Cinematic Titanic Live: East Meets Watts
Review by Nick Peron
It had been nine long months since the folks at Cinematic Titanic (Movie riffers featuring most of the original cast of Mystery Science Theater 3000, including series creator Joel Hodgeson) have come out with a DVD release. The CT folks have been busy doing live shows (none of which have come to Canada as yet, but I'm sure that'll be in the cards sometime in the future.) they have finally come out with a new DVD release.
This time they have decided that they were going to give those unable to see their live shows a taste of what it's like to be at one with a new DVD that promises to be the first of a series of Cinematic Titanic Live! DVD's. The movie that they are giving the riff treatment is a film called East Meets Watts.
Intrepid Blaxploitation/kung-fu movie junkies will remember this movie from it's original name Dynamite Brothers. What's the reason for the name change? Unlike their first DVD release The Oozing Skull (a movie who's original title is Brain of Blood) the name change was likely at the behest of the owners of the film. At least with Brain of Blood, the creators of that film had asked that the folks at Cinematic Titanic rename the title of the film so that there is some disambiguation between the two versions. The title East Meets Watts is the title of the film when it was initially released on video in the United States.
East Meets Watts is kind of a funny title, and it fits with the Cinematic Titanic dynamic in that it sounds goofier than it sounds goofier than Dynamite Brothers. I think it's a better choice than some of the other alternative titles (thank you IMDB), in Australia the film was titled Killing of a Chinese Bookie (which, considering the plot doesn't make any sense) or the US rerelease which is simply called Stud Brown (which is the name of one of the films main characters.)
Cinematic Titanic Presentation:
With typical Cinematic Titanic releases which were all filmed in a studio, it followed a similar system as it's predecessor Mystery Science Theater 3000, in that the riffers all hung out on the side of the screen on risers, everyone was set in silhouette. There would be the occasional "host segment" wherein they would pause the movie and something wacky would happen, however it appears that the CT folks have decided to drop this element after their release of Blood of the Vampire.
The live shows of Cinematic Titanic isn't much different in that the riffers sit on either side of a screen where the movie is projected and they make jokes. From a filming perspective, if they simply put a camera in front of the stage and hit record that would look like utter shit, but not to worry, the folks at Cinematic Titanic use the magic of digital video to make their live performance look awesome.
From what I can ascertain, they had two cameras forces on the riffers on either side of the stage giving a head on perspective. When they put the DVD together, they cropped the riffer footage on either side of the films regular running and synched it all together. Very clever.
To date, I would have to say that this is the best Cinematic Titanic release yet. I would have to stay that starting off, the CT folks were a little weak -- and I would have to say that this was likely due to two factors: Firstly most of the riffers on Cinematic Titanic hadn't done it in a very long time (The only one doing riffing after the end of MST3K was Mary Jo Pehl who did a few stints with the folks at Rifftrax), the other thing I think is a contributing factor was that they were still breaking out of the habits of MST3K. I say this in the fact that there was probably a lot of censorship, and concern about what sort of jokes the they could make on MST3K. Not that Joel Hodgeson and his riffer rat pack have filthy mouths, or that they are want to say offensive things -- give me a break, they are professional comedians, they don't need to resort to such cheap laughs... But the fact remains that they are no longer operating in a public medium where they have to watch what they are saying due to FCC regulations. I think the other consideration is that a lot of the kids from the MST3K era have all grown up. Remember, the series just celebrated it's 20th anniversary recently, so needless to say the audience that watched the show growing up as children are well into their 20's at least. Suffice to say, anyone who is going out of their way to buy a CT DVD or go to a live show is old enough not to be offended (too much) when someone says "shit" or makes a joke that might be considered offensive. Their humor is a little more adult, and also gone are most of the obscure references. One of the biggest determents of the early MST3K episodes, at least in my opinion, was that they dropped a lot of obscure references. Which while most of them I got (and the ones I didn't I'd be quickly looking up on the Annotated MST3K or Wikipedia) I thought it was done too frequently during the Joel era of the show. I thought i was often used as a crutch (Anyone who has seen Warrior of the Lost World who rolled their eyes every time they said the phrase "The guy from Paper Chase" and similar riffs can attest to this.)
I like this DVD edition of East Meets Watts, because the CT folks do take a stab at more risque humor, there are a lot of Asian jokes (no surprise given the films blaxploitation and kung-fu movie fusion) and they go for some more dark humor. J. Elvis Weinstein makes a David Caradine joke (and folks from the future that are reading this review at some point in the distant future, please keep in mind that at the time that Weinstein made the joke, Caradines death was rather recent -- Also, fuck you for not inventing hover boards yet. What are you doing wasting time reading ancient movie reviews when you could be out inventing hover boards!)
