Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax

What is your opinion on MST3k/Rifftrax

  • 1. Love it more than life itself and will sacrifice my first born child to glorify it's name

    Votes: 84 21.8%

  • 2. Love it

    Votes: 224 58.2%

  • 3. Meh

    Votes: 50 13.0%

  • 4. Hate it

    Votes: 9 2.3%

  • 5. What the fuck is a MST3K?!

    Votes: 18 4.7%
  • Total voters
    385
Flexo said:
Coleman Francis, Hobgoblins, and Rollergator are my picks for worst movies ever riffed. Do NOT show these to newbies and drink heavily while viewing.
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really anything where they lean heavy into "this movie isn't good" rather than specific jokes are kinda shitty if you're not balls-deep enough to appreciate the meta-joke of "the guys who's job is mocking bad movies say 'this bad movie is really too bad' even for them"
and even some of those can end up sorta lacking
 
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Commander X said:

"Watch out you little doodad."
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If nuMST really wanted to serve the fans, they would do for april fools day this bit for the entire episode. Cardboard cut outs and obviously taped lines.

I would probably go even further and have it be a gag that the crew vs mads were never cardboard at the same time. (Mads are live while crew is cardboard - then crew is live while mads are cardboard.) Don't even explain it.

XYZpdq Jr. said:
really anything where they lean heavy into "this movie isn't good" rather than specific jokes are kinda shitty if you're not balls-deep enough to appreciate the meta-joke of "the guys who's job is mocking bad movies say 'this bad movie is really too bad' even for them"
and even some of those can end up sorta lacking
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Now hobgoblins is hilarious on the riff, ("He tried to crowdsurf but nobody wanted to touch him.") the movie is just so bad it powers through even the jokes and assaults your senses.

Coleman Francis' 3 films are just... so bizarre it almost feels like they are self-riffing. "Flag on the moon. How did it get there?"
 
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Flexo said:
If nuMST really wanted to serve the fans, they would do for april fools day this bit for the entire episode. Cardboard cut outs and obviously taped lines.

I would probably go even further and have it be a gag that the crew vs mads were never cardboard at the same time. (Mads are live while crew is cardboard - then crew is live while mads are cardboard.) Don't even explain it.


Now hobgoblins is hilarious on the riff, ("He tried to crowdsurf but nobody wanted to touch him.") the movie is just so bad it powers through even the jokes and assaults your senses.

Coleman Francis' 3 films are just... so bizarre it almost feels like they are self-riffing. "Flag on the moon. How did it get there?"
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iirc Hobgoblins doesn't do it _that_ hard compared to, like, Castle Of Fu Manchu

I recall a random comment about how the riff of "Coleman Francis had a dark, grey vision. With cars!" was actually sort of on-point beyond mockery. A lot of Francis movies focus on a grim series of betrayals and sufferings. And cars either parking or already parked. Which kinda neatly lines up with his life and death.
 
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The Nothingness said:
Showing Invasion of the Neptune Men to newbies, however, would be hilarious for the climatic battle alone.

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one time I was watching Neptune Men with some online nerd buddies, most of whom hadn't seen it
when the final battle started I was like "literally nothing happens. I'm gonna get some beers". Went up to the corner, got a six, pack, came back, and I'm not sure if they even got to the Hitler Building by the time I was back, and they were like "woah you weren't kidding"
 
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Latest Rifftrax, from the director of Robo-Vampire and Honor and Glory, Godfrey Ho and starring members of the cast of the latter, including Cynthia Rothrock. A bulgy-eyed maniac kills women who resemble the wife who left him, torturing and raping his victims (MURPHY: "Who says there's no good roles for women?") and one of them is the younger sister of teacher and illicit street-fighter Rothrock, teaming up with a detective played by the fellow who played the bulgy-eyed, leering villain of Honor, and a psychiatrist played by the woman who played Rothrock's journalist sister in Honor. A favorite moment from the film itself is where the villain, armed with a katana and Rothrock armed with a hook sword are fighting in the usual dreary warehouse, a box full of packing peanuts is upended and sent flying, briefly raining down on both combatants as they glower at each other.
 
