MST3K - S01E10 - Robot Holocaust *NSFW*

This week's episode is Robot Holocaust (1986).

An Animated Discussion

or, Do You Believe in Magic?

The Illusionist (2010) 

(not to be confused with the recent live action film from 2006)

I enjoyed this film from France a great deal. It is beautifully drawn (old-school handmade, cel-animation), touching, and quite melancholy, with a wonderful soundtrack (and I generally hate accordion music - between this and Ratatouille I may have to rethink my position on that particular instrument. See also Bob Dylan's 2009 Together Through Life which I like a lot). Perhaps too sad a tone for young children, which is too bad because some might gain something from it. But it seems to be made mainly for adults as it concerns passing from the age of tactile, intimate entertainments to our more crass, commercial modern times.

It has been nominated for an Oscar in 2011 alongside How to Train Your Dragon and Toy Story 3, and frankly (French pun) it doesn't stand a chance of winning. But it is lovely and should be seen by all lovers of classic animated films.

But while viewing it reminded me of some ideas I first encountered via the great John K.'s blog (he of Ren & Stimpy infamy). 

An inveterate defender of the fine art of cartooning, he has some (perhaps) radical opinions about the current trends in the form. (And for the record, I am not quoting him but merely expounding  on some concepts that were brought forward on his blog.)

• Naturalism. Starting from the premise that in animation one can literally portray anything imaginable on screen, what is the point in trying to replicate the real, natural world in an animated feature? Why not shoot it with real-live actors in real settings? (Or the dreaded motion-capture process?)

This became a concern for me during the The Illusionist because we are shown a number of magic tricks performed by the lead character, that never seem all that miraculous because we are watching a cartoon. Of course a rabbit can emerge from a top hat. The crux of the film is that this man is fooling a little girl with sleights-of-hand that all have a basis in reality. Why is this tale being told via a form that can transform a thing into anything else? There's little actual wonder shown on screen. 

• Character design. In real-life, the eyes of a human are roughly centered on the skull. Even the classic Looney Tunes characters keep this trait (the eyes may be enlarged, as in manga, but they usually start at the midpoint of the head). But this, and recent works from Disney/Pixar/Dreamworks have a skewed view of humans where their features look deformed, with eyes too close to the top of their heads. "Where is the brain?" I must ask.

(Of course, there are many examples that break this non-existent rule, but in an otherwise naturalistic film this design decision stood out for me.)

This 

vs. this

A quibbling nitpick, I admit, but one perhaps worthy of debate among animaniacs.

…………

I also wanted to mention two outstanding Japanese anime I saw last year, Redline and Summer Wars. AICN did feature write-ups for each with links to their trailers. 

• Redline - brilliantly blends the aesthetics of late-1960's Jack Kirby and Jim Steranko with current design styles.

Harry's review - Sorry, but his link to the trailer seems to be dead. Try this instead.

Close, but not hi-res enough to get the full effect. Rent it if you can, it's directed by Takeshi Koike.

• Summer Wars - which I called the "best sci-fi/fantasy film about a family dealing with an out-of-control cyberspace invasion by an A.I. creation developed by a rogue member of the family I saw in 2010. It's colorful, inventive, funny, heartfelt, and human." (i.e., more satisfying than Tron: Legacy)

Feature with a review and contest.

A bunch of cool screenshots here. This movie has the annoying cuteness found in many anime's but the dynamism of the action scenes and the heartfelt family story moved me.

I highly recommend both of them as they represent what I love so much about the medium, respectively: kinetic art design and narrative conceptual innovation.

SF Sketchfest 2011, Pt.2

More of of mixed bag these weekend as one show was kind of a dud, one was not as great I had hoped it would be, and the two variety shows were terrific, but at less than a hour and a half each, felt short. They were immaculately produced so I can't really complain. 

Friday night's shows allowed me to see Bobcat Goldtwhait perform twice, which was a real treat as he's mainly a film director these days. Check out World's Greatest Dad starring Robin Williams if you haven't seen it.

And I got to see one of my favorite comics Paul F. Tompkins at three different events, climaxing with his variety show at Yoshi's.

Again, I've been posting reviews of the shows over on the A Special Thing forums here.

