The Film Crew: Hollywood After Dark - Review

"Rue McClanahan stripping!"

Yes, really.

I'm not kidding.

The Film Crew is a current movie riffing project by former MST3k alumni Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett. The first movie out of the gate they "riffed" was this one (which I got for Christmas). The premise of the host segments is that the three of them have been hired by billionaire "Mr. Honcho" to make sure that all movies in existence have commentaries. No bots and no silhouette theater seats.

Well, in true MST style, this movie is skin-peelingly painful and incredibly bleak. There seems to be several semi-related plot elements, but not really a cohesive plot. For those who know me, this is exactly what I look for in a bad movie. (Yes, I can tell the difference between good and bad movies, it just doesn't have much bearing on whether or not I like it). There is a fair amount of titillating semi-nudity (if you've seen Ed Wood's 'nudie' flicks, you know what to expect). Rue is the hot and sexy female star of the film. I have nothing against Rue, but I think that they should have picked a different hair stylist/makeup artist for her. She had too much of a "Barbara Bush" look for this film (and sadly, we didn't even get to see her breasts).

But, that isn't why you watch this movie. You watch it for the commentary. The commentary is funny after it gets going. I got the impression at the beginning that they were trying to get back into the groove of riffing (or perhaps it was just me). However, it was rather solid and had a number of moments where I laughed out loud (you have to watch it if you want to hear the quips). Much to my surprise, there were MST3k style host segments. Spot on and funny.

I did feel that this could seamlessly be placed in an MST3k marathon, and people would enjoy it. With the voices in question, I could almost close my eyes and imagine that the lines by Bill and Kevin were spoken by Crow and Tom. My only criticism is that while I know they are trying to keep costs down, I think they could use one or two more writers so they have a few more "riffs" to work with when picking out jokes to use. However, this criticism is minor considering the quality of production and that it's a funny as it is. It's only $15 from Amazon, check it out.

The Film Crew: Hollywood After Dark at Amazon
The Film Crew Online

In the not too distant future.....

One of the biggest influences on me was the television show Mystery Science Theater 3000. It was a show that provided me with so much laughter in my first couple of years after "growing up and moving out". We know that it went from Comedy Central to the Sci-Fi channel to the void.....but.....big news

I think it's going to be at Cinematic Titanic.

If this isn't big enough for you, I don't know what is.

Furthermore, other aspects of movie mocking still live on with 2 projects that Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett are doing...

• RiffTrax.
• The Film Crew.

And finally, IF you live in the Central Texas Area....

• Master Pancake Theater!