Customer Reviews

The Film Crew: Hollywood After Dark

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After 11 years and 199 episodes, Mystery Science Theater 3000 officially closed their theater doors and ceased their disparaging commentary of disparage-worthy old films. But apparently, you can take the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 out of their title, but you can't take the... whatever, the MST3K guys (that's a hip acronym as all hip things need these days) are back in a new setting: they are now called The Film Crew. Back to their old shenanigans, if bashing movies can be qualified as a shenanigan, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett, and Mike Nelson are ready to get down to business: the business of mocking movies.

Their first release is Hollywood After Dark, a poorly made 1968 black and white film about a depressed loner who gets roped into assisting some strip-club owning gangsters with a seaside robbery. In the meantime, he also falls for a "stripper with a heart of gold", who just happens to be a younger Rue McClannahan from TV's Golden Girls. Clearly, there's plenty of joke fodder here, and the guys make ample use of it.

Starting with an introduction to the basic premise of the film crew, the guys describe themselves not as moochers of old films, but as "value added resellers increasing profits for people who aren't us." Their task, assigned to them by their boss, Bob Honcho, who calls them and talks to them over speakerphone, is to provide a commentary track for every film in Hollywood that doesn't currently have one. Their first task, sent to them in a package marked "URGENT" is Hollywood After Dark. The guys pop it in and the fun begins.

The film is desperately bad, obviously a clunker even 40 years ago when it was made. Filled with stripper dance sequences that are almost 5 minutes long, a 15 minute robbery scene with no dialogue, a nonsensical plot, a confusing ending, and entirely drab dialouge throughout, Hollywood After Dark serves as the perfect opening act for The Film Crew to make their mark with.

Fans of Mystery Science Theater will find little difference between the old style and the new style. Instead of a guy and two robots, it's three guys. And instead of seeing their shadowy images walk in and sit in an empty theater, these guys sit down with headphones to watch the film, and then the audience actually watches the film with commentary. These are the changes that necessitate the name change.

Fusing biting sarcasm with hilarious pop culture references ("Uh, I'm supposed to meet a Mr. Tumnus at this lamppost"), the film crew doesn't let up for a second when there's mockery to be had. Of a silent robbery scene with quiet jazz music: "If Jim Jarmusch made a holdup film." On Rue McClannahan's hair: "All I can think of is Justin Guarini in a dress." The jokes go on, and so does the awkward Hollywood After Dark.

The complete feature is made up of the crew's intro, 30 minutes of Hollywood After Dark, a brief lunch break, the final 30 minutes of Hollywood After Dark, and then some concluding remarks form the crew. The breaks are quite necessary considering the dullness of the film they're watching, but the guys perform best behind the camera as commentators, rather than in front of the camera as pseudo-sketch-comics.

Included on the DVD is a rather uninspired short entitled An Ode to Lunch, in which Bill Corbett performs a 90 second "sonnet for lunch" in a Shakespearean dialect that ends with, "alright I'm hungry, shut off the camera." Stick with the feature here as it offers plenty of laugh-out-loud moments and gleefully witty banter. It's official: the Mystery Science Theatre guys are back... with a hilarious vengeance.

Remember the TV show Mystery Science Theatre 3000? I do, I love that show. Seeing a man and two of his robot pals doing commentary on the worst movies made it a wonderful experience. Although I missed its run on Comedy Central, I did watch it a lot when it aired on the Sci-Fi channel. Normally I wouldn't waste my time with old low budget science fiction films; But when the Mystery Science Theatre crew provide the commentary, I can't resist. I stay glued to the TV listening and laughing at all the jokes. Thanks to Shout! Factory, us MST3K fans can rejoice and laugh some more. Three of the brilliantly cracked minds behind the Peabody Award-winning comedy program have reunited for The Film Crew: Hollywood After Dark, a DVD-only series that provides a similar skewering to some uproariously bad B-movies. Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett join together once again to bring us excellent commentary. The Film Crew are three affable guys who've been hired by a jovial yet clueless billionaire to provide commentary tracks for atrocious films.

They're job is to provide commentary for old movies that don't have a commentary track already. Of course, they have to be really bad movies. This new DVD is definitely worth watching, because it's really funny. To our amazement, the Crew's "commentary" is more cutting than informative (surprising isn't it?). The Film Crew's first target is a miserable 1968 slice of sexploitation starring a youthful Rue (The Golden Girls) McClanahan (quite atrocious). The Film is called Hollywood After Dark (aka Walk the Angry Beach), and man is it a terrible film. It's one that I actually recommend staying away from. That is unless you want to ruin 74 minutes of your time. In the movie a young girl comes to Hollywood to try to break into the movies. Sadly she winds up being taken advantage of by sleazy producers and is forced to become a stripper. Parents and fans alike should take note that the gags in The Film Crew are a little more "adult" than the ones on MST3K.

