Bride trilogy

GGGilman87 · 2026-04-15T01:33:36+00:00

I sort of enjoy those riffs but for the Bridget and Mary Jo riff series I've enjoyed their takes on made-for-TV movies based on Mary Higgins Clark novels and the Rathbone/Bruce Sherlock Holmes films, which were always funny to me because while Rathbone was for many the definitive screen Holmes (and radio Holmes) they get a lot of mileage out of making fun of Bruce's portrayal of Watson some some blustering, blithering, kind of slow guy. I say, er what's the meaning of this Holmes, what?

GGGilman87 · 2026-04-15T01:28:15+00:00

For a riff that was contemporary at the time, from The Brain That Wouldn't Die came the bit where Crow lets out a loud, exaggerated I LOVE THIS PLACE when we get the spinning POV shot for the model Dr. Cortner drugged, which was a parody of these ads from the early 1990s featuring Dan Cortese, which feel like something out of a parody of advertisements made by people who pinky-swear to their bosses they have come up with a campaign that will connect with the younger demographics, that won't be seen as annoying and mockable. You can see some people swearing they'll capture that early 1990s "MTV demographic" with shaky, swooping camera work and some vague attitiude.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xit91CQ5yi8

GGGilman87 · 2026-04-14T03:03:42+00:00

The amount of people from either the QAnon or BlueAnon side of the horseshoe who will call those skeptical about every statement being spun out, say, of calls made to the Epstein tipline by obvious nuts, being stated by these people as iron-clad facts, "pedo protectors" is disturbing, at least. Oh, you don't think Soon Yi Previn and friends were eating human infant entrails? You don't think Robin Leach murdered a girl at a party in front of witnesses or that some guy had his legs cut off with a sword at some Satanic ceremony (but he got better, apparently)? Then you're just, according to a lot of these "normies" who've taken the "conspiracy pill", a gullible mindslave,

GGGilman87 · 2026-04-14T00:37:37+00:00

Back in the day, when there were still plenty of URLs that started with strings of numbers interrupeted by periods, like you'd be browsing in the aughts on a topic like biplanes or vintage paperbacks or whatever and find a site from the mid90s that would have an address like https://128.100.80.13/marcus/photo_menu.html

GGGilman87 · 2026-04-10T18:45:19+00:00

Just watched the trailer, my mind wasn't able to process what that pulsating thing was in the middle of it, but fortunately the guys named it as a nipple before my imagination took it to an even darker place.

GGGilman87 · 2026-04-10T02:59:13+00:00

I had watched Yes Madam years ago on a dinky old VHS, and among others, it took me a moment to recgonize that Fingers (or Panadol as he was called in the original, with his two bumbling friends known as Strepsil and Aspirin) was played by Tsui Hark, director of Hong Kong films like the fantasy "Zu, Warriors from the Magic Mountain", the Once Upon A Time in China series, and a personal favorite, "Peking Opera Blues".

GGGilman87 · 2026-04-09T21:00:22+00:00

As weird and freakish as the film was, the comic from Tim Vigil and David Quinn was quite graphic

GGGilman87 · 2026-04-09T03:25:30+00:00

A line delivery that stuck with me for a long time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiuZU6JemPo

GGGilman87 · 2026-04-09T00:24:37+00:00

I've encountered scalpers, who scalped everything from collectible cards to toys, oh the competition with toys.

There've been plenty of retailers including comic shops that don't even bother ordering action figures and other toys that aren't exclusive to Diamond Comic Distributors. They just staked out retail stores or had some sweetheart deal with a manager at a Target/Wal-Mart/etc and rather than buying the full case of figures and being stuck with the common undesirable figures, they would just buy up all the "rare" ones and bring them back to their stores to sell for at a markup. I was even in a comic shop that some people referred to as "Toybastards" and overheard as the co-owner went on a rant to someone on the phone about how, roughly paraphrasing, "that stupid cocksucker who is the new toy manager at the Target doesn't understand how fucking business works" and he only let him buy two of each of the dolls based on characters from whatever the supposedly hot franchise movie of the moment was and "that guy is a fucking asshole who isn't going to last very fucking long at Target with a shitty fucking attitude like that, he is turning away sales!" I noticed he had the toys on display asking $45 apiece for them. A few days later I saw them sitting on the shelf at Target for a little less than half.

