FanFare

A week in the life of a young singer as he navigates the Greenwich Village folk scene of 1961. [more inside]
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs on Sep 11, 2018 - 10 comments

Salvador sends Alonso on a mission to save Julián from a lengthy battle during the Siege of Baler in the Philippines. [more inside]
posted by zarq on Jun 4, 2018 - 9 comments

Something's rotten in Denmark. Prince Hamlet finds out his dad the king is suddenly dead, and his uncle Claudius has just as suddenly married his mum and taken the throne. Sound suspecious? So thinks Hamlet's dad's ghost, who tells him it was murder and demands revenge. But Hamlet's indecisive, so he pretends to be cray-cray so he can gather clues without alerting Claudius. While so detecting, Hamlet kills a series of people with varying degrees of intent, and holds a skull a bit. He gets revenge, but dies too. I'm going to level with you. This episode is commonly regarded as one of the less accessible ones. It's another case where the movie drags everything down. This is a low budget, black-and-white, 1961 made-for-TV German production of Hamlet, with over half the content cut for time, dubbed into English. It's a bit entertaining that a couple of the dubbers are, it turns out, Ricardo "Khaaaan!" Montalban and John "Sgt. Schultz" Banner themselves, but it's still a dry episode. It's all downhill from here! Episode 1009 is available on YouTube. Premiered June 27, 1999. Four episodes left. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Apr 11, 2018 - 4 comments

LIKE NOTHING YOU'VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE! A gigantic sea lizard emerges from the ocean off the British coast and wrecks stuff, but is captured. Then its mother shows up. Oops! Mormo could not be reached by press time. Note that the short intro blurbs often seen in these writeups are taken from advertising for the movie. I don't myself claim you've never seen something like this obvious British Godzilla clone before. Leonard Maltin (a good sport) shows up in a couple of host segments! This episode is not available on YouTube. Premiered July 18, 1998. 17 episodes left. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Jan 11, 2018 - 8 comments

"Science Shocker of the Space Age!" "See!! A 6ft astronaut shrink to 6 inches before your very eyes! See!! The Moon Maidens! See!! The attack of the Fire People!" An astronaut is stranded on a planetoid that makes him small. There are other small people there, and he assimilates into their culture. Then they're destroyed and he's rescued. Film that for long enough and you have yourself a movie. You know, every year of my life I grow more and more convinced that the wisest and the best is to fix our attention on the good and the beautiful, if you just take the time to look at it. In Castle Forrester, Pearl gets her Mad Scientist kit. Promo YouTube (1h32m) Premiered March 21, 1998. 24 episodes left. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Nov 8, 2017 - 11 comments

Non-threating, clunky robots from space invade Japan, and the country's only defense is a bunch of children and Space Chief. The robots turn into women, but their threat level does not increase measurably. Satellite News identifies this as another of the worst movies MST ever did, where a lot of the humor comes from the suffering of the riffers. There are a lot of little moments to watch for, like Tom Servo's "Song About Stock Footage," him saying "Just when I think I've seen the worst movie ever made, along comes the WORST movie EVER MADE!", Mike and Crow just wandering out of the theater at one point, and a number of excellent host segments including Noh Theater, Roji Panty Complex, the return of Krankor, and Crow's Letter To Japan. Oh, and the sudden and unexplained presence of the Hitler Building. Despite all of that, I'd say this one of tough going. In the subplot, an amnesiac Bobo is revealed to be the "Mad Goth," who gets his memory back just in time to get him, Pearl and Brain Guy captured at the end of the episode. YouTube Premiered October 11, 1997. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Oct 4, 2017 - 9 comments

Everyone is looking for The Witness. Some want to kill him, some want to serve him, some want to save him. Also Titan has developed splinter suits. All 10 episodes of Season 3 were presented over 3 nights on SyFy. [more inside]
posted by DevilsAdvocate on May 23, 2017 - 7 comments

"INVINCIBLE... INDESTRUCTABLE! What was this awesome BEAST born fifty million years out of time?" Miners find some leathery tissue deep in a mine which grows into a monster and attacks Copenhagen, not a city built to withstand monster attack, with deadly cartoon slime. Also, a goofy handyman in overalls sticks his hand in an electric eel tank apparently just so he could make faces to the camera. A fine example of cinema! MST3K is back! With it comes new mads (Kinga and Max), a new host (Jonah Ray), higher production values, fancy interstitials, a skeleton band, a remix of Mighty Science Theater and the Wild Rebels cereal song at the end, and a long listing of Kickstarter backers at the end which doesn't even get out of the As in this episode. Episode 1101 is on Netflix. Premiered TODAY, April 14th, 2017. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Apr 14, 2017 - 108 comments

"Special Guest Star playing a double Role TOR JOHNSON as the Beast" A Soviet scientist wanders the titular flats after getting subjected to moviedom's favorite evil-causing MacGuffin, radiation. Coleman Francis narrates most of his misadventures as he strangles his way through the wasteland while chased by policemen. At the end, dying, he caresses a rabbit. With two shorts: Money Talks, Because there's not a lot to do in the afterlife, the silhouetted ghost of Benjamin Franklin lectures a kid about saving and spending money wisely; and Progress Island U.S.A., Have you considered Puerto Rico? Because this short really, really thinks you should consider Puerto Rico. The last of the Coleman Francis trilogy. Although Paste Magazine's recent list (Metafilter) put this one near the bottom, both Satellite News and Mighty Jack think this is one of the best episodes. YouTube (1h32m) Premiered January 21, 1995. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Mar 15, 2017 - 18 comments

"The Foulest Passion of Them All!" Mike Brady is among the prey in The Most Tedious Game, hunted for sport by a rich guy. With short Uncle Jim's Dairy Farm: A whimsical fantasy in which a couple of city kids go to stay on their uncle's farm and don't claw their eyes out with boredom. The short's great, but the movie's kinda dull. This episode features a fateful introduction... it's the first appearance of Mary Jo Pehl as Pearl "Mother" Forrester! The fiddle player during the square dance sequence is not one of the main cast. It's someone you might have heard of! Check the episode notes for details. YouTube (1h32m) Premiered September 3, 1994. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Dec 1, 2016 - 5 comments

"The weirdest! The wildest! Half woman! Half stone!" Hercules is so sleepy he can barely keep his eyes open, but there's rescuin' to do. The loaf-of-demigod travels there, rescues the titular women, defeats the evil queen, and... well, it takes place in Atlantis. You figure out what happens at the end. THIS MOVIE IS DEDICATED TO URANUS. There, it's out of my system for good I think. This is the last Hercules movie of the season. This episode gives us a short bit at the start where Gypsy is in the theater, and the host segment with the Hercules Inaction Figure. YouTube (1h33m) Premiered September 12, 1992. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Jan 14, 2016 - 1 comment