MST3K (619)

619 - Red Zone Cuba (w/ Speech: Platform Posture and Appearance) - "Actionlessness." That's it, Crow. This movie forces us as a species to invent a new word just to describe it. I think I might be comfortable declaring Coleman Francis the worst filmmaker to have ever walked the planet and I've only seen two of his creations. I can't believe I have another of his movies to watch just two episodes from now.

Nearly as bad as the film was the MST crew's failure to do anything with it. Take a look Coleman Francis. Go ahead. Not a pretty man, by any stretch. Not in great shape, either. His voice sounds like a busy day at the scrap yard. He has the cheery demeanor of a medieval town being visited by the plague. Not only did he direct the film, he cast himself as the main villain. This should be a comedy goldmine of Mitchell-like proportions. It wasn't so much. Deep into the episode, Mike began using his mock, gravely Coleman voice to insert lines into the director's mouth. There were some jokes about wanting to eat frog legs. Both were too late to save the proceedings.

The short was just ground already covered. Speech: Using Your Voice and Posture Pals got together way back in season 3 and produced this mutant child. I wasn't a fan of the first posture short and I didn't care for this one that much, either. In both this short and the film, I felt like the guys had a lack of energy for the making of the funny.

The host segments were forgettable. I know this because I've seen this episode before and remembered none of them one iota. Most of them were concerned with Dr. F's fight for life after his encounter with a mob debt collector. I guess they were trying to turn the tables by having Frank as the torturer and Dr. F as the tortured. It didn't work so well. The happy song the guys sing at the end was on the right track, but I feel like we've seen that bit before.

There were really only two things I liked in the episode. The recurring knee gag taken from the short was nice. Frank forces the bandaged Dr. F to do it, which was pretty amusing and disgusting. Mike does it in the theater to help himself get through the movie, which was a rare sight. Joel was the guy move around during the film. I don't think I've seen Mike ever do anything in there other than taking hats off of robots. The other bit I liked: the egg shell in Frank's hair. He eats a hardboiled egg in one of the earlier host segments and a piece of the shell stays in his hair for the rest of the show. Neat.

"Smells like Coleman Francis in here." (5/10)

film d. Coleman Francis (1965)
short d. Arthur H. Wolf (1949)
mst d. Trace Beaulieu (17 Dec 1994)

[watched at work on a laptop during lunch "hour."]