Comedian/writer/intergalactic treasure Joel Hodgson no longer owns
the rights to his Mystery Science Theater 3000 characters and
rickety puppets (Gypsy, Tom Servo, Crooooow!), but he still
rules—with kingly scepter and glacial drawl—over the
domain of Making-Fun-of-Shitty-Movies-istan. These days, Hodgson
tours with the MST3K gang under the name Cinematic Titanic,
performing live commentary on films like The Oozing
Skull and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians with droll
perfection. If you’re not in love with the MST3K model of
spinning cinematic shit into comedy gold, well, that’s embarrassing for
you. Awkward. Try again. (King Cat Theater, 2130 Sixth Ave, www.brownpapertickets.com. 8
pm, $42, all ages.)

Lindy West was born an unremarkable female baby in Seattle, Washington. The former Stranger writer covered movies, movie stars, exclamation points, lady stuff, large frightening fish, and much, much more....

8 replies on “Cinematic Titanic”

  1. You guys have just earned 900 awesome points for recommending this.

    “If you’re not in love with the MST3K model of spinning cinematic shit into comedy gold, well, that’s embarrassing for you.”

    MY sentiments exactly.

  3. I love you Lindy, but WHY DO ARTICLES ABOUT CINEMATIC TITANIC ALMOST NEVER MENTION THE EXISTENCE OF RIFFTRAX? (Rifftrax being Mike Nelson’s company/website where you can buy mp3 riffs on new and classic movies, usually featuring Mike, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy.) Even if you try both and genuinely prefer Cinematic Titanic, there are like a hundred Rifftrax titles available whereas there are what, three CT releases? But anytime Joel and CT get mentioned in the press it’s like Mike et al don’t exist (i.e. “he still rules—with kingly scepter and glacial drawl—over the domain of Making-Fun-of-Shitty-Movies-istan”).

    Sorry for ranting about something so totally nerdy and pathetic in your comments section, Lindy.

  4. Aw man, I had no idea they were touring! Too bad BSG is on tonight. All will be revealed, right? I mean, the producers have been telling us this for the last two seasons, so it must be close! I’m an addict, waiting for my Cylon methadone!

  6. “Hey…how come this review of Wilco doesn’t even mention Son Volt?!?!”

    #3–I could ask “How come every time I read an article about Rifftrax they never mention Cinematic Titanic?” and the answer to both your question and mine would be the same: BECAUSE THEY’RE DIFFERENT THINGS!!!

    If you want to explain what Cinematic Titanic is…you say “Hey, it’s the guys who created MST3K…plus a couple of the other people who were involved in MST3K over the years…doing what MST3K did, only without the puppets…and instead of being on tv, you buy each individual movie. And hey, they’re playing in Seattle tonight and tomorrow!”

    There’s no need to talk about Rifftrax. when explaining what CT is. The guys doing Rifftrax weren’t part of the group that created MST3K. You don’t buy the movie with Rifftrax, you merely get their audio commentary to play with your own copy of whatever movie it is (which is why Rifftrax can do popular current movies–they don’t pay for licensing.) Rifftrax has nothing to do with CT, other than the Rifftraxers are also ex-MST3Kers who make fun of movies.

    Most important of all, CT is in town this weekend…Rifftrax isn’t.

    (And, #2, I agree. I’d so love to go–especially as I had a chance to see MST3K live in Minneapolis back in 1992 and skipped it, to my regret ever since…but the $42 ticket price is likely to be the thing that keeps me from going to see CT in person tonight…unless, of course, it doesn’t. It’ll be a game-time decision, either way.)

  7. #6: It’s true that the one significant difference you named between the two groups–that one of them is going to be in Seattle this weekend–makes this particular news item more justified than most in not mentioning RT. (That one sells mp3s and the other sells full DVDs is not significant when the article boils down to “Did you know some ex-MST3Kers are still making fun of movies?” as most of them tend to.) It was just the bit about Joel “ruling” that irked me in this case, leading me to issue a general rant aimed at all local, national and international media.

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