Good news for those of you who crave snarky commentary with your cinematic crapsterpieces. Joel Hodgson, creator, writer, and original host of Mystery Science Theater 3000, is working on a new movie-mocking project called Cinematic Titanic, featuring cast members from MST3K. There’s already an official site with more details, but if you’re the impatient sort, you can get a similar fix via Rifftrax, where Mike Nelson, another MST3K head writer and onetime host, sells downloads of color commentary on recent heinous titles such as Battlefield Earth and Crossroads.
Anyhow, all this digging around on MST3K got me thinking: Which horrendously awful movies desperately need skewering by Hodgson and/or Nelson? I nominate The Village. Slow pacing, heavy-handed direction, those hooded creatures, and an inscrutable plot make it perfect for a takedown. In fact, any M. Night Shyamalan movie will do just fine. What other titles should we add to the list?
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I Know Who Killed Me!!! That movie sucked so much, it bordered on brilliance!
I nominate “The Mist”. That movie was terrible, and may have had some of the worst characters I’ve seen in a movie in a long time. Talk about rooting for the monsters!! EAT!EAT!EAT!
“Solaris” with George Clooney. I wanted to walk out desperately, but stayed because I kept telling myself it ad such big names behind it, it had to end brilliantly. I was wrong.
I nominate The Hottest State. The premise of the film wasn’t that aweful, but the whiny lead actor stalking his lost love was so overblown, it was’t even funny, so to speak. It doesn’t happen often watching movies, but I desparately wished the protagonist would show some cojones and just kill himself about halfway through.
The Day After Tomorrow. So much material to laugh at, my friends and I went twice. The first time was to actually see the movie, the second time was to unload all of our pent-up snark in 90 min (no one else was there, so we didn’t annoy anyone but each other.) MST3K would do an awesome job with this movie.
I’ve always wished Maximum Overdrive, the Stephen King adaptation starring Emilio Estevez would be perfect fodder for MST3K.
There are so many skewer-able moments. At one point two guys are crawling through a sewer and discuss its terrible smell at length. And of course there’s the classic “Me made you! We maaaade yoooou!” scene. Good stuff.
Blair Witch Project, maybe then I’d understand it.
One movie that should get this treatment is Boxing Helena (soooo bad!). I think they’d have a field day with that. For a more recent film, I’d like to see them take on Running With Scissors and bring it down a peg or two.
I love RiffTrax. We’ve spent a fair amount of dough there. I actually went out and bought a couple of DVDs because I wanted to hear the RiffTrax for them, and my rental store didn’t have them. RiffTrax made the Matrix bearable again.
People will disagree with me but when all the hoopla dies down, I will turn out to be right…”I am Legend” was so full of itself and pointless by the end, I would gladly sit in a theater with smart ass robots any day.
Good call on The Village. They could have a field day with the hokey pseudo-historic accents alone.
My pick would be one of those bad “chicks with guns” action/wannabe video game flicks: either Underworld or Ultraviolet. The latter is so strangely cheap, bad, & nonsensical it’s trippy to watch, but Underworld probably needs some MST3K commentary more. That perpetually blue-lit scenery must have tasted pretty good, because a few of the actors were certainly chewing great chunks of it
I’d love to see those guys tackle some of the terrible “teen” flicks that have come out recently – anything starring Amanda Bynes or Hilary Duff. I’m just imagining the brilliance during “She’s The Man”.
Mystery Science Theater 3000 – the Movie
Both “Interview with a Vampire” and “Queen of the Damned” beg to be made fun of. I laughed my ass off during both.
Good call on M Night. Among a sea of possibilities, you could troll his practically his whole body of work for ideas. While The Village certainly works, I would nominate Lady in the Water even higher. Holy cow, blazingly awful movie parading as art; let the MST3K guys go at it.
I Know Who Killed Me! But only if Slezak can sit in the audience and particiate too.
The Hours. .
Pretentious dribble.
Seven Years in Tibet, good lord that was a horrid accent on Pitt.
I know most of you wont agree with this but my vote is for Transformers. My friend and I started our own smartass commentary after about 10 minutes when we realized it was terrible.
If we’re making fun of movies that earnestly wanted to be good but failed, then you have to go with The ULTIMATE reigning all-time king poo-bah of the “sh**-pretending-to-be-art” genre, The Brown Bunny. Just thinking about that movie makes me want to punch someone in the face.
The Wicker Man was pretty terrible. Now that I think about it, they could probably devote a whole season just to Nicolas Cage films.
Good call on Solaris…although it might be hard to mock because *nothing happens*! Highlander 2 is always at the top of my list for these kind of things although practically it may be too much of a genre film that depends on the original. That said, it’s probably incomprehensible either way.
I think that the Hillary Duff, etc genre is actually so easy to make fun of as to make any show about it superfluous. Though my friends and I had a fabulous time mocking The Prince and Me. “If that butterfly winds up back at her college…”
All the lame modern movies, and you guys pick M. Night Shyamalan? Solaris? Please. The Day After Tomorrow, Van Helsing, Ultraviolet, Wicker Man, and the second and third Resident Evil movies are ripe.
Southland Tales. There were actually a lot of good things about the movie (the acting was fantastic for the most part), but all the conspiracy theories and the trainwreck plot are just BEGGING for the MST treatment.
Beverly Hills Cop III. I know nobody remembers it, but it’s outright drek, with some of the worst gaffes I’ve ever witnessed in the movie theater.
Beverly Hills Cop III. I know nobody remembers it, but it’s outright drek, with some of the worst gaffes I’ve ever witnessed in the movie theater.
Personally I’d vote for The Omen. OhMyGod. Love that movie. It is so cheesalicious.
If you find “The Village” inscrutable maybe something is wrong with your brain.
I vote for Underdog and Alvin & The Chipmunks. I haven’t seen either, and never plan on doing so, since they both looked so bad and ruined classic cartoon characters. Perfect for Mike & the bots.
P.S. Jason Lee needs to have these movies erased from his resume and go back to doing Kevin Smith movies!
Why the constant M. Night Shyamalan bashing at EW–especially when it comes to THE VILLAGE? I’m beginning to think they have a much deeper personal issue against him. The movie is not as bad as many of you make it out to be. Granted it is slow-paced and I understand why many have problems with the improbabilities of the story. BUT IT’S A FREAKIN’ MOVIE. At one point or another, most movies demand that you suspend disbelief. MNS’s direction is great, the cinematography is outstanding, and the movie features great performances from Bryce Dallas Howard, Sigourney Weaver, William Hurt, and the greatly underrated Joaquin Phoenix. You people need to chill. If you want to attack Hollywood films, begin with anything made by the Wayans’ Brothers.