NinetyForChill: The #Podcast - Thanksgiving Weekend Horror: ThanksKilling, ThanksKilling 3, & Black Friday

 NinetyForChill.com: The #Podcast

Episode 96: Thanksgiving Weekend Horror: ThanksKilling, ThanksKilling 3, & Black Friday.

Thanksgiving Weekend Horror: ThanksKilling, ThanksKilling 3, & Black Friday

November 29, 2022

Cool Movies Darth is not really a Thanksgiving fan. The high school wrestling season started that weekend, so enjoying the feast was not really an option. Granted, NinetyForChill's host grew up a picky eater, so the holiday did not really offer anything for him. Let us not even get into familiar anxiety. Horror may be too extreme a term for the fourth week of November, but then came his career in customer service. So the "ThanksKilling" franchise and the Bruce Campbell produced "Black Friday" may be appropriate comfort viewing for the holiday season kick off.

Allow me to get out of third-person. Are we happy Prof. Shurtleff of Illinois Central College? I (CM Darth) will try not to make so much light of violent death in this summation. This is my declaration of changing perspective.

I have been exhausted. This blog post is being composed the day after I dropped this podcast episode. There was 11.75 hours spent at my retail job on Black Friday. Not having a guest this week (as designed) lead to a last minute binge of movies. This should not have been a last minute task, but without having a guest secured yet for my December 6, there was no idea on similar movies to build up anticipation for that episode. With that said, send me an email if you want to be on the show. The address is russthebus07@gmail.com.

If this podcast was not my passion, I suppose being this busy is good. Too bad this means that I may not have the time to set up recordings before the next episode is due. With any luck, those hurdles will be worth it just for the sake of my ego. In other words, dates with romantic aspirations will hopefully keep me sane.

As I said, these films served as good comfort viewing. The binge made sure I did not take the past weekend too seriously. When you have a one dimensional puppet and actors who lack multiple of dimensions, if you get overly critical, you may end up scratching your eyes out.

I will not deny this, if I had a couple of robot friends, things would be even easier.

"ThanksKilling" was in my original Netflix digital queue 12 years ago. At that time, I was just embracing no budget movie making. For it to be successful, the story has to be told well and you must embrace your features shortcomings. Jordan Downey's film does this.

It seems the goal for Downey was to use this feature to encourage people to invest in a better movie. That is how we ended up with a Peter Jackson inspired sequel, "ThanksKilling 3".

So, lets get "Main Event of the Dead" off the ground. My no budget, zombie comedy just needs to get made. I promise you a better movie once I have that IMDb profile. Ask for the treatment of the screenplay by sending an email to russthebus07@gmail.com.

If my pro-wrestling movie does not get off the ground (Hopefully the Ta2Squid Podcast episode kaiju big battel zombie screenplay w/russ from cat bus will help with that), The Bruce Campbell produced "Black Friday" makes me glad that I work for a great retailer. In the event of an alien invasion, I have faith that my team will remain unified and be able to stand up to space zombies. That cannot be said of Marine Bank. There was a strong squad at one-time, but management has no spine or faith in us.

If you have worked for multiple retailers, you know that some of them have uncaring and/or out-of-touch management. "Black Friday" has a script and actors that capture that vibe. It takes a while to get going, but accurate archetypes will get you invested in this feature. There could have been more Bruce acting like Ash, but it is amusing enough. Amusing enough that I think it could be a new Holiday classic.

Who would have thought that Starz was aware of the potential of the direct-to-home releases they have in their line up? There spam emails almost make me consider maintaining a subscription. Almost being key.

Follow me on Twitter @catbusruss. If you want to be on the show, contact me on Twitter or send an email to russthebus07@gmail.com. All we need is a theme, movie, director, or actor and a focus on sub 100-minute material. As long as the credits start before the 1:39:59 mark on the runtime bar, the movie qualifies.

NinetyForChill: The #Podcast: The Sadness...Holiday Appropriate? (Featuring Gregory Carl)

 NinetyForChill.com: The #Podcast

Episode 95: The Sadness...Holiday Appropriate? (Featuring Gregory Carl).

