videoGaiden Is Back

The Consolevania boys are back with their BBC show videoGaiden:



In case you're wondering "who?" they done this amazing Halo 3 spoof doing the business on YouToss or whatever it's called:

Mystery Science Theater 3000

So I've just finished watching every episode of Mystery Science theater 3000. That's a great number of episodes. Just shy of two hundred. "What's the big deal?" I hear you ask, and by you I mean the voices in my head. Don't worry, they're helpful. They ask the questions that need asking, or tell me that the jumper I'm wearing makes me look like a nonce. I digress, the big deal lies in the fact that this feat took just shy of two years thanks to a cap placed by me on myself only watching two episodes per week to avoid burnout. You see for those that don't know MST3K, as we in the "biz", and by "biz" I mean we who watch it and aren't actually in any sort of business as such, call it, the show lasts ninety minutes an episode and features a bloke and some puppet robots watching truly awful films. Of course that means anyone watching it is watching someone watch a film that's not very good. I'm not explaining it well but suffice to say it's like a DVD commentary that takes the piss out of movies that deserve to have their urine extracted. And thanks to the awfulness of the movies and the sheer volume of witty one-liners it can become quite exhausting watching it non-stop.

So I started on New Year's Day 2006 and finished on November 14 2007. Eleven seasons worth of bad movies and funny quips. It's a huge undertaking in many ways and something that all fans of the show should do. Why? In a word evolution. It develops an understanding as to how this wonderfully odd show came into being and developed into one of the funniest things ever made. From those baby steps of the KTMA years (Season Zero) as the performers improvise through movies they haven't even watched, fine tuning the type of humour and the characters, through the tentative steps of scripting the show in Season 1 before everything falls into place in Season 2 and sets the show running for the "glory years" (Seasons 3 - 7). Then of course there is the decline that the Sci-fi era (Seasons 8 - 10) exhibits. In these final days it is a show running out of steam, being slowly crushed under the weight of burnout among those with the show, coupled with many losses of important personnel on the way and the inevitability of cancellation.

Watching the show in its entirety and in order reveals things about it. There are the obvious things, such as the break down above of the different eras of the show. Then there are the smaller things, the things that don't lead well to appreciation if it is watched scattered. If you watch the show on a Rhino DVD volume you may come to conclusions such as: Bill's Crow isn't as good as Trace's, Josh's Servo and Larry are terrible, the Mads are awful in the Sci-fi era, Mike is better than Joel. Obviously they are all open to vice-versa. Watching it as it evolves gives you an appreciation of things because you live with them for a time. Josh Weinstein is excellent during his tenure as Servo. He is the funniest at improvising in the theatre and some of the running jokes he creates for Servo (mango juice) are hilarious. Larry is not so great. During KTMA he's tolerable but in Season 1 Josh begins mugging too much and makes the voice higher. His decision to use his own voice for Servo after the Kermit on helium original voice is a relief mind you. Leaping forward to the other puppet change, Bill Corbett is phenomenal as Crow. The decision to play him as if he is now older and grumpy is genius as it matches Bill's voice perfectly. I still prefer Trace's interpretation but Bill's really grows on you on those final months of the marathon. Of note as well are the changes to Trace's Crow. He grows older during his tenure. He starts almost like an infant in the first couple of years before maturing. When watched in order Crow grows up from KTMA - Sci-fi. The Mads in the Sci-fi era are not great, but again when Forrester and Frank are but a distant memory it becomes easier to like what they are doing. As for Joel vs. Mike, they are both excellent in different ways and not only did they bring different characters to the human hosts, they also brought different tones to the show.

The really great thing about watching the evolution of the show is watching a talented group of people find their collective feet and start to produce quality television after a great deal of experimenting to see what works and what doesn't. Comparisons with The Simpsons can be found here. It too has a little seen "season zero" (the Tracy Ullman shorts) and can be seen evolving and changing greatly in its earliest years before hitting its stride and finding a glory period that is pretty much unmatched by any other show. Shamefully when The Simpsons began to run out of steam it kept going (and going, and going, an...).

Of course neither show would be allowed today. Both took an age to find their audiences and iron out the kinks, mainly thanks to the makers doing it their own way as opposed to following notes from the networks they were on. MST3K came along at a perfect time, as did The Simpsons, as there were new networks desperate for content to fill the schedules that they were willing to give a fair chance. These days MST3K would have been canceled quickly. In fact, strike that, it would never have been picked up.