Hollywood After Dark isn't very graphic in terms of violence or sexuality, but it does feature a handful of half naked females dancing around. For the most part, this is harmless if hilarious stuff. The strip teases are more funny than they are sexy. I had a nice time laughing at the movie itself. Hollywood After Dark is a comedy in its own right. The commentary provided by The Film Crew is very entertaining. While the movie itself isn't, the DVD is worth watching just for the funny commentary. That's the sole purpose for this release. You're not buying the Film Crew DVD for 'Hollywood After Dark', you're buying it for the Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett commentary. Hollywood After Dark is a cinematic train wreck that's loaded with terrible dialog and a cast of half naked strippers. The story loses itself somewhere and you're left wondering what the hell is going on. Much like MST3K, the Film Crew takes a much needed lunch break in the middle of the movie.

The Film Crew point out most of the movie's flaws, as if they weren't obvious enough. Hollywood After Dark suffers from a lack luster story and poor editing. All the quick cuts and lack of dialog in certain areas just make no sense. Without the hilarious commentary, this DVD wouldn't be worth mentioning. Since it is worth the price, I'm recommending this DVD for all MST3K fans out there. I do have one complaint however. The commentary track on the DVD is funny, but it lacks bonus material. The disc's only sole extra is an amusing poem by Corbett which extolls the virtues of lunch in verse. That's about it, I would have loved to see some behind the scenes stuff as well as a gag reel. More extras would have made this DVD better. Still, I do recommend adding it to your collection. Keep in mind that this is just the first of many reviews to come. Shout! Factor will be releasing more Film Crew DVDs for other movies that are begging for a commentary track.

After MST3K, Mike Nelson and company needed something to do. And after 10 years of a steady Mystery Science Paycheck, they needed something to put food on the table as well. Their first post-MST3K foray, the Film Crew movies, are unfortunately just a limp, not-terribly-funny retreat of the MST3K concept. The host segments are downright painful to watch. OK, it's fun to see what Brain Guy looks like sans makeup, but their hearts just aren't in the host segments. When they get into the movie, you can imagine that it's Mike and the bots, what with the voices and all. But this movie is such a stinkbomb that even a MST3K-lite treatment can't keep you from pressing "info" repeatedly to see how much of the hour and 18 minute running time is left. Unless you are desperate for more MST3K at all costs, avoid. If you can't stay away, rent this rather than buying it.

The film crew, at least gives MST lovers an extra couple movies to watch. The movie is scary bad, which does make it hard to watch even with The Crew making fun of it.
Look at other film crew movies before this one.

I haven't been keeping up with what Mike Nelson and company have been concocting over at their RiffTrax project, so these Film Crew DVDs are my first exposure to the televisual movie mocking that some of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 alumni have been up to. For anyone who doesn't know (though I doubt anyone is on a purchase page for a Film Crew DVD without any knowledge of this), MST3k ran for years on basic cable as a guy and his two robot friends who were trapped on a satellite in space and forced to watch the worst movies ever made. Their only hope of remaining sane was to make as many jokes as possible.

The premise of the Film Crew is slightly different, although the end result is the same. Three guys (Mike Nelson, who played Mike Nelson on MST3k; Kevin Murphy who voiced Tom Servo; and Bill Corbett who voiced Crow T. Robot) work at a DVD-authoring factory. Their boss, Bob Honcho, wants DVD commentaries on every disc he releases and so forces his three employees to record a voice-track over the on-screen action. Unlike the traditional DVD commentary, the annotations provided by The Film Crew consist not of insightful behind-the-scenes information, but rather sarcastic comments, hilarious jokes and mocking observations.

The first movie in The Film Crew series is a 1968 flick called HOLLYWOOD AFTER DARK which stars a stripping Rue McClanahan. Yes, you read that correctly: Rue McClanahan of the Golden Girls plays a stripper.

Yikes. And you wondered if MST3k had already found all the really bad films.

The movie features quite a lot of the stripping that goes on at Rue McClanahan's strip joint. The other portion of the plot involves a weedy guy (Rue McClanahan's love interest) getting involved in some sort of heist. What the heist is about never really gets explained, nor is the audience allowed to know why exactly the movie's two-dimensional bad guys need this particular character to help them.

