MST3K-OZ #12 18 September 1998 Welcome to the twelfth issue of the Antipodean MSTie Newsletter! That makes a whole year I've been doing this ... good grief! Yes, this issue is late. But, I have an excuse - I fell over and broke my wrist. This has kept me away from work for a few weeks. (Technically, I'm *still* away, but I had to come in to fill in a few forms and stuff, so I'm using the opportunity to get this out. If you e-mail me at work, don't be surprised if there's no answer for awhile. I'll be back at work the first week of October.) As always, anyone who wants to get off this bus, let me know. If you know someone else who might want to see this, please get them to e-mail me to add them to the list. I won't add anyone who doesn't request it directly. Feel free to print this, show it to your friends, blow your nose on it - whatever works for you. Remember, this effort works best as a co-operative effort. If you've got something you want to share with us all, even if it's only a paragraph long, send it to me and I'll include it! I'm not fussy! As long as it's got something vaguely to do with MST3K and is somehow relevant to us, I'm happy to see it! As an editor I have a pretty relaxed style . -------------------------------------- A CONTEST The "contribute an article to the newsletter and win a t-shirt or a video" contest will run for one more month - that is, I'll announce the winners in next month's issue (see July's newsletter for full details). More entries appear below! If you don't enter, you can't win! ------------------------------------- WE'RE ON THE WEB! Quintas has been working hard and has updated our Web site! I think it looks spiffy, if still a little sparse. But it's young, it'll grow! Visit http://www.fortunecity.com/lavendar/pimlico/131/oz.html! You know you want to! This is a site in continual development, so mind the girders and don't step in the paint! Suggestions for improvements always welcome! If you have any great ideas, or material to contribute, please forward them to Quintas (syntax@picknowl.com.au). -------------------------------------- NEW ARRIVALS I got my "MST Shorts" (complete with the kind you wear - and very comfy they are too, although I'm normally a "briefs" kind of guy). Also Tom Servo's favourite host segments, and "Angels Revenge". Kewl. -------------------------------------- MST3K TENTH ANNIVERSARY COMING UP Tom Marwede (thomasm@connexus.apana.org.au) writes: "As most of you are aware [well alright, some] the 10th Anniversary of Mystery Science Theater 3000 is on 24th November 1998. To get in incredibly early with a major 3 month warning to you all. A MST-A-Thon will be happening on Saturday 21st November 1998 from Midday until whenever. The plan is to show one episode from each season. Mark your calendars now. Limited space is available, if you want to crash the night bring stuff. Just let me know in advance. So naturally enough this stupendous get-together will be happening at my place. Most of you know where I live." Obviously Tom's event is only of relevance to Melbourne MSTies, but perhaps those of you in other states (or countries) might like to stage a similar event! -------------------------------------- MST3K BOOKMARKS By Quintas (syntax@picknowl.com.au) Hello all! As the fine internet patrons that you are, I'm sure you've all got a selection of bookmarks (or 'Favourites' for all the readers using Internet Explorer) to MST3K sites on your hard disk. I know *I* have, and I thought, why not share them? And so, here for your own enjoyment are some of the MST3K WWW sites that for some reason, be it for excellence, goofiness or just plain fun, I felt the need to bookmark. Enjoy! Mystery Science Theater 3000 http://www.scifi.com/mst3000/ The Official site! Well, of course I had to mention this :-). It's really cool too! There's a description of the show and all of Best Brains, a 'Caption This!' game to play, tons of little freebies and best of all, an episode guide for season's 8 and 9 written by the Brains themselves, as well as a semi-regular column about anything and everything. It's a great site all in all, very professional and well done. Kudos to the Brains and the Sci-Fi channel! Satellite News http://www.mst3kinfo.com/ And I had to mention this as well :-). The official MST3K info club site, 'Satellite News' is filled with news, links, information, transcripts of host segments, and I could go on and on. The sites's a wealth of information, if you haven't seen it, you should! Web Site No. 9 http://pinky.wtower.com/mst3k/mistings.shtml Otherwise known as "that big MiSTings place" :-). This site houses almost every internet MiSTing that's ever been written on a massive searchable database. It's also the home of the official MiSTing 'Dibs List' as well as tons of information about MiSTings. If you need a laugh, or if you're thinking of doing your own MiSTings, go here first! AADGKA! Links