6. RiffTrax Presents Night of the Shorts, with Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett from Mystery Science Theater 3000 and special guests: Paul F. Tompkins / Maria Bamford / Adam Savage / Cole Stratton & Janet Varney at Castro Theatre

Thursday, Jan 20 @ 9:30  

7. WTF with Marc Maron with guests at Cobb's Comedy Club

Friday, Jan 21 @ 08:00 PM 

8. Greg Behrendt & Matt Nathanson present Maximum Volume! at Cobb's Comedy Club 

Friday, Jan 21 @ 10:30 PM 

9. The Thrilling Adventure Hour at Marines Memorial Theatre

Saturday, Jan 22  @ 7:00 PM

10. The Paul F. Tompkins Show with guests at Yoshi's

Sunday, Jan 23  @ 7:00 PM

heh - I saw 3 of the 4 SF shows here

More shows this weekend… including a bunch of Jimmy Pardo and some funny musicians.

www.sfsketchfest.com/schedule

Sundance 2011

from /film

After another comedy-filled weekend at SF Sketchfest (which I'll post about tomorrow) I spent the latter part of Sunday and most of today catching up on all the reports coming out from the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Over half of the best films I saw last year had their premieres there. I've never been there myself, but it sounds like a fascinating event to be a part of. Thankfully one can get a glimpse of the experience via reviews, audio podcasts, and video blogs. These are the sites whose coverage I've been following:

Hitfix   

/film   

IFC   

A.V. Club  

AICN  

Disappointingly, two of my favorite movie sites, CHUD & Badass Digest, don't seem to have a presence there this year.

SF Sketchfest 2011, Pt.1

The Tenth Annual SF Sketchfest started last weekend here in San Francisco, CA. I am planning to attend at least a dozen shows over the next few weeks. The complete schedule.

The Eureka Theatre, one of my new homes away from home. 
Photo by Jakub Mosur

I'd heard of this comedy festival before and even went to a show last year, Cinematic Titanic Live at the Castro. Co-founders Cole Stratton & Janet Varney I'm familiar with from their work on Rifftrax Presents (providing humorous commentaries for Footloose, Poltergeist, Dirty Dancing, etc.) which are very funny. There was a Freaks & Geeks reunion panel in 2008 also that I was tempted by, but frankly I didn't really know my way around the MUNI bus/train system, so going to club in North Beach seemed kind of intimidating. And besides a handful of comedians, most of the names appearing on past schedules were unknown quantities to me.


What a difference a year makes. Thanks to iPhone apps like Google Maps and Routesy, it's a breeze to plan trips around the city. And since I subscribe to so many comedy-themed podcasts and am able to listen to them on headphones at work, I've become much better acquainted with the so-called "alternative comedy" scene, especially comics in the L.A. area. I was ready to take a train ride down there and spend a few weeks catching shows at the UCB, Largo, etc., but for now, all my favorites are coming up here to my town for a month. (I will make that L.A. trip someday…)


These are the shows I saw last weekend. I've posted reviews of them over on the A Special Thing forums under my alias Finnias Jones. I may expand/revise them for this here blog, but I want to wait until the Sketchfest site starts posting their photo galleries. Unfortunately only official photographers were allowed to shoot at the shows, which makes sense.


1. Upright Citizens Brigade at Marines Memorial Theatre 
Thursday, January 13 @ at 8:00 PM


2. Characters Only with Matt Besser and more! Cobb's Comedy Club 
Friday, January 14 @ 08:00 PM 


3. Hot Tub with Kurt & Kristen and more! at Cobb's Comedy Club 
Friday, January 14 @ 10:30 PM 


4. Celebrity Autobiography at Marines Memorial Theatre
Saturday, January 15 @ 5:00 PM


5. Pop My Culture Podcast interviews Bob Odenkirk at Eureka Theater
Sunday, January 16 @ 1 pm


More shows to come, starting tonight with RiffTrax Presents Night of the Shorts

MST3K - S01E09 - Project Moonbase

This week's Mystery Science Theater episode is from 1990, Project Moonbase (1953).

No silly captions, just screenshots. Discussed at length on Satellite News here. 

"I can't do this anymore"

No, not this blog, though I've been a neglectful parent here. Hope to correct that this week. But both of today's movies feature an exasperated member of a couple uttering this phrase during an argument. Mere coincidence?

Another double feature with related subject matter. This time, married couples in crisis. Both have a child, but are in very different places. And curiously, both movies give some producer credit to their stars, suggesting they were passion projects for the lead actors. And fair warning, I cried my eyes out during both these films.

