East Meets Watts quickie Review

This review probably sums up my take on Cinematic Titanic. Even though I was giving generally positive reviews for the first three episodes, by the fourth one I was starting to dread watching them. Not because they were bad, but because I felt that the show just wasn't clicking. So while I watched Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, I put off watching episodes 4, 6, and 7 for a long time. I still haven't seen the seventh episode yet.

When I heard they were finally releasing episode 8, I was glad because I was worried they were dropping the DVDs for live shows. I understand that they have to make money any way they can, but it's very unlikely that I'll ever get to go to any of these shows. Still, I was a little skeptical when it was announced that East Meets Watts would be from a live show. Even though the host segments from previous CT episodes have rarely been good, I still want them. Also, I'm the kind of person who gets annoyed at people talking or laughing in the theater, which I know is ironic.

However, this DVD is easily the break out CT episode. I knew I was going to enjoy it when Frank accidently riffed on the numbers leading up to the movie. It was a much needed ice breaker. Unlike previous episodes like Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks, East Meets Watts took a great opening gag and built momentum instead of slowing down too early. It helps that East Meets Watts is NOT a 70s horror movie. Instead its a 70s hybrid of kung fu and blaxploitation. I never cared for all the 70s horror movies. They're just too depressing and ugly for me to enjoy even someone making fun of them. That's why I've preferred The Wasp Woman and sat on so many episodes. I was hoping they would release this episode after I heard it was in their live show rotation.

I've only seen this episode once so I didn't catch too much about the plot. I think the chinese guy, Larry Chin, is out for revenge and he's following his brother or something to America. There, he teams up with Stud Brown, a guy who is black, you see. Since this is a blaxploitation movie, the blacks are basically noble gangsters who have to put up with racist cops. Larry and Stud are handcuffed together and that's how we get a long bit with them running away, getting on trucks, and learning tolerance. Oh wait, I made that last bit up. They just beat up hicks and looks stylish doing so. At least, that's what the movie intended. Let's just say that the fights aren't that great and the editor isn't helping them. Eventually there's a big black vs chinese fight towards the end and Larry wins, and they all probably had a Coke afterwards.

Bad scifi and horror have always been riffing staples, but this movie shows that bad fighting movies are still an untapped genre. MST3k did Future War, but that was a more recent hybrid of Jurassic Park and the Terminator. Still, I hope we see more movies like this riffed. My favorite part of the first Matrix rifftrax was when they mocked the fight scenes, and those were good fights, as silly as they were. Watching people pretend to beat each other up and not doing a convincing job at it is something I would like to see more of, and the seventies probably had tons of these cheap movies in drive-throughs.

The Titans are seated on the left and right of the movie as usual (Trace and Josh are swapped in case you run into that trivia question) and we can see them this time. It's much like the times during the live Rifftrax shows where we could briefly see Mike, Kevin, and Bill, but we see them all through the DVD. This gives them a couple opportunities for sight gags, including the best one where two of them do spit takes to the racist sheriff's obligatory slurs. (Even funnier than that was when Mary Jo blurted out, "I missed the word honky!") As much as I hope they go back to the studio format, CT might be something that just works better as a live show. I enjoyed seeing their gaffes and their improvised quips. At one poin Joel repeats a line and confesses that he messed up the timing. Frank strikes back at the audience for one of his gags. Trace tries to disappear when they briefly turn off their lamps to mock the film's darkness.

This episode gets an A from me and blows away the rest of the series. I hope the next few episodes are as good as this one.