Canon MST3K Review: The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent

I know what you must be thinking, my God, that's a really long title. Not many movies have titles that are 17 words long, and for good reason. By the time you finish saying the name of this movie, the film is half over. This film is directed by Roger Corman, and it was the ninth film he directed . . . in the year 1957. Needless to say, Corman was probably too exhausted to care much about this movie. Corman's an interesting character, as he's served as a producer of nearly 400 movies, most of which are low budget movies like this one, Teenage Caveman, and his most recent film, Dinoshark. As a director, Corman's reputation is closer to Ed Wood's than it is to Scorsese's, so I kind of knew what to expect here. This episode of Mystery Science Theatre also included a short video made in the 1950s about the value of a home economics education. A few notes on this episode.

- All of the skits in between scenes in the movie dealt with Joel's love of waffles. The robots were also programmed by Joel to love waffles as much as he does. Crow even dress up as a character named "Willy the Waffle" who credited waffles for the end of the Cold War, among other things. Why they decided to go in this direction, I'll never know, but it did make me really want waffles, to the point where I paused the movie to heat up some frozen waffles and eat them.
- The short, "The Home Economics Story", is a film made by Iowa State University to encourage high school girls to enroll in their Home Economics program. Not only can you get an education and possibly a career as a chef or interior designed or a teacher, but more importantly, you can learn the proper skills to keep your man happy. At least that's what the film's message is. A mixed message I admit, but it was the fifties. This film makes Home Economics look as interesting as watching paint dry. The girls try to act excited, but their not nearly skilled enough actors to pull this off. Also, the narrator talks of "Food buymanship", which makes me wonder, is buymanship even a word?
- The movie with the long title is actually quite short, 66 minutes long to be exact. However, considering all the walking sequences and scenes where nothing happens that are in the film, it could have been shortened another 20 minutes and gotten the whole story across.
- The movie starts with the Viking women of some village debating whether or not they should go after their men, who have been out on some expedition for a while. Apparently, all the Viking women are young, blond, and pretty, with the exception of the high priestess, who's brunette and therefore, must be evil. The women vote yes or no by chucking spears into trees. Most of them vote yes and off they go. Oh, and there's some guy named Ottar who was left behind for some reason. The women don't want him to go, but he sneaks on anyway.
- After a lot of nothing happens, the sea serpent appears. It's a cheesy effect, but it's not the worst monster in a b-movie I've ever seen. The serpent doesn't actually eat anybody, he just kind of thrashes around causing tremendous waves. A convergent lighting strike breaks apart the women's boat and the women (and Ottar) float around until they wake up in morning on the shore of some beach, where they are captured by a bunch of primitive looking men with swords. One man has a whip, and he takes great pleasure and whipping Ottar, whipping him at random intervals during their march back to headquarters.
- Once there, the Viking women and their manservant are led to the king, a man named Stark who has seemingly dressed up in an assortment of hand-me-down left behind by better kings. He's got a ridiculous fur coat that makes him look like a shaggy dog. Worse off, he introduces his son, who's an annoying, effeminate little man that hates women and basically acts like an entitled little snot. You instantly root for him to meet a tragic fate in this film. That nearly happens on a boar hunt where the little pissant falls off his horse and is nearly mauled by a boar, but unfortunately the leader of the women, Desir, saves his pathetic life by spearing the boar. The prince, in gratitude, whines about being saved by a woman, which makes the viewing audience root for a quick spear through the gut from Desir. But no, Desir instead agrees to make it look as if the prince did it in exchange for  some information about some Vikings that are enslaved here. That plot point never actually goes anywhere, so it's a mystery why they included that sequence in the first place.
- Eventually, I guess the King gets bored and decides to show the other Vikings he's captured, and by golly, it's the same men the women were looking for. These Vikings are not the big, hairy, grizzled type of men you might expect, but instead they are all blond, buff guys without any body hair. They look more like a troupe of male dancers than they do vikings. Desir meets up with her man, the chief Vedric, who in spite of being a chief, seems to display the intelligence of a moose and the leadership qualities of a pair of socks. The two hug, which angers high priestess Enger. The King orders all the reunited viking couples to break it up, and puts the women in a separate room in his lair.
- After the women are improsend, one of them escapes through a rather wide window to rescue the men. However, during a fight between the viking women and some very handsy guards, Enger escapes to warn King Stark of the planned escape. Why, you ask? Because Enger wants Vedric the dummy to herself and Desir out of the picture. Enger makes some sort of sexual promise to the King in exchange for the death of Desir, and goes to visit Vedric in the slave quarters. Enger wants Vedric and her to run away back home together, but Vedric in his own dull way refuses. Enger than goes back to King Stark and requests for the death of both Desir and Vedric. Will the two avoid certain death? Will Enger regret her betrayal? And will the sea serpent make another appearance? To find out, watch the movie.

