The first thing I saw today was A Visit To Santa, a public domain short. Since it was public domain, Legend Films offered users the option to download a movie file instead of the usual mp3 file.
The short is a cheapo film about two kids who ask Santa if they could see the North Pole. Rather than tell them to suck it up, Santa appeases their wishes which will no doubt cost him in the future. Anyway, Santa gets in his helicopter because Santa is too cool for the sled thing now. He takes the kids over to the North Pole, which isn't the least bit impressive. As Mike, Kevin, and Bill poin out, it looks like they're going to a mall.
Santa shows them a few doll houses and train sets. The toys are obviously outdated by our standards, but it doesn't even look impressive of whatever year this film took place in. This film is incredible cheap looking (and unfortunately looks washed out) and you long for the robot from Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Even the parade isn't much, because they only show about two floats.
If I could sum up this short, I would do so with this photo.
The riffing was ok, but I can't really remember it. We'll see why in a second.
The download options for this short include the usual mp3 file, but Legend Films has a new "On Demand" option. Instead of putting up with Disembaudio, you can download a file that will download the movie. This is good so you don't have to sync the movie, but it comes with a catch. Instead of an mp4, wmv, mov, or some other popular video file, Rifftrax uses divx. You have to download the Divx player before you download the movie file. Not only that, but you have to get an account. I'm probably not the only person who thinks that that is a sneaky way to get people to sign up for a player they don't need, but I figured what the hell. I don't blame anybody who decides against it.
For those who are curious, A Visit to Santa is 12 minutes long and 128 MB. Also, the On Demand thing is available for purchase (AVtS only option) or rental for many other films in their catalog. I'll probably avoid it because I'm not interested in divx. Rentals are about 3-4 dollars and purchases are about 12 dollars.
You may be able to burn purchases onto DVD, but I don't know yet.
Now onto our feature...
I just had to watch the Star Wars Holiday Special before Christmas. It was too good to save till afterwards. Now I've seen this terrible movie, and I'm a believer that it's every bit as bad as I've heard.
I didn't hear about it till lately, of course. It probably wasn't until I saw it mentioned at websites like Stomp Tokyo. My reaction was probably the same as any fan of the original trilogy. "WHAT? No, you got to be kidding me. Really? No, that's got to be an urban legend. Come on, you're just pulling my leg, right?" And so forth...
But this thing apparently existed. And it really is wookies yelling at each other for most of the time. I thought reviewers were exagerating how the film starts with no dialog, but that was the longest scene in the movie except all the others. There were quite a few times during this movie where I just said "wow."
In case you don't know, The Holiday Special is about Chewbacca trying to get home to his family in time for Life Day, which is a holiday where furry things hold lite-brite eggs and wear red robes. That's not much, so there's a lot of distracting scenes that make you wonder what the hell is going on. I'm talking unfunny comedy skits, music scenes best forgotten, and a poinless cartoon. Yes, the cartoon wasn't that great. A D- on your report card doesn't erase all the Fs.
Everybody in the special embarrasses themselves. Harrison Ford is probably has the least to be embarrassed about, but he is scripted to hug Chewbacca's family at the end. Carrie Fisher can't sing and looks out of it during the finale. Mark Hamill looks like a girl thanks to his make-up. Luckily for all of them, they get small amounts of screen time. Unluckily for us, that leaves us with the rest of the cast. We're left with Art Carney, Bea Arthur, and Harvey Korman. Carney and Korman are lucky that I've seen the Honeymooners and Blazing Saddles, respectively, or I'd rant about what a bunch of unfunny hacks they are. (It pains me that Art Carney did his "stalling that causes the 'Ralph' character increasing frustrating" bit because he's usually hilarious doing so.)
Some of the scenes that doesn't involve bear-apes growling for minutes include a holograph circus act that fails to be entertaining and only fills the audience with dread since it happens so early. Soon after that we watch some big helmet bad guy harass Art Carney at a store. This place also serves as a contact to the rebels, which would mean something if I wanted to think of the Empire as so incompetant that Ed Norton could assist in taking it down.
