Which movie did you watch today and how would you rate it?

[KeepTalking]

I have no familiarity with MSTK3 (Is that the right acronym?) I've never seen one.

Is there a consensus on which one would be the best-in-series? A must watch? And are these available on Netflix?

The Gamera movies were particularly good. I think Fugitive Alien was the first one I stumbled upon with my Dad back when we flipped to the Comedy Network (this was before Ha! and Comedy Network merged to become Comedy Central), and were confused, but quickly fell into it. They cover all sorts of things, horror, sci-fi, monster films, and usually the best bits were the shorts (Home Ec. video from the 50's/60's like stuff).

I remember liking the skits in the middle of the movie more when I was younger than I do these days. But the movies themselves, many of them are priceless with ROFL moments.

These days MST3k has evolved.

- MST3k (films/shorts)
1.5 hr studio program with little skits thrown in the middle of the movie. Movies are generally 70's or older. Mostly terrible, mostly stuff you've never heard of. Odd, when a James Earl Jones pops into one.

That begot

- Cinematic Titanic
1.5 hr program live/studio. They pause the film for maybe a minute for something, but generally just do the movie. This was a limited project, with only 8 or 12 movies done, but for the most part real good. Of course, the live stuff is best. These movies were generally from the same movie studio, and terrible, never heard of.

The original intent of CT was to riff 500 movies in studio. It wasn't long before they shifted gears to live shows, and releasing DVDs of those shows when they could. They did quite a few live riffs that never made it to DVD.

- Rifftrax
Originally just a MP3 track to play while watching a movie. They riff blockbuster films, which is why it is an MP3 and not attached to the movie, as the rights cost too much. They also do VOD of older short videos. Some of the stuff is gold, other not as much. My favorite short is the one about teaching children how to play with boxes.

Then they started live events shown in the theater, riffing garbage (Including Plan 9 From Outer Space), but also did a Kickstarter to try to live riff Twillight, but ended up only being able to riff the Best Picture Oscar winning Starship Troopers.

You can pay to download the MP3s, VOD, buy DVD's / blu-rays.

Rifftrax is currently working on Android and iPhone apps to sync their riffs up with the movies while you play them in your living room. The app is in beta now, and does not allow access to your Rifftrax library, but rather gives you free access to riffs of the first six Star Wars movies. The app has problems syncing the audio when music is playing, but works better once dialogue starts. With the Star Wars movies, this means that you wont hear any of the jokes for the first several minutes of the movie, and I suspect this is why they started with those movies. Since they all start with a musical score and don't have any dialogue at the beginning of the movies, once they get those syncing properly at the beginning of the movie, they will move ahead with opening up their full library.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Rifftrax is currently working on Android and iPhone apps to sync their riffs up with the movies while you play them in your living room. The app is in beta now, and does not allow access to your Rifftrax library, but rather gives you free access to riffs of the first six Star Wars movies. The app has problems syncing the audio when music is playing, but works better once dialogue starts. With the Star Wars movies, this means that you wont hear any of the jokes for the first several minutes of the movie, and I suspect this is why they started with those movies. Since they all start with a musical score and don't have any dialogue at the beginning of the movies, once they get those syncing properly at the beginning of the movie, they will move ahead with opening up their full library.

Yup, forgot to mention the app. I tried it, and it does take a while to sync. I hope they do offer use with the library of owned MP3 riffs. I'd gladly pay for the App to gain that right.

 

[credoconsolans]

It wasn't even lazy writing, it was just JJ Abrams doing what he does best - insert entire storylines from original movies and change character names but make them essentially identical to characters in the original movie. That's how he churns out money-making shiny bits of movies. By duplicating old movies but putting a shiny veneer on them to make it "new".

How dare you say that about my hero. He didn't do it at all in Star Trek. Darth Vader, I mean, Darth Maul - Sorry, I meant Nero - has this huge, gigantic awesome Death Star - err, I mean Mining Ship, that can destroy entire planets. So Nero blows up Alderaan - umm, I mean Vulcan, killing Princess Leia's father - I mean, Spock's mother. And then the Death Star homes in on the Rebel Base - Umm, I mean the mining ship homes in on Starfleet headquarters, and only Luke Skywalker can stop it by ignoring orders and turning off his targeting computer and trusting the Force - no, I mean only Jim Kirk can stop it by ignoring Starfleet's orders and trusting his instincts. It's a good thing Old Ben Kenobi was there to give Kirk that fatherly advice earlier - no, wait, that was Captain Pike.

