Astute readers will notice I haven’t been updating this weblog, and that’s because of a desperate attempt to get caught up with work. (That’s what happens when every time you get stuck writing, you run to the safety of The Orange Box and watching Japanese movies from the 80s about schoolgirl detectives). But it’s still my obligation to give a news update in the world of things that are interesting to me:
Joel Hodgson announced a new project called Cinematic Titanic, which sounds like a relaunch of the original Mystery Science Theater 3000 concept. Details are there on the website, but in brief: it sounds similar to what the RiffTrax guys are doing with Film Crew Online, licensing a bad movie and putting out a DVD release with the commentary baked-in.
And considering that Joel Hodgson and Trace Beaulieu are involved, it’s very likely that it’ll be more of a high-concept thing, with an overall storyline and more sketches in between the movie segments. (For RiffTrax and The Film Crew, they don’t try to hide the fact that all their energy goes into the gags during the movie, and the rest is just gravy).
Other good news is that Frank Coniff and Mary Jo Pehl are signed onto the project as well. And they’re planning to release the (first?) DVD before Christmas, and do a live show in San Francisco! But the live show is only open to ILM & Lucasfilm employees. Of all the times to quit working for Lucas, 7 years ago!
I’m sure this will just rub salt in the recently-healed partisan wounds that have divided our nation for so long, and we’ll soon go back to seeing lame “Who’s your favorite? Joel or Mike?” questions popping up all over the place. But for those of us who loved all of MST3k, it’s great news.
Also also: according to MST3Kinfo.com, the last remaining members of the MST3K gang have rebooted Best Brains, Inc. with a weekly animated series about Crow, Tom Servo, and Gypsy. No guesses here as to how that’s going to turn out, but it should be interesting.
Now that making fun of movies is turning into a growth industry, I’ve just got to get my work done so I can listen to the RiffTrax for Raiders of the Lost Ark in time for the new stuff.