Moviephile

I believe I already mentioned the fact that my in-laws bought me a trip to see Cinematic Titanic Live for my birthday earlier this month. It was delightful. For my full review of that show (typos and all) visit the official MST3k fan site.

The movie featured at that performance was Santa Claus Conquers the Martians - a movie that was previously performed by MST3k; a “somewhat controversial” choice on their part.  I still don’t know why Cinematic Titanic decided to choose a movie that the exact same people (minus J. Elvis) had already made fun of once… Can it possibly have been some kind of complex, well-thought out move to simultaneously connect to their old fans while distancing themselves from their old work? Or was it just that they were able to get this movie really, really cheap? (Hmmm….)

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is a poorly made Sci-Fi/Christmas film. The plot is this: the children of Mars have forgotten how to have fun, so a handful of Martians go down to Earth and kidnap Santa with the idea that Santa’s Christmas magic and toys will bring joy back to Martian kids. The best thing I can say about this movie is that it has a kicky little theme song (”Hooray for Santy Claus!”)

Anyway, as I said, I received a trip to the live show for my birthday, and it was lovely. However, fortuitously, I also received the DVD of their riff on said movie. I took it home and watched it with my parents on St. Stephen’s Day. Hense, two viewings of the Cinematic Titanic version of the film.

However, I also have a DVD of the original MST3k riff, and it seemed a shame to pass it over for the sake of its Cinematic Titanic progeny… so when Mr. Hall and I visited his parents, we watched the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. That makes three viewings.

Then when we got home from our vacation yesterday we discovered we had a Christmas present from a friend, Miss Landis. We opened it up - and found that she (knowing how we enjoy watching bad movies) has given us the un-MST3k’d, un-Cinmatic Titanic’d, RAW version of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

I’ve never actually seen this movie without a humorous commentary running over it - so I daresay this spells one more (a FOURTH!) viewing of the film before the end of the holiday season.

Did I mention lately that in addition to having the best husband ever, I also have the best in-laws ever?

My birthday is coming up on the 7th (the day that lives in infamy, don’t you know). Well, when I got home from work yesterday I discovered a birthday card from my in-laws. I opened it and found a folded piece of paper. “Hm,” I remarked to myself. “Looks not unlike a ticket confirmation of some kind.”

It was. It was a confirmation of two tickets, for myself and my husband, for an upcoming local, live performance of CINEMATIC TITANIC!!!

… No, it’s not a band. If you aren’t up on my previous posts, this bears a little explanation: my favorite TV show was Mystery Science Theater 3000. MST3k was a “theater” show (in the tradition of shows like Svengoolie and Elvira) where a B or C-grade movie is shown and then mocked; however, MST3k took the step of actually having the hosts present throughout the entire movie and mocking the entire thing. MST3k was on for ten years, then got cancelled. The cast has gone on to other projects… including, but not only, Cinematic Titanic.

Cinematic Titanic is not a TV show, but direct-to-DVD (or download) releases - although it has essentially the same format as MST3k. The hosts (all of the writers of the show - all five of them - are hosts on this show) are outlines on the bottom of the screen, present throughout the entire crappy movie, mocking it constantly.  What fun.

However, in an unusual move, the cast is touring. They are doing live versions of the show on DVD. I found out a couple months ago that they are coming to Chicago for several performances this month. I sadly decided I would not be able to attend due to tight finances, and there it sat.

UNTIL I OPENED MY BIRTHDAY CARD LAST NIGHT!! I am so excited. I’ve already met half of the cast of MST3k (the Sci-Fi channel years) - but I haven’t met the Comedy Central years cast, i.e. Joel, Frank, Trace, Josh, etc (the Cinematic Titanic cast) so I’m very excited.

And yes, I have superb in-laws, in case I didn’t mention that already.

Time to haul out your long red robes and glowing orbs: it’s Life Day, kiddies, better known as the anniversary of the first (and only) broadcast of the little known Star Wars Holiday Special. Today has special significance, though, because not only is this the anniversary - today is the 30th anniversary.

