No, he allready paid four bucks, so such keen insight is beyond his grasp.
I think the best one I’ve ever seen was “Manos” The Hands of Fate.
Yeah, that and “Mitchel” I think are the highlights of the series.
EDIT : Oh, and that one in space where they have the slow motion chase scene on the scooters in the warehouse area. So fucking great. “Space Mutiny” I think it was called.
There is a thread full of awesome recommendations.
It really is a certain type of humor in the show. If you don’t like it, or don’t get it… you probably wont. But, for those of us who do, we love it. I would be lying if I didn’t admit part of the reason I love the show so much is nostalgia, but the show being genuinely funny keeps me coming back. I can reminisce about my brother and I waking up saturday mornings and instead of watching cartoons, watching MST3K. Having my friends come over to watch our favorite episodes was always a blast. And I haven’t even mentioned the amazing Turkey Day Marathons!!!
Rifftrax and the Cinematic Titanic crew have brought it back … somewhat… but it is like the peanut butter and jelly are keeping themselves to their own sandwiches. If they would only come together!!!
Oh, and for you MSTies out there, Amazon is having a Sci-fi sale on their DVDs, and 2 of the collections are around 32 bucks (like 20 bucks off)
Volume XIV
and
20th Anniversary Edition
Volume 14 Highlights:
Joe Don Baker in Final Justice (One of my faves)
Mr “I have a face the size of a catcher’s mitt” in Soultaker
And two Joel Episodes I haven’t seen (Including one from Season 1)
20th Anniversary Highlights:
I don’t really know as I haven’t seen any of these, though they are supposedly some of the most requested episodes, and Mr Giant face from Soul Taker returns in Future War
when they take on bloated braindead mainstream fair though, they can be rather funny.
twilight was entertaining.
To me, MST3K is the classic saturday afternoon activity. You’re bored and lazy. It’s raning outside. TV is showing nothing but golf. You don’t feel like gaming. Just lie in bed and throw on a really crappy movie and watch it with ‘some of the guys’, and by guys I mean Mike/Joel and the robots. The crappy movies make it interesting. Bad acting, bad props, bad… everything. Perfect foundation for a good riff. Best ones I’ve seen are Cave Dwellers, Egaah, Manos: The Hands of Fate, & Overdrawn at the Memory Bank. Perfect companion for lazy days.
Watching a clip on youtube just isn’t going to put you in the right frame of reference.
Memento is great. However, because of its particular hook it has pretty much zero rewatch value, so if you’re using Rifftrax and watching it for the second+ time, I can conceivably see it as being pretty fun/hilarious, or at least innocuous (though I haven’t actually watched the riff). If you use Riifftrax while watching Memento for the first time then I’m going to go ahead and say it would probably ruin the entire movie, but in that case it’s your own fault.
Anyway, see Memento.
This is crazy talk. I have found Memento to have tremendous rewatch value because of “its particular hook”. Actually, not just because of that. Because the film is so well written and executed, returning to it every couple of years is a highly rewarding experience. At least for me.
-amanpour
“Okay…so what am I doing? Oh, I’m chasing this guy. No…he’s chasing me.”
I had the opposite experience, going to a CT show here in Seattle. I loved MST3K and enjoy rifftrax in general, so was really looking forward to a good show. Unfortunately, the riffing was flat and their movie (The Dynamite Brothers) just didn’t seem to have much in the way of riff material. The most entertaining part of the night was the opening skit.
My favorite MST3K was Space Mutiny. The bumper-car chase scene had me in tears.
Apart from not having grown up with this as some of you obviously have (it never made it here and while I knew of MST3K importing it back then wasn’t within my limits), framing it like this makes sense.
Definitely in my Top Ten.
I shout Huzzah all of the time because of this movie.
“Hear the engines roll now!!!”
Okay, this is the part where I sheepishly admit that I’ve only seen it once because everybody I’ve spoken to about it has told me it isn’t worth watching a second time… I shouldn’t have just repeated it as fact, though. Guess I’ll have to just see for myself!
It’s not worth watching a second time.
Heartily seconded, whilst the sheer emotional punch of the twist is missing on repeat viewings, going back over the film with the knowledge of what is actually happening and seeing the tricks that everyone is playing to manipulate other characters is a fantastic experience. The technical skill in putting that film together to deliver the conclusion (or the beginning, depending on how you look at it, is simply amazing.
If anyone has held off on rewatching it then they should stop this instant and throw it in the dvd player.
Hey, how did I end up with Memento in my DVD player?
“Manos” The Hands of Fate is truly, excruciatingly awful, so, yeah, it’s prime MST3K fodder. There’s a DVD of it along with Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (a timeless holiday classic to be sure) which goes by “MST3K: The Essentials”. And while there are probably other essentials, I’d agree that those two definitely are.
I think pretty much every MST3K convert I ever made was through Manos and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
Manos and Santa Claus are essential, and provide a good litmus test.
Their riffs of Roadhouse and The Happening are good. The movies being pretty bad/hilarious on their own helps I’m sure.
And on a related note, I picked up a copy of Plan 9 from Outer Space for $3.00 this evening, with a fully-restored (whatever that means) colorized version and a purportedly hilarious Mike Nelson commentary track. We shall see whether Mr. Nelson can improve it.