Cinematic Titanic set to make more episodes.

Well it's about time.  I can't go to any of their live shows (although I might go to their upcoming D.C. show in October.)  So I've been waiting for them to release new shows since Tiki Island.  Live, not live, I'll buy either.

So today I wake up to find that they are going to film their next two episodes, "War of the Insects" and "Rattlers."  I don't know anything about these films, but knowing CT they were probably made in the seventies. 

As much as I miss the shadowrama, the live episodes have been higher quality, so I can't wait until November when they release the first of the two DVDs.

(Taking a quick look at their store, they have posters of their upcoming tours, and they offer cheaper copies of their earlier episodes, as long as you don't mind them a bit scratched up.)

Another Cinematic Titanic Episode

The next Cinematic Titanic DVD has been announced. It's another Live Show and its subject is named Alien Factor.

I hope it's as good as the last one. I'm going to order it right now. And by now, I mean as soon as it's available.

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.

Cinematic Titanic returns!

I just got an email saying that they're finally releasing new CT DVDs. In this case they're grabbing a recording of one of their live shows. The movie is a kung fu flick named East Meets Watts. I'm pretty sure that's not close to the original translation.


I'll be honest. I still haven't watched the last two episodes. The first few episodes were Ok but no single episode could really resonate with me. And they kept doing 70s horror which they may like but I tend to find that just too nihilistic to be enjoyable. So I was looking forward to them making fun of a kung fu movie. I'd prefer that they would do this as a regular episode but maybe the live show will be ok.

I recently watched the Rifftrax version of the first Matrix movie, and the best part was when they made fun of the fighting, so this should be a break out episode for the Titans. Let's hope I get off my lazy butt and review this when I get my hands on it.

Good Cheap Places to Eat in NYC, Part 2

Last night my teeny tiny Asian husband and I went to the Cosmic Diner on 8th Avenue and 52nd Street. I will admit that I like diner food a lot, so I'm probably biased, but there are a lot of diners around here -- so many, in fact, that I got overwhelmed and just have never bothered to actually pick one.

We chose to go to the Cosmic Diner last night because, according to Bill Corbett of Rifftrax, he and other Brains ate there at least once and their autographed picture was up on the wall. (Bill said this on the Rifftrax blog. I know he did, don't ask me to prove it.) We didn't see any autographed pictures of any Brains at all (just some dumb Broadway people), but the food there was great. We both ordered burgers -- Onil ordered the Texas burger, which came on a regular hamburger roll but topped with cheese and a fried egg, and I ordered the pizzy burger, which came on an English muffin and topped with mozzarella and marinara sauce. All in all pretty straight-forward burgers (mine especially), but they were really delicious. The meat was flavorful and the sauce on mine tasted great. We also ordered onion rings, fries and sodas, and the entire bill came to $27.25.

If you're in the culinary wasteland that is Times Square, walk a few blocks out of your way to the Cosmic Diner for an excellent burger. It's open 24 hours a day, which is great when you've been up carousing all night long and just need some fast and cheap food (it's happened to me before).

Cinematic Titanic: The Doomsday Machine

Ok, now let's do this for real. Hopefully this is worth the wait.

The Doomsday Machine (1972(?)) starts with a slow boring credit sequence before starting properly in China. We see a female spy sneak into a not-heavily guarded at all base. Seriously, there's only two guards and she gets by one by tossing a cat over a small brick wall. She steals a labcoat inside the base while killing a passing a scientist with the victim's own braids. Then, she meets up with another spy who somehow knew when to meet her and they take out the second and last guard. What I'm saying is that this is a low budget movie that couldn't remotely pull off spy stuff at the beginning. It's the least occupied place in China. They find a small item with a dome and sneak out after taking two pictures of it.

Cut to a place which is really a US defense place and not a classroom. The people watch the two slides over and over again. One of the slides shows a bunch of switches. Somehow, the officials figure out that it's a doomsday device.

Cut to a US base where a rocket is going to be sent to Venus soon. We get the obligatory press conference where some guy (who I think is one of our astronauts, but he's so forgettable) gives the obligatory SCIENCE! speech. It's so obvious that I wonder why it was used then instead of now when there's less interest in space, but it does eat up time. All the time we get an annoying announcer interrupting the actors with T-minus whatever crap. I remember being a kid when counting off to zero ALWAYS led to us yelling "BLASTOFF!" I guess that's why people lost interest in NASA. It's very boring and the counting is annoying.