I have to say that of all the riffs made in this DVD my hat is off to Mary Jo Pehl in this edition of CT, she was by far the most daring riffers. Mary Jo, if you are reading this, please be aware when you did the "Supplies!" riff when Stud and Larry come out of the supply closet, I almost did a spit take all over my TV screen. Thank you.
Another great bit was when Joel, Trace and Frank make MST3K references, the delivery of the lines were amazing call backs to memorable moments from MST3K, however in the typical CT fashion any reference to MST3K meets with some hilarious pokes at their former fame (Much like in the CT release of the Doomsday Machine where J. Elvis says "A gum ball machine head on a robot? Sorry, but that's just lame!") I will not spoil it for you folks who haven't seen it, but trust me, if you are an old time MST3K fan you will get a huge laugh out of this one.
The live experience is also great because you get some interesting audience participation bits that would otherwise be unseen in studio releases. The CT folks would comment on the crowd reaction to their jokes, which from a stand-up comedy angle is a great way to get more laughs out of your audience.
Plus, you see all the flaws and goofs and other things that can happen in a live performance. Frank Conniff stumbles on a few of his riffs, they probably skip a riff or two because they are all laughing at an amazing delivery of a particularly risque riff previously. I'm quite sure there are some spontaneous, spare-of-the-moment apiphanies that are ad libbed right on the spot.
If you aren't sold on the movie they are riffing, at least get the DVD on the fact that this is possibly some of the funniest stuff I've seen the Cinematic Titanic crew do. Even MST3K at their best during the Joel years was not this funny.
The Movie:
Now let's talk about this movie, hoo-boy, now here is a nice little challenge. Personally speaking I've actually seen this one unriffed and uncut. I came across a bootleg copy of this film when I was visiting fellow Micro-Shock cohort (and wordsmith extrodinaire) Rhonda Baughman in Cleveland. While she was taking me around, we popped into a neat little record shop called Record Revolution who, among other things, sold bootleg DVD's of hard to find and out of print films, and other oddities. No seriously, if you ever wanted to own a copy of Edward Penis Hands, or Me, Myself and I the narcissistic documentary about Corey Haim, and you live in the Cleveland area, that would be the place to go.
As Rhonda was flipping through LP's (a big fan of records our Dr. Baughman is), I amused myself with looking at these various DVD releases. With the exception of the weird porno, which other than being a subject of conversation for my own budding stand-up routine, doesn't interest me, there were a lot of interesting finds. One of these finds was a copy of the Dynamite Brothers, which has a tag line which you cannot ignore: "Even Chained Together - Nobody Can Handle Them!" it also goes further to say "See For The First Time STREET FIGHTING AGAINST KUNG FU" How could I say no?
Watching this movie..... is hard... That's all I can really say. As a movie reviewer, a lot of my free time is spent watching movies, and more often than not, my evil couch ends up causes me to fall asleep while watching movies -- good or bad -- and I usually have to go through two to three sittings to get through a film (me thinks I need a new couch.) But the Dynamite Brothers was the mother loving limit. Up until the CT release (Which, I am shamed to admit, I fell asleep watching) I had not been able to get past the movies 30 minute mark. It wasn't that I was tired, or that my couch is the embodiment of evil, this movie just really sucks.
In theory, a movie about a jive talking 70's black man being chained to a kung-fu fighting 70's Asian Kung-Fu master kicking ass should be a no brainer. But this movie must have been a prototype for Fled
The movie follows the story of Larry Chin (Alan Tang) who sneaks into the United States from Hong Kong in order to find his brother (James Hong) to get revenge on him for murdering his girlfriend. Along the way he is busted by a racist cop (played by Aldo Ray) he meets Stud Brown (Timothy Brown) and the two make an escape. Heading for Los Angeles, the two unlikely friends get involved in a rivalry between Larry's brother's gang and that of Stu's friend Smiling Man (Don Oliver).
Stick around for the budding romance between Stud and the deaf mute Sarah (Carol Speed), which has to be a match made in heaven.
The movie is chocked full of bad dialogue, poor acting, and some sexy foxes to boot.
In comparison, the CT version of the film only edits out the nudity (which is sparse, there are only two scenes I can recall), otherwise the CT version is complete and intact.
The movie is bad, and I would only recommend it to only the most devoted Blaxploitation or Kung-Fu fanatic, for the rest of the rabble go out and pick up the Cinematic Titanic version, trust me, it's the only way to make it through alive.
So treat yourself to some huge belly laughs, and pick yourself up a copy of Cinematic Titanic's DVD of East Meets Watts, you will regret nothing.
All of Cinematic Titanic's DVD's are available through their website www.cinematictitanic.com