Overall, it doesn't surprise me to learn that this film was completed in 10 days. The plot is rather elementary, the acting is subpar, and the film hardly fleshes out the motives of many of the characters, excluding a couple of them. The vikings come off as a bunch of wusses, the titular Sea Serpent is barely a factor in the movie (until the end, but I won't reveal how), and there's a bunch of walking montages where nothing happens thrown in the movie. Even watching it as an MST3K episode, it was just dull. I'll give the movie a 2.5 out of 10, the episode a 5.5 out of 10, and the riffing on the Home Economics film a 8.7 out of 10. If I were you, I would skip the movie and just watch Joel and the 'bots riff on the short instead. Well, thanks for reading, and if you have any ideas for future posts on the Canon Review, feel free to let me know either by e-mail at KtheC2001@gmail.com, bl leaving it in the comments section, or any other way you can think of.

Canon MST3K Review: Kitten With a Whip

So, I got home from work this morning, and I decided, what better way to recover from a hard day of labor than to watch a bad movie mocked by a man and two robots? Well, I couldn't think of anything else, so I watched the Mystery Science Theater episode of Kitten With a Whip. This movie, made in 1964, stars Ann-Margret and the late John Forsythe. The plot starts simple enough, as Ann-Margret is a juvenile delinquet running from the law in San Diego, and sneaks into a US Senate candidate's house while he's not home. The candidate, played by Forsythe, finds her in his daughter's bed (who, btw, is conveniently on vacation along with the man's wife). The man takes pity on the runaway and tries to assist her by buying her clothes and giving her enough money for a bus ride to LA. But Ann-Margret, or rather her character Jodi, decides to come back to the man's house to antagonize him because she's mad at the world or something, I'm not exactly sure. Unlike many of the movies featured on MST3K, this movie had some elements of a good movie, but ultimately the movie was just too over the top to be considered a quality film. A few notes from this flick.

 - John Forsythe's character, David Stratton, makes at least 12 major lapses of judgment in the movie. I mean, every time you think this man couldn't get any dumber, he manages to surprise you by making an even dumber move. It doesn't help that most of the film he acts in a bland, emotionless manner. Then again, I guess there wouldn't be much of a movie if he had just done the smart thing and call the cops once he discovered her in her house.

- Jodi seems to have a lot of mental problems. Her moods changes as quick as a hiccup, she seemingly is willing to make anyone with any sympathy towards her hate her, and most of the movie she's either pitying herself or lashing out at the world around her. At the least, she's bipolar. Because of the way the character is written, you have a big contrast between the laid-back acting of Forsythe and the manic, almost overacting of Ann-Margret.

- The main reason why David doesn't call the cops is because Jodi threatens to charge him with rape and assault. So he does what he's best at and does nothing. However, considering that he's a pillar of the community and she's a delinquent on the run after stabbing someone and setting fire to a house, I think the police would buy Stratton's story over Jodi's, considering the circumstances. But if he had called the cops, I guess the movie would last 25 minutes instead of 90, so here we are.

- Both Mr. Stratton and Jodi do have something in common, a tendency to befriend annoying people. David's friends in this movie are a sycophant named Grant whose as dry as, um, drywall, and a annoying woman named Peggy. Peggy is David's wife sister and spends the few minutes she has on screen either ordering around servants or interrogating people like she's Columbo with prying questions. With every word she said, Peggy became more and more annoying. But these two are a treat compared to Jodi's friends, which deserve a paragraph of their own.

- So Jodi decides that she wants a party, and decides to call up a few of her friends while David is trying to get rid of Grant and Ms. Sipowicz. The three people she calls friends are Midge, who's as dumb as a doornail but seems to be nice enough, Buck, a young man driven by rage, and Ron, a wanna-be philosopher and college graduate who looks like he's thirty and dresses like the late Payne Stewart. After about five words from Ron's mouth, you wanted him and his ham-fisted attempts at being deep to go away as quickly as possible. How Jody made friends with a rageaholic who she obviously despises and a wanna-be philosophical guru is beyond me. At least Ron gets stabbed in the arm with a razor. Normally I don't wish for violence, but I wasn't exactly broken up when Buck stupidly swung an old razor and accidentaly stabbed Ron in the arm. This also allowed Ron to say the best line in the movie "I'm dying in a rush".