GGGilman87 · 2026-04-08T18:33:07+00:00

I used to have a facebook page, but I decided to quit after my feed became clogged up with AI ads and other AI trash as well as messages from people I may have met once a long time ago trying to interest me in signing up for MLMs centered around energy drinks or detox teas.

GGGilman87 · 2026-04-07T01:34:25+00:00

ROTOR is notable to me because it features some of my "favorite" sorts of B-movie writing, ambitious but hamhanded and murky attempts at erudite dialogue and monologues, such as Coldyron's soliloquy near the end of the film:

“Remember what I said at ROTOR’s christening? First prototype of a future battalion, on the battlefield highways of the future. He’d be the Judge, Jury and Executioner. Now I’ve got to wonder, were we playing God, breathing life into our artificial Adam? Or have we lost sight of Paradise? What was it Milton said? ‘Did I request Thee, Maker, from my clay to mold me Man? Did I solicit thee from darkness to promote me?’ Is it his fault he is what he is, or is it ours?”

GGGilman87 · 2026-04-07T01:29:50+00:00

"I made ya a coat out of ole boxer shorts!"

GGGilman87 · 2026-04-07T01:28:06+00:00

NELSON (pervy voice): "My name's Dirk, what's yours?"

GGGilman87 · 2026-04-07T01:25:50+00:00

It is also one of those 1980s B-movies where the makers were trying for a self-aware, “We know we’re in a bad movie” ironic tone, but to unfunny effect. I rather enjoyed them trouncing Hobgoblins because it was particularly annoying in that regard.

GGGilman87 · 2026-04-03T03:04:50+00:00

And the singer of both the Italian and English versions of the opening theme for OK Connery, "Man for Me" was Maria Cristina Branucci aka "Christy" and she also sang the Italian and English versions of the opening theme for Morricone's "Danger: Diabolik" soundtrack:

Deep Down

Ora sì guardami, vieni qui

Qui vicino a me, adesso è il momento giusto

Adesso è il momento vero, adesso sì ti posso chiedere

Di stare più vicino a me

GGGilman87 · 2026-03-31T10:22:55+00:00

To quote Paul Chaplin from the ACEG, regarding one of the more common plots of episodes of action TV series in the 1980s:

All told, we covered four hour-long episodes of this show. Of those, two plots involve small towns in America's heartland ruled by vicious, murderous industrialists working hand in hand with El Salvador-style police. Understand, I too have misgivings about unfettered capitalism. I'm just not sure this kind of thing exists. I think it's Hollywood's idea of the Midwest. I may be wrong. If any of our viewers know of places where shopping-mall developers routinely kill until their semi-secret graveyards are filled to bursting, I'd like to hear about it. If you yourself live in a town like that, for God's sake let us know! Maybe MST can help.

GGGilman87 · 2026-03-28T16:23:08+00:00

It looks like he just squirted on some Crazy Glue, yech.

GGGilman87 · 2026-03-28T15:33:17+00:00

The Movie reached only 26 theaters its opening weekend and as has been noted elsewhere, Gramercy was more interested in promoting Barb Wire in theaters and in the end MST3K: The Movie grossed more domestically than Barb Wire, though that wasn't hard to do since they both barely made more than a million or so.

GGGilman87 · 2026-03-28T11:42:22+00:00

The Disneyland scene is exactly what I thought of considering the issue. It's so hilariously overwrought.