Completely different

 

[tantric]

Byzantium

This isn't my kind of movie. I came across it while collecting vampire movies for my sick niece (a lesbian who has never seen 'The Hunger', unbelievable). I don't like vampire movies, unless they're serious horror and I certainly have no use for period piece chick flicks. But dammit, it was a good movie. I like the un-formulaic plot, the character development and above all, how an Irish movie about immortal vampires so captures the Japanese idea of 'mono no aware' - the beauty of ephemera. I suspect the women are hot, I liked the scenery, also the contrast of elegance and vulgarity.

 

[Draconis]

The Martian - 7/10 - this was ok, not quite sure why it merits Oscar nominations apart from the scenery (all in red, as one should expect) and the CGI depicting some messing around in space. There was just not enough worthwhile acting going on - lots of messages typed out on screen, little face to face talking, although perhaps that was due to the nature of the situation. But the worst thing was this: very little actually went wrong for the titular Martian apart from being stranded, and a bit of trouble with his shelter blowing up that couldn't be fixed with duct tape. At no point was there any tension to suggest he might not make it. Where's Wilson when you need him?

 

[Colonel Sanders]

Scanners

I hadn't watched this movie since the 1980s and only began watching it for the one scene it's most famous for. It still works really, really well, even though you know what's about to happen. I won't spoil it in case you haven't seen it. You can find it on youtube if you're curious. But if you haven't witnessed it, I'd suggest just seeing the movie as it happens only a few minutes in. It's also a testament to the incredible things that can be done with special effects when CGI isn't an option.

Scanners are people born with telepathic and telekinetic powers. Some are good, some are evil. But, there's a group of renegade scanners who want to create a race that will rule the world. It's something of a dreary film, but it's also ahead of its time in critiquing the rise, power and influence of both technology and corporations, although that may have been accidental or incidental to the story.

What this flick deservers is a good remake. Apparently there was going to be one, but it never happened. A good remake could sharpen the focus of the movie's message. But I don't know that The Scene could ever be done as well as it was in the original.


6.5/10

 

[Colonel Sanders]

Deadpool

This is the best Superhero movie ever made, and one of the best comedies in 20 years. I don't care if hardcore fans might be disappointed, I haven't had this much fun watching a movie in I don't know how long.

See it.

9/10

 

[Sajara]

Deadpool

This is the best Superhero movie ever made, and one of the best comedies in 20 years. I don't care if hardcore fans might be disappointed, I haven't had this much fun watching a movie in I don't know how long.

See it.

9/10

I agree with this review!!!

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Ya, Deadpool was the most frigging awesome movie I've seen in a long while. What they were going for could have easily crashed spectacularly, but they managed to hit the tone perfectly and made something incredible. It is a bit sad when you have kids who want to see the latest superhero movie and you have to tell them that he'll no, you're not watching this for the next decade at least, but it's also nice for us adults to have one for ourselves.

 

[ksen]

Just got back from Deadpool, great movie.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I just took by kids skating. They had a zamboni and I couldn't stop laughing.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Ant Man - A film about a person that is able to both figure out how to shrink atoms and not worry about that scale shit (like how fluids flow differently at smaller scales) and communicate with ants. Yeah, the premise really sounds stupid, but the film comes off quite well despite the ridiculous premise. This film is formulaic (how couldn't it be, it is an origins film and we've had what 30 of them in the last 7 or so years), but overall, handles well. I was expecting Thor, but felt it was a little better than Thor. I wish they didn't show the Thomas Engine bit in the preview. That would have been much better as a first see in the movie.

3 of 4

 

[MarkW]

The Sum of All Fears

5/10

A middling adaptation of Tom Clancy's novel, weighed down by some serious plot implausibilities, some of which were due to the way the plot was changed to "update" it to the 21st century.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The Sum of All Fears

5/10

A middling adaptation of Tom Clancy's novel, weighed down by some serious plot implausibilities, some of which were due to the way the plot was changed to "update" it to the 21st century.

