iJust Finished Watching

[Darth Geek]

Watched the Quiptracks of Van Helsing. Again. For like the zillionth time. Still hilarious, all the way through.


Our ADHD medication was in there!

The whole "goin' places music" running gag never stops being funny.

I hope he picks his nose and blows his head off.

New, 'self-mounting' big game.

The series of riffs about the lab being a dance club are all hysterical.

Elton John's house on any given weekend.

May the marshmallows we roast over thy corpse be toasted on the outside but delightfully gooshy on the inside. Amen.

[Darth Geek]

Watched the Steve-O riff of The Night Before Christmas short. This was excellent! I don't remember if I've seen any other Stev-O riffs, but I was pleasantly surprised with this. Nice vocal performance. Typical speaking voice was not that unique, but still able to do good impressions or varied performance when necessary. Very good writing on this one. Plenty of funny jokes.

"not even a mouse."---Because it was weeks dead and nailed to the floor.

Heyyyy Santa! Nice hydraulics ese!

And the horifying muffled rustling of a fat guy manhandling his sack.

He's like a gigantic bearded manboob.

Low-ri-der. Ride a little lower.

[Darth Geek]

Watched the Atomic Treatment iRiff of To Enrich Mankind -
  In a prequel to A Night at the Museum, a on old guy who I am pretty sure is a Mechanical Engineer, is working late at night. He has a nervous breakdown and sees Zeus, who he for some reason calls Archimedes. The betogaed deity keeps explaing TO THE MECHANICAL ENGINEER, the benefits of simple machines. This is like explaining the merits of the Dewey Decimal System to a lifelong Librarian.
  Then we get into flashbacks. Which are basically other shorts (most of which are amazingly similar to ones MST3K riffed). It's like watching a cliffs notes of a "50 hilarious old industrial shorts DVD". In fact, as Zues goes on about the many uses of machanical engineering, he definitely pushes into Coily territory.

  This riff has some good parts. But overall it still suffers from the same issues I have seen with Atomic Treatment riffs before. The voicework is too boring most of the time. The writing of the riffs themselves is top notch. But a relatively monotone delivery can kill even some of the best jokes (unless that is part of the joke, of course). And since this riff was 23 minutes long, it just made it much more noticable.
"Gus."---Draw.    Typical example of a riff that should be a lot funnier than it ends up being (although it still gets a chuckle), because the emphesis the riff clearly needs isn't put into it.
Yet right after it, the riff "What the hell are machines?" is said much better.
"Doodly doodly doodly. Mechanical Engineering!"   Also a well performed riff. Had as much attention been paid to performance on ALL the riffs, this would have been an excellent iRiff.


And Megan's Law prohibits my involvement.

Doodly doodly doodly. Mechanical Engineering! (Loved this one. And not just because I am a mechanical engineer myself.)

Don Knotts has not ages well.

This makes farmers amongst the laziest of all people.

"There are so many wonderful machines a woman has today."---Like mechanical flowers.

"there are machines."---Removing the fingers of careless laborers.

Mechanical Engineers own your ass, Gus.

So if I kill you, it's technically just vandalism, right?

[Darth Geek]

It's later than I thought, so I will check out the Mr. B. Natural short Flying Disk Man From Mars that I bought tomorow.

[Steve-O]

I will make sure to tell them all that.

Noooooo, don't do it!  They're misfits!  They've suffered enough.

I don't remember if I've seen any other Stev-O riffs, but I was pleasantly surprised with this.

*ahem* Lost City Chapter 5 *hrrm*

Glad you enjoyed it and that I didn't spoil your birthday!

And major kudos on taking the time do write up all these reviews.  You're a good Sith, Darth Geek.

[Darth Geek]

Sorry for the delay. Finally got around to watching one of the other riffs I promised I would check out on Tuesday.