Blue Valentine (2010) 

Outstanding. Moody and elegiac, simultaneously telling the story of a love affair's genesis and eventual decline. By starting us near the end, then intercutting with flashbacks to when this couple (Michelle Williams & Ryan Gosling) first met six years previous, we are shown how love can fade after time. The greatest thing about it was that in both timelines, I could empathize with each character and how they feel about each other. Some might think Gosling is portrayed as too much of a redneck loser in the latter half of the movie, but I felt his anguish. He has defined himself as a husband and father, with no greater aspirations in life. But Williams wants more, for herself, and for her husband. She thinks the world of him but is disappointed by his lack of ambition. Neither comes off as a villain. 

We are shown how in the past it was his greatest ambition to just be with her, and to be a father to her child. He is totally romantic and perfectly charming in the flashbacks, then utterly clueless in the present scenes, when Williams is obviously distressed by their current state. Their desperate attempt to rekindle their romance in a window-less "future" themed honeymoon hotel suite is a masterful fusion of setting, cinematography, and performance. I can't think of many films that so perfectly capture the petty arguments that a long-time couple have, where perceived hidden-meanings and a poor choice of words become the main sticking points, preventing any real communication. The mostly guitar-based score by Grizzly Bear was great, along with a few numbers by Gosling on ukelele. I loved this movie. Haunting. 


ETA: Alison Wilmore @ IFC interviewed the director and stars of BV. She also reviewed it and ranked it #3 on her Best Films of 2010 list.

Rabbit Hole (2010)

Also moving and haunting, literally, as it shows a couple 8 months after the death of their son from a car accident that took place in front of their house. We are gradually told the details as the movie unfolds. For instance, after first meeting a dog at a relatives house, we learn that dog once belonged to the couple, then later that their child was killed while chasing the dog out into the street. We later meet the high school senior who was driving the car that killed the child, and how he too is haunted by the incident and has developed his own unique method of dealing with it. This was based on a stage play and at times feel like it, as it is character-based piece with a handful of locations. It surprised me by how funny it was at times. Mostly serious, but often silly as the couple (Aaron Eckhart & Nicole Kidman) each clumsily try to cope with their loss by developing new secret relationships with other people that eventually bring them closer together and towards healing. Credit to director John Cameron Mitchell for finding a way to tell this story in an uplifting way.

MST3K - S01E08 - The Slime People

This 1990 MST3K episode is a foggy memory… THE SLIME PEOPLE (1963)

Can We Talk?

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work (2010) 

And Everything Is Going Fine (2010) 

Two recent documentaries about famously narcissistic raconteurs who use their own life stories for subject matter.  Both involve themes about aging and feature dramatic turns that revolve around suicide. Each is funny and tragic, but the approach each films take to tell their stories couldn't be more different.

I might have passed on the Rivers doc because she's become such a joke these days. Once famous for her cutting edge material as an outspoken female comic, she's now more well known for cutting herself as a plastic surgery junkie, inane award-season Red Carpet fashion commentator, and for hawking her trashy jewelry on QVC. But this film was repeatedly mentioned last year on various comedy-centric podcasts (like NNF) commending it for providing an inside glimpse into the world of a working stand-up comedienne. This movie, and Rivers herself, is also very funny.

Mostly while watching I wondered how could she do this to herself. Never a particularly pretty woman (she says so herself: "No man ever called me beautiful"), after the tragic suicide of her husband/business partner, Rivers scrambled to make herself more relevant, choosing to focus on her physical appearance as a twisted path towards acceptance. Now, years later, she looks like a monster (though oddly "pretty" from afar - maybe how she and her ideal audience see her?). This is the tragedy of her story for me: she has literally "lost sight of herself." Sad too that the only contemporary female comic present in the doc is Kathy Griffin (who I do not like) Where are the other gals who followed her path? No Chelsea Handler (ugh!) or Sarah Silverman? Even Rita Rudner is more popular in Vegas, right? What about others like Judy Gold, Jackie Kashian, Jen Kirkman, Laura Kightlinger, Laurie Kilmartin, Paula Poundstone, etc.? 

The doc is very well made but strangely myopic, as if (as we see in numerous scenes throughout), Rivers has no sense of her place in the real world, and is obsessed with being seen, even when she, and the audience, don't care to watch. I wish this had focused more on the actual content of her comedy rather than her struggle to remain famous. Instead it portrays a deluded woman surrounded by people who want to keep her that way. It's telling that despite a few jokes in her routines about "anal sex" and "fucking her staff," nowhere is any current male partner shown or alluded to. That's fine, but who exactly was all this surgery supposed to make her attractive to? She doesn't even seem to like herself.

