Nothing with Joe Don Baker in it is watchable.
*Best* movie ever featured on MST3K
- Thread starter Myasishchev
- Start date
I actually don't think the movie Time Chasers is that bad. There wasn't the same incompentency on display as other MST3k films featured, it seems like a bunch of friends with little film background genuinely tried to make a good movie but just didn't quite make it... There's a charm to it, which I actually feel adds to the riffing and makes it one of my very favorite episodes.
I also think The Incredible Melting Man featured the best special effects make up of any MST3k movie. Rick Baker, so, duh.
I also think The Incredible Melting Man featured the best special effects make up of any MST3k movie. Rick Baker, so, duh.
Indeed. The movie itself is very charming and I keep meaning to buy it on DVD, and I believe the film-maker is in the works of a sequel. But, again, I'm a sucker for time-travel movies.
The Incredible Melting Man does have some great make-up work in it. But, damn if that movie isn't dull. "HOTCHKA!" "I'm Ted Nelson!" (he gets shot in the head.)
I also think "Boggy Creek" isn't all that bad a movie, and one with pretty good creature effects. The ape-man/big-foot was well done too.
Trekker, that was a Crenshaw joke.
I agree that Marooned and This Island Earth were much better than most MST3K fodder, though neither is a great film.
The one I recall considering least deserving of MST3K treatment was Kitten With a Whip. Okay, kind of a sleazy exploitation film, but a well-made one, written and directed by Douglas Heyes, who did superb work on The Twilight Zone. And boy, Ann-Margret sure was purty.
The one I recall considering least deserving of MST3K treatment was Kitten With a Whip. Okay, kind of a sleazy exploitation film, but a well-made one, written and directed by Douglas Heyes, who did superb work on The Twilight Zone. And boy, Ann-Margret sure was purty.
This Island Earth.
I read that the sub-title for the sequel was going to be "The Nick of Time" which made me laugh.
And yeah, Boggy Creek II isn't bad. I feel like if I came home from a bad date at 2 in the morning I might actually watch Boggy Creek II or Time Chasers.
The Living Daylights, GoldenEye, Cape Fear and The Natural would all like to have a word with you.
I'm surprised at the love Boggy Creek is getting. I find that one dull and painful with the riffing.
I have a soft spot for Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, mostly because of the early 1980s synth soundtrack.
Production values aside, that one wasn't bad. Based on an award-winning John Varley novelette, starring Raul Julia, produced by PBS -- that's pretty classy for an MST3K flick.
Mom, my nuts?
Ah, so what would you call scenes like having the bad guy's office obviously be in the mezzanine of a shopping mall
or the time-travelling plane powered by floppydisks? 
Was she ever.
I just wonder what made them think to videotape a movie.
Re: This Island Earth.
I say again it's not really "fair" to mention that one as it was a "good" movie forced on M&TB to use to better appeal to a mass audience.
The movie was just a mess all around.
Nah, Parts was all right. It needed a severe rewrite to get rid of utter bunk like "Milwaukee--a rare mineral found in the stream" (with its name printed on it), as well as better acting and ultimately more money. But it takes its premise seriously, and the creators did seem to be earnestly attempting to make a serious film.
I was considering Time Chasers, as it is actually pretty decent, but it didn't make the top three, mainly because of the goofy colonial times ending.
Was it an evil classic?
I'd say only a few 50s movies they screened were remotely good. Maybe It Conquered the World had (near-invisible) glimmers of a good movie somewhere, particularly in the treasonous co-antagonist scientist. But it's still pretty bad. The Screaming Skull is passable for drive-in horror fare, I guess, and has an interesting twist, although I doubt too many people had to take the producers up on their offer of free burial on account of a skull being rolled down a flight of stairs.Now, I do draw a distinction between movies that entertain me and movies that are actually good--Gamera and Godzilla movies I like a lot, and used to watch the heck out of them as a kid, but I wouldn't dare testify as to their quality. And it's kind of a shame that more Toho movies weren't screened: Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster would've made excellent grist; Mothra, with its tiny dancing Polynesians, too.
(And how they never did the movie my avatar's from, Hong Kong's Super Inframan, is beyond me. I still say it's the best bad movie ever made.
)I'm kind of confused as to the affection for This Island Earth. It's superior to crap like Robot Holocaust, but then mainly in terms of production values. "But I'm not an alien!"