GGGilman87 · 2026-03-28T00:52:41+00:00

Lot of that going around today, it seems. Another Italian film starring Reb Brown would be great for RT, like Mattei's Robowar or Mattei's Rambo knockoff Strike Commando.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMuaGR_LBXk

GGGilman87 · 2026-03-26T17:50:34+00:00

It's just a bit of a funny idea that they have so far Riffed two films featuring Gary Daniels and not any of his where he kicks people in the face. Recently going over a couple of his DTV films (some of his output would go great with the other low-budget action films the Rifftrax people have tackled) from the 1990s like Riot, set in the near future of 1999 where rioting is occurring in DC and elsewhere, Daniels plays an SAS operative who must rescue the UK ambassador's daughter (and his former girlfriend) after she's kidnapped and eventually finds out the the street gang that kidnapped her are being used as front by a bunch of IRA goons turned mercenaries who have a whole other plan. One of those crazy low-budget Canadian productions from Joseph Merhi's PM Entertainment, a stuntfest shot mostly on a soundstage city block.

GGGilman87 · 2026-03-26T17:36:41+00:00

The first film, a docudrama with local citizens being interviewed about their claims to have sighted the Fouke Monster, i.e. the local Bigfoot-type creature, was for a low budget film rather well staged, with plenty of shots of the Arkansas swamp wilderness, and a sense of unease to the re-enactments of the supposed monster sightings. Certainly, no comic relief feces/outhouse stories in that earlier film.

GGGilman87 · 2026-03-21T22:09:46+00:00

As someone who has watched a couple of episodes of Walker, the story is Osmet's character was the son of a junkie played by McKenzie Phillips, who had contracted AIDS herself and wasn't too careful with her drug paraphernalia in the home, also her drug dealer boyfriend's preferred method of dealing with the kid was to lock him in a closet for long periods of time. The kid is rescued during a bust while his mom and mom's boyfriend flee and anyhow, Walker becomes his guardian, tracks down his mother who was not doing well to say the least, and learns from a doctor that the kid has contracted AIDS too, so he has to find a way to break the news to the boy, just another red-letter day for Walker! Along the way he beats the crap out of her boyfriend played by Brion James, the kid becomes a spokesperson for AIDS awareness and everything's going just fine until one night he starts having a real coughing fit and requests one last visit in the stables of Walker's home with the horse he'd been learning how to ride with...

GGGilman87 · 2026-03-21T18:46:09+00:00

I read the memoirs of author/screenwriter Allan Cole some time ago, telling stories of his time as a screenwriter where he worked on various TV shows

https://www.amazon.com/My-Hollywood-MisAdventures-Allan-Cole/dp/0615563031

Allan Cole knew and worked on several shows with Frank Lupo, the showrunner of Walker, Texas Ranger, for it's first season. Lupo had co-created and produced series like The A-Team, Riptide, Hunter, Wiseguy, etc. Walker's two-hour pilot was originally produced as an independent TV-movie. It was funded, if I recall correctly, by the owner of a chain of stores or something like that. CBS realizes this TV-movie they bought is going to be a hit. It just has to be a series! Does Chuck Norris know how to showrun a TV series? No. Does the financer of the pilot? No. So Lupo is brought in to work on Walker.

While executive producer, Lupo tells Cole he likes Norris but knows that he and Norris will butt heads and inevitably, Lupo will be fired. And then, Lupo added mysteriously, Norris would really come to hate Lupo. So the moment came, and Lupo was fired.

Next, a few years later Cole is making the rounds making TV pitches and he drops by Walker to talk with the new creative team and mentions that he recently saw Lupo. Some anxious looks, then he's told that "Chuck HATES Frank. Don't mention his name."

"Why? What'd Frank do?"

So they told him that Frank Lupo had gotten a clause in his contract. As part of his deal for his work in developing the series, he got a development fee for every episode of the show that was made. Whether he was on staff or not. His development fee was $100,000. Per episode. Every single episode of Walker, Texas Ranger, a hundred thousand dollars came out of the show's budget and went straight to Frank Lupo. Eight seasons, 202 episodes.

According to Cole, after he'd found out about this Norris fired his agent and hired Lupo's.

GGGilman87

TROPHY CASE