…

The most interesting point about Spalding Gray I discovered has how his look developed during his well-documented journey of self-discovery. His various haircuts and facial hair (including unkempt nose-hair near the end of his life) are on full view here in this "Best Of" clip reel "directed" by Steven Soderbergh. He did not shoot much (if any) of it but his gentle guiding hand helped create this portrait of the self-obsessed actor/poet, with only Spalding himself providing the narration. This is mostly a story about how an artist gradually finds his voice, masters it, then begins to let go as life develops in new directions. 

The NYC experimental performance art scene (The Wooster Group, etc.) is alluded to many times (one of the many thanks in the credits is to a Barbara Kopple who I could swear was a teacher of mine at Cooper Union in the late 1980's). It's pretentious preciousness is all here, diffused by time, faded in glory. For me, the sound of Spalding's New England-bred aristocratic privilege becomes grating after a time. But the brilliant thing this film does, as Spalding himself did, and Soderbergh wisely shows us, is to break down. 

HIs final years after a "tragic" auto accident, after he left his longtime partner to start a family with a new woman, and to retire from touring his popular monologues, are brutal. He is obviously a man defeated, made especially poignant after him claiming these last few years had been the best of his life. Throughout his career he had addressed the themes of "suicide" and "the sea" explicitly, and without even saying as much, Soderbergh shows us how this man finally succumbed to his obsessions, perhaps coming to peace. 

There is a famous THIS AMERICAN LIFE episode that features a story told by Gray's widow about a bird that is heartbreakingly profound, in only the way only Ira Glass & Co. can do. Wished it has here in this movie, but get why it's not. Still, it's odd that the two loves of his life, Renée Shafransky and Kathie Russo are never seen/heard to tell their sides of the story.

There is an earlier clip in the film with Spalding interviewing a lady at one of his shows where she says that suicide was like like stealing; robbing those left behind of the person you were and the role you played in their lives. For all the trauma Gray dealt with re. his own mother's death it seems to me that leaving his three children and his wife was not only cowardly but the most selfish act he could have perpetrated.

From a psychoanalytic standpoint, Gray seemed too well-versed in the practice, and was never able to escape it: he had become immune to the cure.

Rivers seems like she never attempted it; in contrast to a typical New York jewess of her generation, she used her "id" to fuel her comedy. She could have benefitted from analysis years ago but she's too far gone now. Plastic surgery became her therapy of choice.

RATS!

Just finished the Ratatouille (2007) Blu-Ray. I watched the movie first, then again in "Cine-Explore" mode on Autoplay to see the bonus features integrated alongside the director/producer commentary, making the second time more like a 2.5 hour viewing experience. Delightful film, at the moment my favorite of the Pixar flicks. Funny, moving, and beautifully designed, it felt consistent, and rooted in the real world (despite it's basic premise). I was going to say that it was superior to Wall-E & Up because those films both suffer from a "narrative fallacy" but upon Googling that term, I find it means something else altogether. 

What I mean is a "narrative failing" in that both those films start with strong premises and end weak. But I readily admit I need to revisit them both to support this criticism, and am actually looking forward to being proved wrong, as the bonus features here demonstrate that while Pixar excel at visual spectacle, they also care deeply about the stories being told. They are also known for providing us detailed looks at their own creative process, via books detailing the design process and generous glimpses behind-the-scenes on their home video releases. Now that I am renting Blu-Ray's from Netflix, this should be fun, providing the disks aren't the bare-bones rental editions they are fond of sending out. 

MST3K Season Zero Ratings

KTMA star ratings (graded on a curve compared to later seasons of the show, i.e. a 3 star KTMA is roughly equivalent to a 1 or 2 star cable episode)


2  K04- GAMERA VS. BARUGON
1  K05- GAMERA
3  K06- GAMERA VS. GAOS
2  K07- GAMERA VS. ZIGRA
3  K08- GAMERA VS. GUIRON
2  K09- PHASE IV
2  K10- COSMIC PRINCESS
2  K11- HUMANOID WOMAN
3  K12- FUGITIVE ALIEN
4  K13- SST DEATH FLIGHT
2  K14- MIGHTY JACK
3  K15- SUPERDOME
3  K16- CITY ON FIRE
3  K17- TIME OF THE APES
3  K18- THE MILLION EYES OF SU-MURU
3  K19- HANGAR 18
4  K20- THE LAST CHASE (originally a 3)
5  K21- THE LEGEND OF DINOSAURS

My ratings are based on a combination of enjoyment of the source film and the riffing job on top of it (plus host segments). Of course this is subjective, and some may like these more or less than I did. Overall the KTMA's are a worthwhile watch for hardcore MSTies, but I would never start a newbie off with these.


