#Barbie Breaks All the #Movie (Podcast) Rules
FanExpo Chicago was lacking plentiful after hour activities, so after night two of the convention, CatBusRuss and his big sister decided to check out Greta Gerwig’s take on Mattel’s toy icon, “Barbie”.
FanExpo Chicago was lacking plentiful after hour activities, so after night two of the convention, CatBusRuss and his big sister decided to check out Greta Gerwig’s take on Mattel’s toy icon, “Barbie”.
This is a fun recording since it it leaves us with a “Siskel & Ebert” feel. The two siblings get to focus on how this fun, educational takedown of the patriarchy left them feeling. If that is not enough embracing of the joy of motion pictures, our hosts get to argue about how the end of 2023 movies look and will end up.
Ken Russell's '80s All Over
"Ninety For Chill: The #Podcast with @CatBusRuss" offers the world the ultimate questionable quadruple feature. If it was between 70 and 100 minutes in length and directed by Ken Russell during the '80s, it is here. CatBusRuss's weekend binge features the body horror classic "Altered States", Russell's reimaginings of 19th century British literature in "Gothic" and "Salome's Last Dance", and Hugh Grant and Peter Capaldi battle with a snake vampiress in "The Lair of the White Worm".
"Ninety For Chill: The #Podcast with @CatBusRuss" offers the world the ultimate questionable quadruple feature. If it was between 70 and 100 minutes in length and directed by Ken Russell during the '80s, it is here. CatBusRuss's weekend binge features the body horror classic "Altered States", Russell's reimaginings of 19th century British literature in "Gothic" and "Salome's Last Dance", and Hugh Grant and Peter Capaldi battle with a snake vampiress in "The Lair of the White Worm".
Weird things happen when our host gets ghosted. Aside from watching Ken Russell's "Altered States" to clear up his Netflix DVD queue before the service ends, CatBusRuss did not have much of a plan for what this week's episode would be about. Presuming that he would have a date on his day off, the best he thought he could do was watch "Lisztomania" to provide the audience with the entire range of craziness the director of "Tommy" had to offer.
And then, no response from the lass he had been chatting up through her bout with Covid. Add into the equation that the phallic ode to an early 20th century German composer was not streaming anywhere for free. Russ's response to these difficulties, lets watch all of the '80s Russell that meet the criteria of the podcast.
#Expend4bles and The Missing “Unleashed” Jet Li
You can have your MCU, give Russ gory action movies. Time was going to made to get to “Expend4bles”. It is gruesome and fun, but missing Jet Li. To remedy this, our host watched “Unleashed”. And let’s acknowledge it now, Bob Hoskins is a stronger baddie than Andy Garcia.
September is finally offering CatBusRuss the schlocky cinema that inspired the creation of this podcast. You can have your MCU, give Russ gory action and horror movies. Show him what Tony Stark should have looked like after the third Snap. Time was going to made to get to “Expend4bles”. It is gruesome and fun, but creatively gutless. To remedy this and finish out his Netflix DVD subscription, our host watched an actor who did not return to the quadrilogy, Jet Li. This feature was “Unleashed”. And let’s acknowledge it now, Bob Hoskins is a stronger baddie than Andy Garcia.
Ally Presents: M - N - Oh What a Waste of Talent
This trip to “Ally’s Accessory Shop on Etsy’s Trash Feature Revue” is all warnings, no recommendations. Robin Williams, Toni Collette, Hugh Laurie, and Allison Janney were all wasted in these films. Vince Vaughn is unbearable.
After a very successful Spooky Month that carried into Veterans Day, CatBusRuss felt it would be best to return to just reviewing movies this week. It was an opportunity to catch up on Ally's Accessories Shop of Etsy's Trash Feature Revue.
As it turns out, we are in the home stretch when it comes to covering all of the DVD's Russ's ex-girlfriend bought him to ensure the podcast would have content for at least three years. Back when she would visit Skimble "The One Eared Angel" weekly, three discs per letter of the alphabet were provided to our host. This podcast is in its third year, so we are about out of the "gems" that she provided.
