're going to have to bear with me.  I watched the original Super Troopers when it came out and remember nothing about it.  Never saw the second one, and the only other Broken Lizard movie I've seen was Club Dread, which I also remember nothing about.  Speaking as someone with no real connection to this particular trilogy, sometimes some meaningless irreverence is perfectly adequate as silly entertainment.  There is a chance that if I went into this movie with a more sour mood than I did, I would have been more neutral, but I had a good time.

I have very little memory of who any of these characters are, but the premise centers on these goofy Vermont State Troopers that have built a cult following over the past few decades, with two of them about to become brother-in-laws, as the uncouth Farva is about to marry Thorny's sister.  Not wanting the nuptuals to take place, Thorny begins to scheme of ruining the wedding.  A sitcom premise that results in obvious attempts at belly laughs, Super Troopers 3 is nothing noteworthy, but there is an appeal to it.  Not everyone is going to see the this group of bored, borderline incompetent cops and laugh at it.  It's pretty lowbrow, and not always in a well-crafted way.  But if something can be said for the Broken Lizard style, it's that they do know how to time their jokes well and, while they're not all gutbusters, they know how to deliver them.  Sometimes the movie can coast on pushing the line, but potential insensitivity is softened because the actual insensitivity being portrayed is the joke and not any group that's being punched down upon.  And mostly the movie is a series of irreverence jumping through plot hoops.  Maybe there is a drug conspiracy to be solved.  Maybe there is a mystery to how Farva met Thorny's sister (and it's actually obvious from minute one how that happened).  Maybe there is a series of events about hardened and set-in-their-ways State Troopers who are used to traditional gasoline-powered transport learning to love an electric vehicle (maybe too literally).  There's bachelor party shenanigans.  There are meeting-the-parents shenanigans.  There is even a bit of action that might be an homage to Dukes of Hazard (one of the cars has a non-Confederate American flag on top of it, so...).  It's a lot of scenarios to inject humor in, and I found them more entertaining than not.

It is kinda sad that Jay Chandrasekhar and the Broken Lizard gang have been roped into doing nothing but repeating their one actual success over and over again, but maybe there is a minor winning formula in the Super Troopers legacy.  If it stays fun, maybe it's worth keeping alive.

Movies Still Playing At My Theater

I Want Your Sex ⭐️⭐️1/2

The Invite ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Minions & Monsters ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Moana ⭐️1/2

(Obsession is gone 😭)

The Odyssey ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Spider-Man:  Brand New Day ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Toy Story 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

New To Digital

Couture ⭐️⭐️

Evil Dead Burn ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Haunted Heist ⭐️1/2

The Isolate Theif ⭐️⭐️1/2

Lucky Strike ⭐️1/2

New To Physical

Exit 8 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Coming Soon!

RiffTrax Goes to the Gizmoplax (MST3K Special)

The Short

The special short presentation of this Gizmoplex special is Safety in Offices, a military safety film that also doubles as a slapstick comedy.  As Mike says, "No one is funnier than the United States Navy."  As proved by the movie Hot Shots!  The short centers a group of Naval officers who fail to adhere to basic office safety procedures, leading to hilarious antics, especially that little firecracker Miss Dipple.  The moral of the story is simple:  if one is injured, it's funny!

Shake Hands With Danger this is not, and maybe we should be thankful for that.  Nobody wants to see Miss Dipple in pieces on the floor.  We'd rather see her in her Lucille Ball era physical antics while teaching us a lesson that there are simple things we can do throughout the day to prevent us from a Shake Hands With Danger scenario.  Or to just prevent our finger being bitten by a filing cabinet or a typewriter.

"Typewriter bites girl!"

"I still do that with my laptop all the time!"

Mike, Kevin, and Bill seem to be the first to point out that, if anything, the short is anti-filing cabinet.  Most of the accidents seem to center on the misuse of the trusted organization tool, be it smashing one's thumb or knocking over a pile of paperwork.  But they also guide us through basic ladder safety, which Bill points out as something that leads to a "Me Too" moment.  Sometimes the biggest laughs of the short are just the short itself because it actually is a pretty fun little slapstick comedy on its own, containing moments of "Boi-oi-oi-oi-oing!" and wacky physical stunts.  And the character of Miss Dipple is delightful, or, as the narrator calls her, "Killer Dipple."  She's an ignorant little trainwreck who tears through this short like a storm with her "Unladylike gyrations."  I'm not sure if the riff overcomes the short being shown with this one, but what I can safely say is that I had a blast.

Thumbs Up

👍

The Livestream

During the 2021 Kickstarter, the folks at RiffTrax gave a tiny nudge by offering to do a special event of their own on the Gizmoplex should the campaign succeed.  The event wound up being the last special that the Gizmoplex streamed, and it was certainly a fun night.  The event started with a special presentation of Gumby:  The Movie (review here), which certainly seemed like a riff they were pretty proud of.  With good reason.  It's very fun and it shows RiffTrax putting their best foot forward while also showcasing a type of experience that MST3K didn't provide during its run, successfully letting MSTies know that supporting them brings a similar experience but just different enough.  For that, the movie selection is a home run.  No notes.

