Review: Rifftrax
Published August 10, 2006
When villain Ben Gazzara throws a huge party with dozens of scantily-clad young women pouring out onto the lawn, Nelson quips, "just another quiet night at Charlie Sheen's place." Even Jeff Healey, the Canadian blues-rocker whose group appears as the house band of said road house, gets tweaked mercilessly. ("Hey, the Jeff Healey Band! I hear Jeff Healey's in that band!") But the funniest part of all comes at the very end of the film, when Nelson has a lengthy monologue describing the grisly, tragic fate that supposedly befell all the characters in the movie, including Healey. Maybe that's why none of them were in Road House 2: Last Call.
As Nelson admits at the start of his commentary, sometimes it can fall out of synch with the movie, so some judicious use of the pause buttons on your DVD and MP3 players will be needed. (Rifftrax includes a computerized voice which occasionally repeats lines from the movie, and they also provide a downloadable "cheat sheet" if you really get off track.) But by and large, it works very well. And if it means we can get MST3K back - albeit without Crow and Servo - that's a small price to pay.
Nelson promises many more Rifftrax commentaries to come, and he holds out the possibility of guests joining him, or even taking over the commentaries themselves. (His friend James Lileks, for one, would be great at this.) As for me, I can't wait until Rifftrax gets around to doing a commentary for The Core. Or Stealth. Or Megiddo: Omega Code 2. Or the aforementioned Flash Gordon. The list of deserving films is endless
- Review: Rifftrax
- Published: August 10, 2006
- Type: Review
- Section: Sci/Tech
- Filed Under: Review, Sci/Tech: Internet, Sci/Tech: Personal Tech
- Writer: Damian Penny
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Comments on this articleComments
I'd disagree with you, Rumpusgoopus; even on his own site, Lileks generally warns his readers when he's about to go on a "rant", saying, "You should skip down to the end instead." I think he'd be able to stick to commenting on the movie, especially these sorts of movies.
But I agree with you in saying, I'm looking forward to these tracks, especially "The Fifth Element".
oh, how i miss mst3k
hopefully rifftrax can help fill some of that void
Well, I have to agree that Lileks does warn against these rants sometimes, but certainly not always. As far as commenting on films, however, how can there be good protection against such rants in Rifftrax? I hope Nelson would be good enough to stop such things, but he is an admitted conservative too, so I do wonder about his ability. He can police himself, let's just hope he can police others. And, honestly, I can't imagine a Lileks commentary of that length without at least some snide conservative statements.
I'm so glad Mike Nelson is back. Theres others out there doing this too, for free. (get what you pay for?) THere's a site (click my URL) that has a searchable database of many of these, some of them "serious", other aspiring to live up to MST3K. And "Stealth" is in there.
Mike is an equal-opportunity offender. He jokes on both Conservatives and Liberals. I'm sure Bill and Kevin are more Liberal than Mike. They've been showing up in most of the Rifftrax offerings.
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While I'm very excited for upcoming Rifftrax releases, I must disagree with you on Lileks taking part in the commentary. Sure, he can be hilarious, but I doubt he can keep his commentary empty of snide conservative remarks.