Her efforts to represent each letter of the alphabet left some of the characters in better positions. In other words, we are out of T, U, and V (the last review was for "Swingers"). But, September and October's need for horror left CatBus jumping from the letter L ("The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" [1979]) to the Letter P ("Puppet Master II"). So, to fill in for the missing letters, "Ninety For Chill: The #Podcast with CatBusRuss" returns to M, N, and O.
Russ hopes that you will find at least two of these films to be charming. "The Night Listener" has strong Toni Collette and Robin Williams performances. "The Oranges" has a superb ensemble trying to carry a taboo May/November relationship tale. And some of you may have been charmed by Vince Vaughn in 2001's "Made". CatBus knows this because since he had friends who thought they should act like one of the characters that Jon Favreau wrote for Vaughn. This unacceptable behavior helped to hasten his move from Peoria to Downstate's Liberal Hotbed.
Eli Roth's Thanksgiving + Wrath of the Ninja & Wrath of MaXXXine
The Thanksgiving season may have become the best weekend to catch a horror feature. Last year, CatBusRuss was blown away by "The Menu". It was released the weekend before the most popular celebration of colonialism. This past weekend, another product of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's "Grindhouse" became a reality with Eli Roth's "Thanksgiving". Perhaps it is just the association with food that makes flicks released on this weekend work out so well...done.
The Thanksgiving season may have become the best weekend to catch a horror feature. Last year, CatBusRuss was blown away by "The Menu". It was released the weekend before the most popular celebration of colonialism. This past weekend, another product of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's "Grindhouse" became a reality with Eli Roth's "Thanksgiving". Perhaps it is just the association with food that makes flicks released on this weekend work out so well...done.
Of course, fans of that homage to exploitative cinema noticed that Roth's latest feature does not have the feel of worn film, grainy audio, and poor color saturation. The likes of The Cinema Snob found the "fake" trailer for this yet to be realized holiday slasher movie to be the best one thrown in between the double-feature. Could this premise be as much fun while being nice and polished...and without Michael Biehn?
In the event that was the case, CatBusRuss decided to find some gold in "Ally's Accessories Shop on Etsy's Trash Feature Revue". Instead of watching a sappy Matthew Broderick feature, he chose to replace it with the 1989 anime, "Wrath of the Ninja". Ally never provided the letter X with a film, so our host decided to fill it in with what maybe the best A24 horror movie he has seen, Ti West's "X". Ninjas and Chekov's Alligator: If Roth misses, this podcast will still find a way to hit.
TARDIS, Kangaroo, The Bear, & Trauma
Who needs weird, Thanksgiving uncle drama when you can spend your post retail Black Friday vacation discussing the kids' films that traumatized us? Be it eventual trepidations towards animated musicals or live action films that tells Walt Disney's "Bambi" to "hold my beer" when it came to killing forest critters.
Who needs weird, Thanksgiving uncle drama when you can spend your post retail Black Friday vacation discussing the kids' films that traumatized us? Be it eventual trepidations towards animated musicals or live action films that tells Walt Disney's "Bambi" to "hold my beer" when it came to killing forest critters.
With that being ThePoeticCritic's suggestion for a podcast topic, CatBusRuss thinks it was wise to open the show with a conversation about her trip to the most recent edition of Chicago TARDIS. It is the "Doctor Who" convention that fills the void left by Rosemont's "Visions" comic con that ended 25 years ago.
After reminiscing about how great viewing rooms were at conventions, the two embark on providing a brief history of The Disney Channel and Nickelodeon before they spent money on programming. For Nick, they filled the time with package features on Sundays. For the House of Mouse, the time was more than likely filled with imported children features like "Dot and the Kangaroo". But if you wanted real trauma, turn to pre-prime time HBO offering of a French nature drama, "The Bear".
White washing the Australian Bush or wondering where the hell the American Humane Association was when there were live animals dealing with fates equal to those of Nicolas Cage in "The Wickerman", Russ left this binge with some reopened scars he never knew he had from childhood.
