Mystery Science Theater 3000: Time Chasers (1997)

One man’s vision of a time traveller and his adventures becomes dull and stupid in conception.  It’s really well-intentioned and all, but it’s just bad – terrible at its worst, totally cliche at its best.

Highlights:
‘Lost In Space’ lure/gag
well-meaning but wimpy hero
time-travel bits with past-Mike
good riffing for most

Inspirational Quote: “So in the future kids become gay agents?”

Grade: B

Pupdate – Near Future Reviews

Concentrating mostly on MST3K episodes until I’ve reviewed all except those I refuse to watch  (that would be, after some consideration, any further episode with J. Elvis/Josh Weinstein speaking in it).

Then back to mostly Netflix streaming sh1t with a tendency toward cr@p horror/camp, with the occasional good and even more occasional great movie thrown in.

That is all.

-Puppy

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Boggy Creek II: And The Legend Continues (1999)

A group of clothing-averse students and their ample-chested teacher pursue a dull creature of legend seen mostly in cr@ppy flashbacks.

Highlights:
flashback mockeries
flashback sketch
consistently pretty-good riffing

Inspirational Quote: “I gotta get home and not talk to my wife.”

Grade: B-

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Space Mutiny (1997)

It’s that really cr@ppy, ultra-cheezy sci-fi flick with that bulky many-named hero.

The movie and accompanying riffing make even the Roman-Era Pearl F. junk somewhat tolerable.

Highlights:

horrific graphics/fx/costumes
horrific script/acting/editing
bulky-guy names
women randomly gyrating around lightning globes
extreme railings
good riffing all the way through

Inspirational Quote: “Passed from editor to editor in a desperate attempt to save it.”

Grade: A-

4/1/17: Slight over-rate…it takes a little bit to get going. Grade: B

Zombie High (1987)

Warning: No zombies.  Just lots of people being turned really boring.

Starts off as an extremely dated, wanna-be cool generic 80’s flick. 

It’s got a guy that sorta looks like one of the Coreys and another guy that sorta looks like…some other guy that used to be kinda famous.  And Michael Madsen’s sister.  Nothing much happens except for the main plotline, which involves lots of people going from annoying and stupid to really really dull.

Pretty bad.  Not funny, not scary, just pretty bad.

Inspirational Quote: “You can’t replace human emotions with a crystal!”

Grade: F

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Skydivers (1994)

“Kinda like ‘Manos’ without the lucid plot” – TV’s Frank

Co-starring coffee.  Decent riffing.

Highlights:
Why Study Industrial Arts? short
amazing editing errors
sex-for-acid plot
completely unexplained/non movie related off-camera scream

Inspirational Quote: “If only he’d taken an industrial arts class…”

Grade: B- (C/C+ without the short)

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Creeping Terror (1994)

One of the cheeziest, least scary, most laughable/mockable, least deadly-without-LOTS-of-help monsters ever eats lots of people.

Other star of the movie: extreme voiceover guy

Highlights:
pretension mockery
voiceover guy mockery
politely climbing into the monster
handy life advice from the narrator
good riffing (especially in the first half)

Inspirational Quote: “Yes, they did the nasty.”

Grade: B

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Mitchell (1993)

Joel’s last episode: see how he goes and Mike arrives.

Lots of Mike-as-a-temp action and good-vs-bad-plotting action.

Movie: sleazy/lumpy/stupid guy as hero against sleazier guys in dumb and boring crime flick. 

Riffing: mediocre…a few good moments and otherwise useful for the between-movie intrigue.

Highlights:
terrifyingly disgusting sex scene
tender love songs and Schlitz

Grade: D+

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Atomic Brain (1993)

Voiceover guy co-stars in bad mad-pseudo-scientist movie as Mike and the bots mock it.

Highlights:
community theater love story
imitation exchange
What About Juvenile Delinquency? – I dunno, you tell me.
brilliant kitty imitation
very consistently pretty-good riffing

Inspirational Quote: “I sort-of think, therefore I sort-of am.”

Grade: B

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Unearthly (1991)

Lots of evil scientist stuff goes on in and around a house.

The short riffing/host segments are much better than the movie riffing, making “watching the shorts and skipping to the host segment bits then turning it off” a good, sensible option. 

Or, to be even more efficient, turn it off after the shorts.