Anyway, we meet our astronauts. We have a crazy pilot, and old man, and the comic relief. The comic relief is played by Bobby Van but I'm not sure who he is. He should be the annoying type, but if you watch this film you'll forget him. The crew is ready to go but are puzzled about the fact that they're being rushed. Even more puzzling is the fact that some of the crew is being dumped for three women. The new crew members are a boring forgettable leader woman, a slutty woman, and a Soviet stereotype. Along with the captain who gave the speech earlier we have a crew of seven who are forced into space a little early.

Now, we get to the rocket, which is where the budget reveals itself. If you've seen the movie 12 to the Moon, imagine that they dropped the international angle, but still had the same budget. I'm talking about a small rocket where the crew members use recliners. Seriously, look at this picture and try not to laugh.



Actually, I'm sure 12 to the Moon had a higher budget. At least they did stuff on a planet. Our crew in this movie never land anywhere. It's mostly just the misadventures of dysfunctional astronauts on their shape changing rocket. The old guy nearly dies on takeoff. The women disobey direct orders but are never punished. The pilot is a complete jerk who becomes a near rapist toward the end. The comic relief is so bad that we can't even bother to hate him.

And thanks to the doomsday device, these are the last seven people alive. The slutty woman completely freaks out when she finds out the news. Good thing they chose her to be one of three women left to (somehow) populate Venus.

Of course, she would have if it weren't for the sudden blast of radiation from what was the earth. Now we learn that the crew might go sterile, and their only hope to reach Venus is to lose four crew members. (What a dark film. And yet I still don't find it as nihilistic as The Oozing Skull. Go figure.) They actually ask their ship computer who will survive, even though it would obviously include two women and the best man of the four. Despite this, they somehow leave it up to the computer and question it when the results are back. Our captain shows initiative for the first time when he suddenly decides that no one will die, but it's too late. The crazy pilot and the slutty woman get jettisoned into space when he tries to rape her. We actually watch them as they get exposed to the vacuum and it's pretty gross. Even though it's not like Event Horizon, it's something the audience could have done without as we watch blood pour from their eyes. This scene is one of the big moments of the film and you can see a picture of it on the DVD.



Somehow our crew finds out about this despite the fact that they're in space and moving really fast. Then they try to get rid of some weight. While doing so, we find out about a small chest that contains food for Venus. It was introduced early in the movie but no one would remember it by the time that's revealed. Anyway, as the crew gets closer to Venus, the ship has problems that Bobby Van has to sacrifice himself to fix. Mostly he sort of climbs on the rocket, straddles it somehow (It's the tiniest rocket ever!) and does something with a crowbar. He has problems until the Soviet (who falls for him despite the fact that she's otherwise unemotional) helps. They get left behind as the Astra takes off. Good one, Russkie. Now the human race is down to one woman.

That is until Bobby and the Russian woman find a ghost ship. This is a Russian ship that was rumored to be lost. As they board the ship, the movie shifts a gear. Thanks to the low budget, from here on out this couple is replaced by stock footage of astronauts from another movie and voice acting by other actors. Not only that, but after it seems that these two are going to reunite with the Astra and a happy ending is to be achieved, the rug is pulled out from beneath them. Some voice (from space?) tells them that there was no Astra. I'm not kidding. They rip off the ending of Monster a-Go-Go.

If this movie doesn't sound terrible and boring, than I've done something wrong. The plot is terrible, the sets are ridiculously cheap, and the actors sleepwalk through their performances. The movie is depressing and hardly worth the trip.


Which means we have a good candidate for the CT Titans. I was really excited about this episode when I heard about it. Unfortunately, the episode wasn't quite what I was hoping for. That's not to say that I don't recommend it, but I was hoping that this would be a big improvement over The Oozing Skull. It's a good episode, but if I gave it a grade it would still be in the C range. It compares more to a mid Joel MST3k episode. Maybe Joel fans would appreciate that but I'm more of a fan of the SciFi era.

I would say that this episode has a slow beginning, a slow end, and a good in between. It keeps a good pace, but it's not as fast as later MST3k episodes would be. I'm starting to wonder if they still haven't quite figured out how to distribute riffs among five people. With three people the riffs can come fairly rapidly. Maybe in a few episodes they'll figure it out. Or maybe CT has a slightly more laid back approach to riffing. It's not as laid back as the early Joel episodes, but it's still slower than what I'm used to.

