Matthew Sardo of Monkeys Fighting Robots chats with Mystery Science Theater 3000 Alumni; Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett about their upcoming Rifftrax Live session on the worst movie ever The Room.
Bonus: A review of Chuck Palahniuk’s ‘Fight Club 2’ from Dark Horse Comics.
It’s true—it is possible to love bad movies, thanks to our friends at RiffTrax. After the cult series Mystery Science Theater 3000 was prematurely (and unjustly) canceled, comedians Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett started RiffTrax to continue to share hilarious quips and observations about bad cinema with comedy lovers and movie fans everywhere.
On MST3K, the trio was restricted to low-budget B-movies due to budgetary constraints. As RiffTrax, the group is able to comment on any film they want—beloved franchises, supposed classics, summer blockbusters, science fiction favorites, and of course, many very, very bad movies. Because of copyright issues, viewers must use their own methods to obtain the films, but they are able to download commentary tracks right off the RiffTrax website.
The hysterical team tours the country performing RiffTrax Live in accompaniment to films like Sharknado and Birdemic. May 6th, RiffTrax will present The Room live from Nashville and beamed to hundreds of movie theaters coast to coast (with an encore on May 12th)! For tickets and locations: fathomevents.com
Other live RiffTrax events coming this year include: SHARKNADO 2 – July 9th
MIAMI CONNECTION – October 1st
SANTA AND THE ICE CREAM BUNNY – December 3rd
Monkeys Fighting Robots holds two weekly podcasts, the Movie Show and the Comics Show. The Comic Show goes live Wednesday with the Movie Show going live on Friday (holidays could change scheduling).
If you are looking to sponsor either podcasts email matt@popaxiom.com as well.
Thank you for listening!
About the Movie Show:
A Gen Xer and a Millennial debate the latest topics in pop culture. One guy is a filmmaker and the other is a journalist, but both are nerds. We make your slowest days at work better. Hosts, Matthew Sardo and EJ Moreno.
Never heard of Matt Sardo? For starters, he made the Kessel Run in less than 11 parsecs. Prior to that, he gave Doc Brown the idea for the flux capacitor and led the Resistance to victory over SkyNet – all while sipping a finely crafted IPA. As a radio host, he’s interviewed celebrities, athletes and everyone in between. He’s covered everything from the Super Bowl to Comic-Con.
Who’s EJ Moreno? Is he a trained physician? No. Is he a former Miss Universe contestant? Possibly. But what we know for sure is he’s a writer, filmmaker, and pop culture enthusiast. Since film school, EJ has written & directed several short films. He’s used his passion of filmmaking to become a movie critic for MonkeysFightingRobots.com.
In ramping up to the release of the hotly anticipated Mad Max: Fury Road, we continue our journey through George Miller’s original trilogy. Where Mad Max felt like a test run, the superior 1981 sequel The Road Warrior was Miller and his producer, Byron Kennedy, firing on all cylinders, creating not only the best Mad Max film, but one of the finest action films ever made.
The name was changed from Mad Max 2 to The Road Warrior for American audiences, as the original was never given wide distribution stateside. Mad Max 2 is still the title card for this 1981 film, but enough about that. The Road Warrior opens the floodgates of madness in this universe, as the world that was holding on by the thinnest of threads in the original picture has entirely disintegrated into tribes of maniacs and desperate societies always fighting for oil. It opens as if shot out of a cannon, with a visceral car chase sequence that sets the stage for the entire film.
Miller has fully realized Max here, tapping into the common mythology of a renegade hero, a loner and vigilante familiar to Westerns and Samurai pictures. Max is reluctant to help anyone but himself and his dog, but when a thief with a gyrocopter tells him about a small society rich in oil and a tanker full of gasoline, he suddenly becomes interested. Because oil supersedes all. Max and The Gyro Captain (Bruce Spence) travel to this small colony in the middle of the desert, only to discover that a gang of insane and eccentric bandits is trying to get the oil themselves.
