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Rifftrax Live: The Room
Fathom Events // Unrated // May 6, 2015
List Price: Unknown [Buy now and save at Fathomevents]
For those who aren't familiar with Rifftrax, the group consists of a trip of Mystery Science Theater 3000 alumni: Mike Nelson, Tom Corbett, and Kevin Murphy. Like MST, they provide hilarious commentary tracks to movies that can be purchased from their web site, Rifftrax.com. (I own several and I haven't regretted a purchase yet. Check 'em out.) Several times a year they skewer a movie in front of an audience and present the show, live, in theaters across the country. This is the best way to enjoy a Rifftrax movie... with a large number of appreciative fans.
For their first 2015 event they selected the cult classic from 2003, The Room. For those of you have may not have heard of this piece of cinematic history, a little background is in order. In 2003 Tommy Wiseau, released this film that he wrote, produced, directed and stared in. It was his first foray into filmmaking, and the project took six months to film. It took so long that three actors quit during the shooting and two cinematographers and their crews also left. Tommy had trouble remembering his lines too, so afterwards a lot of the dialog was dubbed in, and dubbed rather badly too. Add in some amazingly odd dialog ("Leave your stupid comments in your pocket!" and "As far as I'm concerned, you can drop off the earth. That's a promise.") and the result is an astonishingly bad film.
Like Manos, The Hands of Fate, this film feels like it was created to be riffed. Mike, Tom, and Kevin really stepped up to the plate and hit one over the fence with this one. After the usual preshow slides (which weren't the funny this time around... an oddity as they are often very entertaining) the event started with the stars of Rifftrax bounding on stage and some good natured joking around. They opened the show with the last (alas) short from the At Your Fingertips series. This one, Floats, shows young children how to make really lame boats out of common objects. I really enjoyed all of the previous entries in this series, and this one was fun too. The riffs were funny and well placed. When one kid takes his time getting a paper sail right, one of the riffers comments "Like it matters kid. You're playing with garbage." And when they sail their creations in a backyard: "Above ground pools... 'cause possums gotta drown somewhere."
After that they launched into The Room, and gave it no mercy. The way too long sex scenes (including one that takes place on a spiral staircase, of all places) were wonderfully skewered and that made those hard to watch parts a lot of fun. "Besides being repulsive, it's kinda technically wrong." Another great, and all too accurate comment: "The wormy thrusting, that's what really dares you not to run screaming into the night."
The best parts are reserved for pointing out the many, many, plot oddities. Characters walk into the film without ever being introduced, weird things happen for no reason (like two of Lisa's friends walking into her empty apartment in the middle of the day and having sex), and seemingly important plot lines are dropped. Lisa's mother's announces that she has breast cancer, but Lisa doesn't react at all and it's never mentioned again. Later in the movie Lisa asks her mom "are you feeling okay?" which causes Bill to scream "I - HAVE - CANCER!" Another great moment comes when a character gets an extended close-up after an awkward and pointless scene in a coffee shop. "What the hell was that? Ah well, no chance this scene makes it into the movie."
This film had some really strong riffing, and was even better than the last couple of shows had been (and I enjoyed those). The movie suited the Rifftrax crew's style perfectly and everything fell into place to make a really fun evening. Highly Recommended.
Be sure to mark your calendar for other upcoming Rifftrax Live 2015 events:
SHARKNADO 2 - July 9, 16
MIAMI CONNECTION - October 1, 6
SANTA and The ICE CREAM BUNNY - December 3, 15
Tickets can be purchased at Fathom Events.
It looks like fans of bad movies and the guys who make them funny are in for a great year.
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