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Commander X said:

Latest Rifftrax, from the director of Robo-Vampire and Honor and Glory, Godfrey Ho and starring members of the cast of the latter, including Cynthia Rothrock. A bulgy-eyed maniac kills women who resemble the wife who left him, torturing and raping his victims (MURPHY: "Who says there's no good roles for women?") and one of them is the younger sister of teacher and illicit street-fighter Rothrock, teaming up with a detective played by the fellow who played the bulgy-eyed, leering villain of Honor, and a psychiatrist played by the woman who played Rothrock's journalist sister in Honor. A favorite moment from the film itself is where the villain, armed with a katana and Rothrock armed with a hook sword are fighting in the usual dreary warehouse, a box full of packing peanuts is upended and sent flying, briefly raining down on both combatants as they glower at each other.
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I could swear I had seen this one but I guess it's just it has so many overlapping plots and actors from Honor & Glory i mix them up all the time.

This one has that great one-liner "yeah! See ya!"
 
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Commander X said:

Latest Rifftrax, from the director of Robo-Vampire and Honor and Glory, Godfrey Ho and starring members of the cast of the latter, including Cynthia Rothrock. A bulgy-eyed maniac kills women who resemble the wife who left him, torturing and raping his victims (MURPHY: "Who says there's no good roles for women?") and one of them is the younger sister of teacher and illicit street-fighter Rothrock, teaming up with a detective played by the fellow who played the bulgy-eyed, leering villain of Honor, and a psychiatrist played by the woman who played Rothrock's journalist sister in Honor. A favorite moment from the film itself is where the villain, armed with a katana and Rothrock armed with a hook sword are fighting in the usual dreary warehouse, a box full of packing peanuts is upended and sent flying, briefly raining down on both combatants as they glower at each other.
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Pretty good movie for what it was. You can find a HD version on YouTube.

My problem with Rothrock is she's just too small to be a believable badass, which is why, imo, they almost always paired her with a guy in her American movies. She's fast and flexible, but she has zero power. She's also not much of an actress but was cute as hell in the '90s.

RLM reviewed this movie and went full Gay Blows Men by blaming SEXISM for her lack of success because the shrill fat one didn't know who she was.


I hate that David Brant poseur like you wouldn't believe. It's also far from her worst movie.
 
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Flexo said:
I could swear I had seen this one but I guess it's just it has so many overlapping plots and actors from Honor & Glory i mix them up all the time.

This one has that great one-liner "yeah! See ya!"
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iirc Godfrey Ho will sometimes recycle upwards of two-thirds of a movie from other movies he's made
 
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Commander X said:
Latest riff is of Hell of the Living Dead, just another Italian zombie gore flick, and directed by Rats: Night of Terror's Bruno Mattei, which has everything you'd expect including characters repeatedly shooting zombies anywhere else after discovering a head-shot takes them out, and "commandos" of dubious competence.
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Need to check it out. Hell of the Living Dead is a pretty decent Italian zombie film and has a great downer ending where everyone dies in it.

Also, best breaking the minds films are Monsters Agogo (the last host segment monologue from Crow is pure classic despair) and Invasion of the Neptune Men.
 
XYZpdq Jr. said:
iirc Godfrey Ho will sometimes recycle upwards of two-thirds of a movie from other movies he's made
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Yeah Godfrey Ho and IFD Films were well known for that. He would buy films from other territories and then splice in new scenes. Other times he would reuse footage he shot for "new" movies. IIRC he used the stuff he shot with Richard Harrison into 12 different ninja movies.

And he did something similar with Undefeatable, it was released in Asia as Bloody Mary Killer with added sex and violence and a slightly different plot.

Rifftrax did Robo Vampire, which is bizarre/incomprehensible even by Godfrey Ho standards.
 
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The most recent Riff is a Mary Jo & Bridget outing, where they once again take on a teenybopper film - Rock Rock Rock


A jukebox film musical produced mostly as a reason to get the rock and roll-crazed kids to watch it, the barely there plot involves young Tuesday Weld as a gal who tries to earn money to buy herself a prom dress, and features rock, R&B and doo-wop acts like Chuck Berry, the Flamingos, Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers and rockabilly legend Johnny Burnette. Plus noted DJ Alan Freed as himself, who appeared in a couple of other films like this, including Rock Around The Clock which of course featured Bill Haley & His Comets and Go, Johnny Go! which not only starred Chuck Berry but Ritchie Valens, Mr. "Summertime Blues" himself Eddie Cochran, The Flamingos, and so on.

There were tons of movies like this released taking on the rock and roll craze, or centered around dance fads like the handful of films released in the very early 1960s centered around The Twist, and I recall there were a brief flurry of late 1950s films implying that Rock and Roll was a dying fad, and producers of those films were backing whichever musical style they felt would become “the next hot trend” in popular music, and some of these movies were cashing in on the calypso music craze of the time.
bop-girl-goes-calypso.jpg
 
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