Lazlow The MST Guy has a good series of video reviews for this season.
And all the KTMA episodes are up on YouTube in varying degrees of quality, but they all look pretty bad.
In-depth discussions can be found at the Satellite News Episode Guide.

Haters gonna hate

Catalog of 2010

Having the benefit of picking and choosing what movies I pay to see, most of these were at least somewhat critically vetted. Thus, there are few "turkeys" on this list. All were worthwhile, in some way or other. 

Films I saw in theaters during 2010
(dates compiled from ticket stubs, but a few seem to be missing)

• 127 Hours    11/13
• Animal Kingdom
• The Book of Eli 1/18 
• Cyrus 7/4
• Daybreakers 1/18
• Dogtooth 9/6
• Easy A 11/07
• An Education (2009) 2/03
• Enter The Void 10/24
• Exit Through the Gift Shop 5/17
• Faster 11/27
• The Fighter 12/18
• Four Lions 11/13
• Get Him To The Greek
• Harry Potter: & the Deathly Hallows, pt.1 11/19
• How To Train Your Dragon 3D 4/25
• Inception 7/18
• Iron Man 2 5/8
• Jackass 3D 10/17
• Kick-Ass
• The Kids Are Alright 7/24
• The King's Speech 12/24
• Let Me In
• MacGruber 5/29
• Mesrine 1 & 2 (Killer Instinct/Public Enemy #1) (actually 2008 release)
• Monsters 11/06
• Never Let Me Go 10/17
• The Other Guys  8/14
• The Princess and the Frog    (2009 release)
• Rare Exports 12/24
• Redline 12/8 (Anime directed by Takeshi Koike, not being helped by sharing a title with an earlier live action US film.)
• Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
• Shutter Island 2/24 (?)
• The Social Network
• Somewhere 12/31
• Splice 6/13
• Summer Wars 12/27
• Tangled 3D 12/13
• The Town 11/13
• Toy Story 3
• Tron: Legacy
• True Grit 12/23
• Winter's Bone 7/4

also… The Human Centipede via Comcast ON DEMAND

and also… (in November)

• The American
• Black Swan
• Biutiful
• Carlos
• Casino Jack 
• Get Low
• Mutants

Repertory screenings

Midnites For Maniacs @ The Castro: 7/31

Nighthawks / Bloodsport / Big Trouble in Little China

Destroy All Movies! @ the Roxie: 11/19
Surf 2 / Times Square

Mifune x Kurosawa : A Beautiful Man @ VIZ

Red Beard 12/26 

Stray Dog 12/28 

High and Low 12/28

Rifftrax/Cinematic Titanic

CT: Danger On Tiki Island   (live @ The Castro)

RT: House on Haunted Hill  (a Fathom event)

RT: Reefer Madness            (a Fathom event)

(Special note: I had a ticket for CT's War Of The Insects in October but was unable to attend due to my house being burglarized that day.)

(Also, I watched a lot of Rifftrax enhanced films this year at home like Clash of the Titans, The Last Airbender, Twilight: Eclipse, and Santa Claus & The Ice Cream Bunny. But they deserve an eventual post of their own. More later…)

–––––––

Still to see

Rabbit Hole, Another Year, Ghost Writer, The Secret In Their Eyes, Buried, The Last Exorcism, Jack Goes Boating, Hot Tub Time Machine,  A Serbian Film, Mother, Un Prophete, I Am Love, Restrepo, Triangle (?), The Square (?) 

Harry's best of list over at AICN features a number of titles yet to be released that I hope to see this year.

& 
Capone's exhaustive list, including worsts of the year.

–––––––

Also worth mentioning,

Live comedy shows I attended

Doug Benson

Jen Kirkman

Marc Maron

Good times.

See also my earlier home video post. I may edit to add some comments about the above titles, but frankly, the future is here and I've got other shit to do.