Good old MST3K! One of the greatest shows in television history and yet I can never seem to find time to watch the box sets as they come in. This set, Volume 12, is the last set to be released by Rhino. All subsequent volumes are being released by Shout Entertainment. Not to worry, of course as the Shout discs are just as good content-wise and are released in thinpacks and not the nasty Digi-paks that Rhino used.

The Rebel Set: Now here's a movie that sounded good on paper but ultimately falls flat. It has tons of character and television actors but the plot is boring and really makes no sense at times. The riffing is average but not memorable. Honestly it's a below average episode.

Secret Agent Super Dragon: Now here's a fun and crappy spy thriller from the swingin' 60s. Ray Danton stars in this Italian take off of the James Bond super spy film genre. There's modestly hot women and some half decent fights. To quote my brother, "The film would've been good with the actors and the premise had it had a real plot and made by competant people."

The riffing on this one was quite good although no lines stuck in my head afterwards. Certainly not bad for a Joel episode.

The Starfighters: Oh God, please don't ever let the Air Force take me. I have the utmost respect for our service men and women but by George this film was a pain to watch. For some reason I think my cousin who spent 20 years in the Air Force would love this film. At least the host segments are hilarious.

Parts the Clonus Horror: Ugh! I HATE THIS MOVIE! Honestly, there are few MST3K epsisodes I can't watch and this is one of them. The film is disturbing and thus probably met its goal of shocking the audience into an anti-cloning stance. I just mourn for the waste of such talents as Peter Graves and Keenan Wynn. Ironically this film was remade into the Michael Bay crapfest known as "The Island."

At least the host segments are funny.

All in all a good set. There are two more sets after this one that I need to get around to watching soon. As of this writing I already have half of Vol. 13 watched so it may be sooner than I think.

Labels: Comedy, MST3K, TV Shows

Yes, I know I used to be so good about keeping this blog. I know that if only for me it's a great window into my life which I can use to sort of track my habits back.

The majority of my TV time has been spent with a controller in hand. If you check out my other blog, you can kind of see more about that but I've gotten lazy on that as well. Since I've been watching a few random episodes of things, I'll try and post at least a quick update here.

MST3K - Time of the Apes: Editing TV shows into movies is never a good idea. While there are tv movies based on shows which are made to be split into pieces (i.e. Super Ducktales) going in the reverse almost never works. Sometimes it's passable like another MST episode Riding with Death and other times like with the Mobile Suit Gundam series fans even accept them greater than the original show. In the case of Time of the Apes, we get the worst scenario and get total trash. 26 episodes really can't be chopped down into an hour and a half without losing something and so we end up with a mishmash of plots which don't make a whole lot of sense. Like Johnny, I just don't care.

The riffing is excellent, however. I actually see myself watching this one again.

Tales of Symphonia - the Animation: This anime is really good ... if you loved the game. Luckily I loved the game so I'm enjoying this show but I doubt many others would like it as a stand alone OAV.

Touch!: What an excellent series! Now once I get time to watch more I'll enjoy more.

Wrestlemania 24: Wow, what a FANTASTIC event. I got to see this at the college which makes me glad to be an alumni.

'Taker's streak continued, Orton retained and Ric Flair wrestled in one of his best matches ever with a fitting end to a LEGENDARY career.

I'll try to post more later and at least keep up. Here's hoping I can at least do that.

Labels: Anime, MST3K, site news, wrestling

The Film Crew is back with yet another classic episode in their new direct to DVD show. This one features an awful turd of a film, The Wild Women of Wongo.

Wongo is basically a cavesploitation film from the late 50s back when drive-ins and dive theaters were aplenty and helped fuel demand for cheap little films where people could go and spend an afternoon watching two or three (or four) films in a row. Wongo, like many films of the era, used sex as a selling point to mask their rock-bottom production values. So you get women in animal skin dresses and men in loincloths. This may have excited people of the 50s but is rather bland by today's standards of sexy.

The plot is boring and rather unimportant. The real gem is, of course, the riffing. Mike, Kevin and Bill do a fine job with this film and there were many laugh out loud moments as well as a few good chuckles. I really enjoyed this episode and hope that they continue to make more episodes.

Labels: Film Crew, MST3K

After the mildly disappointing debut of the Film Crew, this next installment proves that Mike, Bill and Kevin are again at the top of their game.

