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DVD Mystery Science Theater 3000 - Red Zone Cuba
If Coleman Francis had never existed, he would have been invented by the writers of MST3K just for the perverse enjoyment of ridiculing him. Here the director of the jaw-droppingly inept The Beast of Yucca Flats tries his hand at a jailbreak film, which takes a surreal veer into an American invasion of Cuba apparently hampered by military budget cuts ("Once all seven of them are in place, the invasion really begins") before ending up in an American tungsten mine. Why? Who knows, but the bots have a ball skewering the film with some of their funniest comments ("I want to hurt this movie but I can never hurt it the way it hurt me") and Mike Nelson becomes so disturbed he turns into Carol Channing. Believe it or not, costar John Carradine rasps out the theme song "Night Train to Mundo Fine" (which was the film's original title). --Sean Axmaker
Review(s): DVD Mystery Science Theater 3000 - Red Zone Cuba
"I Had to Finish Smoking Before I Could Laugh"
If you have never seen Mystery Science Theater 3000 this is the one to start with. Everything just clicks in this episode. The wonderfully bad Coleman Francis film makes perfect fodder for Mike and the bots. From the opening tones of the John Carradine sung theme, to the last Beast-of-Yucca-Flats-like helicopter rundown at the end, Red Zone Cuba is a riot. When Mike and the bots start making Curly of the 3 Stooges references at Coleman, through the inept guerilla training sequences, to the invasion of Cuba.....this is just one of the funniest episodes of the show. I know some folks get caught up in the Joel vs. Mike, or Comedy Central vs. Sci-Fi thing....who cares? This one-of-a-kind show is sorely missed in today's reality TV/King of Queens/According to Jim world, and no matter which episode you pop in you are guaranteed a good laugh with MST3K. Red Zone Cuba, for me just tops the list.
A Paradox on Which to Ponder
It just struck me, the ongoing verbal critique of the MST 3000 panel aside: If this movie were remade today with an identical script, but; If its locale was changed to Iraq in the year 2003; If slightly more production values were invested in it, and; If it was entered in the Sundance and Cannes film festivals as an "independent production," critics around the world would hail it for its "deeply symbolic subtext" and call it a "cautionary anti-war tale, told through a surrealist's lens."
I'll place a bet on that one, dollars to donuts!
It is just unfortunate that Coleman Francis suffered the unjust fate of making movies in an age when incompetence was called by its rightful name.
With the right PR firm and slick advertising, he'd be a pretentious multi-millionaire "auteur" these days!
Film-making with blunt instruments
Devotees of Coleman Francis (we know who you are -- we have the names) will know that not all of his films benefitted from "synched" sound. Watch "Beast from Yucca Flat" carefully, and you'll see that all the dialgue is "looped", or recorded after the fact.
Sync sound brings a new dimension of awfullness to this work. Coleman and the cast mumble and stumble through their lines; if you turn your TV up to the threshold of pain, you might pick up some extra nuances from the soundtrack, but I doubt it.
The skill of the sound department is more than matched by the cinematography. The film appears to have been run through an airport x-ray machine several dozen times (no doubt looking for WMD.) Black and white is pretty forgiving, but not of gross incompetence.
Anyhow, as with "Wild World of Batwoman", don't try to figure out -- just open the wine, and let the waves wash over you as you laugh out loud. Rest assured that Mike and the 'bots give it the full treatment, each insult richly deserved.
Related DVD's Mystery Science Theater 3000 - Red Zone Cuba
"Joel, don't you have anything better to do than psychoanalyze a bunch of robots?" Apparently not in this hilarious installment of MST3K, in which Joel Hodgson and the robots of the Satellite of Love deconstruct this starched and stiff juvenile delinquent drama with everything from art projects to a giant mobile representing the hero's roiling subconscious. Square high school kid Jimmy is on trial for murder in this cautionary drama told in flashback, in which we learn all about this nice boy driven to lies, crime, and the arms of a nightclub floozy by a negligent father, an alcoholic mother, and his own utter stupidity. The film's cheesy nightclub number inspires Joel and the bots to put on their own version: Gypsy lip-synchs the lyrics while the other three pop in and out of... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Sam Newfield DVD Release Date: Released the 26 March 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Nothing captures the peculiar pastiche of the pop-cultural zeitgeist like Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K to fans). The formula is simple: subject a hapless temp worker, Mike Nelson, and his robot friends, Tom Servo and Crow, marooned in space to the worst B, C, even Z-grade movies imaginable and record the results. On The Wild World of Batwoman, they quip through a movie summed up best by Crow: "It looks like they just put a whole lotta movies in a blender and turned it on really fast!" The plot of the movie is hapless at best, inexplicably puncuated by bikini-clad "Batgirls" go-go dancing with guns (Mike quips: "That's 40 pounds of butt in pants with a 30-pound capacity."). The episode starts with a '50s educational short on student cheating that is so dour in... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Jerry Warren DVD Release Date: Released the 30 January 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This farewell episode for Joel Hodgson is a sentimental favorite but even more worth it for the hilarity spawned by our captured Satellite of Love friends. The movie centers on the hapless, big lug cop named Mitchell (Joe Don Baker), who fights the rich and powerful drug-dealing bad guys. Along the way, Mitchell finds himself investigating murder, falling "in sex" with Linda Evans, helping an elderly woman like a good son, and telling a bothersome wisecracking kid to buzz off. Match that with clothing and music from 1975 and you've got prime fodder for the biting remarks of Joel, Crow, and Tom Servo--which, of course, they take advantage of handily and in abundance. Mitchell has a few quiet areas but these are spotty, and when Joel and his mechanical friends start ... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Andrew V. McLaglen DVD Release Date: Released the 20 November 2001 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Mystery Science Theater 3000 experienced a changing of the guard with this fifth-season episode. Departed series creator and lead Joel Hodgson was replaced by head writer Mike Nelson, playing a hapless temp named... Mike Nelson, who was sent into space to cover for Hodgson's escape. The opening credit sequence and title theme (warbled by Nelson) were also new, but the show's basic premise--poking fun at atrocious B movies--remained the same.
A classic episode of the cult television series (in which an amiable space janitor and his metallic pals are forced to watch and deliver a sardonic running commentary on terrible movies), "Eegah" stars the gargantuan Richard Kiel (who would later become known for his sensitive portrayal of Jaws in a couple of the Bond films) in the title role as a still-kickin' Neanderthal looking for a little love in swinging 1960s California. One of the worst (or best, depending on your point of view) films ever to be featured on the show, this excruciating waste of celluloid provides ample fuel for Joel and the 'bots to deliver a wildly diverse, sustained barrage of hilarity (including an in-depth discussion of the widowed dad dichotomy of '60s sitcoms) at the source material's full expense. Enjoy, and... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Michael J. Nelson - Joel Hodgson - Trace Beaulieu - Kevin Murphy (II) Director(s): Michael J. Nelson - Joel Hodgson - Vince Rodriguez - Trace Beaulieu - Kevin Murphy (II) DVD Release Date: Released the 25 April 2000 Usually ships in 24 hours
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