The 88th Academy Awards is this Sunday, and that means Leo is going to get snubbed once again. Instead of watching the entire ceremony just to see the In Memoriam package, you can watch these three RiffTrax B-Movies that somehow didn't kill the careers of the people who starred in them.
And just like with last year's list, these three movies star actors that were nominated (or won) for far better roles.
How bad was this movie? It couldn't even be saved by Bruce "The Chin" Campbell. Of course, they didn't give him much to do. He had an evil plot (we think), and Samwise was apparently the best hobbit for the job of stopping him.
There wasn't even any ice in this movie, for crying out loud!
Who was nominated, and for what?
- Sean Astin - Best Short Film, Live Action - Kangaroo Court, 1994
The cool thing about this movie is that it was recently released on DVD with optional RiffTrax commentary! I wish more companies would do that. Or that Netflix would follow Hulu's lead and give us some RiffTrax goodness. I'm getting off track here.
This movie is about a simple minded man who gets the head of a serial killer grafted to his shoulder. What more do you need to know?
Who was nominated, and for what?
- Bruce Dern - Best Actor in a Leading Role - Nebraska, 2013 & Best Actor in a Supporting Role - Coming Home, 1978
I've written about this movie before in my Top Ten RiffTrax B-Movies list, so I'm just going to post my description here:
A movie about one of the lamest D&D campaigns ever. Hawk The Slayer is about a man, his dead father's magic MacGuffin sword, and his grandbrother Jack Palance. There is also the fantasy prerequisite giant, dwarf, blind soothsayer, generic soldier, slave trader, elf, nun in a cage, and poorly animated Nazi hawk. It ticks all of the boxes.This movie is a great way to round up your RiffTrax Non-Oscar Party™
Who was nominated, and for what?
- Jack Palance - Best Actor in a Supporting Role - Sudden Fear, 1952, Best Actor in a Supporting Role - Shane, 1953, & Best Actor in a Supporting Role (WON) - City Slickers, 1991
Mike, Bill, Kevin, and the rest of the writers (like Conor, Sean, Molly, and the other Mike) work really hard to bring this level of entertainment to us all. I mean, they are the poor souls who have to sit and watch these movies over and over again without the benefit of the riffs. That is more than worth the extremely reasonable price tags on these movies. And if you do get these riffs by other means, you can still throw some money their way by heading to the donations page. I don't want RiffTrax to disappear because you decided to be cheap and illegally torrent their videos.