Silent Night (2023) - Muted Action
CatBusRuss and ThePoeticCritic are going to be hosting panels at Quad Cities Comic Convention, so they are going back to the vault to offer up a sample of their rapport. Our host also wants to celebrate Ani-May, but the two siblings have not focused on any anime from their past conversations on the podcast. But they can honor the Land of the Rising Sun with the big sister's love for the Queen and King of the Monsters. This episode is dedicated to their first tussle in 1964, "Mothra vs. Godzilla".
Have American movie goers forgotten the legacy of John Woo? Why have producers thought that Joel Kinnaman is a movie star? Can action movies be experimental? Is "Die Hard" the only badass Christmas movie?
Audiences seemed like they were not ready to ask these questions. Fearing that the feature may not get a chance to become a new holiday classic, CatBusRuss went and checked out "Silent Night" after its opening weekend. It is Woo's cinematic return to Western cinema after 20 years and a feature that takes its title literally. Can a movie only have a soundtrack of gun shots, detonations, and tires squealing? How do you offer up one liners?
Milla Jovovich - 2, Winona Ryder - 1 (Presented by AllysAccessoriesShop)
To conclude this year's edition of "AllysAccessoriesShop on Etsy's Trash Feature Revue", CatBusRuss does his best to pit two actresses against each other. The girl of his offbeat film preadolescence, Winona Ryder, and the woman of his low-brow cinema adulthood, Milla Jovovich. How did "The Fifth Element's" Leeloo defeat "Beetlejuice's" Lydia Deetz? How convoluted is this episode going to be?
To conclude this year's edition of "AllysAccessoriesShop on Etsy's Trash Feature Revue", CatBusRuss does his best to pit two actresses against each other. The girl of his offbeat film preadolescence, Winona Ryder, and the woman of his low-brow cinema adulthood, Milla Jovovich. How did "The Fifth Element's" Leeloo defeat "Beetlejuice's" Lydia Deetz? How convoluted is this episode going to be?
To add some cohesion to the closure of the Trash Feature Revue, our host decided to find a connection between Milla's and Winona's filmographies. The answer, Ben Stiller's "Zoolander". Jovovich is fifth billed and Ryder only has a cameo, but is more prevalent in the trailer. We can call that a tie, so whose film representing Y and # was better: The rom-com where Milla tries carrying David Krumholtz to stardom, "You Stupid Man"; Or the hippie movie led by a Kiefer Sutherland and Robert Downey Jr. ensemble, "1969"?
This could be messy because the Milla flick was introduced to Russ from the ex who was prior to Ally. Does this podcast compare his most recent relationships? Give it a listen and be as judgmental as you like.
Wonka, A Dangerous Method, and the Top Discovery with Shoes On
Ninety For Chill is closing out 2023 with some cinematic banter from ThePoeticCritic. CatBusRuss and his big sister discuss how the movie landscape has changed, be it offerings for the multiplexes or streaming services. Their primary concern: Where are the movies?
Ninety For Chill is closing out 2023 with some cinematic banter from ThePoeticCritic. CatBusRuss and his big sister discuss how the movie landscape has changed, be it offerings for the multiplexes or streaming services. Their primary concern: Where are the movies?
Our host is more concerned about where to stream them. With the top electronic retailer deciding to stop selling physical media, CatBus is out to grab the remaining worthwhile steelbooks. Too bad Universal/Comcast is willing to license their features to other streamers. Peacock should be enough to watch "The Super Mario Bros. Movie". He is not going to subscribe to Netflix.
Thank Viacom for keeping "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" on Paramount+. But what will happen in Paramount and WBD merge?
ThePoeticCritic is more concerned about the movie-going experience. She explains how there just does not seem to be anything to draw people in most weekends. "Wonka" was her grand exception to the rule, but Disney and DC movies are not bringing in the money that they use to. Taylor Swift shows that people want events to attend. Where are those grand narratives that should take screens away from the Swifties?
Despite the drama, we want to end the podcast on a positive note. At least Russ did. So he discusses his most recent binge to make sure he has all angles covered when determining the top discovery this year. The annual obligatory David Cronenberg feature is his adaptation of the play based on the book about the relationship between Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, "A Dangerous Method". Was it too grounded to take the top discovery spot from "X" or "Marcel the Shell with Shoes On"?