In case you don’t know what this is: the Star Wars Holiday Special was released during the holiday season following the release of the first (the REAL first) Star Wars movie. It was apparently written by a handful of people who had never seen Star Wars and simply heard that it was “some kids’ movie about robots and crap”… and they went on from there, styling a semi-sci-fi themed variety special, featuring popular comedians and singers of the day - including Art Carney, Bea Arthur, Harvey Korman, and so on.  It has something of a plot: Han Solo is trying to get Chewbacca back to Chewie’s home planet for “Life Day” (Wookie Chirstmas, apparently). Surprisingly, the original cast of Star Wars also appears in this during the “plotted” segments - including an overly eye-makeup’d Mark Hammil, an obviously stoned Carrie Fisher, and a very angry looking Harrison Ford.

(Yes, this really exists. When I first heard about it six years ago, I didn’t believe the person who was telling me about it. I thought it was made up. I thought, “How could they possibly have made something like that? That’s ridiculous!” What a poor, sad, innocent fool I was.)

You know, I’ve seen some bad movies in my time. I’ve seen some real bad movies. But this is possibly the worst thing I’ve ever seen. The first time I watched it I immediately made up my mind that it was going on my list of films NEVER TO EVER WATCH AGAIN. Ever. (Along with The Man With Two Brains, Modern Problems and Nothing But Trouble.)

However, I have watched it again - probably six or seven times, maybe more - partly because of its truly extraordinary badness, but also because it makes you feel like part of a select club when you watch it. There is no such thing as an “official copy” of this film. It is so bad that George Lucas had the master copy destroyed; it only exists in bootleg form from copies taped off TV when it was broadcast. Mr. Lucas has been quoted as saying, “If I had the time, and a hammer, I would track down every bootleg copy and smash it.”

And if you’ve seen Episode One, you know it takes a lot to embarrass George Lucas.

Sadly for Mr. Lucas, it would be nigh-on impossible to track down every copy now. Happily for us true-believers, you can usually find one on Ebay, and can watch most of the special in 10-minute chunks on YouTube. (And, for you fans of MST3k, you can download a commentary for this film by Rifftrax. It is absolutely hilarious, although due to the fact that all the bootlegs are somewhat different, it’s somewhat difficult to keep it sync’d up to the film. Totally worth it, though. We watched it last Christmas and laughed ourselves silly.)

So, in honor of Life Day, track yourself down a copy of The Star Wars Holiday Special. Become a part of this exclusive club. However, I’m warning you… at times your mouth is going to be hanging open in pure horror - and I am so not kidding about that.

While we’re on the topic of movies you should probably see, you should probably see the film UHF if you haven’t already. This is what is generally considered a “cult” movie - a film that didn’t do terribly well when it was released but has gathered a devoted following in the ensuing years.

UHF is about a guy named George who is more or less a failure at life because of his contstant daydreaming (a-la Walter Mitty). Unexpectedly, George is given the chance to run a small UHF station by his uncle - and the hilarity ensues. This film starred and was written by music-comedy-sensation Weird Al Yankovic.

The reason this film didn’t do well is two-fold. The first problem it had was that it was released at a time when it had to compete against Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, Lethal Weapon 2, Batman, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (i.e. its competition were huge summer blockbusters).

The second part of the reason why it didn’t enjoy more success is that I think a lot of people just didn’t know what to make of it. The humor in this movie is a combination of the bizarre, the outright childish and goofy, and clever parody which are the hallmark of Weird Al’s comedy style. It’s very reminiscent of the very early issues of Mad Magazine (which Al has mentioned were a comedy influence). And I have a feeling that a lot of the people who went to see this movie didn’t get it, thought it was weird and dumb and thumbed their noses at it.

