Michael J. Nelson of MST3k latest project

Cafe Society
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I finally got a chance to check this out, and I have to say I was really impressed. I honestly wasn’t expecting to laugh as hard as I did. Mike did a great job keeping up interest through most of the movie, and the jokes were, naturally, MST caliber. Roadhouse was a great pick for the “pilot episode” as there were a lot of great riffs to be had.

Memorable Quote: “You know, Jeff Healey had to audition for months before getting into the Jeff Healey band.”

It is tricky to set up, however. Obviously, you have to synch up the audio with the movie, and that’s not always easy to do well. Mike helps by providing a sheet of times for both the audio and video with the MP3, and every so often during the movie a robotic voice (called “Disembodio”) says a line from the movie at the exact time the line is said in the movie. It’s actually a very intuitive way of figuring out how synched up the audio is. Disembodio also pipes up whenever there’s R-rated scenes that younger viewers probably shouldn’t watch, though he directs the “Don’t watch” comments to Mike instead.

The other trick is setting the volumes for the MP3 and the DVD, balancing it so you can hear both. I found that turning on subtitles and dropping the DVD volume lower than normal so the MP3 could be heard clearly worked best, but some of Mike’s comments still got drowned out by the music.

Still, if you’re willing to fiddle with those settings, it’s absolutely worth the $2 to download the Rifftrack, and IMO worth the $3 or however much to rent Roadhouse if you don’t have Netflix. (Buy the movie at your own risk.)

Also, the Rifftrax website is listing the next upcoming project: The Fifth Element. That intrigues me, because typically the best riffs come from movies that take themselves seriously, and Fifth Element is not a very serious movie. If Mike thinks it’s worth MSTing, I’m really interested to see what he comes up with for it.

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I just saw Reefer Madness last week, and I’m definitely more excited about RiffTrax now. Mike was the head writer for most of MST3K’s run, and it reminded me that even though he was usually the straight man to the bots, he is plenty funny on his own. If I thought my computer could handle this thing, I would have downloaded it already.

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I downloaded this this weekend too and attempted to post right before SD had its crash.

It was good. If you’re a fan of the latter years of MST3k, this should be right up your alley. The riffs and rapidity of the Mike years were there (I’m a Joel-era fan and kept my prejudice at the door).

First off, the ease of use of the product. I had the DVD running on Windows Media Player and the MP3 track playing on Nero. I found that it was easier to have the video going a little bit faster in the beginning and just tapping the space bar to slow the video down til it synched up with the Rifftrax. Once it synched up, it was golden for the rest of the movie. The one problem was that I was ready for a nap midway through (it was almost 100 degrees in Minnesota which induces lethargy in me) and had to pause it. Not the most convenient system to do that with, but I knew that going in to it. As BayleDomon pointed out, there was DisembAudio there to make sure that the lines synched up every once in a while. The audio on my DVD wasn’t completely consistent it seemed and so there was some volume control issues for the first 5 minutes. Saddest part: if you miss a joke, it’s not worth backtracking.

Roadhouse was a great choice for the first “episode”. I’ve never seen the movie before, but I remember the quotes that were used in MST3K before. It was a bit disjointing in a way to see the first nudies and rated-R material with the MST3k riffing. Some of the riffings were familiar, like finding a pair of slippers. There was a lot of fresh material as well.

Here’s a local article from Star Tribune about this too.

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“Bo. Zo.”

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Here’s a short, incomplete list of Amusing Nelsonized Lines in NOTLD;

<as we hear Johhny’s first speaking lines as he and Barbara exit the car>
Y’know this guy was the inspiration for Beaker on the Muppet Show
Meep Meep Meep…
Beaker’s actually better looking than this guy…

< Pan down shot of a tree in the graveyard>
The cinematographer got interested in a squirrel here for a minute…

<the first Zombie attacks Barbara who is hiding inside the car>
She’s lucky this guy didn’t have the On*Star System or he’d just call up and say “yeah, i’m trying to eat this woman alive, but she locked herself in the car”
“Yes Sir, we have you at the cemetary, i’ll open that car for you now…”

<Zombie shatters the window with a rock and reaches in through the window>
He wants that wig…

<Zombie stumbles (very Torgo-esque, in fact) after the car coasting down the hill>
Apparently when you become a zombie the only thing that changes is a little rheumatism in the knees…that and the whole flesh-eating thing…

<Barbara hides in the farmhouse from the Zombie and locks the door >
Did she ever stop to consider that this is the Zombie’s house and he’s got a key?

<smash cut of taxidermied animal heads with an audio startle gag>
Yeah, playing on everyone’s innate fear of taxidermists, it turns out to be a relatively well founded fear, you’re roughly 4.5 million times more likely to be killed by a taxidermist than a CPA or law clerk…

<Zombie gets tangled in a clothesline and tears it down>
Zombies hate clotheslines

<Continuity error, the next exterior shot of the zombie shows it being dark out, previous shot was afternoon light>
And Voila! it’s dark, the sun didn’t set, it crashed

most of the time he’s off on a tangent about the actors or sets, this commentary is pretty poor without the rest of the Best Brains crew, Trace, Kevin, Bill, and Mary Jo really need to be in there with him, they’re at their best playing off each other…

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Just to bump this thread. The latest version out is for Star Trek V and it’s starring Mike Nelson and Kevin Murphy. I think I’m going to pick it up–I have a copy lying around and I think this’ll be a hoot.