RKNet Blog... Thing

Perusing through my feeds this morning, as I am wont to do, I discovered a blurb in Wired’s The Underwire about the whole MST3K crew putting in an appearance at this year’s Comic Con! Not only that, but they plan to do a live Rifftrax session of Plan 9 From Outer Space as well.

Then the part that really grabbed me (because I can’t attend Comic Con this year), the announcement of an MST3K boxed set! SQEEEE! It’s currently up for pre-order on Amazon, with a listed release date of October 28th of this year. According to the Underwire article, legal issues have prevented Shout Factory from releasing the list of episodes that will be available in this set. With 4 discs in the set, my hope is they get as many as possible or at least all the ones not covered by the currently available DVD collections.

I’m hoping for Sidehackers, some of the Godzilla movies, Castle of Fu-Manchu (which I own a copy of in non-MST3K format), and Time Chasers. (”Wheee we’re getting poison sumac wheeee!”)

Burning Questions:
What episodes are your favorites?
Joel or Mike Nelson?
Tom or Crow?
The Doctor or Pearl?
TV’s Frank?

In recent years there has become almost a tradition of graphic novels and comics being converted into amazing movies. Spiderman, Road to Perdition, Sin City, 30 Days of Night, and of course Batman.

A while back I saw a film called Faust: Love of the Damned. I could go on and on about my impression of the film. Indeed, I found myself lying awake, babbling in a stunned fashion over what I’d encountered. Truth be told I wish I remembered half my commentary. The movie is realy a comedy goldmine for those who enjoy a MST3K the Home Game viewing experience. For those who feel as though they are brave enough to bear witness to the whole thing, I feel obligated to give you a taste of what you’re prepared for.

The Good:

• This film makes no qualms about what it is and compensates fairly adequately by including several non-disturbing shots that feature (very nice) breasts.
• It features cops being sliced, beheaded, dismembered, and otherwise mutilated.*
• This film offers just about every kind of death you can think of: poisoning, fire, being eaten by a monster, head blown off, head cut off, guts spilled, buried alive, and death by curse.
• It’s got that guy from the Wishmaster movies. (and I guess he’s been in Lost, too.)
• Will heavily add to your “I Watch Bad Movies” cred.
• The male protagonist has an entertaining Renfield vibe at the beginning of the film.

The Bad:

• This film makes no qualms about what it is and includes several disturbing shots that include breasts, ruining the bonus points that breast shots ordinarily give to a film.
• It features cops being sliced, beheaded, dismembered, and otherwise mutilated.*
• Poorly researched psychology references riddle the film like cancer through a lab rat.
• Even more poorly researched occult references. I’m no expert but man some of this stuff would make a teenage wicca fanatic shake their head shame of the inaccuracy.
• The male protagonist turns into some kind of cheese-tastic Spawn/The Mask/Wolverine mashup.
• Female protagonist gets brainwashed into a nympho by being beaten, electrocuted, and forced to confront her past, but the actress clearly doesn’t ever get nude. (This seems like a cop-out compared to the fearlessness of her castmates.)

The OH MY GOD MY MIND IS BEING VIOLATED! (OMGMMIBV!):

• This film makes no qualms about what it is and includes a scene with disturbing special-effect breasts.
• Suggested rape of an eleven year old girl by a guy with no face.

*I realize that people are divided on the treatment of police, real or fictional, so I am willing to count this aspect both good and bad as it relates to one’s personal perspective on the matter. I should like to clarify that for the purpose of this story it does appear that all the police are apparently a part of some evil conspiracy.

Thanks to the hard work of io9’s Annalee Newitz, I’m able to point you in the direction of one of the more OMGMMIBV! clips. It’s NSFW, and it’s epic as hell.

I may be more shocked than you are.

For those who aren’t familiar with Kenneth Eng, God, allow me to illuminate you.
Kenneth Eng is an author, a racist, and philosopher of dubious merit.

He has written Dragons: Lexicon Triumvirate and more recently a screenplay called the 0th Dimension. You can read excerpts from the leaked script over at ToM, including the kind of MST3K-esque incredulous commentary one might expect for this remarkable level of writing.

Despite some obvious issues one might have with the author, he made an observation via some dialogue for a mini-play he wrote just the other day. In context it’s clearly an expression of his disgust for other humans who have a different lineage that he does; out of context it bears a striking resemblance to the type of bureaucratic insanity that becomes more a part of everyday life for all of us.

PROFESSOR: You are allowed freedom of speech so long as you do not mention anything about religion, politics, race, sex, venus flytraps, Garfield, scotch tape, knitting and the air-speed velocities of unladen swallows!

–Source: His Amazon.com Profile

Read some of the other entries if you’re bored, or something.