For this MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER fan it was great to hear those three voices mocking films again. I think the biggest mental shift for me was the lack of the shadowrama (the silhouettes of the three captives on the "Satellite of Love"). You may think that's a minor issue, but consider this. When you were watching MST3k and they were doing a more risqué film, the silhouettes immediately conveyed to anyone who unexpectedly walked into the room that you watching a comedy spoof and not spending your time watching some 1950s sleazy cheesecake film. Given that much of HOLLYWOOD AFTER DARK involves long sequences of bad and awkward stripping, you may want to make sure you have the volume up for the sake of anyone observing you.

Another fun aspect of The Film Crew experience is that the jokes are more up-to-date. MST3k always had multiple references to current events and the popular culture. Since the show hasn't aired since the late 1990s, a few of the jokes when watched on DVD can seem a little dated. So I was happily anticipating the first post-1999 reference. And, boy, it was a good one. I've missed hearing these guys make fun of the present day.

Now, the big question is: how does this format and presentation compare to MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER?

I had fun watching this. I'd rank it alongside an average episode of MST3k, which for my money is still funnier than most other stuff out there. One thing I feel does hurt this project is simply that the number of writers is fewer than on the old show. It's just the three of them here, and I think that the variety and unexpectedness of the material on MST3k was helped by the fact that they had over half a dozen very talented comedians on the writing staff.

In any case, I'd recommend HOLLYWOOD AFTER DARK for any fan of MST3k in need of a fix. You can even cheer during the closing credits when you see the names of Beez McKeever and Brad Keeley roll by (I did). It may not be as good as MST3k was at its peak, but it's still pretty hilarious.

I am a huge MST fan, and found both Film Crew movies rather disappointing. For one thing, they repeat many of the riffs from MST movies. And, the humor is much more sophomoric and occasionally, rather tasteless. Not to say I didn't laugh--I did--but they're rather uneven and not nearly the caliber of some of the better MSTs.

So good to have new material from the old MST3K group as the Film Crew. The movie was a bit harsh, and I cannot show it to my kids, but I liked it a lot!

A mild pain because the movie was so "out there". Just seeing it made me dizzy with confusion, or nausea--I'm not sure which.

Words can barely express how terrific it is to have Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy back and doing what it is they do best. Namely, making the unwatchable watchable. In this case it is providing the 'commentary' for a piece of early 60s drive-in dreck called 'Hollywood After Dark'. Listening to them bounce riffs off this terrible movie, I can almost think myself back to 1998 and the crew of the Satellite of Love. But The Film Crew doesn't have to play act like they did back then. Gone are the robots and the space ship and the mad scientists. The Film Crew is just three guys who watch bad movies with you and make you laugh. To that degree, the new incarnation is very successful. They still have the comedy chops to make you laugh ... and because there are no television restrictions, they are able to resort to naughtier comments and saucier observations (parents beware, anatomical references are made. They are very funny, but they also very anatomical). But as is the way with most new ventures, they (The Film Crew) are trying to hone the personality of the new show, and to that end I dropped a star from the rating. The extra -- Bill Corbett reciting a poetic ode to a bagged lunch -- was funny (and now I know what Bill Corbett looks like without the Brain Guy make-up). The bumpers during and after the actual movie fell a little flat, though. The sketches didn't seem to fit the personalities already established for the guys at the beginning of the DVD. That's alright, and I have no doubt they will make the bumbers work, too. -- And, as was the case twice during the MST3K run, the guys have picked a movie which is almost beyond comedic salvage. 'Hollywood After Dark' isn't as bad as a 'Castle of Fu Manchu', but it is close. But again, these three were rocketed as babies from the dying planet of Krypton to save the human race from bad movies. And they do make this first outing very satisfying. At the best of times, they are a film school run by Don Rickles and Joan Rivers. And there were many good moments in this DVD. I sincerely hope there are many more to follow.

You have to get used to the bots and Pearl etc not being there but Mike and the boys pick up where the old show left off...more or less. The intermission material is a bit lightweight and the set they are working from looks like it may be in one of the guys carport or garage with some recently stolen equipment and gadgets..(kidding). The movies suck like they're suppose to but the core reason we all watched MST3K and now the Film crew is the narrations. Yes, just like the old days. They've still got it. Like MST3K, don't over think it, just have fun and enjoy..

I was a bit nervous when I unwrapped this DVD. I'm a fan of all the various phases of MST3K and of the talents of these three men (Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy). I was worried that somehow this new effort would be some kind of step backward for them. It isn't. Their wit and screen presence has not diminished, and each of them is just as handsome and charismatic as I remembered. The commentary they provide is inspired and fun. I sincerely hope that The Film Crew follows their dream to provide commentary of all the old movies out there. I plan to preorder everything they release for as long as the quality remains this high.