If only a Cronenberg would direct an "Evil Dead" movie. "Evil Dead Rise" was excellent, but was it anything more than a reskin on "Evil Dead (2013)"?
And to honor past guest of the show Jonathan "A Film to Fight For" Romeo, CatBus watched "Saint Maud" as per the suggestion from "Possessive Forces vs. #Cinemastodon's Exorcists". Stick around after the chat with TPC to hear our host's critique of this high-concept, A24 horror.
3M Movie Marathon: Men of War, Black Mask 2, Stone Cold, Batman: Death in the Family
CatBusRuss composes a fun, four-film action movie marathon from a pool of both “Black Mask” films, Brian Bosworth v. Lance Henriksen in “Stone Cold”, “Batman: A Death in the Family”, Dolph Lundgren in “Men of War”, and Joey Lawrence in “Android Apocalypse”.
Hopefully everyone has had a great start to 2024. With all the festivities, finding a guest was going to be next to impossible, so CatBusRuss got a week off to relax. Or did he?
These festive times means most people have little time, so our host had to make up for this with an action movie binge. This will be the closest to an Illinois Central College hosted B-Fest. that we think you can find. Russ wanted to clear out some of the cheap and/or hard to find DVDs from his queue. From his past two February trips up to Evanston, he thinks he has come up with a quadruple feature that would make the Northwestern programmers proud.
Not all of the flicks discussed will make the cut. If you want to learn more about Chris Jericho, stick around to the end for an "Android Apocalypse" review. In an attempt to get you ready for the CG chaos of "Black Mask 2: City of Masks", our host did revisit the 1996(9) Jet Li feature, "Black Mask".
The final line up of four fun-filled films is Ivan Drago vs Kano (95) in the mercenary tale, "Men of War", the mutant-pro-wrestling allegory, "Black Mask 2", Brian Bosworth vs. Lance Henriksen in biker porn, "Stone Cold", and the choose your own adventure, DC Animated Feature "Batman: Death in the Family". Imagine how that can turn an audience on each other.
All of the features can be found streaming (provided you want to spend $12.99 for BM2). The only way right now to watch "Stone Cold" is currently on Pluto TV via "Rifftrax". Here's hoping Bill, Kevin, and Mike's transfer is as good as my blu-ray.
Roadside Prophets with Tim Loss
"Roadside Prophets" is a flick that deserves glorification. Fun cameos from hippie legends, an unhinged John Cusack, and the film is carried by Generation X (the age not the band) musicians, John Doe and Adam Horovitz, Prophets is the spiritual sequel to "Easy Rider". If you want a grunge vibe on the road trip genre instead of a counter culture tale of the open road, this film is for you.
For those who listened to the entirety of "3M Movie Marathon", CatBusRuss mentioned his attempt to record a podcast with Tim Loss about "MacGruber". It was part of Russ's efforts to watch and discuss the entire sub 100-minute filmography of Chris Jericho. What is disappointing about this recording not happening is that Tim really impressed our host with their conversation about Abbe Wool's "Roadside Prophets".
For the two to take on a "Saturday Night Live" comedy after an excellent motorcycle movie, it would have definitely been an interesting conversation. At least the Y2J glorification was avoided.
Talking about glorification, "Roadside Prophets" is a flick that deserves it. Fun cameos from hippie legends, an unhinged John Cusack, and the film is carried by Generation X (the age not the band) musicians, John Doe and Adam Horovitz, Prophets is the spiritual sequel to "Easy Rider". If you want a grunge vibe on the road trip genre instead of a counter culture tale of the open road, this film is for you.
Rewind Wednesday: Stealing Harvard with JD Grieving
J.D. Grieving from the JDHD Series graces us with his presence to discuss "Stealing Harvard". For a 17 year-old J.D., this helped lay the groundwork for his own style of comedy. For a 22 year-old CatBusRuss, I needed something to further bury the memory of "Freddy Got Fingered".