This renegade band is one of the best creations in Miller’s universe. Led by The Humungus – also given the wonderful nickname the Ayatollah of Rock and Rollah – a hulking figure in a hockey mask, and the psychotic Wez (Vernon Wells, also the villain Bennet in Commando), the band of miscreants tell the defensive society, “walk away, and we will spare your lives.” They know better, and vow to defend their spot on the earth despite being outmanned and, clearly, not insane enough to battle this band of renegade nihilists.
Max has a plan to get the society and their fuel out of this dangerous setting, and this leads to a thrilling thirteen minute chase sequence across the Outback. The Road Warrior holds on to its charm as a true action film, one of the truest, and maybe is more potent today because everything we see is real. Cars barrel into one another full speed, tanker trucks roll across the desert at 60 miles per hour, and the intensity of the kinetic action sequences create a stunning visual experience. And how about those cars, chaotic creations of what has been left behind in this wasteland of twisted metal and madness. An entire world has been created within these frames.
I suspect The Road Warrior was the film George Miller always wanted to make with these wonderfully vibrant characters, but he needed Mad Max to exist in order to set up his hero’s loss of humanity, his wife and son run down in the street. This was the film that opened the doors for Mel Gibson, who plays Max with an appropriate coldness and steely determination, his dialogue only filling about fifteen minutes of screen time.
The disenchanted singularity of Max would not be anything had it not been for the story which unfolded in the 1979 film. Here, however, Max becomes an iconic cinematic creation, and The Road Warrior will forever remain a template for how to effectively shoot an action film.
This May, the world of Secret Wars takes you back to the fiery wastes of Manhattan as the X-Men delve back into…INFERNO! Today, Marvel is pleased to present your new look at INFERNO #1 – from writer Dennis Hopeless (Spider-Woman, Avengers Arena) and artist Javier Garron (Cyclops)! Welcome to the ruins of Manhattan, now ablaze with fire and brimstone. Five years ago, a band of demons rose up out of those fiery depths and turned the world to Hell on Earth. The X-Men were all that stood in the way of complete obliteration. The X-Men fought for survival. The X-Men failed…
Now, on this the fifth anniversary of the fall of the world, Colossus is leading a surviving team of X-Men back into the Inferno. None of them know what lies on the other side, but one thing is certain, they’re not coming back without his sister! Now, amidst the fire and the fury lies demons, ghouls, and the Goblin Queen herself. Colossus and his team of Nightcrawler, Boom Boom and Domino will face them all in an effort to save Illyana. But can she be saved? Or has she already been lost? The answer lies beyond the fires True Believer as INFERNO #1 is set to burn up the comic stands this May!
INFERNO #1
Written by DENNIS HOPELESS
Art & Cover by JAVIER GARRON
Variant Cover by ADI GRANOV
On-Sale 05/27/15
If you were living under a rock for the past 20 years and picked up issue one of Fight Club 2 you would go, “Holy shit! When does issue two come out.”
Some imaginary friends never go away – Fight Club 2
Chuck Palahniuk’s book Fight Club published in 1996 became the most controversial film of 1999. It made nerds want to fight each other and made bros even bigger douchebags. Fast forward 16-years and Generation X is all grown up and every other generation hates on the Millennials. Sounds like a perfect time for a sequel to a book/film that didn’t need one, exactly!
In 25-pages, Palahniuk gets you off your couch and back in the Fight Club game. No one knows where they’re going but they sure enjoy the ride. That is what made the first story so great and the reader gets this feeling right from the start in issue one.
What really is amazing about this first issue, is Palahniuk’s understanding of storytelling through the comic book medium. The reader gets a solid plot and a last page cliffhanger. He establishes the ground rules of the story, gives an understand of all the characters involved and gets the reader emotionally invested. The biggest compliment for this book, is that I want to read issue two now. You can’t ask for much more from a first issue.
