3D’s “Rifftrax Live” Review
My friends and I attended the first-ever nationwide broadcast of “Rifftrax” last night at the Spotlight 14 Theater in Norman. In addition to seeing the classic sci-fi turkey “Plan 9 From Outer Space” get its due, we were treated to a lost short film from the ’60s, live music and free stuff. Needless to say, we were extremely impressed by the whole event.
For the uninitiated, “Rifftrax” is an Internet endeavour of former “Mystery Science Theater 3000″ stars Michael J. Nelson, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy. For over a year now, the three friends have been providing downloadable, humorous commentaries for popular movies (their mocking of the “Star Wars” prequels is not to be missed), old instructional short films and some classic bad sci fi movies.
Last night, they decided to try something new. They put on a live riffing performance in the Belcourt Theater in Nashville, Tenn., that was broadcast to more than 400 theaters across the country. Despite a few early broadcast problems, the whole thing was remarkably successful.
The evening began with our hostess, Veronica Belmont (“Tekzilla”), introducing the guys riffing the lost instructional short “Flying Stewardess,” which definitely represented a different view of airline travel than modern passengers are used to. The guys were in fine form referencing everything from the climate in Ft. Worth, Texas (“Sorry, Ft. Worth!”) to the movie “Snakes on a Plane.”
After the short, we were treated to the musical stylings of geek icon Jonathan Coulton, whom I had never heard perform before. He graced us with two of his songs: the melodic “The Future Soon” and the zombie opus “Your Brains” (which featured audience participation and the dance stylings of one Kevin Murphy). Both of them were well received and I think he may have made some fans last night.
Also interspersed throughout the festivities were a couple of fake commercials for the show’s “sponsors.” At least I hope they were fake or there are some very strange companies out there. These were created by Richard “Lowtax” Kyanka of the Web site “Something Awful.”
After those, Coulton also joined the riffers’ fake music group the “RiffTones” for a song about the aliens’ first eight plans to take over the Earth and how they went wrong. Mike also took a quick break to give away a free iPod Touch to one lucky audience member and a code for a free Rifftrax to everyone else.
After all the preliminaries, it was finally time to settle in and watch the main event. It’s hard to imagine a more perfect movie for riffing than Ed Wood’s magnum opus “Plan 9 From Outer Space.” It’s filled with zombies, very lame aliens and possibly the stupidest police force ever assembled on film. The riffs flew fast and furious, and it was clear that Mike, Bill, and Kevin were having just as much fun as the audience was. (For the record, my favorite bit involved them repeatedly mocking the wild gesticulating the police officers did, despite the fact they were holding loaded guns.)
My friends and I laughed consistently, had a lot of fun, and went home with a free Rifftrax. It was a truly great evening. I hope it was also successful from a business standpoint and that we can look forward to more “Rifftrax Live” offerings in theaters soon.
—3D
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Comments
Hey – thanks for the great writeup! Glad you had fun. Just a small correction, though: the guys haven’t been doing this just “for over a year” – the site has been around since Summer of 2006 – so it’s actually been three years we’ve been around 
A small detail, sure, but I wanted to mention it. Cheers!
Hey, thanks for the correction Erik. I was just going on my own (admittedly faulty) memory there, since I was one of the first to download (Back when Mike was flying solo in the face of Road House) I had no idea it had been so long. I guess time really does fly when you’re laughing your butt off.
3D
Honestly, I was surprised and impressed by how many people showed up at the theater. We had everyone from young kids to older people there, which was amazing. I’m so glad it was such a hit. Wish I could’ve met some people there, since I’m new to Norman, but hopefully they pull another one of these off somewhat soon.