We've got Movie Siiiiiiiiign!

Unless you were sitting under a rock last November, you may have heard that Joel Hodgson ran a wildly successful Kickstarter to revive MSt3K with 14 new episodes. Though the cast has been announced, what movies the new crew of the Satellite of Love will be watching is still under wraps. It's a hard choice, given the wealth of crappy movies out, but I've got some ideas.


1. Destination Moon: Rarely seen these days, like This Island Earth it's almost too good to mock, being a high budget Hollywood A-movie with a lack of silly monsters. On the other it's definitely mired in a certain 50's combination of earnestness, Commie paranoia, and lack of female roles (aside from the one love interest apparently inserted to show the female half of the human race existed).

2. Earth vs. the Flying Saucers: Flying Saucers, deadpan serious scientists in ties and smoking pipes, tons of stock footage and Ray Harryhausen special effects, casual sexism, rubber science galore. The only real question is why MST3K never riffed it before.

3. Kronos: More obscure than the above two films, it's got a weird 'monster' that's a hundred foot tall walking building with a habit of mind controlling people to cement it's takeover of the earth. A decent script, but with plenty of pacing issues and silly effects to give the SoL crew room to riff.

4. Trancers: A cop from a very Noirish future totally not ripped off from Bladerunner time travels into the body of his identical grandfather to hunt a body swapping criminal. One of the many, many films from B-movie director Charles Band, and in that sweet spot between Very Weird, Decent Action and Limited Budget to make it riffable.


What do think, sirs?

RVA: Shadow of Doubt, Breakup

Ali leaned against the wall in the hallway, watching as Lt. Lightfoot and his forensics team marched in and out of Salli’s suite, carrying the paint stained sheets out in a plastic bag, and returning with more sterile baggies to take fur samples from everywhere nearby, and also finger and paw prints whatever flat surfaces they could dust. Meanwhile down the hall she could hear the serving girl, Nari, sniffling her way through an interrogation about what she’d seen or not seen when she’d entered the bedroom. The fact that Ali had just undergone a similar grilling about what she’d seen didn’t improve her mood.

Salli emerged from a side door, completing her own questioning from the annoyed look on her face, a CP officer exiting behind her. She approached Ali, eyebrow raised in an ironic tilt.

“I think there are plenty of civil protection officers keeping watch, Ali,” she noted.

“My job,” Ali replied. “Anyway, no point in me wandering off. They’ll probably want to ask me more questions in a bit.”

“Probably,” Salli agreed. She glanced in the direction of her suite’s open door. “So what’s your opinion on this?”

“We’re either short on suspects or have too many,” Ali said. “Too many servants have access to secure areas. Unless it’s an outsider sneaking in, possible but not as likely, it had to be one of them. Though I doubt it’s that drip of a bodyservant, whatshername, that found the paint on your bed.”

“Nari,” Salli replied. “No, not her. She has her faults, but disloyalty isn’t one of them.”

Ali snorted. “She always cry that much when there’s a scene?”

“I wouldn’t know.” After a moment she sheepishly added. “Honestly, I have no idea how she reacts to stress. Nari had always been part of background when I was lost in my  misery after escaping Kev. There, in my line of vision, but not, er, important.”

Salli’s musings were interrupted by her parents arriving on the scene, having returned from a meeting with Lady Aganatha after the ceremony. They both looked on with dismay at the invasion of CP’s on the residence floor. Ali pushed off the wall and mentally braced herself as Salli’s mother approached.

( Breakup )