I! AM! ANOTHER! RIFFTRAX! LIVE! EVENT! THAT! NEEDS! MONEY!

 

And here we go again. 
This week, Rifftrax started its annual pledge drive to fund the mocking of a cheesy movie.
This year, though, it's a REAL movie, with people we've heard of...even an Oscar winner.
What's next, Speed? Speed 2, maybe?
Hey, if they managed to get Ladyhawke a while ago...

The movie is Point Break, where a rookie FBI agent who used to be a college quarterback has to find bank robbers who wear masks and surf. The main plot is that Johnny admires (kinda) Bohdi, the leader of the gang, but has to arrest the guy. Naturally, it's been used as a riff on MST3K a few times, but it's a big get. You get massive amounts of Keanu Reeves, Gary Busey when he was coherent, and Patrick Dempsey. Also, it's directed by Kathryn Bigelow, who's a professional and an Oscar winner. That's almost unheard of in Rifftrax movies. It's the anti-RAD. 

There's also working hard to hit their goal of 350 thousand dollars, which should be reached fairly quickly. The gang will be on The Mads Are Back as the post-movie guests, almost like they're on late-night TV. It's also the first time since Jack-O that it's a taped event rather than a live show. They will have the show from the State Theater in Minneapolis two weeks before it's shown on August 8 and 13. It's still a minor point because a riff show is a riff show, live or not. 

Again, the gang should hit their goal before they're on TMAB, but the real fun happens afterwards. We get the offer of "ten shorts for a dollar" plus stretch goals. That means mp3s of big movies, but the fun is predicting which ones. Ten bucks says Wonka is next if not inevitable. Dune 2 may be too good to pass up. Madame Web may be another story.

Anyway, fans can contribute and get neat swag by going here. The deadline is April 8.

Rifftrax Halloween Show: Amityville 4, NBC 0 (or Night of Beelzebulb)

 

It's never good when a television network tries to make shows out of movies (with some exceptions)
It's worse when they try to continue movie franchises, as NBC did when it made a sequel to the Amityville Horror in 1989. 

                                       

It thought it had a winner when Patty Duke and a small army of priests battle an evil lamp.
AN. EVIL. LAMP.
They shouldn't be fooled by what it looks like. It's ready to pounce, even at the mom from Father Knows Best.

 

The Rifftrax crew of Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett (who was dressed as a skeleton) and Kevin Murphy provided a lot of solid riffs against this movie when they appeared a few days before Halloween in Nashville.

The movie's about an evil lamp from Amityville, NY (natch) who's defeated by an army of priests. It's bought by someone in a garage sale, who sends it to her sister (Jane Wyatt) in Southern California as a "gag".
She lives in a big house, and is joined by a widow (Patty Duke) and her three kids. 

Naturally, evil things happen thanks to the lamp. It possesses the youngest daughter by tricking her into thinking it's really her dead daddy, and also kills the housekeeper with its cord. It also causes the house to kill a plumber. 

One of the Amityville priests eventually arrives at the evil house, and the final battle is pretty dumb due to bad writing and Dollar Store special effects. Let's just say the possessed child does a decent impression of the main villain from a recent sci-fi movie.

The riffs come fast and hard, and they center on the lamp and past roles from the main stars. They comment on how Duke's character dreams of a twin cousin, and also cheesesteaks. Wyatt accuses one of her grandkids of lying, since she was also Spock's mom (really). We also had these gems:

Jessica arrives, pre-possessed
You finally got out of that well

The young priest tries to call the family about the lamp, then the lamp calls back and melts the phone receiver.
That's what happens when you have too many jalapeno poppers

The water suddenly turns black
We're in Flint, Michigan

The lamp kills the maid
This could happen once we all get smart homes

Jessica explains why she thinks her lamp is dad
He has more charisma and a better physique.

There's also riffs on Dennis Miller, Mother Teresa, Pixar, Only Fans and Back to the Future.

It was preceded by a short on industrial accidents called "It's Your Accident". It's supposed to show people how they should take responsibility on work safety. It centers on two guys named Mike who injure their hands, and a guy named Joe who seems to like to dodge forklifts.

It's not as good as "Shake Hands With Danger" or "Live and Learn", but it does show a weird scene where the older Mike's teen daughter fed the younger Mike some tomatoes. A better way to describe it is "Andy Richter in Falling Down".

The Rifftrax guys should be commended for getting this year's live show season off the ground after losing a year due to the COVID 19 pandemic. Hopefully, it'll be business as usual next year when they have a new Kickstarter campaign going.

Rifftrax Celebrates the Holidays

Let's be honest. The holidays do not start on the week of Thanksgiving. They start next Friday with Halloween. I've believed this ever since I saw the Grove Shopping Center in L-A finish building Santa's House the day before Halloween. Imagine trick or treaters trying to visit that house.

Now there's a new reason:  Rifftrax will be very busy with some new events, including revisiting another holiday movie.
It also starts next Thursday with its presentation of Anaconda with Jon Voight, Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube and Owen Wilson. That event was made possible by its Kickstarter campaign a few months ago after getting funding for riffing the Jurassic Park-Sleepless in Seattle mashup that was the 1998 version of Godzilla. The riff for that, by the way, should be coming next month.
Anyway, the attack, I mean showing, of Anaconda will be presented in several theaters nationwide thanks to Fathom Events. Since the movie is 90 minutes, the show will include a preview of the return of Total Riff-Off, where the gang take on a typical show from the National Geographic channel. It was very popular when it was done on April Fool's Day, and it'll be interesting to see what they'll do when they have two more specials in December. Expect the host of Man vs. Monster being a likely target.