The Sadness…Holiday Appropriate? (featuring Gregory Carl)

November 22, 2022

To get you ready to defend yourself against the madness of Black Friday, Gregory Carl and Cool Movies Darth take on the Chinese viral outbreak movie, "The Sadness". It is a COVID-19 inspired tale about a virus that will not kill you via lung failure, but by the perverse whims of the infected. This is a case of what does not kill will you makes you stranger, more violent, and what is most shocking, hornier.

Allow me to get out of third-person. Happy Prof. Shurtleff of Illinois Central College? I (CM Darth) will try not to make so much light of violent death in this summation. This is my declaration of changing perspective.

We always seem to think the "zombie" film fad is about to pass, and then a feature like "The Sadness" comes along. This feature is not a zombie flick, but an outbreak feature, but to the layman it is tomayto tomahto. The dead are not coming back to life, and if the dead were to reanimate, they would not run.

Zack Snyder had screwed up this subgenre of horror with his "Dawn of the Dead". It really lacked the satire that made George A. Romero's original the classic that it is, and for that alone I was not a fan. The director has his missteps, and that just happened to be a financially successful accident. I am a fan of his DCEU efforts, "300", and "Watchmen", but even there, he does not have a clue about the messages these stories try to get across. There is no way I can get too angry at this director because he did allow us films like "Pride & Prejudice & Zombies" and the "Zombieland" franchise, but the Western zombie scene had lost its way.

Fortunately, "The Sadness" is the course correction that we need. To its credit, it demonstrates that there are those in the West who agree with me. This feature was directed by a Canadian animator, Rob Jabbaz. The frustration with this is that he had to go to China to make it. I have no issue with foreign films, but if I was not looking for material to podcast about, Greg probably would have remained turned off by the subtitles.

The most important thing about "The Sadness" is the degree of satire. It presents over the top violence that will shock initially, but as it continues to be displayed, you cannot help but embrace the ridiculousness of it. Having watched the feature a handful of times for this episode of the podcast, Greg and I end up with a similar relationship to the film that Beetlejuice had with "The Exorcist".

The satire stems from our "need" to resist authority's suggestions for safety. How do they know what I need?

It was featured in a far more relatable sense with Romero's "The Crazies" which is honestly more disturbing. Jabbaz's film shocks you every chance it can get, but with so few protagonists, you do not get attached to anyone. Thus, you can impress the gore-hounds with the blood and the critics with the stunning visuals. There are some filthy scenes, but they do not seem personal, so it is easy to get comfortable while watching this.

With all of that said, I had difficulty deciding whether or not to censor the most obscene language from this episode. Should children have access to such ideas? Well, I am not a parent. Gregory is. He starts the podcast by asking his grade schooler if he wanted to watch this along side him because "You don't have school tomorrow". So, this leads me to rely on Sheila Broflovski to justify cutting out the F-bombs from our conversation:

Remember what the MPAA says; Horrific, Deplorable violence is okay, as long as people don't say any naughty woids! That's what this war is all about!

Follow me on Twitter @catbusruss. If you want to be on the show, contact me on Twitter or send an email to russthebus07@gmail.com. All we need is a theme, movie, director, or actor and a focus on sub 100-minute material. As long as the credits start before the 1:39:59 mark on the runtime bar, the movie qualifies.

NinetyForChill: The #Podcast: Vicious Virus Videos: Shivers, The Crazies (1973), and Mayhem

 NinetyForChill.com: The #Podcast

Episode 94: Vicious Virus Videos: Shivers, The Crazies (1973), and Mayhem.

Vicious Virus Videos: Shivers, The Crazies (1973), and Mayhem

November 14, 2022

Outbreak films have been around as early as the original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" to say the very least, but most of these features focus on humanity being absolutely lost. Lost via body theft by aliens or demons. Individuality vanished due to a disease taking over the body and conscience. What happens when a virus removes your inhibitions and replaces it with madness? Cool Movies Darth investigates this idea as presented in the 1970s and the 2010s by reviewing Romero's "The Crazies", Cronenberg's "Shivers", and Joe Lynch's "Mayhem".

Allow me to get out of third-person. Are we happy Prof. Shurtleff of Illinois Central College? I (CM Darth) will try not to make so much light of violent death in this summation. This is my declaration of changing perspective.

