Former Host and Writer of MST3K Launches RiffTrax

dougman writes "Today James Lileks mentioned his 'friend and all-around comic genius/good egg Michael J. Nelson' called, to tell him about his brilliant new project, RiffTrax. Here's the pitch: '...free-lance commentary tracks. Bottom line: Mystery Science Theater 3000-style commentary for big famous beloved movies like Titanic or The Matrix. The hitch: you have to provide the movie. It's genius: no worries about copyright. You buy the commentary tracks for $1.99, rent the movie or get it out of your collection, load the commentary on your iPod or burn it to a disk, then watch them together in true you-got-peanut-butter-in-my-chocolate bliss. ... The first movie is Roadhouse." Cool! I voted for The Matrix as the next one to be riffed." While I (and many others I know) preferred Joel, Mike was not without his share of funny moments too. Without Crow and Servo it just might not be the same, though.

Not an original concept

[EvanED]

Might be better than your typical fan-made one of these, but there are other examples. One of which, I think the one I went looking for, was called DVD Tracks, but it seems to have went away... Here's a /. article about this though. [slashdot.org]

Sometimes silhouettes were funny

[lawpoop]

I think this is really great, but sometimes my favorite parts of MST3K were jokes they played with the silhouettes on the screen. In one of the Godzilla movies, there was a bird's-eye-view scene of some Japanese soldiers with round, white bubble-helmets on. Joel stood up, knocked on one of the helmets, and the soldier looked straight up into the camera! :D Classic.

Re:The dream of an MST3K reunion

[dr_dank]

A reunion is not out of the question, but it would take a lot to bring it together. Many of the old props were sold off when Best Brains closed down its production facility and went to a licensing/merchandise business model.

I'd really like to see more of the side projects, namely another book from Kevin Murphy. A Year at the Movies [amazon.com] blew me away.

Re:No worries?

[kidgenius]

All this is, is an additional commentary act. The original sounds of the movie are coming off the dvd that you provide. There is nothing that should stop me from sitting in a room, making a recording on my comments of the movie, and then releasing it. Granted, entities such as Major League Baseball are currently trying to prevent people from providing their own sportscasts of baseball games. Not sure all the details there, but this maybe, eventually, could be prohibited. Let's hope not.

Share Crow with ShareCrow?

[Robotech_Master]

Don't forget you can use ShareCrow [sharecrow.net] to sync these commentaries easily if you have a Windows machine that uses compatible DVD player software.

(And check Commentary Central [commentarycentral.co.uk] for a bunch of freebie alternate commentary tracks, including my own for Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro [terrania.us]...)

Re:Thanks in Advance

[heptapod]

You're seeing them because you, genius, don't know how to adjust your reading threshold [slashdot.org].

Lame

[Lane.exe]

As anyone good Austinite knows, The Sinus Show [sinusshow.com] guys have been doing this for a while now, and while they aren't MST3K (for copyright reasons), I've never left a Sinus Show without a stomach ache from laughing so much.

Joel vs Mike... Sigh...

[John Fulmer]

CowboyNeal *DOES* know that Mike was a writer on the show from season 1 on, and the head writer starting season 2, right.

That's one thing that I've never understood about the Joel vs Mike thing.... The writing staff was pretty much the same for both (with the huge exception of Frank Conniff leaving. Things were never quite as.... surreal afterward).

jf

No DRM

[springbox]

Anyway.. .. the best way to get the commentary in would be something like imovie and its linux equivalents... for that you can't have DRM.

I just downloaded Road House from the site and it's in MP3 format. I doubt you have to worry about any DRM getting in the way.