The actual new content begins afterward, other than a janky intro by Matt McGinnis where is sound is garbled.  He fixes it for the post-show, thankfully, as Mike, Kevin, and Bill jump into their live riff of Safety in Offices.  I will say that presenting the short after the movie was something that gave me creative indigestion.  So much of Mystery Science Theater and RiffTrax formats the short before the movie, and even all of the Gizmoplex events kicked off with the brand new short debuting before the tribute episode.  I understand why it's formatted this way, because it condenses all of Mike, Kevin, and Bill's participation into one section and it was probably easier on everyone.  But the short is fun and I'm happy with the result.

Afterward is Q&A time with special guest host Emily Marsh!  Emily jumps in with an immense fondness for this crew and she has questions for them about their creative process.  It's probably the noob asking the boomers for advice.  But first, Emily shocks the nation by admitting that she was one of the very few people who saw Gumby:  The Movie in theaters when she was a wee girl, claiming that it was like The Pagemaster in that it was so horrifying that she couldn't look away.  She then asks what draws them to the Gumby franchise, because both MST3K and RiffTrax have history with it.  They claim it's just something fun and different that they try to wrap their head around, and Kevin has some colorful descriptions of the IP, such as "The worldbuilding they do is so overwrought." and "As interesting as the visuals are, the dialogue is absolutely pedestrian."  It goes back to what I was saying about how movies like this are so rare in this format that it makes the ones that do appear something to treasure.

Emily then asks "What makes for a good RiffTrax movie?"  Mike says that it's kind of loose, as he said they'd never do Plan 9 from Outer Space until they did.  Bill points out a purpose of intent, claiming that the best of the movies for their format were made with a form of sincerity, like The Room or Birdemic.  Mike also brings up interesting quirks of small productions like this, bringing up "a recent shark movie" (I believe he's referring to Jurassic Shark) that had an obsession with popcorn shrimp and how he can't figure out what the reference is supposed to be.  Emily then asks them about self-awareness in a movie, and they all agree that it's hard.  They use Sharknado as an example, as they dropped the series because it was becoming to self-aware to handle.  They also bring up the sequels to Birdemic and Samurai Cop, which they opted out of doing because they were trying to be comedies.  Bill points out that it's when they're handling a movie like this that their format "leans into anger," and have the riffers just get irate at the movie, using Hobgoblins as an example.  Emily finds an apt description in calling the ordeal a "Turduckhen of comedy."  When asked what the most difficult movies to riff are, they bring up Hobgoblins again, but Bill also goes in a different direction and goes back to the OG RiffTrax format and brings up the Transformers movies, claiming they're so chaotic that they were hard to get a foothold on.

Talk turns to the Live shows, and Emily wants to know more about Rad, which was the show that was being crowdfunded at the time (and this event is primarily an advertisement for).  The boys discuss how this is an interesting kitchy teen sports genre that they don't do that often, the closest comparison being the volleyball movie Spiker.  But they love this realm of 80's cheese, and bring up the potential for even more to come with their reward riff of the Sylvester Stallone movie Cobra that they hoped to do (and they did do).  Emily then asks what they love about their live riffs, and Kevin loves the infectious energy in the room when a joke lands.  Bill counters that he loves it when a joke tanks.  Kevin agrees with that too, claiming that he loves the groans.

Matt then reads some listener questions.  One asks if there is anything they actually learned from the educational shorts.  Mike learned to not wash clothes in gasoline and Bill learned how to make masks from grass (corn?).  I'll also add that the Keeping Clean and Neat short on MST3K taught me that it was easier to cut toenails after a shower and that knowledge has served me well over the years.  Then someone asks if they can watch a movie and not riff it.  The short answer is yes, especially in a theater.  Though Mike and Bill admit their wives can get irritated when they start joking about little things throughout the day ("Stop riffing breakfast!").  The last question is about how they approach a movie they've already done before, and basically they all just forget what jokes they have or haven't done over the years.  Though, they'll definitely go back to the well if there is a joke they absolutely need to do for fan service, pointing out that they absolutely had to repeat the line "I'm gonna sink this bitch." for their riff of Titanic.

And with that, the Gizmoplex closes its doors.  For a final event, this is as good as you can ask for.  We finally got Mike and Kevin to participate in our little corner of the internet and we had some fun adventures with Gumby.  Also, Miss Dipple!  RiffTrax Goes to the Gixmoplex was a rousing success, bringing hope for more RiffTrax events in the future.  Of course, that never came to pass, but they closed out this one chapter in MST lore with a bang.