Flying Disk Man From Mars by Mr. B. Natural - Okay, this had similar issues I had with his Phantom Empire part 2 riff. Although this was definitely funnier than that one. I have already talked about the low riff density issue. This is compounded here in that the quality of the jokes is varied at best. Sure, there are some really good ones. Note how many I wrote down below as good examples. But even at only 30 minutes, the wait between them makes the movie seem very long. If you are sitting down specifically to watch a movie with riffs, the space between them can sometimes feel interminable. Particularly if you aren't still laughing from the previous one.
  Seriously, there is not a single riff from 0:02:50 to 0:04:00! I know that scene is all talking with few breaks, but this is rediculous. I know there is an unofficial rule about "not riffing over dialog", but that has to be broken sometimes in the cases like this. Just choose some dialog that isn't plot dependant to talk over.
  His voice kind of sounds like a stereotypical nerd in a Saturday morning cartoon. That's not a bad thing, not at all. It makes the voice more interesting to listen to, rather than just a dull monotone. Especially if you are going to be a solo riffer, having a unique voice helps. He also did good performance on the riffs that needed it. He didn't have much of a range of character voices, though. I think that would have improved this significantly.
  Also, and maybe this is just me because I do riff writing sometimes, but some of the riffs seemed really obvious.

Would I recommend this one...hmmm. I think the best comparison is the KTMA and Season One episodes. If you can enjoy those, and don't have a problem with that kid of sparse riff, definitely give this a shot. And also the serial itself is pretty goofy.


Oh God, I'm having Virtual Boy flashbacks.

Ho ho ho! Merr-Oh, God!

We demand moose and squirrel.

The first rule of theiving, touch EVERYTHING in the room.

Oh. Well, I can only assume that the next episode is about the effect Kip's death has on his community and family. Because there's no way he survived that.

You like it? I bought it off of Darkwing Duck. (A good riff, and I am a sucker for a Darkwing Duck reference.)

We look cool in this right? Oh, totally. (A good riff. But should have done two more different sounding voices for it, though.)

Wow, that thing's got some towing power. Ripped the frame right out of the scene. (Now this is more like it. (Well done, creative, funny riff.)



I hear the THEM iRiff is good, though. I may give that a try eventually.

[Darth Geek]

Watched another one of the Steve-O riffs from the Island of Misfit Riffs group. Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer - Another good riff. Maybe not quite as good as the Night Before Christmas one. This is the same short that Rifftrax did in the Christmas Shorts Live Riff ("I need you tonight."---Wow!). This isn't as good as the Rifftrax version, but there is no joke overlap that I noticed, so it complements it well. It also isn't as riff dense as the typical Rifftrax, but I did not notice the gaps too much.
  Again, Steve-O is a good riffer. Vocal performance is varied and enough energy is put into it. Most jokes are funny, with plenty of standouts. The X-box riff in particular made me laugh a lot.


Anybody around here know how to make a freakin' X-box? (LOOOVED this one!)

Uh, Rudolph. Did you happen to find that stocking in the breeding shed? I don't think they're supposed to be ribbed like that.

Huh. They don't seem to fly so much as fall sideways.

I'm going out with a large hairy man who says he needs me tonight. Don't wait up.

"Hear ye, hear ye. A message from Rudolph."---Eat it, brown nosers.

[Darth Geek]

Steve-O's riff of Christmas Rhapsody (another part of the Island of Misfit Riffs collection) - This is the same Christmas Rhapsody short riffed as part of the Christmas Shorts Rifftrax Live show. So you all know the story of the most depressed little tree ever, and his horrible gaudy ending. This iRiff isn't as funny as the Rifftrax version, but it is still quite good. In particular, there are several singing riff sections that I was impressed by.
And yes, he has a nice Dr. Forrester MST3K refence, unlike the Rifftrax version.


But you're lots of fun to be around.

Let me show you what we do to small things around here, dear.

And they'll be so jealous for about, eh, ten to fifteen days.

All the singing segments were very very funny.

