What do we think about Mr. Nelson and company's latest venture (the one cheaper than the Film Crew that is)?

I've listened to:

Daredevil
Battlefield Earth
The Matrix
Star Wars: Episode I

Certainly, having more people works better, and the newest ones, with Mike, Kevin, and Bill Corbett are great in nicely bringing back the "Mike and the Bots" feel.

Episode I is a VERY easy target, viciously skewered, ruthlessly so. If you're a hazy fan of the movie, you might want to stay away.

The Matrix is surprisingly...or not so surprisingly...merely so-so. The movie's a tough nut to riff at times because of its intentional weirdness.

Battlefield Earth was funny. This movie has the distinction of being a film that my friends and I riffed (while a video camera was recording us) live. Unfortunately, it was the second film we riffed in one night and we really stunk (the first, "Boa," I'm actually somewhat proud of). I must point out, though, that the riffing was probably magnified in humor because of the sheer connection I've had to the material--lines like "man animal," "friendly bartender," "endless options for renewal" cause me to laugh anyway.

Daredevil was great. Merciless skewering of Ben Affleck--I think there's a reference to just about everything mockable of Ben. There's also some brilliant cultural reference moments too--this one really does have the MST3K feel to it. Plus mockery of Jennifer Garner, the Irish, fat people, and blind people.

Great idea putting up a thread for this. I've purchased five thus far:

Star Wars: Episode II: IMO, the funniest Rifftrax yet. Mike and Kevin have a field day with Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen's acting in the romantic scenes. Their reaction to seeing Jar Jar again was priceless. Chad Vader from the Internet series of the same name is a "guest riffer", but has a very limited role.
Star Wars: Episode I: Almost as funny as Ep II. I highly recommend watching this one first in order to get the most out of the riffs in AOTC.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier: This one's okay, definitely worth the $15.00 I paid for the movie and the Rifftrax.
Star Trek VI: The Undiscivered Country: I wasn't thrilled with this one, probably because of the three Trek movies they've done so far, this was, IMO, the highest quality with the fewest potential riffs.
Star Trek: Generations: Hilarious. The best Trek Rifftrax thus far. Mike and Kevin lay into Malcolm "MARvelously ReMARkable" McDowell, "fembot" Data, and perhaps the worst possible choice for big-screen villains: Klingon women.

Overall, these are great entertainment for the cost ($2.99 each plus the cost of buying or renting the movie). I was a little concerned at first about synching up the Rifftrax with the movie, but it's not that hard. I've watched a number of the free samples, and am thinking about purchasing the ones for "Eragon" and "Bourne Identity".

I think I've only sampled SW I, II, and ST V. I've enjoyed all three, but I think II was my favorite. Maybe it helped that I watched it with another person. I'll definitely be purchasing more as they come out.

Oh yeah, and Episode one of Lost. Forgot that one.

The Rifftrax website has indicated that a media player may be in the works which would automatically synch up the DVD with the commentary. I hope it comes out soon. I have to run the movie on Windows Media Player and the commentary on QuickTime, making it impossible to pause without re-synching. Does anyone have a better method?

Yay! Media player is out!

I've been getting one or two of these a week since finding out about it. Not needing the Rifftrax player, as I wouldn't consider watching a movie on my computer.

I have a PSP with a separate set of speakers, and rarely have a problem with re-syncing after taking a break.

Just got The Fifth Element and liked it a lot. So far, Battlefield Earth and Star Trek V stand out as a couple of the better ones.

If you get Eragon, stick around for Disembaudio's cover of the end credits song. Painful and hilarious.

The Episode III Rifftrax had its moments, but like the Star Trek VI Rifftrax, it wasn't great. Probably for similar reasons, too. The original movies were just too enjoyable already.

Episode II was pretty funny--it would have been better if Bill Corbett had replaced Chad Vader, a gimmicky idea who barely talked anyway.

Lately I've been getting better enjoyment out of riffing films myself again. Last week we did "Elektra," and I felt proud riffing as many puns of the word "Hand" as I could.

I understand the riff of the SW Holiday Special is one of the funniest. Haven't gotten around to watching it yet.