In fact, I can state categorically that this is how some people reacted. My parents rented that movie on VHS shortly after it came out; they were perplexed and disgusted with it and returned it hastily. I (still in the single-digit age group at the time) had no say in the matter - I only remember being somewhat scared of some claymation effects at the end of the movie.

So why am I recommending this movie to you? Because, like a fine wine, this film seems to have gotten better with age. I was reintroduced to it by my husband when we were dating, and I was surprised (and delighted) to discover that it was hilarious. Oddly, when my parents watched it with us, they liked it too. Perhaps it was us that got better with age… Or perhaps it was simply the fact that our sensibilities had been hardened by the 1990’s and we no longer found claymation frightening.

However, I’m getting off my point, which was that despite its unenthusiastic reception by the public at its release, UHF actually did quite well on tape; its audience, no longer distracted with Indiana Jones or Batman, finally found it. It was popular enough that when it was finally released on DVD, it was decked out with all sorts of extras including a commentary by Weird Al. A commentary, I might add, which is so hilarious that I think I have watched the film with commentary just as much as I’ve watched it without. Yes, it’s that good.

So, anyway, put this movie in your queue and prepare yourself for smart, dumb, goofy bizarreness - and a bit of Weird Al’s signature music. Oh, by the way, in case you’re wondering why I called this film”Oft-Maligned” - it’s because of what I mentioned earlier about people not understanding and thumbing their noses. It’s amazing how, if something is funny, people will simply dismiss it. Mr. Yankovic is a very intelligent man and a lot of thought goes into the works that he produces; just because something features “dumb” humor doesn’t make it dumb.

So watch UHF . And then tell me what you think of it. I’d really like to hear from somebody who doesn’t like it so that I can figure out what is the dividing line between someone who likes Weird Al’s comedy and somebody who hates it.

We have watched two more James Bond movies since I last wrote, and no, we did not go to see the new one today: Mr. Hall had to work all day, and I certainly am not going to go to the movies by myself. (That would just be weird.) So we won’t be seeing that one until Tuesday.

However, rather than write yet another blog about James Bond movies (if you don’t care about them you’re probably getting pretty tired of that at this point) I decided I would recommend a movie for you today.

If you haven’t seen it, a movie you should put in your rental queue is this: Time Bandits. This movie was penned by Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin (of Monty Python fame); it is the story of an adventurous boy stuck in a drab, boring British home, and how he gets caught up in an adventure that drags him through time and space to a final climactic battle between good and evil. It’s sci-fi, it’s fantasy, it’s adventure, it’s comedy, it’s historical, it’s mythic.

And it’s funny. And has special appearances by John Cleese, Sean Connery, Michael Palin (surprise!) - as well as David Warner as Evil. Can you ask for a better recommendation than that? No, I don’t think that you can.

Okay - one FINAL post on the Mystery Science Theater 3000 set that Mr. Hall bought me. (Yes, yes, I know I’ve gone rather over-board discussing this thing… but I really like it, okay? Also - since I have only discussed the first two movies - I felt rather beholden to mention the last two).

The last two films in the set were, as I mentioned,  First Spaceship on Venus and Laserblast; neither of which I had seen before (as MST3K episodes).

First Spaceship on Venus wasn’t the best MST3k episode I’ve ever seen. It was a bit slow in spots, and as a result the movie was hard to watch. (It’s a bizarrely constructed East German 1950’s Sci-Fi piece; admittedly, it would have been hard to watch regardless). It was from Joel’s second season, and I don’t think he’d quite hit his stride yet - which is, of course, to say that the writers hadn’t hit their stride yet. The jokes still had too much space in between them. That said, there were several really good laughs, so it wasn’t a total loss.