Marla Singer, the face that launched a thousand trips to the E.R. – Fight Club 2 #1
Cameron Stewart and Dave Stewart are on the same brain pattern when comes to art and color in the first issue. Cameron’s cartoonish style lends to the over-the-top nature of the Fight Club universe. With knowledge of the previous book and film, I found myself analyzing every panel of the first issue to find hidden messages. This was also applied to Dave’s color patterns. The artistic team works really well with Palahniuk’s writing to suck you into to his world. After reading this issue you will go to bed and dream about train crashes, barking dogs, exploding heads, the Hindenburg, and of course Tyler Durden.
Fight Club 2 by Dark Horse Comics will have a prelude issue on Free Comic Book Day, and then issue one will be out May 27.
With filming for X-Men: Apocalypse underway, the Twitter-sphere will be posting photos. These two images of Jean Grey and Jubilee were posted yesterday. The 80s vibe that the film is set in could be awesome or look really bad. X-Men: First Class worked in the 60s and X-Men: Days Of Future Past worked on the 70s, it just makes sense to move into the 80s. Lana Condor as Jubilee
Directed by Bryan Singer, the film stars Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy and Nicholas Hoult, Oscar Isaac (Apocalypse), Sophie Turner (Jean Grey), Tye Sheridan (Cyclops), Alexandra Shipp (Storm) Lana Condor (Jubilee) and Kodi Smit-McPhee.
X-Men: Apocalypse opens in theaters on May 27, 2016.
Celebrate half a century of Marvel’s premier intelligence agency in 2015 as we proudly commemorate the S.H.I.E.L.D. 50th Anniversary! When Stan Lee and Jack Kirby first introduced S.H.I.E.L.D. in the pages of 1965’s Strange Tales #135, boldly proclaiming it “The Greatest Action-Thriller of All Time!” – the landscape of the Marvel Universe would be changed forever. Now, half a century later, S.H.I.E.L.D. has made the jump beyond the comic page – bringing us some of the most iconic stories and memorable characters in all of popular culture. Join us as we celebrate this monumental legacy with exciting new projects throughout 2015!
First, this August, S.H.I.E.L.D. #9 answers a question half a century in the making. A mystery that lies at the heart of the origins of S.H.I.E.L.D. – who is the “Man Called D.E.A.T.H.”?! Written by Mark Waid with art by Lee Ferguson – this special, oversized anniversary issue features a never before published S.H.I.E.L.D. sequence penciled by Jack Kirby and inked by Jim Steranko! Plus – Al Ewing brings you a second story featuring the return of Dum Dum Dugan and the birth of the new Howling Commandos! Along with the very first S.H.I.E.L.D. story from 1965 and the original sequence that inspired S.H.I.E.L.D.’s creation – this is not one to miss!
Then in September – find out what S.H.I.E.L.D. means to the Marvel Universe with the S.H.I.E.L.D. 50th Anniversary Specials. Five weekly one shots about the men and women who stand on the front lines, shoulder to shoulder, ready to take on Hydra, A.I.M. and the worst the Marvel Universe has to offer! From some of the best and brightest talent in the comic industry comes action packed new specials starring Nick Fury, Agent Melinda May, Mockingbird, Quake and Agent Peggy Carter! Featuring writers David Walker, Jody Houser, Chelsea Cain, Kathryn Immonen, Matt Rosenberg and Patrick Kindlon – prepare to see S.H.I.E.L.D. in a completely new way!
Plus don’t miss these other exciting projects later this year celebrating the legacy of S.H.I.E.L.D.! This June, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. comes to your favorite Marvel Comics for The Art of Evolution Variants. Featuring stunning artwork commemorating episodes from the show’s second season, these gorgeous pieces covers will be coming to these twelve titles:
· Age of Ultron vs. Marvel Zombies #1
· Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #1
· Armor Wars #1
· Captain Marvel and the Carol Corps #1
· Civil War #1
· Guardians of Knowhere #1
· Hail Hydra #1
· S.H.I.E.L.D. #7
· Siege #1
· Squadron Sinister #1
· Thors #1
· Weridworld #1
Stan Lee in his latest commercial appearance for Audi might have surpassed Mike Ditka and KISS with the smartest personal brand manager alive. This commercial even gets you hyped for Avengers: Age Of Ultron.