http://www.theworks.com/~hamdingr/mst3000links.html A huge links site with hundreds of Mst3k links. Unfortunately the updating of late has been rather lax, so as my 'central' links site I now prefer to use... Cyberspace Theater 3000 http://www.westworld.com/~johnston/mst3k/cst3k.shtml A links site with a difference; it's maintained on a searchable database that actually allows people to add their own sites and descriptions, so there's no need to wait for the site owners to get around to the next update. It's a wonderful idea and it works brilliantly; it grows more everytime I visit it. Highly recommended. Mst3k Paradise! http://members.xoom.com/CrowTRobot/mst3k.html This cool site is adorned all over with the most gorgeous Mst3k pictures. Drawn by hand and by computer, they are all well done and definately worth a peek. Mst3k: The Magic Expansion Set http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Alley/2109/start.htm Yep, that does say what you think it does :-). This guys a great fan of the "Magic: The Gathering'" card game and here he displays his own addition to the line, a *huge* expansion set of at least 100 fully designed cards (and he isn't even finished yet!), all related to Mst3k. Geez, it must have taken the guy months! The whole set's extremely neat anyway. If you've ever wanted to play "Magic" with cards such as Ator, the Box of Hamdingers, the Forklift, Mitchell, Rock climbing, and the amazing card-that-allows-you-to-decide-who-lives-and-who-dies, this is for you! It's neat! One thing though, the main page uses Java so be sure to go to the un-javaed section if your browser can't cope with it. TServo81's Mst3k Site http://members.aol.com/TServo81/index.html A great all round site, with heaps of sounds (including whole songs and host segments), a neat transcript section and a fairly good (if somewhat incomplete) original episode guide. Cool! There ya go! A short and by no means complete list of some of my Mst3k Bookmarks. Have a look at the sites if you haven't seen them, and if anyone else has a list of Mst3k Bookmarks to share I'm sure Bruce will appreciate them for the next newsletter. And, as an extra bonus, I'll create a links page to list them on the web site! We need one of those anyway :-). _________________________ Internet MiSTing Review - Stephen Ratliff's Revenge Challenge, MiSTed by Doug Atkinson ,Andrew Perron and Matthew Blackwell (Editor). Get it from "Web Site No. 9" at http://pinky.wtower.com/mst3k/mistings.shtml Review by Quintas (syntax@picknowl.com.au) Yes folks, after much time and procrastination, I've finally gotten around to doing a follow up to my Internet/Fan MiSTing article from issue 4 (look in the back issues on the web page if you don't know what I'm talking about ...). This time I'm reviewing a neat little MiSTing by the name of Stephen Ratliff's Revenge Challenge! Yes, that's right girls and boys, it's Ratliff time! Okay, I tell a lie. The whole thing wasn't written by Ratliff, his contribution is just a small piece at the end. It got it's name because all of the short stories are responses to a challenge by Ratliff on the Star Trek newsgroups. The challenge? "Fictional characters get revenge on the authors who write them"! Quite frankly, if the authors always write like this I don't blame the fictional characters for trying to get revenge. Anyway, the stories range from just odd to really awful, but the MiSTing is so good that the whole thing is hilarious. What's *really* great about this MiSTing though, is the host segments. Mike and the bots decide to follow the vein of the stories, you see, so they all give their rendition of how *they* would get revenge on their creaters. So what *would* happen if Mike and the bots suddenly turned up at the house of Mike Nelson and Bridget Jones? Talk about breaking the fourth wall .... In summary, this is a neat MiSTing with hilarious and original host segments. I give it a 9 overall; I love it! ************************ Snippet... >"Excuse me," the young girl said. "As much as I enjoy hearing how you righted wrongs and triumphed over evil, Tom: Um, was Ratliff speaking out loud? Mike: Not that I can tell. Crow: OH MY GOD! SHE'S TELEPATHIC NOW! RUN! > this isn't Sailor Moon, Mike: Yes, he's already done that story. [The three shiver.] >and I have some things I'd like to talk to you about." Crow: After all, now is the perfect time for you to start an IRA, Stephen. Why with just a small investment now, your retirement will be financially secure... ********************* See you next time everyone. Maybe I'll get around to reviewing something that I don't rate so high :-) .... -------------------------------------- AUGUST MELBOURNE GATHERING REPORT August again saw a couple of Gatherings, as I continue to bravely watch the backlog of MST tapes in my collection. August 8: 108 "The Slime People", 903 "The Puma Man" and 109 "Project Moonbase". Mike, Dr. Bob, Dean, Alison & Me. Ah, "The