- One of the more curious things about this movie is the hip lingo the young people and the 30 year old college graduate use. For example, if things are good, they are "creamy" or "shiny good". Jodi describes David at one point as thinking he's a "smoky somethin' when you're nothing painted blue". I'm not sure what exactly that means, but whatever.

- I know it's silly to bring this up, but if I were running from the law and had the fortune of getting some help from a stranger whose house I broke into, the last thing I would do is go back to that same house and torture the poor guy that helped me in the first place. I think I would keep running, but maybe that's just me. Then again, if anybody in this movie had done anything that made sense, than there wouldn't be a movie at all.

This movie could have been decent, I suppose, but it fell short. The acting was either over the top or non-existent, most of the characters were annoying and unsympathetic, and the plot was so convoluted that in order to keep the movie going, they had to make David Stratton look like the dumbest man ever. Not to mention that the ending is so pat and cliche' that it adds to the unbelievability of it even more. However, this movie is easy to mock, and the MST3K guys do that quite well. So while the movie isn't good (it's also not terrible, it just isn't good is all) the episode was quite enjoyable. I'd give the movie a 3.4 out of 10 and the episode a 7.2.

Well, thanks for reading, and if you have any ideas for future reviews, than either leave me a comment or send me an e-mail at KtheC2001@gmail.com

Canon Review of two The Bradys episodes

So last week, I watched the SciFi original movie Mega Piranha. I would recommend that you do all that you can to not watch this movie, as it is bad. The premise of this movie is that some scientists, including one played by former teen idol Tiffany, have accidentally populated a Venezuelan lake with giant piranhas, who have both male and female organs, can reproduce quicker than a hiccup, and eventually grow into the size of Cadillacs with impenetrable skin. Eventually, the Piranhas grow and grow and number, taking out everything in sight, including battle ships and nuclear subs, and it's up to Tiffany, her scientist friend, and some wannabe Jean-Claude Van Damme to save the earth. If you want, you can see the trailer right here:

 

So, what does this crapfest have to do with the short-lived 1990 series The Bradys? Simple, they both star Barry Williams, aka Greg Brady. In Mega Piranha, Williams plays some sort of government agency whose main contribution is to tell his operative to get away from the Mega Piranha. The guy spent most of the movie talking into his walkie talkie and was frankly quite useless. But at least Mr. Williams got paid, and was probably the best actor in the film, which doesn't speak well of any of his co-stars acting skills. Meanwhile, in The Brady, Williams plays Greg Brady. How about that?

Before we begin, I must share a little background on the series. As you've probably figured out, "The Bradys" is based off of the "Brady Bunch" sitcom from the 1970s. After CBS produced a TV Movie called "A Very Brady Christmas", the network, pleased with the movie's high ratings, decided to make a TV series chronicling the Brady's, now all grown up with problems of their own. Unlike the original light-hearted affair where everybody shared a laugh and learned a lesson, "The Bradys" was an hour-long drama which featured very serious situations. For example, in the first episode, Bobby Brady became a paraplegic after a wreck in an auto race. The show lasted six episodes, mainly due to low ratings, which Barry Williams would later blame on its poor timeslot. I will now attempt to watch 2 of these episodes right now, and more than likely complain about it.

Episode 1: A Moving Experience

There's trouble at the Brady House, as a new freeway is being built, and the zoning commission has given Mike and Carol six months to find a new place.  Mike organizes a meeting with the city councilman to present an alternative route for the freeway, but the councilman says it's not going to happen, but good luck. However, Mike's speech interests some politicians, who are looking for a candidate for city council, and think Mike can do it. Mike turns them down at first, but at the end of the episode he changes his mind. Meanwhile, the Brady's inspired by an idea from Marsha's kids Jessica and Mickey, decide that instead of moving to another house, they will move their house to a new location. Brilliant! Meanwhile, Cindy, a radio station DJ is dating her boss, a widower, and meets his kids, who are not happy about this idea at all. Peter is having trouble finding a woman while managing his new job at People for a Better Planet, and Greg and his family are also moving, as Greg recently received a promotion. While the Brady's wait for the construction of their house to be completed, Mike, Carol, Marsha and her husband Wally and their two kids move into a smaller apartment for one month. Unfortunately, the place is in a flight path, and many airplanes fly right overhead. Also, it's Mike's birthday, and the whole gang show up at the smaller house to celebrate, including the Korean girl Jan and her husband adopted, who made some seaweed soup. Sounds yummy. A few more notes.