J.D. Grieving from the JDHD Series graces us with his presence to discuss "Stealing Harvard". For a 17 year-old J.D., this helped lay the groundwork for his own style of comedy. For a 22 year-old CatBusRuss, I needed something to further bury the memory of "Freddy Got Fingered".
Stealing Harvard (2002) was directed by "The Kids in the Hall" alumnus Bruce McCulluch and stars "Mallrat" Jason Lee, MTV star Tom Green, Judd Apatow muse Leslie Mann, and cop-turned-actor Dennis Farina.
#TBT Bonus: Spaceballs with Jessica Kwazz & ThePoeticCritic
Jessica Kwazz from the "Second Chance Movies Podcast" expresses her love for Mel Brook's "Spaceballs" while ThePoeticCritic returns with the history of how this feature became a classic. ThePoeticCritic and CatBusRuss discuss why "Star Wars" was nearly abandoned while Jessica tells of her admiration of cinema's GREATEST franchise.
Jessica Kwazz from the "Second Chance Movies Podcast" expresses her love for Mel Brook's "Spaceballs" while ThePoeticCritic returns with the history of how this feature became a classic. ThePoeticCritic and CatBusRuss discuss why "Star Wars" was nearly abandoned while Jessica tells of her admiration of cinema's GREATEST franchise.
Spaceballs stars Bill Pullman as Solo/Skywalker hybrid Lonestar, John Candy as Barf the Mog, Rick Moranis as what 2005's Hayden Christensen should have ended up as, Dark Helmet.
@HDTGM Pandering: Rollerball (2002), Jason Statham's Blitz + ThePoeticCritic
So "Ninety For Chill" is addressing the Chris Klein-led "Rollerball" remake. This obviously means the past couple of weeks have been a comedy of errors for CatBusRuss. These faults include: car issues, difficulty finding guests for the show and balancing them with his dating life, and enduring another "far right" kick.
Comedy is the key term in that paragraph. The "How Did This Get Made" movie podcast will be covering John McTiernan's "Rollerball" on Friday, January 26, 2024. To get the most out of this, our host is doing his homework.
So "Ninety For Chill" is addressing the Chris Klein-led "Rollerball" remake. This obviously means the past couple of weeks have been a comedy of errors for CatBusRuss. These faults include: car issues, difficulty finding guests for the show and balancing them with his dating life, and enduring another "far right" kick.
Comedy is the key term in that paragraph. The "How Did This Get Made" movie podcast will be covering John McTiernan's "Rollerball" on Friday, January 26, 2024. To get the most out of this, our host is doing his homework.
To further be on the same page as the HDTGM crew, CatBus went into his vaults to review "Blitz". This British police procedural stars patron saint of Paul Scheer, Jason Mantzoukas, and June Diane Raphael's podcast, Jason Statham. In other words, Russ could not manage the time to see the latest Statham action flick, "The Beekeeper". Nothing seems to be working out for the overworked podcaster.
To further emphasize the difficulties Russ has been having, he did have another chat about the state of cinema with ThePoeticCritic. Too bad the mics were not set up ideally. But the audio can be heard with a bit of static, so it maybe worthwhile to stick through this week's featured reviews.
After two movies reviews and forty minutes of chatter, you also get to further participate in the burial of Chris Jericho. CatBus may need to get through the "Terrifier" franchise to be fair to The Ocho, but after "Albino Farm", he is left thinking that Y2J may not be able to provide any positive contributions outside of the ring.
#RewindWednesday: The Lost Boys with @CouchManBakes
As always noted on "Ninety For Chill: The Podcast with CatBusRuss", you maybe able to get a clue of what a future episode maybe about if you follow the host's Letterboxd. If that would take up too much time, then let this conversation with Andrew "CouchManBakes" Tiede about a classic vampire movie allow you to offer a prediction for February's first podcast.
As always noted on "Ninety For Chill: The Podcast with CatBusRuss", you maybe able to get a clue of what a future episode maybe about if you follow the host's Letterboxd. If that would take up too much time, then let this conversation with Andrew "CouchManBakes" Tiede about a classic vampire movie allow you to offer a prediction for February's first podcast.