I don't know about anyone else, but I would have watched Crow's Adventures of Rowsdower and Troy. Final Sacrifice isn't really all that bad a movie, either. It's essentially a really cheap Goonies with an older, mustachioed Corey Feldman.
I started watching with Mike, and always preferred him. Joel grew on me, though, but I think I missed Frank Coniff more than I would've Joel.Oh, and I'm more of a Mike fan, even though I was against him and upset when Joel left and actually stopped watching the show for a while.
It's cheaper. And we are talking about a TV movie aired on PBS, not a theatrical release. Lots of TV dramas have been shot on videotape, though it was more common in England than America. (These days, digital video is increasingly becoming standard, but it looks more like film than videotape did.)
Re: This Island Earth.
I say again it's not really "fair" to mention that one as it was a "good" movie forced on M&TB to use to better appeal to a mass audience.
Well, TIE isn't really a good movie. They chose it because it was a good-looking movie, one that would be satisfying to see on the big screen, but bad enough in story terms to be suitable fodder for MST3K. I mean, it's all spectacle and no sense. The main characters don't actually accomplish anything, just go for a trip, look around, and go back, getting menaced along the way by a gratuitous, tacked-on monster that dies on its own.
It's cheaper. And we are talking about a TV movie aired on PBS, not a theatrical release. Lots of TV dramas have been shot on videotape, though it was more common in England than America. (These days, digital video is increasingly becoming standard, but it looks more like film than videotape did.)
Re: This Island Earth.
I say again it's not really "fair" to mention that one as it was a "good" movie forced on M&TB to use to better appeal to a mass audience.
Well, TIE isn't really a good movie. They chose it because it was a good-looking movie, one that would be satisfying to see on the big screen, but bad enough in story terms to be suitable fodder for MST3K. I mean, it's all spectacle and no sense. The main characters don't actually accomplish anything, just go for a trip, look around, and go back, getting menaced along the way by a gratuitous, tacked-on monster that dies on its own.
Well, it's my understanding that TIE is, more or less, regarded as a classic. It made for decent MST3K fodder but there's countless episodes that I rate far, far, above TIE/MST3K:TM.
This Island Earth captured a sense of the joy of scientific investigation rather well in its normal world section. And that famous sense of wonder, as well as a hint of the scale of the Universe and man's relatively small position in it were also done rather well. These two things put This Island Earth well ahead of most science fiction films til that time. It suffers by comparison to Forbidden Planet, but there weren't many sf movies as clearly superior by any means.
It is still true that the movie more or less stops. When the human leads arrive on the alien planet, the aliens lose the war, a mutant wanders about and drops dead just as stated above, and they go home. The rapid pace dulls the pain of the anticlimax, though. As I remember the whole sequence was remarkably brief.
In the Raymod F. Jones novel (fixup from a short story it seems,) there was a great deal more about Earth's inadvertent enlistment into interstellar war, the logistics of war, the flaws of computer planning for war and an actual set of choices about withdrawing from the war and/or changing to intuitive guidance (human, if I remember correctly.) And some seriously demented rants about unions, too.
Further, the MST3K treatment can be applied to lots of movies. When Worlds Collide would have been a worthier candidate than This Island Earth, I think. But then, I could have imagined quite a few jokes added on for practically every Altaira scene in Forbidden Planet.
It is still true that the movie more or less stops. When the human leads arrive on the alien planet, the aliens lose the war, a mutant wanders about and drops dead just as stated above, and they go home. The rapid pace dulls the pain of the anticlimax, though. As I remember the whole sequence was remarkably brief.
In the Raymod F. Jones novel (fixup from a short story it seems,) there was a great deal more about Earth's inadvertent enlistment into interstellar war, the logistics of war, the flaws of computer planning for war and an actual set of choices about withdrawing from the war and/or changing to intuitive guidance (human, if I remember correctly.) And some seriously demented rants about unions, too.
Further, the MST3K treatment can be applied to lots of movies. When Worlds Collide would have been a worthier candidate than This Island Earth, I think. But then, I could have imagined quite a few jokes added on for practically every Altaira scene in Forbidden Planet.
And that's exactly it. It's a classic in terms of its production values, which were remarkable for the day, but it's a deeply flawed film that doesn't really hold together on any other level. If anything, the "classic" reputation it's earned makes its flaws all the more worthy of scorn.
"What's this and the rest crap"
What about Tomorrow Never Dies.