- Greg has decided to grow a mustache, and the result is that he looks a lot like Jason Lee from My Name is Earl, only dorkier.
- The Brady clan have some awfully annoying kids, Greg's son Kevin acted like a bit of a brat, and tried to push the house on the truck while it was being moved. But Kevin's nothing compared to Marsha's son Mickey. Normally, I don't wish for harm to come to children, but in Mickey's case I made an exception. The worst part was when he was jumping on the bed while Mike and Mickey's dad Wally was trying to sleep, and the kid had the nerve to say that he wasn't going to stop no matter what Wally or Mike did. If I were them, I would have forcefully voiced my desire to have him stop jumping on the bed and go to sleep, but instead a pillow fight broke out, at first between the three men, and then somehow the ladies got involved. Anyway, everything Mickey said and did made me loathe him more and more.
- Interesting note, well, maybe only to me, but still. The part of Bobby's wife was played by former MTV VJ Martha Quinn. I found that curious, but I'm sure most people probably couldn't care less. Anyway, Bobby and Martha Quinn moved into a new house that just happened to be owned by a paraplegic, just like Bobby is now. I guess Bobby gets all the breaks.
-All of the original Bradys returned for this show, except for Maureen McCormick, who played Marsha. McCormick was pregnant at the time and did not want to devote all of her time to a TV series and be away from her family, so the part of Marcia was played by somebody named Leah Ayers, who was the journalist that hounded Jean-Claude Van Damme in Bloodsport.



Episode 2: Party Girls

This was less excruciating than the last episode, but still nothing I would recommend. In this episode, Marsha, Greg's wife and Martha Quinn decide to start a catering buisness. They get help from Marcia's husband Wally, who suddenly is interested in public relations work, and Alice's husband Sam the Butcher sells his old shop to them so the "Party Girls" (their business name) have a place to cook. Meanwhile, Greg and Peter get into a dispute after Greg has to cancel previous plans to go to a PTA meeting, and Peter totally overreacts and flips out, making for a very awkward situation. They try to reconcile, but further misunderstandings take place and both men promise to never speak to each other again. Meanwhile, Mickey continues to annoy. Everything comes to a head at an Austrian themed party hosted by the Party Girls. Greg and Peter have to be waiters due to the size of the party, and when Peter chokes on some food, Greg comes over and saves his life with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The two make up, and Mike introduces the Australian dignitary to the Austian themed party, which was due to the fact that Mickey messed up taking the phone message. Nevertheless, the Australian is quite surprised at this turn of events, and is relieved that he won't have a bunch of ignorant Americans saying "g'day mate" and referencing Crocodile Dundee. The episode ends with the Party Girls moving out of the butcher shop, and Sam moving back in because he's bored with retirement. A few notes.

- Sam's never seen in any of the episodes, as the producers must have decided not to bring his character back in an on-air role. They could have, as the actor that played him, Allan Melvin, was still an active actor at the time this show was filmed, but for reasons unknown, they did not.
- I didn't recognize it until this episode, but the role of Greg's son Kevin was played by none other than Johnathan Taylor Thomas, who as most of you probably know, went on to star as Randy Taylor on the show Home Improvement. Meaning that he is the only person to play the son of Tim Taylor and Greg Brady. What a career.
- Even though this is supposed to be a drama, the producers of this show added a laugh track whenever a humorous moment occurred (there was not a laugh track in the first episode I saw). This made for a rather weird dynamic, as one moment Peter and Greg are fighting, and not a few seconds later somebody makes a quip and off goes the laugh track.
- This ended up being the last episode of "The Bradys", as the show went on hiatus for retooling, and ultimately CBS decided just to cancel the show altogether. Sadly, it would also be one of Robert Reed's (Mike Brady) last appearances, as he died in May of 1992, some 18 months or so after the airing of this episode.

Overall, I can definitely see why this show lasted only six episodes. For one, I wasn't really sure whether this was supposed to be a drama or a comedy. If it was a comedy, it wasn't very funny, and I have a hard time believing that the audience would want to see the Brady's in serious, tragic situations. I'm not really sure what they were going for here, and I'm not sure if the producers knew either. For both shows, I'll give a score of 1.69 out of 10, as quite frankly, it was hard to watch, and I'm sure that this post will be hard to read through because of that. But if you make it this far, than thanks for reading, and if you have future ideas for future reviews, than you know where to reach me. I leave you with the opening credits for "The Bradys" series righchere:

