With the first of four planned live events this summer, affectionally dubbed "The Crappening,"Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy, formerly of Mystery Science Theater 3000, riffed the 2003 movie, from Nashville, Tennessee, simulcasting the event across the nation.
For the uninitiated, Mystery Science Theater 3000 or MST3K, started in 1988 as the brainchild of comedian Joel Hodgson for HBO’s emerging Comedy Channel. The show would span 11 years, 197 episodes, 2 hosts, several lineup changes, and 3 different stations, and never missed a beat.
Nelson, Corbett, and Murphy starred in the shows final seasons, covering some of the show’s best, or worst episodes, depending on your point of view. The movies themselves are truly bad and feature some of the worst acting, dialog, and directing ever caught on tape.
The Room is no better. Thankfully, the worse the movie, the better the jokes. The more awkward the pause between actors trying to remember their lines or establish an emotion that they are unable to convey on screen, the better. That pause gives the boys from Rifftrax time to add in some dialog of their own.
As Rifftrax dubbed it, “the Citizen Kane of bad movies,” The Room does not disappoint. Featuring plot holes you could drive a cement truck through, a lack of continuity so mind-numbing that you’ll truly wonder if time itself is relevant, and enough establishing shots for a tourism video, what The Room lacks in quality, (namely everything) it makes up for in dialog no human would ever speak and acting so wooden you’d think the actors were marionettes.
At one point in the movie, Johnny, the main character who has been falsely accused of hitting his girlfriend, opens a door and slurs “It’s bull----! I did not hit her,” in a thick, yet nondescript European accent and spikes a water bottle on the ground in anger. He then immediately flips from attempting anger to attempting happiness, when he sees his friend, by smiling and saying “ohh, hhi, Mark,” in the same unintelligible accent. This type of bipolar writing and directing is prevalent throughout Tommy Wiseau’s movie. Always attempting, but never capturing or showing emotion.
Wiseau is the writer, director, star and, as Rifftrax called him, “the laugh track” as well, since after almost every one of his lines he sort of giggles a half-hearted “ha, ha, ha” even when he’s angry. If anyone is to blame for this movie, it’s Wiseau, at least Rifftrax made it watchable, and hilarious.
To add more bang to your movie-going buck, Rifftrax dusted off another educational short from the 70's, called At Your Fingertips: Floats. These shorts are fan-favorites and truly make you wonder why they were made. The At Your Fingertips.. collection has previously covered such interesting topics as grass and cylinders.The Room is an awful movie, but it doesn't hinder the movie-going experience, at all. The Rifftrax crew pulls out all the stops for these live events, and seem to have a feel for what the fans want, not pandering, but taking the comedy to another level.
Previous successes in their live events include such hits as; Birdemic: Shock and Terror, Sharknado, Plan 9 From Outerspace, and Jack The Giant Killer. They have the art of riffing bad movies down to a science. Be sure to catch the replay on May 12, a must see for fans of MST3K.
0 comments :
Post a Comment