Entries in the Category "mystery science theater 3000"
"Future events such as these will affect you...in the future!"
Tonight I saw Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space in a live Rifftrax event. (Once upon a time, I wrote about Rifftrax here.) The famous riffers were in Nashville commenting on a live viewing of the film, and it was aired via satellite in hundreds of movie theaters nationwide. In addition to the famously awful Plan 9, the show included a 60s-era short about the glamorous life of air stewardesses, and a live performance from a guy who did novelty songs about zombies (which zombie aficionado Jeremy really liked). All I can say is, I hope the event makes money so that they can do it again and again.
The entire show was hilarious, but the movie (plus riffs) really delivered. The MST3K guys poked fun not just at Wood’s indifferent production values, not just at the amateur actors with whom he populated his films (although a great deal of hilarity was generated over the actor who played the police chief and his obvious unfamiliarity with how people handle guns—seriously, he scratched his face with it at one point) but also over the sloppiness of the narrative itself. “Do any of these characters have any connection with each other?” the riffers asked at one point. “Where are they in relation to one another?” Wood’s notions of night and day were clearly fluid as well, not tending to remain consistent throughout the longer scenes. (For example, a chase scene would begin at night, the characters would race through a sunlit glade, and then inexplicably stumble back into nighttime.)
I loved the movie Ed Wood, which I watched as part of my Summer Movie Watch, and I will admit that the obvious affection Tim Burton showed Wood, Bela Lugosi and Plan 9 itself sort of colored my viewing of the film. It wasn’t hard to laugh at, thanks to the MST3K guys, but I found myself trying to ferret out what was good about Plan 9, as though I could have a psychic conversation with Wood and say reassuringly, “I can see what you were trying to do. That line might have been really chilling delivered by a gifted actor. And I bet those costumes were way scarier in your sketches!”
Regardless of this minor guilt factor, it was supremely entertaining. Jeremy and I quoted lines to each other all the way home.
Some Thoughts About EW's 100 New Classics list
I watched Evil Dead 2 last night, which was a singularly terrible experience. I won't go into too much detail about the movie itself other than to say that watching it was not unlike watching one of the many pieces of trash I used to see on Mystery Science Theater 3000 on Saturday mornings, the only difference being that the hilarious commentary provided by Mike and the robots which made the movies watchable was missing. (Click here for a clip, if you're uninitiated in the wonders of MST3K and you have no idea what I'm talking about.)
Anyway, this terrible movie, which Entertainment Weekly considers the 83rd best movie of the last 25 years (nestled comfortably between Oscar-baits Lost in Translation and Sideways, and a full eight spots above legitimate classic Back to the Future) prompted me to think about the EW list, and to question why so many of the movies I have hated watching have come from this list.
The one thing I've continually said about all these movies I didn't like--Fatal Attraction, Spider-Man 2--and the ones I already knew I didn't like--this is where The Matrix and Pretty Woman come in--is that they're iconic. They're movies people know and recognize. I hate Pretty Woman, but I would never argue that other people didn't love it, or that Julia Robert's performance wasn't star-making. And I know that Evil Dead 2 is a cult film, loved by horror geeks for its potent combo platter of slapstick and gore.
What the Entertainment Weekly list has not promised, so far, is well-crafted movies. Movies that make sense, with stories that hold together, with strong performances, with sure-handed direction. Those movies have occurred on the list, you understand, but they are not guaranteed like on the AFI lists. It's good that I know that now, so I can manage my expectations going in to the next one, which is, frighteningly, Blue Velvet.
By the way, besides being the writer-director for the travesty that was Evil Dead 2, Sam Raimi also produced and directed the Spider-Man movies. I feel pretty confident that I can write this guy's movies off as "not to my taste" from now on--or, in the immortal words of Christian Bale, "you and me, we're f***ing done professionally," Mr. Raimi.