DVD Review: Cinematic Titanic - The Wasp Woman

Cinematic Titanic as a name might sound new. But the fact that it involves a movie called The Wasp Woman might register as familiar. And then if I mention that the film was produced by Roger Corman, well that should elicit one of two responses. The first would be "Roger Huh?" And the more appropriate response would be "Movie Sign!"

In many ways, there's never been a better time to be a Mystery Science Theater 3000 (or MST3K, for expediency's sake) fan (or MSTie, just to make things more complicated). The show itself has been off the air for ten seasons now, but its various alumni are still keeping the spirit alive with many and comparable projects.

First, Mike Nelson started providing his trademarked riff commentary to some films which, although perhaps not "classics", at least have some cult status cachet to them. Night of the Living Dead, Plan 9 From Outer Space, Carnival of Souls, Reefer Madness... things that had them coming, but are still watchable enough on their own. And the fans rejoiced.

Then Mike teamed up with a couple of his former MST3K buddies, Kevin Murphy (Tom Servo; Professor Bobo) and Bill Corbett (Crow, from the Sci-Fi years; Brain Guy), for a couple of projects. One was the short-lived "The Film Crew" DVD series, which was basically the three of them giving the MST3K concept a new setting. They watched bad movies, made fun of them, and had some skits in between to break up the film. And the fans rejoiced.

At around the same time, the three of them also started the RiffTrax website, where you can download riffed commentary tracks to sync up with your DVDs of mainstream movies, such as Spiderman, 300, The Matrix, RoadHouse... you get the idea. It's been the longest-running of the projects, giving the fans an ongoing chance to rejoice.

But what of the other cast members? What about Joel? And the original Mads, Dr. Forrester and TV's Frank? And the evil but lovable Pearl? Fans already winded from their previous rejoicings should find their second wind to welcome... Cinematic Titanic.

Cinematic Titanic gathers most of the other main cast members in a much more familiar MST3K-like setting. You have Joel Hodgson (Joel), Trace Beaulieu (Crow, from the Comedy Central years; Dr. Forrester), Frank Conniff (TV's Frank), Mary Jo Pehl (Pearl Forrester), and Josh Weinstein (Tom Servo, before season two; Dr. Erhardt). And they're back in the theater, complete with silhouettes and everything. And yes, they're watching movies that have never lived anywhere but the bottom of the barrel. Of the more current projects, it's the closest in concept and execution to the original Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Article Author: David R Perry

Lost somewhere in the rolling hills of Tennessee, David R Perry can occasionally be found doing dark, unspeakable things to words. Printed words, spoken words, electronically mangled words... really any kind but twittered words.

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