Discover the hidden talents of comic book legend Stan Lee as he teaches a very unique acting class. Directed by Kevin Smith and starring Tara Reid, Michael Rooker, Lou Ferrigno, Jason Mewes, and an Audi S8, it’s time for the world to appreciate the subtle art of cameo acting.
SKO Out of Nowhere
As with most RAWs after PPVs we start the show with the fallout from the previous night’s main event. After Seth Rollins’ win at Extreme Rules it was good to hear a quick explanation of why his use of the RKO was allowed or not even really acknowledged in Seth’s successful title defense by calling it the SKO. It all seemed pretty silly regardless; the title doesn’t change hands with a DQ anyways.
What’s been great to see over the past few weeks is the emergence of Kane as the fearsome force we all know him to be. I’m all good with the Corporate persona but up until know he’s been laughable at best, just some fodder to feed to guys getting pushed or the butt of a joke here and there. The internal rivalry within the Authority brings a great dynamic to the faction that even helped carry the thus far brief Orton/Rollins feud. Here’s to the hope of one last hurrah for the Big Red Machine.
After Randy Orton and Roman Reigns both made their case for why they should be next in line for the champ, Kane decided to be indecisive and let the WWE Universe vote on who should be Rollins’ opponent for Payback. It would have been fun to see a vote between Orton and Reigns but alas, we’re given a third choice of a triple threat match. I wonder what the Universe will choose…
It’s tournament time baby!
What a welcome time to bring back the King of the Ring. There’s really no compelling feuds going on right now so I’m hoping the tourney will bring some excitement to RAW over the next few weeks with an catalyst for some new rivalries. Add to the fact we’ve got some great talent and fun potential matchups to dream about.
Round 1 : Dolph Ziggler v. Bad News Barrett
Could Dolph bounce back from being embarrASSed by Sheamus at Extreme Rules? Well that wonderful thought was shot down right away when we heard Ziggler say the magic word of the next PPV, “Payback” in his promo on Sheamus. Like a groundhog seeing his shadow, we’re in for at least 4 more weeks of this feud. Oh boy…
On the bright side of things, Barrett it was good to see him get the win. He has the personality and great mic skills that would make him a great King of the Ring. Not only that but it’d be great to see him get a real push and fun gimmick to run with. So while I was sad Dolph’s stuck with Sheamus I’m glad to see Barrett get the win here, though I wish these talented guys had a little longer to work.
We interrupt your interesting tournament for some clapping.
By sheer luck these guys developed some heat reminiscent of Kurt Angle’s “You Suck” chants but they sure are taking their sweet time to turn it into something interesting. That said their tag match against Tyson Kidd and Cesaro was one of the highlights of Extreme Rules and I’ll be just fine if this develops into more encounters between the two teams. I just hope they get more than the 70 second match (yes I counted) we were given. Though short it did give us our quote of the night from JBL, “So you got the clap?”
It’s feeding time!
As in, now is usually a good time to grab a snack. I really want to like Ryback, I do, I promise, there’s just nothing all that entertaining about him. He’s jacked, but he hasn’t done anything that we haven’t seen a dozen other guys do lately. He’s got a good story, but he can’t tell it very well. The character is okay, but he doesn’t really do much with it. He’s just flat. I don’t know. If Paul Heyman can’t get you over, I’m not sure there’s much hope from you.
Then again, maybe all he has to do is just BO-LIEVE! Or maybe follow the buzzards? After a serviceable match it was a nice surprise to see Bray Wyatt finally make his next target known. I feel like Bray made the most of his Wrestlemania build up and match with the Undertaker and hope to see him continue to grow. His unique in-ring ability and charisma may just raise up the aforementioned flat Ryback. If nothing else, Wyatt’s experience building up a match without present opponent should serve him well over the next few weeks.