I had already seen Laserblast in its un-MSTied form (ouch).  It’s a movie about a neglected teen (I assume he’s a teen) who finds an alien weapon in the desert and then kind of turns into an alien and goes around shooting things. It’s a perfect film for mocking with a group of friends. Which is, indeed, what I did with it when I watched the un-MSTied version… and which is also what makes it perfect MST3k fodder. Mike, Tom and Crow tore it up - and it was hilarious. Interestingly, this was the last episode of MST3k for Comedy Central, which at the time was ostensibly the end of the series… So the host segment ends with Mike, Tom and Crow becoming beings of pure energy and going off to live at the edge of the universe, while Dr. Forrester becomes a space baby and gets raised again by his horrible mother, Pearl. I thought it might be kind of a sad ending, but it worked out pretty amusingly. The real last episode of MST3k was a lot more traumatic for me; there’s a moment where it seems as if they have all died. (I don’t want to spoil it for you, so I won’t say what really happened.) Having all the characters die on the last episode of a beloved television show is kind of rough; yes, I’m looking at you, Dinosaurs!

So, to sum up: after having reviewed all the films and special features, I would still say that this is an excellent MST3k set. It’s one weak spot is the film First Spaceship on Venus, which wasn’t even that bad; and regardless was far outweighed by the excellent riffs on the other three films.

And that’s all I have to say about that!

If you read my other blog, Booktastic, this is going to be a bit of a repetitive day for you - sorry.  It can’t be helped, as it seems only appropriate to comment on the passing of Michael Crichton in both a book blog and a movie blog, what with his involvement in both areas.

I can’t imagine that you never heard of him… Unless you are something like five years old. If you were born in or before the 90’s, however, you must have heard of at least one of the movies based on his books - like, for instance, a little old Sci-Fi flick called Jurassic Park. You may also have heard of some TV show he created, called E.R.  Both pretty obscure now, of course. (I kid.)

Of course, there have also been some clunkers. I was never a fan of The Thirtheenth Warrior, or that film about the talking monkeys and the diamond mine (was that Congo, or am I confusing that with some other movie about talking monkeys and diamonds?)

However, this seems like an innappropriate time to criticise his efforts. If there’s one thing that needs to be said right now, it’s that Michael Crichton succeeded in strongly influencing sci-fi films. I believe that can be agreed even by his critics.

I had been thinking the other day that it seems like a long time since I’ve heard about a new Michael Crichton book… and then, this morning, was met by the headline that he had just passed away. He was 66 years old. 

This will be a very bad post. It will be short and derivative of other posts that I’ve written recently.

The reason this will be a bad post is that the only thing I can talk about right now is Mystery Science Theater 3000, thanks to Mr. Hall having purchased me the 20th Anniversary set as a surprise. I watched another one of the movies today - Future War. A terrifically terrible, low-budget, 90’s mish-mash of Jurassic Park, Terminator and Jean-Claude Van Damme movies. The disc had good special features, too: including the recent reunion of the cast (all the casts, including both Joel and Mike eras) at ComicCon 2008, and a compilation of all the different versions of the theme song. The only one I hadn’t seen was the opening from the late Comedy Central era, when Dr. Forrester was alone in the opening sequence (sans Frank). Man, this is such an awesome set. I am so delighted with it.

And for those of you who don’t know what MST3k is and couldn’t care less… I mercifully end this bad post.

P.S. Don’t forget to vote tomorrow! 

Did I mention that I have the best husband in the world? When we got home from Mass today, Mr. Hall surprised me with my own copy of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 20th Anniversary Limited Edition set.

Besides the fact that I adore MST3k and always want the new DVD releases, this set also comes with collectable “lobby cards” (card size replicas of the DVD covers) and a 6-inch tall bust of Crow.

Did I mention that I have the best husband ever?

It’s a good selection of episodes, too. It features Werewolf, Future War, Laserblast and First Spaceship on Venus. I’ve seen Werewolf and Future War before (both hilarious episodes) - but Laserblast and First Spaceship on Venus are new to me. They are both Comedy Central episodes, and I am much more familiar with the Sci-Fi Channel era. (For those of you who don’t know, MST3K started out on Comedy Central, was cancelled, had a movie released, and then was resurrected in TV form on Sci-Fi. That, too, sadly was canceled after just three seasons, when the Sci-Fi Channel decided that it wasn’t Sci-Fi enough. I remembered this with some pique when Sci-Fi Channel recently announced that they would begin broadcasting the ECW.)

