Guest MST3K: K16

This movie might be called "City on Fire", but one of my first impressions of it is that it should have been called "How Not to make a Smoothie". I took this as a good sign, since not so many of the KMTA episodes have made me laugh within the first five minutes. Letsee, avocado, eggs (with shells), booze, cream, and according to Joel, "Detergent?". Turns out I was right; there were several times that I found myself laughing during this show.

This is a tedious example of a cheap disaster movie that features no likable characters or sense of suspense. The riffing is much faster paced than in some of the previous KTMAs I've seen. I got the feeling that they guys had just come out of a staff meeting where they all agreed that they needed punch it up a bit. Josh does step on Joel's and Trace's comments fairly often, but Joel does some interrupting as well. "Hey, we're beginning to annoy ourselves. Cool!" Trace notes at one point. I think this is just a function of the episodes being ad libbed rather than scripted. All the guys are trying to get a many riffs out just off the top of their heads with no real guidance in their timing. It's no surprise to me that they trip over each other.

I find myself being increasingly impressed with the comedic skills of JatBs the more I watch the KTMAs. Yes, they are much less polished than the episodes that follow on cable. But the fact that they work as well as they do under the circumstances highlights in inherent natural talent of the gang of Best Brains. Despite the fact that the copy I have had an annoying glitch that caused the sound to fade in and out in places, I really enjoyed this episode.

-Tealeaf