It is. Couldn't stop laughing, they savage it.

They've taken to releasing "shorts" periodically. These are the same public domain stuff that they did on MST3K, like old 40s and 50s educational reels. I've only seen the samples, but the children speaking in tounges in "A Visit to Santa" definitely sound like they're worth 99 cents.

Raiders of the Lost Ark is pretty good stuff, too. Great one-liners given to Toht ("Today's Ziggy? As good as they said!"), nice fake names for Indiana Jones...very funny. My favorite might be the things they shout as "questions" when Marian is screaming "Indy!"

"What's Bob Knight's favorite team?"
"INDYYYYY!"

On Jan 28, Mike Nelson, Kevin "Tom Servo" Murphy and Bill "Crow T. Robot" Corbett will be oding a live Rifftrax at 9PM EST, 6PM PST.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer is, potentially, pound for pound the best Rifftrax I've seen.

Rifftrax will have a live riff of Plan 9 from Outer Space on Aug. 20 in theaters: check here for the Fandango page.

The live riff of Plan 9 was really good. There was a lot of boffo material and hearing it with a live audience makes it all the more fun. Truth be told, the movie is such an easy target that a lot of the riffs were sort of obvious, but it was a great, crowd-pleasing time.

I've hit a few more of the Rifftrax. While they're certainly all amusing, they really started to pale for me after I busted out some old MST3K episodes. As bad as some modern films are, they can't compare to the sheer audacious badness of the films riffed on the show and the quietly seething relationship between Mike/Joel and the bots and the films there as compared to the more abstract "we're just riffing on a film!" quality of Rifftrax isn't quite the same.

That said, they're still quite fun to listen to.

The RiffTrax Plan 9 is also available on DVD, though I don't think it's the live version. The guys are now releasing several of their riffed movies on DVD as well as the Shorts mentioned above.

Members of That Guy With The Glasses.com have also recorded RiffTrax as well. For example, The Spoony One (Noah Antwiler) and the Nostalgia Chick (Lindsey Ellis) both did one for the original 1984 "Dune".

Ellis also at one time had a review of the film on her page on TGWTG, but has since removed it. She then posted a short vlog of her in the desert (appropriate) explaining her decision to do so.

I would really love to hear the RiffTrax of movies I hate, but then again, the ones for movies I like would be funny as well!

BTW, Antwiler is one of the best and funniest riffers I've ever heard. On his website he has a section called TSE Riff Theater where he has posted a few things which he has riffed, such as various training videos made in the 80s/90s. The one for Wendy's was my favorite.

But he has also riffed/reviewed bad CD-based computer games that utilized Full Motion Video, which was often done in games for the PC or for gaming consoles like the Sega CD. There were four "Make My Video" discs that were released by Sega in the early 90s, but like Spoony said, they were hardly games, you would just sit and watch the substandard video quality and the bad acting and they were hardly interactive at all. However, Spoony also reviewed and riffed what many people consider to be his masterpiece, the 1995 FMV PC game "Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle Of Flesh." That one was a five-parter and was over five hours in length. If you can find the time, check it out, it'll be worth it, trust me.

Also, Spoony reviewed some of the board games that came with VHS tapes, such as Nightmare, Dragon Strike, and Party Mania, and his riffing of those are really funny as well. There were also two horror PC games in the "Terror T.R.A.X." series which Spoony played and riffed on. In his review of Track Of The Werewolf he did not show any of the game itself, he just played it and provided commentary, but the one for Track Of The Vampire, he showed the whole game in all of it's hilarity, and that one was also of his best ever game reviews, in my opinion.

Anyway, I also got to meet him at a convention last summer and have a picture taken with him. That weekend he hosted a forum called "Spoony Fixes The Games He Hates", but I was not able to attend it. In it, he was most likely referring to what he would do to improve the games in the Final Fantasy series, of which he has also posted a series of reviews/riffs on, especially the eighth and tenth in the series. I've never played any of them myself, my tastes in gaming lean more towards the old school, which is why I also really like watching the Angry Video Game Nerd's game reviews as well.

So, perhaps I shall look into the RiffTrax at some point.