19 June 2006

MST3K (K20)

K20 - The Last Chase - Wait a minute. I like road trip movies. I like post-apocalyptic movies. Together, they've got to be two great tastes that taste great together, right? Even with a jet and a racecar playing chicken (!), the movie wasn't as tasty as it should've been.

I think this is mostly due to the utter lack of danger in the American wasteland Lee Majors drives across. Sure, there's a fighter jet following him, but we all know -- and JatB even comment on it -- that the Penguin's not going to do anything Lee. Early in Lee's trip, a group of armed hunters block the road. They look like the type of dangerous hombres you might find on a post-civilization highway. He just drives around them. Later on, soldiers set up a roadblock. The kid makes some pop cans explode and Lee just drives around them. The best the movie has to offer is a whole bunch of scenes of bureaucrats pushing buttons in a dour command center, apparently in control of millions of remote cameras and one cactus-hating laser.

Still, I like road trips through post-apocalypses and I liked this movie. This, even despite the Battlefield Earth flashback when Lee siphons 25-year-old regular gasoline into his racecar and expects it to run. What else are you gonna do? You've gotta have a jet and racecar playing chicken later on.

The riffing for this episode was KTMA-standard. A couple times, JatB get caught in loops commenting on each other's comments. Joel even has to shush everyone a few times so that we have a chance to hear some movie dialogue. It was also a good way to stop increasingly unfunny trains of improv.

Hey, a new "set" for the Mads! It looks like the TV station's storage cages in the basement (Deep 1?). They seem more playful in their new digs. Dr. F performs his first torturous experiment on a co-worker by trying to create cold fusion / Bromo Seltzer bubbles in Dr. E's mouth. Trace has a ball with it and fully lets his inner mad scientist out. I think he's ready for cable. (6/10)

film d. Martyn Burke (1980)
mst d. Vince Rodriguez (21 May 1989)

[Rhino's Vol. 10 on August 8th. Man, that's speedy. Hopefully, it'll be episodes > 302 so all 4 discs'll get a spin in this here marathon.]