Mystery Science Theater 3000: C/D, S/D.

star trek V i mean.

Cocktail? Oh dear!

Trust me, the download pays for itself the moment you hear Kevin & Mike together on the same audio track.

You gotta do it!!

Your concerns are justified, given that Star Trek V is certainly not the kind of movie a right-minded person should be expected to pay for. It'd be like buying a copy of Bloodlust.

In which case, I sympathise. Luckily I had the foresight to marry a Trekkie-in-denial, otherwise I'd probably be in the same predicament.

Just now finished up Samson Versus The Vampire Women, which has some surprising dead time (they could have done a lot more with the wrestling sequences) but redeems itself with the absolutely hilarious use of the old professor. The impressions they do of him are dead-on and add so much to the movie. "Now I want you to come back tomorrow, and leave immediately!"

Never could muster the interest to download/rent/otherwise be exposed to anything sci-fi related. It's not knee-jerk Mike hate (although I vastly prefer Joel) - just that everything I heard sounds so WTF. Dr. Forrester's mom? What? Great, more hammy villainy in Deep 13 is totally what the show needed....

Altogether, classic as entertainment on its own, probably dud in terms of what it spawned; as several people observed upthread, the world did NOT need another excuse for nerds to think they're clever in public places. Sons of bitches nearly ruined Snakes On A Plane for me. I don't think it changed anything one way or the other in terms of how we watch or consume anything - I mean, it was the 90s, postmodernism and cynicism and backtalk were hep generally, not to mention the tension between ironic appreciation and genuine camp love.

"He's got a voice like a body being thrown through a bus window."

Speaking of, in part, there's a new interview with Mike up recently here worth a read if you have some time for it. One of my favorite bits:

QS: Of the ones you've done so far, are there any that were particularly hard going for you?

NELSON: I really, really, truly hated Star Wars: Episode I. I can't even describe how angry it made me.

QS: Had you seen it prior to that? Did you follow that whole debacle in real time as they were released? Or did you know enough to avoid them even then?

NELSON: I think Kevin at the time called me up and said we should go at the premier of this new Star Wars movie and laugh at the people. And I said, "That sounds fun." I think we couldn't get to one... they were all sold out, so we had to get to the one where only like 20% of the audience is dressed up instead of 95%.

QS: That'll keep down the light saber battles before the show starts.

NELSON: Yeah, you keep getting poked in the eye with light sabers and stuff. So we went to that and it was in the middle of the day, and I don't know why but I fell asleep during the middle of it. And I also, it was so loud, it was the loudest experience I'd ever had outside a Who concert. It was so loud that I couldn't even comprehend what was going on. So the memory of it was not coherent.

QS: Don't worry, neither was the execution...

NELSON: (laughs) Then when I saw it again... I just could not believe how incompetent it is in every way. Storytelling - non existent. Acting - god awful, horrendous, terrible acting. It's just astounding how bad it is.

QS: And yet made so much money. Do you ever worry about your fellow man when you view some of these huge successes?

NELSON: It does trouble me. It troubles me. But I fully accept that there are certain things that I am immune to. And I try not to make judgments on those. I am immune to the charm of comic books. And I understand that very many talented and smart people make them and read them, so it's something in me. But with Star Wars, I don't think I can be that charitable. I can maybe go halfway on that.

Other snippets: meeting Burt Reynolds and being fascinated by his wig and why Kevin Smith horned in on Mike's turf with the Roadhouse commentary.

Vol. 11 DVD set of MST3K out in a few months; no word of the contents yet. Also, apparently the rights have expired to all the films on Vol. 1 if you've not got them already, but doubtless your friendly neighborhood torrent will have you covered.

"Love wears a mask..."

"...a tight leather mask!"

And another revival due to this really nice ramble of an interview with Trace Beaulieu. Lots of details I didn't know about, and I think rightly spends a lot more time on his work pre and post-MST3K than on the show itself. Good stuff.

wow, nice

thanks ned

looks like Joel and some other original MST cast members are putting together something new:

http://www.cinematictitanic.com/

the text is conspicuously absent of any acknowledgement of Rifftrax, and is kinda vague about exactly what this is going to be. but the the "gentle and easy to swallow" part makes me wonder if it's going to be slightly more family-oriented, and the references a release by Christmas that's comparable to "Eegah" and "Manos The Hands Of Fate" would imply that they're going to be licensing campy cult movies for DVD release, as opposed to the Rifftrax model that allows for more current/popular releases.

thats kinda disappointing, i had just accepted joel was a weirdo genius & would be in bill watterson-style principled retirement forever

joel hasn't been retired though? i thought he was script doctoring for a while?

He'd been working at his own pace for some time on various things.

Not sure about this news; I'm kinda with Ethan. Still, also having Trace, Josh, Frank and Mary Jo together in the mix is of interest. (Also, all five of them were in that Darkstar game that still hasn't been released, I think.)