Andrew Tiede and CatBusRuss investigate what maybe the spiritual sequel to "The Goonies", Joel Schumacher's "The Lost Boys". With this rewatch, our host was actually intrigued by ThePoeticCritic's opinion that this feature is nothing more than rose...should we say...blood-tinted nostalgia. Thankfully, this week's guest reminded CatBus the national treasure that is Timmy Cappello. These two eighties kids always have a ball watching this vampire feature, and throw in their parallel paths to their forties, we get some fun Cubs and wrestling themed tangents to accompany the blood sucking fun.
From Dusk Till...Marathon with @CouchManBakes
Andrew "CouchManBakes" Tiede makes his 2024 return to "Ninety For Chill", and once again, the feature that he wanted to chat about was just over 100 minutes long. The feature is the Robert Rodriguez directed (and Quentin Tarantino co-penned) "From Dusk Till Dawn". This of course means that to cover this feature, CouchMan and CatBusRuss must partake in a marathon.
Andrew "CouchManBakes" Tiede makes his 2024 return to "Ninety For Chill", and once again, the feature that he wanted to chat about was just over 100 minutes long. The feature is the Robert Rodriguez directed (and Quentin Tarantino co-penned) "From Dusk Till Dawn". This of course means that to cover this feature, CouchMan and CatBusRuss must partake in a marathon.
For the most part, Rodriguez's movies have fairly tight runtimes, so our host should have had no difficulty coming up with a movie marathon dedicated to El Rey. Well, the Tex-Mex tinged James Bond tribute "Machete Kills" was just a couple of minutes too long. To assure that we still have a Danny Trejo triple feature before Midnight's main event, Russ chose to open the festivities with the Tarantino/Rodriguez produced, Robert Patrick-led, vampire-themed bank heist flick, "From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money". To justify skipping "Machete", The Six Raven Movie House still programmed the original trailer with the first feature of 2007's "Grindhouse", "Planet Terror".
Andrew has yet to program a quadruple feature for his Sasquatch Cinema House, and the trend continues. Unlike the prior marathon (The Marathon: Child's Play, Wraiths, and Other THINGs), he skipped trying to find three sub 100-minute movies and just chose bangers from Rodriguez's filmography. These are the third "El Mariachi" tale, "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" and his collaboration with comic book legend Frank Miller, "Sin City".
On paper, this could be a contentious podcast. We have Amber Heard versus Johnny Depp after all. If Andrew's triple feature was not enough, his cinema has just become 420 friendly. Surely it is better to go to the Russ's theater that now features an arcade for the kids? Of course, the two cannot get too heated once their shared love for "Lucha Underground" is discussed.
@BFest 2024 & ThePoeticCritic
For the first time since CatBusRuss started making the annual trip to Evanston, ThePoeticCritic accompanied her little brother to B-Fest. It is a celebration of “The Best of the Worst” in motion pictures. That is a bit of hyperbole, and the two siblings will try to support that claim with there recap of the events. B-Fest at least met our host’s expectations.
For the first time since CatBusRuss started making the annual trip to Evanston, ThePoeticCritic accompanied her little brother to B-Fest. It is a celebration of “The Best of the Worst” in motion pictures. That is a bit of hyperbole, and the two siblings will try to support that claim with there recap of the events. B-Fest at least met our host’s expectations. Bad musicals (The Apple), some deep hurting (She-Devils on Wheels), kaiju (Tammy and the T-Rex), and roller skates (The Monkey Hustle). If only there was some classic action, but we will let the elder sibling speak on that (Runaway).
#RewindWednesday: Buckaroo Banzai vs. ThePoeticCritic
Jeff Goldblum maybe NinetyForChill's "In case of fire, break glass" metaphor. It is an easy means to bring ThePoeticCritic back on the show to discuss a classic sci-fi feature. (With Jim Carrey's rubberface, we would be consider that to be syfy.) The guy who was the blue alien may draw TPC out, but Peter Weller seems to have an ability to capture CatBusRuss's attention.
