I still stand firmly behind my belief that MST3K was one of the funniest shows that was ever on TV and one of the simplest ideas made easily consumable for a wider audience. The idea of taking terrible old films that are in the public domain and making fun of them is brilliant, and for them to have been smart enough to often riff on the terrible foreign ripoffs of great American films only made it that much better. And from Troy and Abed watching Kickpuncher and making fun of it on Community, to gags in Family Guy, the far reaching hand of the show can still be felt today.

For some viewers, it can take a little while to acclimate yourself with the brand of humor used on the Mystery Science Theater, but once you are a fan, you tend to be fan for life. Whether you enjoy subtle references or are a fan of more in-your-face humor, the show had something for everyone. In case you may have missed it when it aired so many years ago, here are five installments that go down in the annals of history as the greatest MST3K episodes ever.

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Many of you may or may not know that my unequivocally favorite sitcom of all time is Seinfeld.   I still think that in my lifetime we will never see another show like it, nor as funny.   I don’t need to get into the how’s or why’s as to the show’s success.   I don’t have to get into what characters were funny and why.

I don’t need to bore you with every detail and an explanation to the show.   As far as I see it you were either a Seinfeld fan or you weren’t.  And if you were, you too probably thought it was one of the best shows of all time.   That I can still watch each episode today and find new things amazes me.

Another thing that amazes me is how many “before they were famous” appearances took place on the show.  The list is nearly endless.  And perhaps most memorable is this scene right here when a young Denise Richards plays the 16 year old daughter of an NBC executive.   George proceeds to take a “good look” at her.

This is a shout out to all of our parents out there.   Well, at least the parents of people my age.   For all you younger people out there, one of if not the best duos in the history of cinema were Robert Redford and Paul Newman.   Handsome, great actors, and hilarious would describe these two charmers and when they were on screen it was magic.   Perhaps one of their best performances was in the movie The Sting.   It was made in 1973 and will forever remain a classic.   Here’s a quick bio:

In 1930s Chicago, a young con man seeking revenge for his murdered partner teams up with a master of the big con to win a fortune from a criminal banker.

Obviously that description doesn’t really give the movie enough credit or substance.  However, this was easily one of the best con men movies of all time.  Plus the cast was just filled with people you’d recognize but whose name you probably wouldn’t know (something I love in a movie).

Anyway, I don’t even want to give it away.  I want you guys to see this.  It’s brilliantly written, directed, and acted and of course, the Newman and Redford combo never hurt.   Check out the trailer after the jump…

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Can we hope for peace?

“The interesting thing about Star Wars is, and I don’t ever push this very far, there’s a lot going on there that most people haven’t really come to grips with yet. But when they do, they will find it’s a much more intricately made clock than most people would imagine.” – George Lucas

^^That’s in case you think I’m reading too far into these movies. To revisit a point made back in Part I, Lucas knew what he was doing with the Prequels. He knew they were going to be different, he knew a lot of people wouldn’t be onboard, and he knew that they were good enough to make anyway.

So what Lucas wound up creating two seemingly disparate trilogies that, when viewed as a whole, create a densely knit story built on “rhymes”: motifs, dialogue, situations, and visuals that play off each other in a variety of fascinating ways.

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Not that is matters but the O. in Jay O. Sanders stands for Olcutt.   It’s funny because I’ll never forget the first time I saw Jay in a movie.   I don’t think it was his first movie but it was the first time I saw him.   It was in Mr. Destiny where he played a guy named Jackie Earle who ran a sporting company.   He had this rough and tough type of demeanor.  Kind of like one of the good old boys.

Funny thing is that I don’t think he’s really strayed from that too much in his films and television.  And Mr. Destiny was back in 1990.  Jay’s actually been acting since 1979 and has 113 titles to his credit.  You might remember him from movies like The Day After Tomorrow and JFK.

His latest role was on the short lived show Pan Am.   His last movie role was Green Lantern. Anyway, I just wanted to give a shout out to Jay.   A clip of Jay after the jump….

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Perhaps no more famous a music scene in movie history than this one.   For those of you who are too young to have seen this movie I highly recommend that you do.   It’s not only a crazy film but well…yeah it’s a crazy film.

Put it this way, you’ll never, ever want to go down river on a camping trip after seeing this movie.   In any event, this scene is clearly one of the best if not most famous from the movie.  Here’s a Wikipedia description of the scene…..

In Deliverance, a scene depicts Billy Redden playing it opposite Ronny Cox, who joins him on guitar. Redden plays “Lonnie”—a mentally challenged inbred, but extremely gifted banjo player. (Redden could not actually play the banjo. A local musician, Mike Addis, reached around from behind Redden; this was disguised using careful camera angles. Two young musicians, Ron Brentano and Mike Russo, had originally been signed to play their adaptation for the film, but instead it was performed by the others.

“Dueling Banjos” was arranged and performed for the film by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell and was included on its soundtrack.When he was not acknowledged as the composer by the filmmakers, Smith sued and eventually won, receiving songwriting credit as well as royalties – via

Sometimes, stretching out a great idea into a full length feature film just doesn’t work, especially if you are trying to scare an audience. You risk watering down the story and losing the essence of what makes the story so great in the first place. Some stories are told far more effectively when kept in a shorter format. And often, when reflecting on some of the creepier or more powerful films I have seen, I notice some of them are no longer then three minutes.

It is often a great treat to see when a director can pull you in and deliver the story, characters, and atmosphere in that short amount of time, and still manage to leave you with a film you know you will always remember, no matter the length. Whether they are morality tales or just a good old fashioned creepy story, here are six of them, linked for your viewing pleasure.

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There’s actually a funny story behind this movie.   For the life of me I was trying to remember the title of this film.  The movie itself just crept up on me the other day and for the life of me I kept thinking the name was Tough Guys (which is a movie with Burt Lancaster).

Finally I typed in the search term “white kid and black kid runaway” and on the first try found it in Yahoo answers.   Anyway, the movie is called Big Shots and here’s what it’s about:

Following the death of his father, suburbanite Obie runs away from home and winds up on Chicago’s South Side. After being mugged, he befriends con artist Scam. The two then embark on a Down South adventure involving gangsters, the police, and a search for Scam’s father.

P.S. Scam is played by Darius McCrary from Family Matters.   Also, Ivan Reitman actually had a hand in this movie.   I mean it’s a dumb movie but certainly entertaining and will take you back to your childhood.

Check out the trailer after the jump…

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Ever see a person in a movie and said person had one of those memorable roles or faces that you’d never forget?   And then all of a sudden it’s years before you seen them again.  But when you do you know exactly what you saw them in those years ago.  That’s what it’s like every time I see D.W. Moffett.

I’ll never forget him as the good looking lady killer (literally) in the movie Lisa.   I mean that was a horrible movie but for some reason I’ll never forget his character in that.   Since that movie which was in 1989, Moffet’s been in television and movies with a total of 81 titles.

He’s not the most memorable actor but you kind of always know who he is.   I’m a fan so that’s that.   A clip of Moffett after the jump…

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There is something delightfully pretentious about having a dead person narrating a film. It requires a sense of suspended disbelief from the audience, and once you have achieved that, anything is possible in your story. Surprisingly, dead narration is rarely utilized in Hollywood, whereas most tropes this original have been squeezed dry by now.

In some cases, the death of the narrator is made known right away in the film. And in others, it is used as a “big reveal” to switch up your perception of everything you had seen up to that point. One thing it rarely fails to be is interesting, though. And here are five examples in particular that stood out to me. But be forewarned weary traveler, for there are SPOILERS AHEAD! Continue Reading »

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