Review: ‘Cinematic Titanic’

Travis:

What on Earth would we do if martians invaded and kidnapped Santa Claus for their own? If you were at the Family Arena on Saturday, November 1, you would have laughed your kiester off at the absurdity of the situation. That was the night that ‘Cinematic Titanic’ made it’s much-anticipated appearance in St. Louis, drawing scores of Mystery Science Theater and Cinematic Titanic fans out of the woodwork for a “healthy” dose of the ole riffing of BAD movies.

On the docket that evening was none other than the holiday favorite ‘Santa Claus Conquers the Martians’… timely as an early lead into the holiday season. The film is so terrible, it’s a blast to watch just for the cheese factor, but toss in the cast of ‘Cinematic Titanic’ and you have one hysterical evening of laugh-til-it-hurts holiday fun. The cast is comprised entirely of original members of the ginormously popular, epically ingenious TV show ‘Mystery Science Theater’ that includes Trace Beaulieu, Frank Conniff, Mary Jo Pehl, J. Elvis Weinstein and the creator of ‘MST3K’ and ‘Cinematic Titanic’ Joel Hodgson.

First things first… the event kicked off with a “warmup artist” named Todd Carlin. I’d never seen a warmup artist perform before, but apparently they’re quite popular out west for getting crowds worked up before they shoot a TV show. Todd’s jokes were hit and miss, but overall he was a pleasantly humorous lead into the main event that made killing time bearable. The best part was when J. Elvis joined him on stage with his guitar and the comedy became musical. Their best bit was about these new radio stations that play “whatever they want” as Todd commented on how we’re getting so lazy we don’t bother even having formats in radio anymore. The musically enhanced performance of what a station that only played the parts of songs we like was absolutely laugh-a-licious!

But I digress… you want to know about the meat and potatoes, the heart of the beast, the main event! Well, if you weren’t there you missed it! (Obviously) The stage was setup with a large digital projection screen that actually looked great, combined with the hi-tech sound system of the arena. The cast positioned themselves on stage and proceeded to *riff  the movie  right there in front of us, live and in your face. The sound engineer did a commendable job at managing the performer’s audio in contrast to the recorded audio track on the movie itself. Being a live event, there were a few instances where the two audio sources collided, making it a bit more difficult to understand, but that comes with the lack of control one has in a live event such as this. Believe me, the humor was never lost as the audience remained fully attentive for anything and everything that came from the glorious voices of bad movie dissension.

The ‘Cinematic Titanic’ crew was on their A-game during the event, never missing a beat and delivering dinger after dinger. It was a beautiful thing! Anyone not familiar with this type of humor, may be reading this and wondering what’s so great about watching other people do what we can do late at night when drunk… well, you have to experience it to understand. While these events are live, they are not ad-libbed and the performers aren’t drunk (to the best of my knowledge). These shows are carefully scripted and tweaked to maximize laughability. These comedic masterminds waste not a single opportunity to tear the movie apart. These are professionals. Do  try this at home, just don’t expect to get the same results…

If you missed the incredible event, or if you loved it so much you want to hit the road and travel to every stop on the tour like some crazed obsessed groupie, here  are the next show dates and location:

12/18-12/20/08 @ LAKESHORE THEATER – Chicago, IL

Check out the official ‘Cinematic Titanic’ website here.

* Riff -Â  (rf) A clever or inventive commentary or remark.

Overall: 4.5 Stars