[Darth Geek]

The last of the Island of Misfit Riffs from Steve-O, Christmas Dream - Another short previously riffed by Rifftrax, this is the tale of the fever dreams a little girl has when she gets new toys for Christmas. I am sure John Lasseter wouldn't know anything about this one, woud he, hmmmm?
  Actually, considering how much fun this little girl has while she imagines her toys to being unbearably annoying, I think this girl is an unholy terror during the daytime.
  Another good riff by Steve-O. Again, it may not be as good as the Rifftrax riff, but it is definitely worth getting both.


Don't worry kids, the tree is perfectly safe. It's made entirely of asbestos.

The tree was in her bedroom? How much life insurance to they have out on this kid?

The Michael Jackson "he he" was great!

[Darth Geek]

So that was the Island of Misfit Riffs by Steve-O (who I assume is part of a balanced breakfast). Bought in a set here for only 75 cents, they are all good (my favorite is the Christmas Rhapsody, for the singing riffs).

[Moca Java]

Watched Hor-Riff-ic Production's Friday the 13th Part 5 riff again. So funny. I love it how this series of riffs have been accumulating running gags, like lanterns, as it goes along. Not to mention all the great riff fodder of the honor system rehabilitation center. Really, the big thing with this movie being that it *spoiler* wasn't really Jason, isn't what makes this a bad movie, and it is enjoyable like a lot of the other bad Friday the 13th movies. It would be pretty easy to do a fan edit of this eliminating that twist, and I wouldn't doubt there probably are some out there.

Still, great riff. And I am glad Hor-Riff-ic is back in business working on their next one.


SUUURGE!

Hey Gordan. That's my dog Gordan. This is a picture of my dog Gordan.

THE FUCK YOU LOOKIN' AT?! I'M BUILDIN' A BIRD HOUSE!

I didn't know those came in semen flavored.

Ok everybody. Crack your stupid butt jokes.

Ah yes, the Friday the 13th obligitory poo scene.

If anyone can get us out of this sticky situation, it's PAM!

Where are they going? Where else would they be going? They're running AIMLESSLY INTO THE WOODS!

"It's the ghost of Shelley! NOOOOO!"

Some of my favorite jokes are the ones where you had to have seen the previous films in order to get them. It makes me feel oddly smart.

"Dead fat kids. Why did it have to be dead fat kids."

The whole bit with Robin's nipples predicting the weather.

"That fly on the wall is conspiring against me!"

The part where the drifter comes to the redneck woman's house and she asks what he does and he replies 'whatever you want': Erin, as the redneck woman: "Well I hope you got strong jaw muscles'. Oh my, how naughty.

[Darth Geek]

Watched the Hor-Riff-ic Productions riff of Halloween 3 again. Soooo good. They are absolutely merciless to Tom Atkins, it's great. I don't have anything against the guy...Oh wait, he showed us his ass, yeah, treat him like Joe Don Baker for all I care.

The whole running gag with Atkins and others on the phone is great.

Drunk Man! Drunk Man aw-blargh!

"You don't know anything about Halloween, do you?"---I know it was a much better movie than this. And people liked it more.

Well...beep boop beep, I guess.

Again? Why is my gas station a crazy honkey magnet?



It's amazing to listen to them say that it is their "one year anniversary at Hor-Riff-ic Productions". I didn't realize this one was so early, it's so good. They really hit the ground running!

[Steve-O]

So that was the Island of Misfit Riffs by Steve-O (who I assume is part of a balanced breakfast). Bought in a set here for only 75 cents, they are all good (my favorite is the Christmas Rhapsody, for the singing riffs).

Yay!  Glad you enjoyed.  And thanks again for taking the time to write up all these reviews.  If more folks were as good as you about providing feedback, I bet iRiffs wouldn't be nearly so comatose.

(Incidentally, seeing as you've breezed through Christmas and now appear to have wrapped around to Halloween, I might as well point out that The Movie Asylum's Halloween 2 riff is pretty darned good.)

[Darth Geek]

I watched the Quiptracks of Gattaca with my friends today. They loved it. They've been big fans of them ever since I shoed them thier first one.

[Darth Geek]

Is anybody else going to review some iRiffs? I wonder what kinds of contest of program or something we could do to get more of these reviews.