Let me make a small digression. If this bores you, feel free to skip to the end of the paragraph. There is an ongoing debate about who was a better host: Joel (the host who did the majority of the Comedy Central episodes) or Mike (who did some of the Comedy Central episodes and all of the Sci-Fi channel episodes). Personally, I think that both Joel and Mike are a bit rough as hosts when they started out, and didn’t hit their stride until a couple of seasons in. If you say Mike isn’t any good (and you’ve only seen his first few episodes), you need to go back and watch Joel’s first episodes. The laughs are few and far in between in some of those early Comedy Central episodes. But I’d like to point out that the quality of the “riffing” on the movies did not substantively change between Joel and Mike, even if the host segments were different, because Mike was the head writer throughout the Joel era. So, in short, please, let’s love both Mike and Joel, folks, and support both Rifftrax and Cinematic Titanic. If you like funnies, you’ll be glad you did.

Anyways, to get back to the point - this set is fabulous. We just watched Werewolf and it was just as funny as I remembered it being, if not funnier, and my new Crow bust sits proudly on the shelf next to Mr. Hall’s Transformers.  And did I mention that my husband is the best husband ever?

I haven’t posted for a couple days… because, believe it or not, I really haven’t watched anything for a couple days. Mr. Hall has been working late again, and I’ve been reading, so the boob tube has been black. (We are definitely not going to get all those Hammer movies watched before Halloween).

There was one exception: last night, I popped in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

I feel justified in talking about this on a movie blog because - although it was a TV show - it was movies as well. If you’re not familiar with MST3K, it’s a show done in the spirit of those old afternoon shows where a B-grade horror or Sci-Fi movie would be hosted by a goofy, pseudo-scary character, like Svengoolie here in Chicago, or Vampira. However, there’s a qualitative difference: where those shows simply introduce the movie and then have comical skits at the commercial breaks, MST3K actually takes the step of commenting throughout the entire film. You can see the dark outlines of the show’s heroes in the lower part of the screen during the movie: Mike (or Joel, earlier in the series) and two robots, Crow and Tom Servo, wisecrack about the horrible movie from start to finish. It does have the comical bumpers of its spiritual predecessors, in which Mike (or Joel) talks to the evil scientists who are keeping him up in space and forcing him to watch these bad movies.

I love MST3k. It’s like watching a bad movie with a group of friends, which (with the proper movie and proper friends) is a delightful experience. Unfortunately, MST3k was cancelled in 1999 (ironically, shortly after I started watching it) - but there are plenty of episodes out on DVD.

And, for those of us who just can’t let go, Mike and Joel have both launched MST3k-like projects with a few members of MST3k casts: Joel recently launched a direct-to-video project called Cinematic Titanic (they currently have about five movies available), while Mike has both The Film Crew (also about five movies available) and a website called Rifftrax, where you can download humorous movie commentaries to sync with your own copies of films.

By the way, I can offer my endorsement of all three of those ventures. I especially recommend Cinematic Titanic’s first offering, The Oozing Skull; The Film Crew’s Wild Women of Wongo; and Rifftrax’s riff on the deliciously obscure and horrible Star Wars Christmas Special.

The main complaint I’ve heard about MST3k is when an occassional person will go, “Oh, I’ve heard of that. Yeah, I saw a couple episodes - but I don’t like it when people talk over movies.” If that’s what you think; I’m sorry, but you’ve really, really missed the point. It’s not about watching the movies. The movies are terrible! Unless your brain just works really differently from mine, there’s no way you’re going to be watching these films in rapt silence. You’ll watch them with half your attention, listen to the humorous commentary with the other half, and then hopefully add a couple quips of your own.

It’s how bad movies were meant to be enjoyed.