So the big question is, on looking back, what is the best season of MST3K? Very difficult to say but in all honesty every season has something about it to recommend, either thanks to how strong the episodes are or because of interesting developments (KTMA, Season 1, Season 8's host segments, Season 10's first and last episodes). Trying to pick one of the seasons from the glory period is almost impossible as Seasons 3 - 7 are simply brilliant. Season 7 has a 100% strike rate, but then it only has six episodes so it doesn't technically count. At this point the one I wouldn't pick is Season Four, but the reason for this comes out of marathon fatigue. Season Four came at a point where I should have taken about a month off before going into it. I plan to go back and watch the season again by itself after there has been enough time passed after finishing this.

All in all through the wheat and the chaff, and there's plenty of both, for every Cave Dwellers in a season, there's a Castle of Fu Manchu, the complete body is some work and one that deserves to be watched as it was intended. Obviously those first couple of KTMA are missing but if you only need a few episodes to finish your collection then get them and sit down to this. It can be a slog at times but in the end it is well worth it.

And it must be said, this is the greatest show about films ever made, purely because it serves as a great education as to how not to make them!

Next

Philip K. Dick must be going off like a spinning top in that deathbox of his thanks to the amount of crap "based" on his work. Next being based on anything by him is like me saying I based my decision to go to work on Lord Of The Rings because I too embarked on a journey to a predetermined destination to carry out some task. The poor sod.

I don't say the next statement lightly as I tend to go easy on a lot of Hollywood's rubbish fests, but Next may be one of the worst films I've ever seen, and no amount of whatever Jessica's in this in a tight top is going to save it. I'm actually struggling to think of a movie that abandons logic, even its own crazy movie logic, so freely. It's simply abysmal!

So, what's it about? Well from what's still left in my brain after I shoved a rusty hook up my nostril to scrape this chuff out it appears that Nic Cage is at his overacting best as a Vegas magician who can see a whole two minutes into the future. Wow, eh? Some power. Well it is if you're predicting what'll happen to someone on stage two minutes from now. When he gets drafted to avert a nuclear disaster you have to question how two minutes foresight's going to do much, but the FBI are experts in this so I should butt out. Anyway within seconds of this device being set up ol' "crazy eyes" Nic's predicting things right before they happen, such as an armed robbery or the positions of security guards, or looking so far forward he actually predicts the second half of the movie. Don't worry that's not a spoiler, because if you don't spot the shock twist ending then you may too have had a rusty hook up your nasal passage.

Soon Ol' "related to Francis Ford Coppola and that's why he keeps getting all these plumb roles (and this shit one)" Nic's power allows him to split into eighty four versions of himself so he can foresee every possibility of a situation, which seems like a bit of a far step from the "seeing two minutes into the future" thing they started with. Oh and Julianne Moore further destroys her good reputation as the "dependable good actor in uptight official woman" role and there's a bit of a love subplot with Ol' "old" Nic and Jessica Thingy, the one with the big tits, and... I just give up. I don't know what it's about really.

And that's the feeling you get watching this turd. Nobody involved seems to care so why should I? Witness the story career headlong into an abyss of its own making as it continually breaks its own setup whenever the writers get a bit stuck, the really bad CGI (Smallville looks better) or the continuous use of the "oh look he's been killed, oh no wait he just flashed forward to see what'll happen if he drives in front of a (very badly rendered) train" plot device to stand in for any real thrills. Mildly amusing the first time, we don't honestly believe our protagonist has been killed five minutes in so we can afford a little titter, but tedious the thirty fourth time. Like this time is going to be any different just because it's a nuclear holocaust that flits across the screen!

So Next was based on a Dick work. Dick sounds right.

R.I.P. Phil!

Bugger

We lost!

Scotland,Get Intae Em!

Glasgow Gets Commonwealth Games

Huzzah! On yersel big man! The Commonwealth Games will be a great event not only for the city, but Scotland as a whole.

Then I realised, this announcement was today but the games aren't until 2014. Seven years away. We could all be dead, well if movies are to be believed. Terminator 2: Judgment Day says we should all have been obliterated by machines by now. I don't know about you, but I feel like I'm living on borrowed time already.

It'll be some event, if we make it. With all those apocalypses that films have predicted one's got to happen. Movies wouldn't lie to us surely...

Joel Hodgson Is Back!

Lovers of Mystery Science Theater 3000 rejoice! The man who started it all is back with Cinematic Titanic and he's brought some MST3K alumni with him.

With The Film Crew and Rifftrax plus Cartoon Dump, Max The Hero and the launch of an official MST3K site with animated shorts featuring the bots plus the continuing releases of MST3K on DVD this is one hell of a time to be a Mistie!

Cheers to RAD on the MST3K Discussion Board and Satellite News for the info.

