Rifftrax
http://rifftrax.com
By Adam-Troy Castro
The main problem with the snarky commentaries Mike Nelson and his robot buddies used to provide for awful movies in the cult TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000 is that the energy level was all too often equal to the energy level of the putrid pelicula of the week. Whenever the movie was a dull "motionless picture," rather than something that put a lot of active effort into being bad, opportunities for effective one-liners could be few and far between. And watching the result could be an exercise in seeing the bad movie with an audience that shared your frustration and could only snipe at an experience that honestly didn't become all that much better.  Rifftrax is something else, in that it applies the Mystery Science Theater commentary technique not just to films that cost $1.50 to make and look as if they were shot in somebody's basement, but also to major motion pictures of the sort that many of us enjoy and have actually paid money to own. For a nominal fee, you can download the smartass ramblings of Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett as they watch something like Independence Day or 300, then synch the MP3 up to your own DVD copies in the films in question and enjoy a fresh take on pop-culture wonderments that you're already embarrassed to admit that you know by heart.
The site offers short excerpts of the more than 60 movies mocked in this manner, for newcomers unsure whether they want to take the plunge. The classic scenes you can see skewered without investing more are more than funny enough to merit a casual visit. |