My introduction to horror movies as art came with Dario Argento. With his greatest works being associated with the 1970s, it was not much a stretch to find myself being fascinated by the ideas of his legendary friend George A. Romero. As I am discovering these artists, Cronenberg was making waves with his relatively down to Earth features "A History of Violence" and "Eastern Promises". Obviously, this Canuck gained my attention if wanting to see the film with the most famous exploding head was not enough.

There was also the release of Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later", but Boyle narratives got a little long in the tooth after the success of "Trainspotting". Fortunately, I have seen another member of the Great North get inspired by that "zombie" film, so do not hold it against me not covering the Rage virus in this episode.

When it comes to zombies, of course I have seen all of Romero's films about the undead. But surely there is more than that when it comes to the auteur. "Bruiser" was fun, but it does not make a case for him having range. Fortunately, "The Crazies" received a remake in 2010. Gut reaction is to consider that an insult. To make sure of that, the original has been on my queue for a while.

A pathogen driving people crazy, I knew that was the plot of "Shivers" and that brings us to why I got around to this feature (aside from viewing it for the "Gen X and Scorsese V. Millenials and Marvel" episode with ThePoeticCritic). When I think back to "28 Days Later", the realization that there are two extremes to viral madness. The sides are excessive violence or excessive sexuality. Inhibitions stop those from occurring.

So the narrative of this blog post should end with Rob Jabbaz's "The Sadness" where the violence and sex intermingle, but that is for next weeks episode. Plus, I feel I got to add some genuine fun into this episode. You can enjoy the ride that are "The Crazies" and "Shivers", but they are not meant to receive out loud laughter. "The Sadness" may also still be to serious for its own good.

Gregory Carl will return to "NinetyForChill" next week to discuss this crescendo. So to get my relatively guilt-free kicks in, I got around to "Mayhem". Samara Weaving has been a sign of great sub 100-minute cinema on this podcast, and I wanted to see the office place purge film that "The Belko Experiment" sold itself as. It did not disappoint.

With all this said, the next episode that I need a guest for will need to be recorded by December 4th, 2022. There are not too many Christmas movies, so I do not expect anyone too feel restricted to a seasonal theme. The Twitter migration to Mastodon is not as grand as Neil Gaiman has implied, so I need to call for assistance on any platform I can find.

Follow me on Twitter @catbusruss. If you want to be on the show, contact me on Twitter or send an email to russthebus07@gmail.com. All we need is a theme, movie, director, or actor and a focus on sub 100-minute material. As long as the credits start before the 1:39:59 mark on the runtime bar, the movie qualifies.

NinetyForChill: The Podcast - Puppet Show & Spinal Tap feat. Rambling Ronnie & ThePoeticCritic

 NinetyForChill.com: The #Podcast

Episode 93: Puppet Show & Spinal Tap feat. Rambling Ronnie & ThePoeticCritic.

Puppet Show and Spinal Tap featuring Rambling Ronnie and ThePoeticCritic

November 7, 2022

For the first time, "NinetyForChill: The #Podcast" has gone international. Rambling Ronnie has come on to discuss one of her favorite comedies and what is unquestionably the most important mockumentary of all time, "This Is Spinal Tap". This was the first R-Rated feature that ThePoeticCritic rented along side her little brother Cool Movies Darth. Needless to say, all parties are excited to tell the world aboot the excellence of this film.

Allow me to get out of third-person. Happy Prof. Shurtleff of Illinois Central College? I (CM Darth) will try not to make so much light of violent death in this summation. This is my declaration of changing perspective.

I definitely saw this picture before I entered the world of professional wrestling. It was hilarious, if just for picking out the cameos like Billy Crystal as Mort the Mime and the oldest (and perhaps first) Fred Willard appearance that I had ever seen. After entering a showmanship profession, this film is even funnier because it is beyond authentic.

For me, it was not a puppet show where I sustained my most severe documented concussion. It was wrestling during a Christion-promoted boxing expedition. Puppet's would have been an honor.