WARNING!

WARNING! This following piece contains swearing, ranting and a tirade against hack gorehound filmmakers.

We're all used to these types of warnings these days. Hell it's a surprise bags of chips don't say: "WARNING! contains fat 'n' shit". The powers that be have decided to nanny us and this extends to entertainment. CDs have featured the parental guidance stickers for ages. The back of the Twenty Four Hour Party People (to grab the closest video to me) states:

Language: Some, very strong

Sex/Nudity: Some, moderate

Violence: Infrequent, mild

Other: Sight of hard drug use

A bit more information than a simple guidance sticker, but it also has this on the front cover, the spine and directly above all of this:



On other words you have to be eighteen to watch it. Now if you have to be eighteen then I'd imagine that the film's probably not going to be the Teletubbies. Surely the certification attached to a film should be enough?

But no! Anything and everything that could in any way cause distress is now listed on the movie poster and often before the film at the cinema. the sort of warnings above are fair, if a little overkill, in the sense that they don't really reveal anything that happens in the film beyond shagging, drugs and swearing. If these things offend you don't watch. But when the warnings contain sentences like "WARNING! Contains human flaying, a particularly nasty eyeball thing and decapitation by clever device" it kind of ruins Saw part 84 before you've seen it. The thing is if I'm watching Saw part 84 (don't laugh it could happen unless the world ends seventy nine years from now) I know it's going to contain this stuff. It's marketed as a gory torture filled horror and it's been tagged as an '18' which means it isn't going to pussyfoot around the violence angle. "But what if it contains nudity or swearing?" a person who eats their own hair may ask. Yes because in a film like this, they're the elements that will cause offense. "The melted eyeball being cut off with a pair of rusty scissors then the gaping wound oozing puss didn't bother me, but when it happened she screamed "fuck!" I was pure aghast I tell you". Fuck off. If I'm watching a film called the Texas Chainsaw Massacre I expect it to be set in Texas and there to be a massacre involving chainsaws in some way. If not I personally would feel short changed. What I don't need is to be told that a film with that name starting at midnight on TV that's notorious and an '18' certificate "may include scenes that viewers find distressing". OF COURSE IT FUCKING DOES!

But it's not just the 84 Saw movies and all those Rob Zombie arsefests (get back to making shite music instead of shite films, gore does not equal scary fuckwit (and that goes to you too Eli Roth, although not the music bit, unless you were in a band in college or something, then in that case aye) (deep breath) no, the warnings appear before kid's films too. Kid's films. Those fluffy innocent clouds of cotton poo have warnings before them, just in case your little darlings get all scaredy waredy. "WARNING! Contains mild peril". Mild peril. Oh God, no. Imagine witnessing mild peril. What does that even entail? A footchase a la Point Break but the characters are only playing tig? When I was young, as in a kid, I watched Raiders Of The Lost Ark, a 'PG' certificate, that includes a man's face melting off, while his mate's head explodes! As peril goes that's way beyond mild.

When I was a kid it seemed that all films aimed at me contained something that would get the film a '15' these days. These things are fun in a kid's film. Obviously these films should be a 'PG' but that should be enough to tell parents that they need to maybe check the film first. Slapping "WARNING! Contains melting face" kind of buggers the ending of Raiders. Shamefully instead it seems that audiences are going to be nannied more and more. I'm sure, and I hope I'm correct so I'm not making it up but equally I hope I'm wrong, I've actually seen a warning along the lines of "WARNING! Contains nothing that may cause offense". Now that's reassuring.

Happy Halloween

Yeah I know it isn't till Wednesday, but many will be celebrating it this weekend so here's a wee link to a list of what this lot consider the 100 scariest moments in film. Most come with attached video so you can poo your pants!

Thanks to Captain Hygiene on the MST3K forum for the heads up!

And here's a scary video so you really do fill your drawers with the brown stuff!

Things Learned From The Movies Part 1

How To Meet Women...

First spot an attractive woman you would like to embark in the act of copulation with. Next approach her and before you can say "hello" drop your keys or a doughnut, anything will do really unless it's a big wedding cake or something equally as splatterable, in front of her.

Now I know what you're thinking. Surely she should drop something then you show off how much a gentleman you are. Sure that's the scenario in an ideal world but you'd have to follow her around waiting for her to drop it and she'd probably think you're a stalker, not the best approach.

No, drop the thing yourself. When she stoops to pick it up make sure you stoop too. Then as she reaches for it stick the heid in her. If you fail to break her nose then she should laugh about it. Love shall surely blossom.

Thank you movies for teaching us how meeting women is possible.