Kevin Murphy, voice of Tom Servo and handler of many other aspects of Mystery Science Theater 3000, has taken time out of his day to be my Celebrity Remote for Tuesday, September 19th.

Kevin Murphy has a very good grasp on torture by media and self set goals. Kevin sat through some of the world’s worst movies while working on Mystery Science Theater 3000. If that were not enough, Kevin made it a goal to view a movie screening every single day for a year, as documented in A Year At The Movies.

What does this bearded gentleman, who is well versed in the terrors our ocular and cochlear sensors can withstand, have in store for me? Read on!

Boy, tonight you get a treat. I was going to have you running all over the place to find neck-snapping differences in points of view, when all of a sudden I notice that TCM is running Rashomon. It’s Kurosawa night for you, with a few odd turns along the way.

So we’ll begin at 7pm with TCM, the best channel on the whole damn tube by a long throw, and Kurosawa’s Rashomon, which is great fun; certainly it’s up there with Citizen Kane, which had used the same storytelling device, but it took Kurosawa to explore its extremities in the genre of crime. Take a look at Sin City or The Usual Suspects sometime after seeing this and they might seem like tributes.

Let’s do an exercise in perceiving influence. Fifteen minutes in, flip to CSI on Spike, then back to Rashomon. At the half hour, flip to Law & Order on TNT, then back to Rashamon. At the forty-five, CSI Miami on A&E, then NCIS on CBS. Five minutes each, then back to Rashomon. Note how storytelling, points of view, ambiguity, the element of the unreliable narrator play into the film, each witness bearing their own perspective. Note the other shows, the visual and editorial styles, alternating perspectives told through flashback—you can trace all these now-conventional devices right back to Rashomon.

I know I’m wrecking your enjoyment of Kurosawa; be patient, there’s a payoff. But not yet. At 8PM, head back to A&E and watch a good five minutes of Dog the Bounty Hunter, perhaps the second most irrelevant show on TV, next to Dancing With the Stars. Notice, even with the aid of editing, how little Dog actually does. Mainly we get shots of his ass walking in and out of places. Now run back to Rashomon. Enjoy the high-melodra acting style, redolent of silent films.

At 8:30, a brief foray into the Ridiculous: flip to Comedy Central where they’re showing South Park, “The Butters Episode,” In which the show is given over in all respects to Butters – he even gets his own theme song. Same South Park universe, different perspective. Kurosawa lives, in the oddest of places. Run back to the end of Rashomon.

At eight-thirty, stay tuned to TCM and see Yojimbo, in which Kurosawa, enamored of the American western and the detective novel, made a lone-wolf in a den of thieves story, undoubtedly based on the Hammett novel Red Harvest. It’s the basis of Clint Eastwood’s whole damn career, and Bruce Willis owes the movie a hell of a debt as well. I’ll put in your mind to think of this film as a comedy, and leave you to it. I encourage you to watch it to the end at 10:30. Hope it isn’t past your bedtime.

Kampai.