Jeff Goldblum maybe NinetyForChill's "In case of fire, break glass" metaphor. It is an easy means to bring ThePoeticCritic back on the show to discuss a classic sci-fi feature. (With Jim Carrey's rubberface, we would be consider that to be syfy.) The guy who was the blue alien may draw TPC out, but Peter Weller seems to have an ability to capture CatBusRuss's attention. Throw in some Clancy Brown, and he will be there. Needless to say, our host has the Shout! Factory's Steelbook of 1984's "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension", an underappreciated blueprint of how all comic book movies should operate.
"Coraline" in 12 Parsecs with HappyBeebsMeowMeow
It is never too late to start the New Year. Some people hope to just get out of their comfort zone. That is the goal of Brandy Stonum, or should we call her HappyBeebsMeowMeow.
With a Twitch handle like that, watching a movie where a feline plays a big role seemed perfect. So CatBusRuss was able to bend the rules of the podcast a bit, Han Solo style, and allowed Henry Selick's Neil Gaiman adaptation, "Coraline", be the focus of the show.
It is never too late to start the New Year. Some people hope to just get out of their comfort zone. That is the goal of Brandy Stonum, or should we call her HappyBeebsMeowMeow.
With a Twitch handle like that, watching a movie where a feline plays a big role seemed perfect. So CatBusRuss was able to bend the rules of the podcast a bit, Han Solo style, and allowed Henry Selick's Neil Gaiman adaptation, "Coraline", be the focus of the show.
CatBusRuss has been trying to get one of his best Champaign/Urbana pals onto the podcast since about the inception of the show. The two chat about and have watched movies in each other's company over the past couple of years, so he thought content would come naturally. Our host thought the biggest issue was just finding a movie to fit the parameters of the pod, but people can just be nervous about putting themselves out there.
This was probably true of Russ until he had to cut his first wrestling promo. There were just too many quiet goth wrestlers in Peoria. Creating a character was the only in he had.
Brandy is a few weeks from bringing her Twitch channel online, so like our film's protagonist, she has to make the online world in her image and not have it handed to her. Hopefully, we can get her back on the podcast once her channel goes live, but until then, lets revel in her cinematic intelligence and patience when it comes to dealing with the CatBus.
Super Mario Bros. 93 with Ta2Squid
If it is a movie adapted from a video game, you may lure out the Ta2Squid. CatBusRuss welcomes a returning Andras Bodolai to Ninety For Chill: The Podcast for a chat about what is essentially the first attempt at bringing characters from a home gaming console to the big screen, "Super Mario Bros. (1993)".
If it is a movie adapted from a video game, you may lure out the Ta2Squid. CatBusRuss welcomes a returning Andras Bodolai to Ninety For Chill: The Podcast for a chat about what is essentially the first attempt at bringing characters from a home gaming console to the big screen, "Super Mario Bros. (1993)".
Our host's first conversation with his fellow podcaster was about 2005's "Doom". Like the John Leguizamo and Bob Hoskins led movie, most do not remember that feature fondly (if at all as displayed by Kollin from the Trash Panda Podcast). But, there has not been a reclamation effort for the Dwayne Johnson film. Maybe more time needs to pass. Give it 30 years (and a billion-dollar animated feature), and Karl Urban's Doom Slayer might get his proper due.
Russ thinks a narrative might still hold the Martian-based movie back. It would not have even needed a sane one because what Dennis Hopper movies do?
CatBus and his guest discuss how this may have been a bad adaptation of the source material, but a fun mind shag of movie that walked so "Mortal Kombat" could kick ass. This Screen Drafts Marquee of Fame entrant maybe a flawed masterpiece. The direction is lacking, but this is a movie that has a crazy enough story and charming enough characters that it may have been a decade too late for when the audience would have ate this flick up. And/or, it was a decade too early which prevented meta-obsessed fanatics from appreciating it.
It definitely needs more attention since this is only the first round of the Leguizamo v. Hopper battle. Hit CatBusRuss on social media if you would like to discuss George A. Romero's "Land of the Dead".
If you find this episode interesting (despite the technical issues...and a "Ghostbusters (2016)" review), we hope you still have a DVD player because that is the only legal way to watch this underappreciated film.