Then in November, it'll observe Thanksgiving with its take on Fun in Balloonland. As I said elsewhere online, it makes "A Visit to Santa" look like The Empire Strikes Back. It starts with a mom reading a bedtime story, which puts her to sleep. Then the kid dreams he's in a world filled with balloon people. Here's a look:



It's basically the worst movie about the Macy's parade, or any other holiday parade.  A guy called the Cinema Snob has his take on this, If Mike can top that review, he is truly the God of Riffing

The big news from its Facebook Q and A event is that the Christmas show on December 4th will feature the 1959 Mexican holiday classic, Santa Claus. That's right, little Lupita, Pitch, and the kid who's left alone on Christmas Eve while his parents go out and drink will all be there. Of course, MST3K fans know the movie when it first aired in 1993. It was later part of the Volume XVI DVD set. What's different is that the gang will likely riff on the whole movie, as they did with Manos, Hands of Fate. When Santa Claus was first riffed, they cut some scenes out, including this one where Lupita dreams about having a doll. Since Pitch set off the dream, it includes evil dancing that wasn't part of the MST version. See if you can riff on this:



Actually, if you use the Canadian Thanksgiving rule, you'd be justified to start seeing holiday specials after November first, including what Rifftrax has to offer.

You can learn more about next week's showing of Anaconda, Total Riff-Off, Santa Claus and more at Rifftrax's updated website. Enjoy!

Did Rifftrax Overpromise A Bit In Kickstarter Campaign? Not Really

Like about 4300 people, I was looking forward to having my own digital copy of the Rifftrax gang taking Starship Troopers apart after they have their live show next week.

Then, I got this message:

Unfortunately, we’ve been unable to secure the rights from Sony to provide a digital version of the live show. The rights are completely different for theatrical and digital release, and even though we were able to work out an agreement with the theatrical division, it’s just not possible for a digital version.

Fortunately, they had a plan "B" in case they couldn't get the digital rights. Still, I did notice many people were disappointed they would not get the digital download they had expected. One person said he had lost his trust in Mike and Rifftrax because he didn't get the digital rights. Others said they wanted the download because they wouldn't be able to see it live. For the most part, especially the day after, people understood what happened, and gladly accepted an alternate package.

Did Rifftrax promise a little too much in its Kickstarter campaign?

They did the best they could, trying to pull off something they never tried before.
It just wanted to take what it does to alleged movies (Manos, Birdemic, Jack the Giant Killer, and Reefer Madness, to name a few) to the next level, and found out it's much tougher than expected. This was still a good first try, and we hope Rifftrax can get bigger movies in the future.

Mike Nelson was upfront about how this big move to get a more mainstream movie for a Rifftrax Live event was a gamble at best. They wanted to riff on Twilight, which inspired fans to raise the 55 thousand dollars needed in record time. They wound up pledging nearly 265 thousand dollars, which could have been enough for Mike, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett to give Bella and Edward the business.
Not quite for Lionsgate and Summit Entertainment, though, which is why Rifftrax had a list of alternate targets, uh, movies. It eventually got the rights to Starship Troopers, a sci-fi bug movie so cheesy it's practically asking for it. More than 70 percent donated 20 dollars or more to get a digital download of a fully-riffed Casper van Dien, Denise Richards, and really big bugs.
In a Kickstarter update just before Memorial Day, and I emphasize certain words in this update, Mike admitted that while he got the theatrical rights, getting digital rights may be a different bug to hunt:

In the interest of full disclosure, we want to let you know that while we are thrilled to be doing Starship Troopers, working with a big studio is more complicated than how we usually do things on our own. For instance, negotiating the rights to riff a movie live in a theater is not the same as negotiating for the digital distribution rights of said live show. They are two different departments and what works for one may not work for another. We know that the digital download of the live show was one of our most popular rewards choices and are going to do everything in our power to be able to deliver the reward. But we have not secured these rights as of yet, and there’s a chance that Sony may not let us do this. Hopefully it won’t be an issue. If for any reason we’re unable to deliver the digital download, we will of course offer up what we hope is a reward that is more than a fair substitute. You will be kept in the loop as this develops, and we may even run ideas by you if we’re forced to choose a new reward.

Since that was the case, Mike and his minions have offered (and about time) the Rifftrax Live version of Manos, Hands of Fate. This is great because it's a version that's more complete than the classic MST3K version (I reviewed it for this blog). They will also provide a riff of ST, plus five bucks from Rifftrax.com. Depending on the donation, others will get an extra mp3 for any movie they want. So, it's a good peace offering.

So, don't be too mad at Mike Nelson and his Rifftrax minions. It's not as easy as making an mp3 riff on The Avengers while no one's looking. Getting something like Starship Troopers for Rifftrax Live  is an accomplishment in itself, and a reward for those who contributed to the Kickstarter campaign.

Let's hope that our dreams of Twilight getting eclipsed by Rifftrax Live will happen eventually. Until then, we'll have to do it the old-fashioned way: getting the DVDs and mp3 riffs, and pretend we're at the local Cinemark Suburban 14.