Rifftrax

My "Super Best Friend" Matt clued me in to Rifftrax, a service put together by Mike Nelson, of MST3k fame that allows him to continue his lampooning commentary stylings in an online format. Basically, Mike's selling DRM-FREE mp3s of his audio commentary over various movies. You rent the appropriate DVD, and play the movie and the commentary simultaneously and get a few hours worth of entertainment. I haven't used the service yet, but I'm definitely intrigued. One of the biggest limitations of MST3k was that they were forced to use obscure films since they couldn't afford to buy the licenses for more mainstream cinema. While the low-budget films were certainly great fodder, and endlessly entertaining in their own right, I always wondered how the gang would handle more recent, bigger budget films. Hopefully, this will answer the question.

The other thing that I find amazing is that Nelson has used the internet to offer this entertainment over mainstream cinema (more value for customers) while still driving down costs of the entertainment model. Isn't technology grand?

"Roadhouse", the first movie they've provided commentary for, is next on my Netflix queue. They've got a preview clip up on the website and it's pretty damn funny. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to watch it and let you know the thoughts on the service.

 technorati tags: rifftrax, mst3k, humor, mp3, mike+nelson