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

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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

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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

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