FanFare

What, again? Before the new MST show covered Starcrash, Mystery Fandom Theater 3000 did it, and that's what we're watching tonight!
posted by JHarris on Jan 4, 2024 - 2 comments

When we went through Cinematic Titanic, we passed over one episode to save it for the Holiday Marathon: their re-riff of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. A weird conceit (the lives of Martian children are too regimented so they need Santa to break them out of it), the actors give it their all but the low production values have given it a reputation of one of the worst movies ever made. Among the actors in this are a young Pia Zadora as Girmar the Girl Martian, and Bill McCutcheon, who later appeared on Sesame Street and in Steel Magnolias, as the childlike Martian Dropo.
posted by JHarris on Dec 24, 2023 - 3 comments

It's the last of the 12 episodes of Cinematic Titanic (we have skipped one to save for Christmas). The movie: rattlesnakes in a mineshaft are affected by abandoned military nerve gas that causes them to start attacking people. I don't know, seems like a negative quality of a military nerve gas, to make its targets attack people, but then I'm not a military nerve gas contractor. Next week we'll start in on the four episodes of The Film Crew!
posted by JHarris on Oct 26, 2023 - 2 comments

a.k.a. "Genocide." In this Japanese-made horror movie, the bugs hate people. The bugs attack people. There's an atomic bomb involved too, that can't be good. Released on DVD in 2011.
posted by JHarris on Oct 19, 2023 - 1 comment

Renamed for the Cinematic Titanic release from its original title, "Brides of Blood." The movie's plot is pretty crazy, involving radiation, a monster that requires sacrifices, dismemberments, and butterflies and banana trees turning into monsters. Released on DVD in 2010.
posted by JHarris on Oct 12, 2023 - 5 comments

MST Club's quick jaunt through Cinematic Titanic continues. The movie's about aliens landing and attacking the residents of a small town. In the world of cinema, this appears to be a statistically significant problem.
posted by JHarris on Oct 5, 2023 - 2 comments

a.k.a. Dynamite Brothers. MST Club keeps rolling with a martial arts blaxploitation movie. It's the first Cinematic Titanic DVD that was filmed before a live audience.
posted by JHarris on Sep 28, 2023 - 2 comments

"Dad, where's mom?" Dad: (refuses to tell kids she's locked in the basement and is now a vampire) This is the last Cinematic Titanic with the original premise of being locked in a bunker and being forced to watch bad movies. The remaining episodes were all recorded live before an audience.
posted by JHarris on Sep 21, 2023 - 1 comment

Frankenstein's trying to set up shop again but it doesn't go too well. The Doctor is a bit hornier here than the typical Frankenstein movie; this episode has the "Breast Blimp," as a way to cover up some in-movie nudity.
posted by JHarris on Sep 14, 2023 - 0 comments

a.k.a. Blood Legacy or Will to Die. John Carradine, as shown in a video will, has left a mountain of cash to his descendants, but his servants will get it if they all croak. As you can probably guess, the rest of the movie resembles the sound of a marsh at sunset. Sadly a dog is among the first to go. This is Cinematic Titanic #4; #5, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, we're holding off on until the holiday season.
posted by JHarris on Sep 7, 2023 - 1 comment

Roger Corman produced and directed this movie about a woman who's given wasp jelly to make her young, but also turns her into a violent bug person. Movies are products of their times, and this one certainly is so. Third in the series of Cinematic Titanic direct-to-DVD features starring many of the original cast of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
posted by JHarris on Aug 24, 2023 - 0 comments

China's working on a machine to destroy all life on Earth, for some reason. The military gets involved in a space mission to Venus to replace half of its crew with women. It turns out to be because when the machine activates, the probe can preserve human life on Venus. Implying that people will have to boink a lot for noble reasons is a prevailing theme of science fiction from the time. This was the second episode of Cinematic Titanic, released in 2007.
posted by JHarris on Aug 17, 2023 - 1 comment

MST Club, or whatever you want to call it now, rolls on, with showings and descriptions of the 12 episodes they made of Cinematic Titanic! A short-lived riffing project with Joel, Frank, Trace, Mary Jo and J. Elvis Weinstein, in his long-awaited return to riffing! Their website has been taken over by scammers and their store no longer functions or exists, but it seems you might be able to watch some of them at certain free streaming channels, like maybe Tubi or PlutoTV? The Oozing Skull, like many Cinematic Titanic riffs, is renamed from the original title, which was Brain of Blood. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Aug 9, 2023 - 1 comment

This revised post (original) describes how to join our weekly MST3K Club showings of Mystery Science Theater 3000, technical details of the show, and some minor related bits of weirdness. tl;dr: Watch the show at https://cytu.be/r/Metafilter_MST3KClub, at 9 P.M. Eastern/6 P.M. Pacific Thursday nights. Other topics covered involve technical details, preshow material, viewer controls and powers, and whimsical lore. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Jun 1, 2016 - 0 comments