Movie classics to admire and mock

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

By Josh Bell

Thursday, Aug. 20, 2009 | midnight

Movie fans have a couple of opportunities to check out genre classics from two very different perspectives this week: On August 20, six area theaters will host a broadcast of RiffTrax Live, featuring former Mystery Science Theater 3000 performers Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett. RiffTrax is an extension of the old MST3K concept, in which Nelson and a pair of wisecracking robots (voiced by Murphy and Corbett) would offer running commentary on bad B-movies. At this week’s event, Nelson, Murphy and Corbett will provide live commentary (beamed to over 400 theaters nationwide from Nashville) on legendary bad movie Plan 9 From Outer Space. The RiffTrax project, which provides commentary tracks to be downloaded and played along with films, has proved that even quality movies can benefit from a little mockery, and while Plan 9 isn’t exactly a masterpiece, it does have its own cult following. Even if you appreciate the charms of schlock filmmaker Ed Wood, though, the RiffTrax crew is guaranteed to make the movie funnier.

For people who prefer a more reverent approach to the classics, the Sci Fi Center is offering a triple feature of groundbreaking silent films, including Fritz Lang’s 1927 sci-fi film Metropolis; the 1920 German expressionist horror film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; and F.W. Murnau’s 1922 vampire story Nosferatu. Each movie is extraordinarily influential in its own way: The look and style of Metropolis can be discerned in movies ranging from Dark City to Blade Runner; Cabinet is widely considered to be the first true horror movie; and Nosferatu brought Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, subsequently filmed and interpreted countless times, to the screen for the first time. All three together offer a crash course in the origins of modern genre cinema.