Slime People". See, there are these amphibious things that live under the sea. For some reason, they decide that they want to live in L.A., so they come up out of the sewers, and in a huge exciting battle defeat the forces of humanity. At least, that's what we're told happened; none of it appears on screen, of course. What *we* see are a bunch of pathetic losers wandering around a deserted TV station watching films of the apocalypse. When they get tired of that, they wander around a meat market. Then they wander around in the hills near L.A. There's lots of smoke in this film. Approximately 80% of the time nothing at all is visible on the screen, and believe me, we're all thankful for that. Did I mention that the Slime People are armed only with spears, but know how to make a giant dome that keeps the army out of L.A.? Oh, and they're bullet-proof too. The movie has at least one redeeming feature though: it's not every film that shows you a man carrying a goat. "The Puma Man". I don't want to go into a lot of detail here because I want to do a full review of it soon. Suffice it to say, a stupid man becomes an even more stupid super hero when it's revealed that he is actually a descendant of aliens who came to earth millenia ago, and he has all the traditional powers of the mighty puma - you know, playing dead, falling out of windows, and flying very badly. Starring Donald Pleasance, and some Italian woman with a very very large mouth. Eeeww. "Project Moonbase". This is a really really short film, but it's not nearly short enough. There is absolutely no action in this movie. Not a single exciting thing happens. No-one is in danger at any time. Consequently, I found it really hard to maintain even a superficial level of interest. Co-written by Robert Heinlein, who must have been in one of his "if it's got a rocket in it it'll be good" phases. For a SF film of the 50's, the Science component is actually quite reasonable, unfortunately the Fiction half lets the team down badly. Scientists send a team of astronauts into orbit around the moon. One of them is a traitor, but he ends up dying peacefully after causing no problems at all. The other two (one of whom is a woman, with quite perky breasts if you don't mind me saying so) land on the moon and get hitched. The End. Oh yeah, there are a couple more episodes of Commando Cody and his endless crusade against the Radar Men from the Moon, who are proving to be less-than-inspiring as villains. Frankly, I don't see why Cody even bothers. August 15: 110 "Robot Holocaust", 619 "Red Zone Cuba". Tom, Alison, Chris, Dean & Me. "Robot Holocaust" turns out to be a real gem of a film. It's set in the future, after apparently a holocaust involving robots, that has left a lot of people dead and the rest amazingly stupid. Oh yeah, and there are a bunch of robots running around. They're mostly pretty annoying, especially the one that hangs out with our heroes. Anyway, somebody called the "Dark One" is trying to enslave all humans, and whenever they disobey he takes their air away, but somebody and his daughter have invented a way for people to breathe without air, so this really pisses the Dark One off. The somebody is captured and tortured by being forced to have conversations with Valaria, a rather attractive young woman with interesting tastes in leather clothing. Unfortunately, she can't act worth a jar of beans (not that she's any different in that respect to anyone else in this movie), and her rather exotic accent is utterly impenetrable. The somebody's daughter gathers an intrepid band of ... well, losers, really, and they set off to rescue her father. Along the way they pick up "fluffy-boots chick", some of them die, the rest live unfortunately, and it concludes with perhaps the saddest example of a movie fight scene I've yet encountered. The somebody is turned into a giant avocado. (You think I'm kidding, right?) The Dark One is defeated, I think, it was getting pretty hard to stay awake by this time. They all live happily ever after, except for the ones that died, I suppose. At least there was lots of guacamole for everyone! Have I mentioned the attacks by the fierce sock puppets? You think I'm kidding again, don't you? ("Fraggle Rock: After The Apocalypse.") Highly recommended for all MSTies! "Red Zone Cuba" I have reviewed in a previous issue of the newsletter (Issue #4, Jan 98, if you must know); Alison gives her opinion below. Suffice it to say that a second viewing had not improved it. Now I just want to hurt someone .... Tentative next gathering date: 19 September (with various supplementary gatherings as well, hopefully). Mark your calendars! "Yew and yaw dawta arr duumed." ------------------------------------- NEWCASTLE GATHERINGS Phil Gilson (c9705426@alinga.newcastle.edu.au) writes: The first MST3K video night run by the Newcastle Uni Gamers Society was held on 10/8 with 11 people in attendance. This