Another thing that I have to poin out is that while I laughed at most of the riffs, I don't think there were many laugh out loud riffs. That's not necessarily a bad thing (at least I never groaned at anything), but it keeps me from giving it a B grade. My favorite episodes of MST3k had parts where I would lose it. While the riffs are good, the episode never quite reach the level where I'm gasping for air. (For example, there's a scene in Riding with Death where Casey is attacked and Buffalo rushes in to save him. There's three rapid fire riffs that make fun of Buffalo that still crack me up to this day. ("Super Cracker!" "And, he misses the fight completely.") This is why I raise the issue of the ok but not quite fast pace of the riffs, because usually the funniest MST3k moments are when riffs come so fast that you don't have the opportunity to recover.

Like I said before, the host segments aren't very good. The first movie break is so predictable that it should have been an MST3k cartoon. I can agree with the premise, but it goes nowhere and fails to get a laugh. The second one is a little better, in that I laughed when Frank told Mary Jo that she wasn't going to survive the apocalypse. It also features the episode's lone visual gag. (Besides a moment at the end, this episode lacks much on screen action. I rewatched The Oozing Skull and forgot about the Steven Hawking thing. It's weird that they can do anything on stage and decided to go conservative with this episode.) The best host segment is the intro, if only because I like the hallways and the picture intros for the Titans. I realize now that there isn't going to be a premise for this show but I hope they keep the intro for new episodes.





The opening credits are slow and the riffs are hit or miss at this poin, but it's not without a few zingers. I think the best was Trace's "Is this another original screen play by (some guy)?" in a accusatory tone. The movie riffs pick up when we reach the spy lady. Some good gags come at the expense of the poorly staffed base and the Chinese. When one guard is killed, Mary Jo remarks that "Ok, now his parents can have another child." (This joke is darker given the recent earthquake, but still funny.) I think it was Frank that poined out that "Just because you bend over like that doesn't mean you're sneaking around." or something to that effect. Josh gets a good MST3k reference when they seem the bubble dome doomsday device.

Later on we move to the base where we get the annoying announcer. Trace gets the best line when he tells the movie to "T-minus SHUT UP!"

It was odd that they waited so long to comment on the changing Astra. That doesn't mean I didn't laugh when they mocked how quickly the rocket (and space station, and whatever) turned in space, but it was toward the end of the movie where they finally mentioned it. "Just pick a plastic spaceship and go with it, ok?" Inside the rocket, the best riffs came from Mary Jo as she laughed at how small the sets were.

Joel's best riff came when Bobby Van was straddling the rocket and he poined out how gravity didn't work until he sat on the one side. And I liked the I Love Lucy riff if only because it gave Trace a chance to do his "Crow doing Lucy Ricardo" impression.

The last part of the movie is really slow, the final thing holding it back from a higher grade. It also features the second on screen gag as Josh leaves and is replaced by a guy with a bigger head. It was an ok gag. I guess this part of the movie was too much for the Titans to salvage.





That's it for my review. I can't wait for the third episode, and hope that it's the home run that I was hoping this episode would be. We'll see in about a month.

Grade: C+

Cinematic Titanic: Doomsday Machine

I got my copy of Doomsday Machine and a CT tshirt yesterday. If it wasn't summer I'd be wearing the black shirt right now. My preliminary take on the episode is that it was better than The Oozing Skull, but not quite the breakthrough episode I was hoping for. If I graded them, I'd probably both give them Cs but give Doomsday Machine a C+.

This DVD offered one thing that I asked for since the last episode, which was a premise of sorts. Here it is: The Titans (I've seen that name somewhere so I'll use it) are movie riffing guys. Some nerds are big fans so they eagerly await their efforts. As Trace poins out, they don't use robots anymore. That's about it. It's somewhat vague but I think that the poin is that there really is no premise, unless they eventually discuss how and why the theater was built. Maybe some MSTies built it for new riffing and the Titans obliged. Anyway, this intro didn't explain much but it was neat, and I hope they keep it as a part of the show.

Unfortunately, it was the only segment that worked. They had two host segments during the movie and neither of them were good. The first one was very predictable. The second one was better, but I can't recall it now. I like host segments because they provide a break (it's something I miss while listening to Rifftraxes) but these needed work.

I'm going to add more stuff later to day. Keep checking back...

We're DOOMED!

Just a reminder to MST3k fans: Cinematic Titanic's second episode is avaiable for purchase today. It's The Doomsday Machine, and it should be good. CT also has a new store option on it's front page that leads to their first two episodes which now come in dvd cases. You can purchase each episode through paypal for 14.99 each. They also have a tshirt and a cast photo. (The photo has already sold out.)