Art Carney's character is a friend of the Chewies, so he delivers them presents. One present is a recliner that is also a virual reality machine. Faster than you can say, "masturbatory fantasy!" we see Chewbacca's dad, Itchy, dreaming of Diahann Carroll saying suggestive stuff before singing a song about whatever. I'm not familiar with her work, but the guys quickly list all the awards she's gotten, so this is clearly a skeleton in her closet. Just look at this!
Harvey Korman gets three "funny" bits, and they all suck. His first skit has him in black face as a cook on some show that Chewbacca's wife is watching. It's suppose to be funny because he has four arms. Actually, I'm just guessing that. It's not like I could tell by watching it. His third appearance is at some bar where he flirts with Bea Arthur. He has, as the guys put it, a "skull anus" which he drinks with. No really, they milk a bit where Bea pretends to pour a drink into the volcano that is his head. It'll make Star Wars fans want to scream because this features that famous bar from the first film. Still, that isn't Harvey Korman's worst role. Nope, there's a scene where Chewbacca's son Lumpy is putting together a communicator. Lumpbacca watches a video that explain what wire goes where, and Korman stutters like a robot or whatever all through the skit. I would say that it was a bad parody of Max Headroom, but I thought that was an eighties character.
You know what? Heddey Heddey Heddey! I don't even care if I'm mixing up an actor with one of his characters!
Some band shows up for a neon musical number. This might wake someone up except music skits only work when they're a break from something happening. The wobbly animated cartoon finally appears at one poin, and we learn that Luke and Han are losers who need the droids, Chewbacca, and Boba Fett's help to save them. Also, Boba is an evil bounty hunter. That would mean something if A) He had a plan, which he doesn't. He just sorta flies away after R2 and C3PO reveal they overheard a conversation between him and Vader. And B) He's an unimportant character who got defeated by a blind guy. Accept it Star Wars fans.
Let's ignore Bea Arthur's song, shall we? Although I think I've seen that giant rat thing on the Super Mario Bros. Super Show.
We finally get to the end. You see, some imperial soldiers have been mildly harassing the Chewies because they're looking for a rebel Wookie. Instead of checking the other furballs on the planet, they stay around and cut up one of Lumpy's dolls. Eventually they leave one Storm Trooper. Chewbacca and Han show up and defeat him by...actually, the Storm Trooper just trips and falls to his death. It's not really a heroic moment as much as a victim of unsafe wooden hand rails on top of a ridiculously high tree house.
The family rejoices, the human hugs everybody, and the Chewies all fly into a star where a tree is. I wish I made up that last sentence. The real stars of the first Star Trek appear just to cringe at Carrie's song. Roll credits.
Why would I write about a rifftrax but focus on the movie? I think it's because I want to show how bad the movie is so I don't have to spend several paragraphs gushing about why the riffs are so great. There's only so many ways you can say that Mike, Kevin, and Bill are hilarious, so other than list my favorite riffs (which I usually have a hard time recalling after the first viewing) there isn't much to say. This rifftrax is great, and I love the fact that they did a version of SWHS that included some commercials. The commercials are a treat and I wouldn't mind them riffing more vintage commercials. I'm tempted to do a whole post just on the commercials in the special. I can sum up the commercials with this picture.
(By the way, this movie is available at google video. Ssssh! It's a bit "legally iffy.")
I'm actually kind of sad that I couldn't watch this rifftrax with friends the first time. I'm not sure if I'll ever see a movie so bad, and it would have been great to share with other people. Sure, other people crying out in pain, but also those other people making dumb grunts and laughing at the rifftrax with me.
The short is 99 cents and the movie rifftrax is 3.99. I've also seen X-Men and Attack of The Clones but I've been too lazy to give my jumbled thoughts on those movies and their respective rifftraxes.
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