The U.S. Open
John Cena is still the champ and has decided to continue his open challenge, or at least that’s what we thought before Heath Slater got kicked off the stage. No really, Rusev came out and kicked Slater back to the oblivion where he belongs. I love the idea of the Open Challenge and it’s unpredictability but it’s hard to suspend my disbelief when we already know that it’s Cena vs. Rusev for the title again at Payback.
Oh yeah, the tournament…
After all the build-up it felt like the King of the Ring was a mere after thought. R-Truth wins in a lackluster match over Stardust. Dolph interrupts a fun match between Sheamus and Dean Ambrose leading to a DQ win for Sheamus.
Then just as I’m about to lose all hope in the KOR tournament, along comes the Man that Gravity Forgot. Neville is just downright special and I’m thrilled to see him start putting some wins together. I’d be thrilled if he can win the tourney and feel like it’d be a great gimmick for him as he’s starting out. I mean, he’s already got the cape right?
Other Notes
Fandango and Adam Rose continue their “rivalry” with Rosa Mendez providing the distraction that gives Rose the win.
Naomi tried to gain some heat interrupting Brie discussing her husband Daniel Bryan’s injury, then beating her in a match.
Damien Sandow talked about how he’s going to find himself, and then proceeded to mockingly imitate Curtis Axel.
So who will get Payback on Seth Rollins at the next PPV?
You see what I did there? Get it? “Payback” because the next PPV is called “Payback.” If you just cringed you’re in for a long 4 weeks because WWE Superstars won’t be able to help themselves. First we’re treated to a pleasantly surprising good match. All four of these guys can go but so often when four people are thrown into a tag match the results are subpar. However, I felt they delivered quite well and liked that the finish further developed Kane’s struggle as a part of the Authority this time at Seth Rollin’s expense leading to him taking a Superman Punch followed by an RKO.
His night got worse when it was then announced that he’ll face both Randy Orton and Roman Reign’s at Payback in a triple threat match. I’m alright with WWE going that route as I think it gives all three of them the opportunity to step up and carry the ball for WWE heading toward Summerslam.
Slightly disappointed
I thought WWE had the chance to really start building some momentum for some upcoming feuds with the King of the Ring but felt they missed the mark a bit. Neville and Barrett winning were great but the other half of the field is disappointing to say the least. This could have been an opportunity to let Damian Sandow find himself rather than joke around with Axel. Stardust could have developed into an even more intriguing character. So many options and good young talent to develop and we’re stuck with R-Truth and Sheamus.
As for the title picture, I feel they’re making the most of what they have. Who else do you bring in at this point? Again, it’d be good to see some other guys get a run at it, but no one really has been built up for it right now. Hopefully we’ll get lucky and see Orton re-emerge as the force he can be or Reigns breakthrough like WWE has been waiting for. Then again, maybe this will continue to build up Seth Rollins into a big time main eventer. Whichever way it goes, I’m optimistic about what’s to come there.
So, we are all (understandably) freaked out about the Hot Topic-inspired Joker picture that was released on Friday. Sure, there are a lot of ways to interpret the Joker, but Laughing Juggalo is probably something no one wanted. The production photos show no tattoos on Leto whatsoever. They could be added digitally later, but that would be time consuming, tedious, and wasteful. Usually any fake tattoos would be added during filming (see: Sons of Anarchy). Movie Pilot has released photos from production and a screencap of a Tweet from a Hollywood insider saying that the tattoos are not a part of the Joker’s look.
So, odds are, this is not the final photo of Jared Leto’s Joker we will see.
Ted is the highest-grossing R-rated comedy of all time, so it was inevitable Seth MacFarlane and Mark Wahlberg would tap back into the teddy bear well. Ted 2 has a new red-band trailer, complete with profanity, porn, and a glimpse at an interesting Tom Brady cameo.
Here is the Ted 2 trailer:
Ted 2 stars Mark Wahlberg, Amanda Seyfried, and Seth MacFarlane as the vice of the most profane teddy bear of all time. It hits theaters June 26.
