RiffTrax takes on The Hunger Games, in blatant defiance of President Snow

Good news for everyone who loves watching hit movies get mercilessly mocked! The RiffTrax crew -- Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett -- have emerged from their secret bunker in Panem's Capitol to proudly present their commentary for the teenager-murdering blockbuster The Hunger Games! The MP3 track just became available today and is compatible with pretty much anything you can throw at it, including the Zune. So, in case you needed an excuse to buy the movie, here is a pretty darn good one!

Photo provided by RiffTrax

When she isn't nerding out that the holidays are coming, Jamie is a reader at Monday Night Fan Fiction at Fontana's in Chinatown, NYC (next date: TBA, 7:00 PM). All work is original, written by the readers, so if you have a brilliant fanfic idea stuck in your head, send it via Twitter: @jamielikesthis

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Ramone

Zune?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqTYI55K1eo
robdobbs

$3.99? It didn’t cost that much to see the actual movie.
- oasisob1
  
  But this is worth it.
Grey Eyed Man of Destiny

well this clearly got folks fired up
http://twitter.com/joeybladb joe k.

I watched a couple of minutes of the demo, and it really never got very funny.
http://www.facebook.com/aelfscine Jon Bakos

tl;dr – I don’t think they do nearly as well when a movie’s any good.

If the movie’s even halfway decent, it goes from good-natured riffing to Three Jerks That You Wish Would Shut Up.

When they do movies like Plan 9 from Outer Space or Reefer Madness, hurling insults works great because those movies have some jaw-droppingly bad scenes, and most importantly, *terrible pacing.* Lots of awkward pauses, pointless car-driving scenes, and bad editing – plenty of room for cracking jokes and filling dead air.But when they riffed on Night of the Living Dead, it just didn’t work as well. I’m not saying it’s The Best Movie Ever, but it’s not terrible and has some parts that are genuinely good horror. If the movie’s at all interesting/frightening, them talking over it just gets annoying – they become the guy on his cell phone in the movie theater. NotLD is also much better paced – far fewer pregnant pauses or empty space. The guys just have to talk right over the dialogue, which also gets annoying.I suspect their treatment of The Hunger Games will run into similar trouble. Whether you liked it or not, it’s not a poorly made movie. There’ll be little dead air for riffing, and anything that’s actually interesting or dramatic will make the guys into bullies pretty quick. Making fun of The Happening when there isn’t a scrap of good acting in the whole thing is pretty safe, but hooting snorting when Rue dies would be harder to laugh along with.
- bulletproofheeb
  
  I agree this is true the large majority of the time. The better the movie the duller the riffing tends to be. The only real exception I’ve found to this rule is the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Those were hilarious and the movies were very good as well.
PJofT35

@Jon — I don’t find this to be the case. Some of my favorite riffs are for movies that I liked on their own, such as Harry Potter 3, and Casino Royale. It isn’t the case that you can’t enjoy jokes based off of a good movie just as well as a terrible one.