Highlights:
hard pills to swallow
Posture Pals/Appreciating Our Parents shorts combo
movie home-game sketch
lingo bits at the end

Grade: C+

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Sidehackers (1990)

Movie alternately boring and dark/”dramatic”, always stupid. 

Riffing alternately boring and pretty good.

Highlights:
SOL shenanigans feat. “peep” and Gretchen the slinky
sidehacking commentary/graphics/commentary mocking sketch
“Only Love (Pads The Film)”

Inspirational Quote: “Hai…kiba!”

Grade: C

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Pod People (1991)

Cr@ppy ‘E.T.’ ripoff, right down to the food smuggling. 

Features lots of pretentious artsy music and cr@ppy fx.  And lots and lots of fog.

Highlights:
public domain ka-row-key
“Idiot Control Now”/subsequent mocking sketch/wait-for-it ending reference
pretentious artsy music mocking sketch
pretty good riffing

Inspirational Quote: “Bambi, humans are basically good.”

Grade: B-

Louis C.K.: Live At The Beacon Theater (2011)

I was a little worried Louis might have mellowed out a bit, and in the process gotten less funny. 

But he hasn’t, at least not that I can tell.  Well, maybe SLIGHTLY.  But most people won’t notice and the rest probably won’t give a sh1t.

This isn’t QUITE as good as ‘Chewed Up’, but close.  And different enough to be worth watching.

Favorite Bits: God’s disgust, wildly inappropriate vendetta rant

Inspirational Quote: “Leave me alone, I’m trying to cheat on your father!”

Grade: B

The De-Extinction Debate – A Puppy Perspective

By all means, let’s bring back the Woolly Mammoth.  So we can stick it in a cage and OOOO and AHHHH at it.  How very evolved of us.

And of course, let’s bring back all of the species that were hunted to extinction so that they can inevitably be hunted to extinction again.  Since, judging by what we’re STILL doing to the environment, we haven’t “evolved” beyond making EXACTLY the same mistakes we did the first time. 

Wait, no…a “mistake” is something you do by accident.  Change that to “stupid me-first screw-the-next-generation-and-the-planet greedy and arrogant decisions”.

I mean, come on…this is ‘Rain Man’ science.  Massive amounts of pure intellect, no wisdom.

-Puppy >.< Yip!

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Cave Dwellers (1991)

Master Ninja Opening!
little break…
Njorl’s Saga-ish backstory/flashback
little break…
Mrs. Premise
cr@ppy Dungeons and Dragons/Conan-type movie
Mrs. Conclusion
Master Ninja Ending!

Highlights:
host intro bits
really cool cr@ppy credits sketch
incredibly pretentious evil guy
not-all-that-deadly pit of growling snakes
foley art sketch
consistently pretty-good riffing

Inspirational Quote: “Ouch, I landed on my eight-sided dice!”

Grade: B

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Beatniks (1992)

Cr@ppy Tony Travis vehicle featuring bad songs/bad acting/cliche bad-guy-goes-good story.

Highlights:
extreme pocket billiards
General Hospital short/mocking feat. “The Booze Ditty”
song mocking
sketches, esp. song mocking/teen idol worship/song mocking/mooning Crow/last wishes of T. Servo
consistent riffing

Inspirational Quote: “There are a million stupid stories in the naked city…this is the stupidest.”

Grade: B+

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Terror From The Year 5000 (1997)

Lots of boredom from the year 1950-something.

Riffing: first half enlivened only by voiceover mockings, second half slightly better.

Highlights:
Over-excited “terror” voiceover and repeated mockings of it.
attacking the water tag-team

Inspirational Quote: “…magazines expect me to perform EVERY time…”

Grade: D

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Sinister Urge (1994)

Ed Wood’s exceedingly boring portrayal of the police force’s courageous struggle to protect the public from dangerous slightly-less-than-fully-dressed-women films.

Highlights:
Keeping Clean And Neat short
BRILLIANT fight scene
Wood-en acting

Inspirational Quote: “Someone hit someone or we’re going back to our porn.”

Grade: C+

6/17/16: It’s a horrible movie, of course. But it’s also laughable, as with most Ed Wood; the premise is incredibly stupid and some of the acting just MST’s itself. And the riffing is actually pretty good. Grade: B-

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Incredible Melting Man (1996)

He’s not all that incredible.
No, incredible in the sense of not believable.
Oh.