I hope to do my review of this film and episode as soon as I can, but you can read a GOOD review here.

The Time Tube

So now we know the answer to a question I raised in my The Oozing Skull review. It's not really a feature of Cinematic Titanic, which I assume won't have a backstory. It's just a container that will contain all the movies that CT will riff. It's called the 500 Film Movie Riff Project, and after it's full the CT team will bury it for future people to dig up.

My first thought while I was reading this post was 500?! Seriously? I would be happy if there were 100 episodes of CT. That would mean that the project was a success and there were plenty of films for them to license. But 500? They'll have a maximum of 12 before this year is over. I can only assume that 500 was just a number they picked. I'm glad that they're this enthusiastic, but it's not the least bit realistic. (And do DVDs really last that long? They're better than tape, but I've read about DVDs not working after a while.)

Wait, it's made of styrofoam and they're going to bury it? Heh, that ought to piss off the right people. I fully approve of that. Still, it's too bad it's not an evil butterfly that will burst out of its cocoon and eat Joel once the project is canceled. That would have made a great ending, and something Rifftrax could never do!

Cinematic Titanic: The Oozing Skull

I got my copy of the first episode of The Oozing Skull on Tuesday, and I finally watched it yesterday. Let me share my jumbled thoughts.

In case we have to recap: Cinematic Titanic is like MST3k but instead of three guys on the bottom, we have four guys and a gal on either side of the screen. All are former MST3k writers. There are skits, but we never leave the movie. Instead the movie is paused and we watch one of the performers do something.



From top left to top right we have J. Elvis Weinstein, Joel Hodgson, Mary Jo Pehl, Frank Conniff, and Trace Beaulieu. They're all in silhouette like the good old days. From time to time we see special guests appear and there are a couple of lifts so Trace or Josh can interact with the movie a little. There are no special features on the DVD.

Got that? Probably not because I rushed the explanation, but if you're here you most likely already know what CT is. Now onto our feature presentation.


Cinematic Titanic's first outing is about a 1972 film called Brain of Blood. It was directed by Al Adamson who somehow escaped the MST3k treatment. Al is responisible for other fine movies like Frankenstein vs Dracula. Many of his movies involved the word blood. However, when it came time for the CT folks to license this movie, the name was changed to The Oozing Brain so people won't confuse the uncut DVD with this one. Not that CT is sold in stores.

The movie is about some weirdos who want to transpant the brain of the dictator of some Middle Eastern country into a new body. The inject a serum into his dying body and wrap him up in tin foil before shipping him to America. Just watching the actors move the dictator's body around is enough to tell you why this movie was chosen as an experiment...I mean, subject. Sorry, gotta watch that.

The cast of characters include a mad scientist, a midget, a blonde who is apparently an Al Adamson bit character (and how sad is that?) and what appears to be the cousin of that monster from The Brain That Wouldn't Die. The latter character, Gor, is given a poinless backstory during a scene that I might suggest was only cooked up to pad time. Just saying. In case you're interested, some hillbilly was playing with a lame looking toy. After getting violent during a game of keep-away, two other hillbillies pour car battery acid on him. Yuck. Definitely an unpleasant scene.

So these people sit around in a lab keeping the dictator alive. Of course, the lab has a dungeon for a basement. Naturally, Gor is sent to kidnap bodies for a replacement. For some reason he kidnaps a brunette for no reason I can remember other than they needed a love scene later in the movie. Said brunette has the slowest reactions in the world, because she gets bitten by a big spider on her arm long before she does anything. Even if this spider lowered itself from somewhere she couldn't see, would spiders really be so daring? I'm arachnophobic as you can get, but I don't buy that.

There's some hero in this movie, but maybe not. I didn't quite catch if he was originally a part of the goons or was some guy who somehow knew about the whole oooooozing skull thing. His job is to get into boring chases (by foot or by car) and to start an unnecessary love scene with the brunette. If you watched the post-Night of the Living Dead movies of the seventies, you already know their fate.

There's a twenty minute scene where Gor, our sorta heroes, the mad scientist, the blonde, and some kid all run around in a giant field. At least it felt like twenty minutes. The blonde gets so bored that she tosses a blonde manikin off a cliff while she plays tag with Gor. Oh, and the dictator is inside Gor, I think. I didn't quite catch who was in Gor but I'm sure it was the dictator, even if he couldn't control himself.