Refuse to watch that film, mainly because it was to the novel Sum of All Fears as I Robot was to I Robot. At least I Robot had something going for it. For Sum of All Fears, it was Hunt for Red October redressed as Sum of All Fears.

 

[KeepTalking]

Deadpool

This is the best Superhero movie ever made, and one of the best comedies in 20 years. I don't care if hardcore fans might be disappointed, I haven't had this much fun watching a movie in I don't know how long.

See it.

9/10

As a hardcore Deadpool fan, I certainly was not disappointed, and agree with your rating. The Weapon X program isn't portrayed in exactly the same way, but what they did with it works great for the movie. Deadpool's relationship with Blind Al is presented quite differently (she is his hostage in the comics), but that was never really explained well in the comics, anyway, so I was fine with the change. What matters is that the movie was absolutely hilarious, and a great portrayal of Deadpool's origin and character.

 

[TSwizzle]

Chef, 5/10; Stars Jon Favreau, Sophia Vergara with a little bit of Dustin Hoffman and Robert Downey Jr thrown in. It's the story of a reasonably successful but unchallenged chef who works in an established Brentwood CA restaurant. A food critique savages his food and the chef goes off the deep end, quits, goes to Miami, procures a crappy food truck, cleans it up and drives it back to CA with a few stops on the way. It's not a particularly entertaining movie and a bit too long.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Chef, 5/10; Stars Jon Favreau, Sophia Vergara with a little bit of Dustin Hoffman and Robert Downey Jr thrown in. It's the story of a reasonably successful but unchallenged chef who works in an established Brentwood CA restaurant. A food critique savages his food and the chef goes off the deep end, quits, goes to Miami, procures a crappy food truck, cleans it up and drives it back to CA with a few stops on the way. It's not a particularly entertaining movie and a bit too long.

Wasn't there a nice little side story about building a relationship with his son?

 

[TSwizzle]

Chef, 5/10; Stars Jon Favreau, Sophia Vergara with a little bit of Dustin Hoffman and Robert Downey Jr thrown in. It's the story of a reasonably successful but unchallenged chef who works in an established Brentwood CA restaurant. A food critique savages his food and the chef goes off the deep end, quits, goes to Miami, procures a crappy food truck, cleans it up and drives it back to CA with a few stops on the way. It's not a particularly entertaining movie and a bit too long.

Wasn't there a nice little side story about building a relationship with his son?

Fair point and it was remiss of me to not have mentioned that aspect of the movie as it was probably more than a "little side story".


And since I'm here, if you are planning on watching this movie because you want to see a bit more of Sophia Vergara, you will be disappointed as she's not in it very much and when she is, she is talking too much with that annoying voice and not naked.

 

[credoconsolans]

The Sum of All Fears

5/10

A middling adaptation of Tom Clancy's novel, weighed down by some serious plot implausibilities, some of which were due to the way the plot was changed to "update" it to the 21st century.

The book was much better, though Clancy's bitterness about his fractious divorce was evident in the main female character.

My favorite line in the book comes from when Ryan is trying to halt a Defcon 4 situation with the Ruskies and the President orders him to stand down and for him to be arrested. A military guy tries to do so, but Ryan tells him to ignore the president's order. When the captain replies he can't do it, Ryan reminds him his oath was to the Constitution, NOT the president.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The Sum of All Fears

5/10

A middling adaptation of Tom Clancy's novel, weighed down by some serious plot implausibilities, some of which were due to the way the plot was changed to "update" it to the 21st century.

The book was much better, though Clancy's bitterness about his fractious divorce was evident in the main female character.

My favorite line in the book comes from when Ryan is trying to halt a Defcon 4 situation with the Ruskies and the President orders him to stand down and for him to be arrested. A military guy tries to do so, but Ryan tells him to ignore the president's order. When the captain replies he can't do it, Ryan reminds him his oath was to the Constitution, NOT the president.

And such a thing isn't possible with Ben Affleck playing Alec Baldwin's character from Hunt for Red October, instead of the extremely seasoned professional he was in Sum of All Fears. Oi!