Riffing: good stuff 
Movie: tortuous

Highlights:
Earth vs. Soup: behind the creation process
ultraaaaaaa slooooooo mooooooooooo
cracker controversy
general riffing

Inspirational Quote: “Hodgka!”

Grade: B

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Horror Of Party Beach (1997)

Cr@ppy beach party movie/musical intruded upon by guys in stupid monster suits.  Boredom ensues.

Highlights:
cr@ppy lip-synching to even cr@ppier music
BRILLIANT beach fight scene featuring human battering-ram
incredibly mockable scenes/dialogue
pretty good riffing
sodium

Inspirational Quote: “Yes, the sweet majesty of young white Republican love.”

Grade: B-

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Being From Another Planet (1992)

Listed some places as ‘Time Walker’, but since the movie SUCKS I feel no urgency to be true to the memory of it.  It’s introduced by the mads as how I titled it and the opening title says the same, and that’s good enough for me.

Movie: stupid, pretentious adventure/drama/horror with a (sort of) mummy
Riffing: pretty good

Highlights:
Invention exchange: Tragic Moments/Jack Pallinator
BRAINS!
yummy donuts
music mocking

Inspirational Quote: “Ditch the coffin, we got what we need.”

Grade: B-

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Santa Claus Conquers The Martians (1991)

Santa seeks to expand his empire by stretching out his tendrils into…

Nah, just a cr@ppy Christmas movie.  Well-meaning, of course, and sweetly stupid. 

Very sweet, very stupid.

Highlights:
pony/deciding who lives and who dies/etc…
Wish-Squisher
P. Swayze Xmas song
custumes
laughably cheezy “plot”/”acting”
consistently good riffing

Inspirational Quote: “Get the Hell out of my shop!”

Grade: B+

In A Droning State Of Mind

According to a recent statement/letter/article, basically the US government affirms the right to kill a US citizen on US soil without any sort of trial or even an officially lodged charge.

Two comments:

1) Who was naive (and STOO-pid) enough to believe the government would NEVER do anything like that UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE…until they actually came out and said so?  I mean…come on.  I’m not a big conspiracy theorist, but people who believe the government would NEVER, EVER do anything illegal if it felt it was in the interests of national security are just as deluded (in the opposite direction) as people who think everything is a government plot.

2) Who is paranoid enough to now believe this will lead to a collapse into a totalitarian state where people are constantly being killed by random drone strikes unless they salute Big Brother?

Tip: If you want to avoid being killed by a drone strike as a US citizen on US soil, don’t do anything that immediately threatens the national security of the US.  e.g.: don’t build your own nuke, don’t climb to the top of a belltower carrying a bag full of automatic weapons, don’t place any orders with Chemical-Weapons-R-Us and make the address “The White House”…

*SATIRE…SATIRE…SATIRE*

Think about it, really. 

-Puppy >.< Yip!

EXCITING Billboard Update – By Puppy

Newly-minted signs link belief in God to insane far-right stupidity via a *cough cough* “misquote”.  Wait no…isn’t a “misquote” when you ACCIDENTALLY…errrmmm…nevermind.

Well played BS propaganda, American Atheists.  Well played BS propaganda.

Hey, maybe they read my “Billboard Idea” post and learned from it that attacking Sarah Palin is a lot easier than attacking Jesus? 

I mean, they didn’t rip my “THINK FOR YOURSELF” idea, but suggesting that Sarah Palin = Faith is undeniably more clever (since almost everyone agrees she’s a MORON) than suggesting Jesus = Myth and therefore non-non-theists = stupid.

Hey, I don’t promote these people OR their (or any) propaganda, I just circulate the information. (MST rip).

-Puppy >.< Yip!

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (1993)

First Nelson-hosted episode.  A few interesting rookie bits, pretty good riffing on the movie.

Movie: cr@ppy “sci-fi” monster/”drama”.  The acting is actually decent but the script is mediocre and it’s very pretentious/wanna-be-“thrilling!”.  It does have a certain gruesome film-noir-ish feel to it though, and some of the FX are nasty enough to make this somewhat PG.

Highlights:
Signs of Life!
obvious (but amusing) anatomy jokes
skewering of anti-female/anti-trust messages
bad end credit

Inspirational Quote: “It’s nice and all, but I want something sleazy…”

Grade: B-