What else I could tell you about the plot wouldn't be worth it. Seriously, not much happens in the movie. (I wonder if CT was unkind to it by editing out key scenes, but from what I read about Dracula vs Frankenstein, maybe not. And Imdb does say that it was only 87 minutes long, so maybe we got the movie uncut. EDIT: Except The OOOOOOOOzing Skull is 80 minutes, so never mind that.)


The movie was made when movies were starting to get more bloody and gory, and it does provide us a bloody operation scene. Luckily for me, it's more goofy than gross. The blood doesn't look like blood at all, and the brain can't be taken seriously after it's plopped into a bowl and connected to electrodes. (How many times have they done that in movies?) I was worried there would be a lot more gore after watching the CT trailor, but I was more icked out by the midget than the operation.

So The Oozing Skull is a passably bad movie, even though it's not my preferred brand of cheese.


Now, how about our second direct "spin off" of MST3k?

It was good. Real good. I would give it a C+, I think. That may not sound like much, but I would take a C MST3k project over most things. I think if they hammer out a few things the grade would easily be in the B range. I liked this effort, but I expect them to improve future CTs.

When you start the dvd, we get the theme song playing with various scenes of the film shown. We get a quick countdown before our performers enter and take their places. This is a bit jarring because I was waiting for a brief back story before the exper...movie started. Instead we jump right into the riffs. I know, it's just a direct-to-dvd show, I should just relax, but I think it would help if they made up some reason why these five come together. Even rifftrax has an intro where Mike and all talk to Disembaudio. The original CT website led me to believe that this was going to have a scifi feel to it, given the time tube or whatever it is. Heck, look at the home page and tell me that this effort isn't begging for a poinless back story for nerds to debate. I'm crossing my fingers that a future episode or a post by one of the cast members will enlighten us.

While the big attraction of this effort is that it has silhouettes (and rifftrax doesn't! nyeh nyeh), it doesn't just end with five people at the sides. I mentioned the lifts from earlier, but we also see a couple people popping up to add to the jokes. This idea wasn't ignored by MST3k but it may give the writers a chance to play with the fans expectations of what may pop up next. We'll see how that goes.

Our five performers are all veterans, even if Frank and Mary Jo only riffed during a fifth of an MST3k episode. The big worry here, I think, is about chemistry. With three people, it's much easier for jokes to bounce off each other. Unfortunately I can't say much about this because I was just listening to the jokes individually. Still, I don't think this will be too much of a problem. Mike, Kevin, and Bill are superior, but I never felt that there were too many people in the theater and they seemed ok with each other. There weren't any laugh out loud moments, but there were plenty of good riffs and I never felt like there were any dead spots. My only problem is that Trace doesn't stand out. I'm so use to his several versions of Crow that his normal voice either blends in with Joel or Josh. I might end up staring at his side of the screen to see if he's moving.



Here's some of my favorite moments:

Joel: The Mod Squad IN COLOR! (standard MST3k joke, but) Oh, I'm old. (puts his head on his shoulders)

????: Is that a really small desk, or is he wearing wooden pants?

Josh??: Hemisphere Pictures! We’ve got half a mind to make a movie!

The part where the heroine tries to escape and they sing These Boots are Made for Walkin'. I couldn't do that justice by describing it. It just worked.

The end where they make fun of the flashback by redoing the earlier skits.

("Nothing but ashes.") Frank: Nothing But Asses? That was on Cinemax last night.




This was a good first effort and I hope that the next eleven (they licensed 12 films) are even better. Unlike a certain cartoon, Rifftrax and CT are great for MST3k fans.

Take that, Rifftrax!

Rifftrax may have a head start, Mike, Kevin, and Bill, and it may riff more recent mainstream movies, but Cinematic Titanic has one thing that Rifftrax doesn't have, (besides help from ILM*): silhouettes! Take that, Disembaudio!



Actually, I just realized that the CT website already posted a teaser picture showing this, but I never realized it was a part of the episode. Apparently since they can't just directly copy from MST3k, our five performers are going to riff from balconies from each side. Some of our performers can just sit but anybody can become really animated now.



In other MST3k news, the mst3k website hasn't posted any new things in a while. Hopefully they're taking time to make the cartoon better. Or whatever. At least come up with some cool new merchandise.


* This is why it was so interesting why Rifftrax did the Star Wars Holiday Special. It was almost like a swipe at CT.