Watching Every Episode of MST3K

Somewhere around 2000-2003 (college) I resolved to watch every episode of "Mystery Science Theater 3000." It was the heyday of file-sharing, in those days, and such a thing was just, at that precise moment, theoretically possible. Big, special shout-out to eDonkey and eMule. "Possible" but not necessarily easy.

To illustrate the effort of watching every MST3K episode, I used to say that it was harder than watching every episode of "The Simpsons" (or basically pick any long running series you want). The reasoning is simple: there were (at that time) about 200 episodes of MST3K and each one was about 1.5 hours long, so that's about 300 hours of viewage. Compared to "The Simpsons", I'll even include all the episodes made since then, the math is: 805 episodes, at 0.3 hours each episode that's about 250 hours of viewage. Note: it's a pretty good metric for comparison because download effort and file availability are generally proportional to the length of material. This metric, of course, doesn't take into account how bad "The Simpsons" has become, though.

Given the disorganized nature of file-sharing, I created a spreadsheet to act as the source of truth, each episode listed, each had a "watched" or "not watched" status. I even added percentage calculation and a countdown to 0 because I had a lot of time on my hands and it seemed cool. But on that spreadsheet there were always 4 blank spots: 4 "lost" episodes that did not exist publicly in any form.

After 1 or 2 years (perhaps more, it was a long time ago), I finished the goal - I had watched every available episode and, by that time, I simply made peace with the idea that there were 4 episodes that just did not exist.

Then, in 2008 the "Pilot Episode" ("The Green Slime") (not really an episode) was shown at a convention and bootlegged on Youtube. Check. Down to 3.

Then, in 2016 two more "lost" episodes ("Invaders From The Deep" and "Revenge of the Mysterions from Mars") were found by the MST3K Producers in their archives and were released to backers of the 11th Season Kickstarter. Check and check.

That left ONE unreleased, "lost" episode.... One episode that no fan has turned up. One episode that even the creators of MST3K confirmed they had no access to.... What are the chances that someone somewhere taped it, kept the tape, held on to it for 38 years and never told anyone?

A few days ago, arthurputie on Reddit posted that his cousin had bought a load of old VHS's at a garage sale in the Minneapolis area and that one of them was labeled with the episode name ("Star Force: Fugitive Alien II"). Arthurputie confirmed it to actually be the lost episode and it has now been uploaded it to Youtube. 

Lost no more.

This is not posted as a recommendation. If you are not a MST3K fan, avoid the early episodes at all costs. If you are a MST3K fan, still avoid this at all costs. This is only posted for Completionists like me with a 25 year old score to settle. That, and it's also a fascinating archeological discovery.

So here's the final word. I have now watched all the episodes of MST3K, it is still difficult and the spreadsheet has not been updated to 0 because it was lost in a hard drive crash 10 years ago. Oh, and new episodes are in the works.

Wild Horses (2015)

 

"Wild Horses" sucks, Craig.

Continuing my exploration of Robert Duvall movies and I cannot be definitive here - I haven't watched them all, nor will I - but I may have hit upon the worst movie Robert Duvall ever made.

With such a legendary actor in such a lousy movie, what scapegoat can I blame for this outrage?

Written By: Robert Duvall

Directed By: Robert Duvall

Starring: Robert Duvall.

DANG IT.

"Wild Horses" stars Robert Duvall, James Franco and Josh Hartnett (remember Josh Hartnett?). Three fine actors, and yet none of these people plays the protagonist of the movie. The protagonist of this movie is, apparently, played by one of the worst actors in the history of film. I say "one of the worst" but cannot say that she is "the worst" for I have seen Rod in "Birdemic" ....but she's clearly one of the worst. The main plot is a crime investigation of sorts - Luciana Pedraza is an Argentinian playing a Native American cop with no emotion and a Texan accent; she is paired with a cop partner (not worth looking up) who is coincidentally played by another insanely awful actor. Whenever there are scenes of these two people interacting, it's incredible, it's like staring into infinity mirror of emotionlessness.

How did this happen? How does the best American actor of his generation not weed out terrible actors when casting his own movie? Well, I can only explain the terrible lead - the terrible lead is played by his real-life wife, a woman 41 years younger than himself.

Bad acting from main characters is huge in this movie but isn't the entire problem. There's also bad acting from the minor characters - and in pivotal scenes. Very pivotal and very emotional and very terrible scenes. But also, the cinematography of this movie varies between on-par-with-Walker-Texas-Ranger and dreadful. There are moments with bad sound. These moments could have easily been fixed in ADR but weren't, somehow, for some reason. The editing is weird and awkward. The pacing is weird. The movie is lifeless and not believable - it's simply boring. At many points, this movie doesn't even feel like a movie. 

If you've ever wondered what would happen if you dropped a great actor into a terrible movie, here's your experiment. I would like to say that Robert Duvall transcends his surroundings but I can't say that. This movie is so empty and unconvincing it even makes Robert Duvall's acting seem questionable.

I looked on youtube for a scene or compilation of the bad acting in "Wild Horses" to share for demonstration, but I see nothing. That seems strange. Maybe, as bad movies go, this flew below the popular radar.

A New Commodore 64 is Out

 The Commodore 64 is an important part of computer history as well as the best selling computer model of all-time. It's now being re-released for sale.

Actually, it was re-released a year ago but I only found out today so I'm passing the info along.

The new version has USB and WI-FI.

The Commodore 64 was a huge part of a lot of people's childhoods, though I don't know that I ever came across one, personally. Strange how that works.

RIP Chuck Norris

The Cinematic 90s Diner

Cigarettes & Coffee - 1993

Look at the entire aesthetic of "Cigarettes & Coffee" and compare to...

High and Dry - 1996

That's extremely close.

Of course "Cigarettes & Coffee" is Paul Thomas Anderson's short film that was later made into...

Hard Eight - 1996

And there's also...

Pulp Fiction - 1994

and 

The Big Lebowski - 1998

And if you're worried that we've jumped from the booth to the counter, I promise this is the only time. And anyways you can cover that here.

And now that we're in Comedy there's...

Can't Hardly Wait - 1998

And...

Swingers - 1996

And then if we go over to Television...

Seinfeld (1989-1998)

Why, Charlie Brown, Why?

 

One of the things I love discovering and posting about is pop-culture surprises and oddities. A while back I looked at the history of Peanuts TV Specials and noted the oddity of the live-action "It's the Girl in the Red Truck, Charlie Brown." There is another Peanuts oddity that I have been avoiding posting anything about but I may as well just get it over quickly and move on.

I'm just going to say it. The plot of "Why, Charlie Brown, Why?" is: a little girl in Charlie Brown's class gets cancer. And.... that's not what you expect when you want to watch Snoopy.

I can't do a beat-by-beat breakdown of how wacky and crazy it is - it's well executed, I suppose. The noteworthy thing is just the very concept is shocking and unusual. So it exists, I watched it, it doesn't make sense to me but perhaps that's due to the nature of Peanuts - it's watched by kids but wasn't intended to be solely for kids; it's not afraid to get serious among the jokes, and so forth.

Evidently it was well received and was praised for helping educate kids on this subject.