Peter Graves stars as a rather bland scientist revived by aliens with ping pong eyes so that he can steal nuclear secrets which he has been working on. They need this in able to achieve, what else, world domination! So it's Peter Graves vs. the rest of the world as he is the only one who knows about them and, armed with paper and a slide rule. the only one who can save the day.

The Film Crew does an excellent job with this little turd of a film. There seemed to be less of the toilet humor and more cultural references, which is a welcome change.

I can honestly say that The Film Crew has met all my expectations. No, it's not MST3K and it's something that you have to get used to now that the sight gags, the host segments and all the other non-movie things about MST3K.

Next for the Film Crew is The Wild Women of Wongo, which is currently in my backlog with Giant of Marathon not far behind. For those who want just MST3K Volume 12 is coming soon. Either way, I'm happy.

Labels: Comedy, Film Crew, MST3K

Lifting up my week is Rhino's newest installment of their MST3K box sets. They are sticking to the standard format of four movies per volume and are still including a few goodies here and there. I always have high hopes on these sets and this one is no exception.

Ring of Terror is the first episode on the disc and is the weakest of the bunch. This season 2 episode was unfortunately too dull for my tastes as it's obvious that the gang is still getting the knack of writing the riffing. The real saver here was an episode of the incredibly rediculous Undersea Kingdom serial.

The Indestructible Man has Lon Chaney Jr. in the roll of "the Butcher" who is a killer brought back from the dead thanks to some goofy amateur scientists with a station wagon. The film is total garbage but the riffing is top notch. I also loved the end segment with Mike Nelson and Kevin Murphy as cops.

Tormented is actually the best source film of the four. Bert I. Gordon actually wrote a rather interesting little ghost story and despite the lack of budget this film holds up quite well. The only problem that I had with it was that I did not seem to blame the lead as much as the movie seems to have wanted me to and I found myself hating the ghost as much as he did.

This disc also has a great interview with Bert I. Gordon, his daughter (and Tormented actress) Susan Gordon and the guy who played the beatnik sailor. It's quite informative and while there is some back-patting by all throughout the interview I will agree with them that Susan Gordon was quite the child actress and her performance as the cute little sister was first rate.

Finishing out the set was the absolute best episode that Mystery Science Theater 3000 ever did. Horrors of Spider Island was the third to last episode Best Brains did before closing down for good and was one of the few episodes I was able to watch on its first broadcast. Ever since then I have nearly worn out my VHS (and later DVD-R) recordings of it.

The brilliance of this episode is two-fold. First off the film is a total turkey and yet is completely watchable by anyone with a warped sense of humor and a love for Eastern European women showing their breasts (and there are many of you, I'm sure.) Secondly the riffing has some of the greatest lines ever. I find myself quoting the film at times when appropriate or inappropriate for that matter.

If you need a reason to buy the set, then I question your status as a MSTie. Buy this set today!

Highest Recommendation!!

Labels: Comedy, MST3K, TV Shows

There is a saying over at Rifftrax that it is not Mystery Science Theater 3000 2.0. While that may be true of Rifftrax, The Film Crew is certainly MST3k through and through. Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett were, in my opinion, the best trio to go through the hallway and into the theater so putting them together to riff movies should be instant comedic gold, right? Well ...

The film is putrid, plain and simple. Like most bad movies MST3K did it appears to be trying to make some sort of story but we never seem to find out what that is. Basically all I could figure out was a guy who sold junk falls for a stripper (who, by the way, is played by Rue McClanahan of TV's The Golden Girls) and he decides to go in on an armored car heist that a guy just offers him out of the blue.

The Film Crew does a decent job with this one given what they had to work with. Their commentary is superb although I did notice that they have now taken to adding in more racy jokes and seem to take advantage of the lack of censorship on DVD.

If I was to give a weakness to this it would be the single host segment. Many of the MST3K movies were so putrid and boring that even with the commentary it was nice to have a break. They include just one segment which, honestly, I didn't find too funny.

So while it's not a revival of Mike and the Bots and there are no Mads they do have a rather silly character via telephone of their boss, Bob Honcho. While people will, rightfully so, compare and contrast it to MST3K, after 8 years it's nice to see some new material and I can't wait for more.

Labels: Bad Movies, Comedy, MST3K