Got my iRiffmas stuff, picked up Drawback Productions Fast 5, and Infectious riff of the Roger Corman movie Fast and Furious, also got Tom and Jon's riff of The Mummy (haven't watched that one yet, though), so heres my (probably too nitpicky) reviews.
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Fast Five - Drawback Productions
Packaging:
Came with a good intro, respectfully acknowledging what happened, and that the riff was a week from being complete before the death of Paul Walker (easy to believe, since at this point they have already riffed a couple episodes of Highway to Heaven featuring Paul Walker, so it was an obvious progression.) In essence, this isn’t just a cheap cash in, and it was the decision to post this and seem insensitive, or throw away almost a years worth of work.
—Syncing—
I watch riffs by combining them with the movie audio into one file for my media center, so I’ll also see how hard that is.
Lining it up: Sync lines came in doc format, instead of plain text, or even rtf. TextEdit (default mac text editor) opens it as several different pages with riff time on one page, movie time on another, and the lines on another. So I had to open them in a different, heavier editor (MSWord opened it fine, formatting was a bit wrong in Pages though). The formatting of the lines and times meant I couldn’t delete each row as I move through and get done with sync lines to keep track of where I am. Everything lined up well though, there seemed to be some very slight drift in the middle, but tbh I dont know if I have the extended version or not, guess I’ll see when I watch it if they riff something in some part which I’m not seeing. (after watching it, a few jokes [like maybe 3 or 4] seemed to come a bit before what they were referencing, like the scenes were ever so slightly out of order, not sure if its due to differences in my disc)
Audio levels: The riff audio had some parts that were fairly quiet (presumably to match the volume of the scene they were riffing), so when I turned it up so those were better several other parts were too loud. Probably not anything people would notice if watching it alongside the movie on a separate device, but I use some ducking and compression when syncing and like a more consistently even volume, so as the movie volume is reined in it makes the loud parts of the riff stand out more. But thats just what I noticed on the first go at syncing them, and other riffs I’ve got from Drawback Productions responded pretty well to going a bit more aggressive with the compression and gain to even it out, so in the end wont be a problem.
—General thoughts—
Audio quality: Good audio quality, no real distortion, clipping, static or other noise. There is something about it that I just can’t describe which makes it not quite as crisp and clear as some others like the Rifftrax guys, Quiptracks or One Wall Cinema, but its still quite good.
Riff review:
Many laugh out loud jokes, good timing, good banter, good delivery, very few gags and jokes that didn’t work. Good amount of jokes, never thought the commentary had over long gaps, and never felt like they were just cramming in as much as they could. Overall very good, I’ll definitely be watching it again several times.
I would have liked a few more Highway to Heaven references though, because to me they’re in the same continuity. The kid on the beach in ‘Birds of a Feather’ got too much toxicity and became a bit slow and developed a stutter so parents abandoned him at home for mentally disabled kids. He’s then passed to Scotty and Diane who, overwhelmed with their own problems, re-abandon him after the initial wonderment of having a child passes (like a puppy that keeps shitting on the couch and chewing everything up, you get over how cute it may have once been), but the brief time he spent with Scotty imbued him with 2 things, a sense of Justice, and a love for motorized conveyances. He keeps thinking again how if only he could go that little bit faster, maybe Scotty would love him again, which fuels his speed fetish. Also, theres clearly times when him and Vin have ‘the stuff’, and there’s the insistence to remind everyone every so often that since Vin wears a cross and prays before meals that must make him the good guy. The Rock’s sweat = Michael Landon’s tears? Ok, maybe not.
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Roger Corman Fast and Furious - Infectious iriff
Audio Levels: Overall good levels for riffs and movie, the riff audio is maybe a bit loud, but it works ok.
Audio Quality: pretty good, no real scratchy or tinny audio, a little rough in parts but not so its bad.
Riff review: Overall fairly good riffing, but after a while though it loses steam…this is a Corman film after all (10 minutes of movie crammed into an hour and twelve minutes.) And it being a solo riff did hurt it, as many times there was nothing happening on screen to do anything with and no one else to bounce off of. (note; I normally don’t mind solo riffs, for instance I prefer the solo House on Haunted Hill riff to the one with Mike, Bill and Kevin, and OneManBand is in my “guaranteed to be good” category.) Still pretty good, and while I might not recommend this specific riff, I wouldn’t mind checking out other things this riffer has done.
Topic: iJust Finished Watching (Read 381607 times)
