MST3K Returns For a New Audience

by Chris Feil

This Friday marks the return of cult favorite Mystery Science Theater 3000, the spoof equivalent of sharing a movie theatre with a patron who won’t stop talking back at the screen. This time the crowdfunded production heads to Netflix, with many classic episodes also back on the streaming service as well. For some the original series is more of an acquired taste, but for its devoted cult, there is much to rejoice again.

The premise was simple: painfully bad films are forced upon two robots (the gumball machine-like Tom Servo and metallic rooster Crow) and one human (Joel Hodgson, then Mike Nelson, and now Jonah Ray) in a plot for world domination by some crackpot scientist...

Click to read more ...

Animated Feature, the April Foolish Oscar Predictions

If only Laika had waited until 2017 to release Kubo and the Two Strings -they might finally have won that elusive Oscar that almost always goes to Disney or Disney/Pixar.

Owen Wilson poses with a life size McQueen for "Cars 3"

As previously discussed this year's animated slate doesn't look too promising in terms of American studio features, and there's also a complete absence of stop motion features *sniffle* from abroad as far as we can tell. What's worse, the Academy's just-announced a rule change for voting on the animated features that might well make the category less penetrable for brilliant work from across the ocean. But we'll have to wait and see if our worst fears materialize.

First Oscar Predictions for 2017's Best Animated Feature

Click to read more ...

What did you see or Smurf this weekend?

The weekend's biggest new film was Smurfs: The Lost Village... which probably says all you need to know about this mini Spring lull between blockbusters (another Fast & Furious is next).

Audiences weren't of one hive mind with people going to see a little of everything, though The Boss Baby and Beauty and the Beast still dominated as they did last weekend. Beauty and the Beast has been so dominant already that it will surely end the year as the second or third highest grosser. For comparisons sake, if you throw it back into last year's calendar, it would be #3 behind Rogue One and Finding Dory and ahead of Captain America: Civil War...

Click to read more ...

TCMFF Day 3: Michael Douglas and the power of protest

Though the theme of the TCM Classic Film Festival this year is comedy, that hasn't stopped political themes from emerging during discussions with special guests. Yesterday morning's screening of The China Syndrome with Michael Douglas in attendance was just such an example. Douglas and host Ben Mankiewicz started out talking about the aesthetic and casting choices of the nuclear meltdown film, produced by Douglas and starring Jack Lemmon and Jane Fonda. However, as with the release of the movie - which happened to be released days before the Three Mile Island accident in early 1979 - the timing of the Q&A between the TCM host and the veteran actor/producer meant that conversation soon turned to themes of destruction, education, and protest.

It turns out that Michael Douglas makes a very charming protestor. Douglas explained that while he hadn't cared much about nuclear dangers or disarmament before producing The China Syndrome, when the script was handed to him by a documentarian, his interest and irateness was piqued...

Click to read more ...

Tweetweek: Sequel Culture, Current Kidmania, Moonlight Kiss

Stop 👏 trying 👏 to 👏 make 👏 cinematic 👏 universes 👏 and 👏 focus 👏 on 👏 making 👏 great 👏 standalone 👏 films.

— Zac Thompson (@ZacBeThompson) April 5, 2017

Preach. Sequels used to happen because of love for a standalone. Now they're built into it like everything is a prologue.

Lots more after the jump including Twitter's current Kidman obsession, Disney villains, Tab Hunter, and more...

Click to read more ...