is quite a good turn-out for such a cult thing, we had about the same number of attendees as the Anime nights this replaced. Regardless, it still irks me that more people don't show. Our club has 70+ members and they were all informed about it ... guess I was justified in calling them 'lazy bastards' in the newsletter :) We showed 'This Island Earth', the 'movie' that was released over here, which is a fine introduction to the show. Everyone there enjoyed themselves immensely, and all walked away as definite fans. There were even a couple of guys who had heard of MST before and were overjoyed at finally being able to watch some episodes. The next night is 18/8, 6pm Auchmuty Room, Union building, Callaghan campus. [Thanks again to Tom Marwede for the tapes, I forgot to mention him last time so Bruce had to do it for me :)] ------------------------------------- REVIEW - by Alison Campbell (a.campbell@pmci.unimelb.edu.au) "Red Zone Cuba" This is without a doubt the worst movie I have ever watched. Yep, worse even (IMHO) than "Manos". Beginning somewhat pointlessly with a journalist attempting to interview a train driver about some incident that never occurs during the movie, RZC immediately becomes far worse when said train driver then sings the opening theme song. Still, all of that is better than the remainder of the movie. The plot, what little of it there was, involved one escapee (the director of the movie, unfortunately also appearing in the starring role) meeting up with two other former cons who are then promptly conned by a pilot into joining a secret taskforce which apparently is to invade Cuba (although no-one ever actually mentions that). After some gratuitous "running up cliff, falling down cliff and attempting to strangle dummies" scenes (aka 'training') said taskforce heads off in the broad daylight to scale some 80ft cliffs as part of the invasion. Did they learn nothing from Gallipoli? Fidel Castro at this point makes an incredibly badly conceived appearance (no, the actor *doesn't* look like him, even with that beard), something which seems to have been realised by the director almost immediately as he doesn't reappear. The taskforce is captured by the 'Cuban' army, and are marched out one at a time to be shot. (is it just me or would a machine-gunning of the entire cast have made this movie much shorter and far more bearable?). The three cons escape at midnight, promptly running through broad daylight where they steal a plane and (apparently) fly back to the U.S. Rather nastily they leave a wounded and rich comrade behind to be shot and some confusing scenes of more soldiers running up cliffs are shown. Back in the US things get even more confusing. The cons throw some old guy down something that could be a mineshaft, a septic tank or a coal cellar for reasons that are obscure to say the least, but leave his piano-playing daughter alone (for reasons that are even more obscure and far less understandable). The cons steal the old guy's car, drive to a train station where they take a free ride and then *buy* a car at a car yard. Why? Who cares! Eventually they meet up with the wounded-comrade-that-they-left-in-Cuba's wife who confirms that she and her late husband own a tungsten mine and that she's happy for them to have part of it. Surprisingly they don't kill her, but all drive off to find the mine. As this is happening the cops finally pick up the trail and start tracking the cons with many cars and a helicopter. All comes to a head, eventually, when the cops and the cons meet up. The director is shot, something that should have happened before he could film this movie IMHO, and dies but not before shooting the w-c-t-t-l-i-C's wife. Said w-c-t-t-l-i-C then reappears, having not been shot at all. We know it's him 'cos they show us his wound (just in case we'd forgotten what he looked like in the last 40 mins of extreme torture) and hugs his wife, who has miraculously recovered from being shot at point blank range. The host segments for this movie mainly involved Mike going insane and he and the bots trying to survive the movie, something that all of us fully empathised with. Frank sets up Dr F. to be beaten up by the mob, and spends his remaining segments recovering. The best host segment was the song, which was sung to cheer everyone up at the end. :-) All in all this movie was torture, even with the good MSTing that it got. Do not watch this one last in a session under any circumstances, especially if you have to drive long distances home. The urge to end it all can be overwhelming. ------------------------------------- That's it for this time around. Please let me know about anything you liked (or didn't like)! Keep those cards and letters coming! Time to push the button .... Bruce MSTie #72759 Either of these e-mail addresses will get to me, both are checked regularly: bprobst@vitgbsd3.telstra.com.au <-- work bprobst@ibm.net <-- home