Canon MST3K Review: Gamera

What can one really say about Gamera? The end. Just joking, there is something one can say about Gamera, it's a poorly dubbed Japenese flick made in 1965, but looks as if it was made in 1935. Somebody dubbed i English dialogue, and they didn't even bother matching the words spoken to the lips of the person supposedly saying them. Anyway, Gamera is about a giant turtle named, oddly enough, Gamera. He's almost like Godzilla, only he has a turtle shell and can go into his shell and fly off to wherever he pleases. He also can inhale fire, and feeds off of heat, fire, and electricity, but he doesn't like the cold. Gamera must have been frozen like Ted Williams, because he was first discovered (in the movie, that is) in an Eskimo village in the arctic region. It was only when a rogue plane carrying nuclear weapons was shot down over the exact spot Gamera was resting that he emerged. Yeah, I don't know either. A few thoughts about this movie:

- This version had a few scenes cut into the original movie featuring American actors. They must have spent a grand total of 45 dollars on these actors, because they are terrible. There's one soldier who has one line in the movie, and he just butchers it. Worst of all, they left it in as is. Another scene featured a drunk Japanese man who had the worst read line in the script. It was dubbed in, and the guy paused after every word in this line "that I heard them talk about so much lately." It's much worse seeing it on video, trust me.

- So Gamera is an evil turtle hell-bent on destruction. However, because he sees a kid playing with a turtle, he ends up saying that kid's life. At first, I was relieved, even though he was kind of annoying and obsessed with turtles, but whatever. But by the end of the film I wish Gamera had choke slammed that kid to his death, because he is one of the most annoying movie characters I have ever seen. He becomes a crusader for Gamera, and ignores the fact that Gamera is a destructive force whose only interest is to cause as much destruction as possible. The worst part of Kenny's crusade is when he finds three stones to "build a house for Gamera". How we will build a house for an 6 story tall turtle with three stones goes unaswered, but it doesn't matter, because his cousin, seeing how stupid this all is, takes the stones and throws them in the river. Well, our boy Kenny throws a hissy fit, saying that there were no other stones like that and pouting like a 3 year-old not allowed to watch TV. Sure, his cousin threw the rocks in the river, but here's the thing, YOU CAN FIND ROCKS ANYWHERE, SO INSTEAD OF CRYING GET OFF YOUR BUTT AND COLLECT MORE STONES FOR YOUR IMPOSSIBLE PROJECT, OR BETTER YET GO PLAY IN ONCOMING TRAFFIC. Sorry about that, but that kid drove me batty.

- Kenny ends up running away, and finds Gamera. So, while the workers of a coal plant are sending an empty train to distract Gamera, Kenny decides to meet up with his old buddy by climbing on the train. Unfortunately, a man sees him and saves him from his certain death. Kenny has the nerve to tell off the guy, saying he loves Gamera and that they shouldn't harm a bump on his giant ass shell, which the plant workers rightfully ridicule.

- The movie also features a team of scientist, one of which resembles a Japanese Col. Sanders. These guys aren't that smart, because it takes them 30 minutes in the film after seeing their fire attack fail to come up with the idea that maybe freezing Gamera will work. They drop a freeze bomb or something, but Gamera apparently can also withstand sub zero temperatures to fly off into outer space in his shell. Well, that sucks.

- Finally, after Gamera destroys Tokyo, the scientists unleash something called plan Z. At first, it involved lighting fire or something so Gamera can drown in a tidal wave, but since he's an excellent swimmer for a monster, I don't see how that would work. They then draw him inland, where plan Z can take place. What happens is astonishing, as they trap him in a pod, and all of a sudden a rocket is launched with Gamera inside. The rocket is supposedly headed to Mars, but since there were like 10 sequels, I guess Gamera found his way out. Plan Z came about due to a relationship between Japan, the U.S. and the Soviet Union, this being during the Cold War, I highly doubt the Americans and Soviets would enter into a partnership to build a rocket to Mars, but I digress.

This is not one of the stronger MST3K episodes, as the movie is not one of those "so bad it's good" movies, it's just dreary and boring. However, the crew did get a few good lines in it, and this is one of the few shows featuring a robot singing a love song to a turtle. I'll give it a 6.42950 out of 10, as it wasn't one of their strongest episodes, but still rather entertaining. Thanks for reading, and if you have any future ideas for posts so I don't have to watch annoying kids obseesed with a giant turlte, than send them over either by leaving a comment or by e-mail at KtheC2001@gmail.com. Tommorrow, I play Back to the Future and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventures for the NES, so look out for that, but until then, enjoy the touching love song Tibby, Oh Tibby.