ThePoeticCritic spent her teens as an amateur actress. Needless to say, she has her tales of nearly falling off balconies because of poor backstage crew. Being trapped like Derek Smalls is something all performers are or will become familiar with.

Rambling Veronica (TPC's Twitter account impressed her since she was using Veronica as an alias), did not happen to have any tales to tell as a performer, but with the sincerity and politeness of Canadians, they all seem to share a common vibe. Provided they are not from Quebec. I am sorry I did not give the listeners a warning about the mocking of Montreal during this podcast.

We all seemed to have been on the same page when it comes to comedy. Ronnie's last episode was about "Monty Python's Life of Brian". Us Stevens children were raised on British comedy. Monty Python was the only MTV we were allowed to watch. With "The New Red Green Show" being Central Illinois's "Red Dwarf" lead in, this podcast seemed destined to happen.

Discussing Monty Python lead us to bring up "The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash". This was Eric Idle's Beetle mock that was produced by Lorne Michaels. When you bring up Lorne Michaels, you bring us "Saturday Night Live" and "SCTV". We end up talking about all of the best Western comedy that was influenced by the British.

By proxy, I guess you can say all of Christopher Guest's mocumentaries are British comedies. He is a British Baron after all.

ThePoeticCritic and Rambling Ronnie are even bigger fans of Guest's directorial efforts than I am. We do get to address and compare and contrast these films. It was kind of a silly part since none of us have seen them all. Ronnie is a big fan of "A Mighty Wind" and TPC seemed to lean towards "Best in Show". One thing is certain, you must give "Waiting for Guffman" a chance.

Follow me on Twitter @catbusruss. If you want to be on the show, contact me on Twitter or send an email to russthebus07@gmail.com. All we need is a theme, movie, director, or actor and a focus on sub 100-minute material. As long as the credits start before the 1:39:59 mark on the runtime bar, the movie qualifies.

90-Min. Rewatch - "Jigsaw" and Trading Control for Trauma (The @ShaneShoemaker6 Agenda).

*Blog post started on July 23, 2020.

I think I might have my finances in order, so I am more stressed out than ever. This proves that I am not an optimist because I am obviously waiting for the other shoe drop. You cannot expect someone who got the "things cannot get any worse" speech only to witness a man set himself on fire and then fail to grab the nearest fire extinguisher (To my credit, an extinguisher was grabbed.) to think any differently.

Blood sugar was higher than I have ever seen it, and since it will take a month for me to figure out how truly shagged my wallet is, perhaps I can swing that into a medical marijuana card. At least I am always up on how to season a shit quesadilla (I have never heard of anyone throwing seasoning on a sandwich. My quesadilla's at home get a little chipotle pepper thrown in no matter how seasoned the meat is.).

I have also discovered that I am either more mature than I thought or have never been too desperate. The last time I was desperate because of my finances, that was because I had inadvertently committed check fraud. This was from my infamous summer of 2006 where my inevitable bankruptcy declaration was hurried because I did not want Carrie Clifton to be desperate for her heroin fix.

When I reviewed the blog that I have a link to above, I see I had referred to her by name, so I think it is best to not put that back into Pandora's box. The guys responsible for the sexual assaults from the wrestling industry that I had endured best feel lucky that it took ten years to register that trauma.

Being desperate opened up a friend to invite some trauma. It sucks that our society is not forgiving of sexual expression because for her safety, the exploitation should have been at a strip club or fansonly.com. Damn how COVID-19 has fucked everything up, but we should be cheering on regulation when going into a questionable situation seems more acceptable than profiting from nudity. What started as a kissing flesh transaction for a low figure escalated into a need to clean off the effected areas.

Upon her return, she stated she felt weird and cheated by the agreed payoff. Give the situation a half hour to allow that amount promised to more than triple in her Venmo, it became a celebration about how she got that money. Everything I was suggesting about paydays from my experiences in strip clubs (I have paid for sex once [She did not say it was a transaction until after she provided service.] but have paid to be in places where the likely hood of action was greater more than a handful of times), was irrelevant because it is better to have some money than hold out to make the money you should have.

Oh the times they are a changing. It use to be you stripped so you would not whore. Now, it is better to not be seen exploiting yourself than to own up to it. I suppose it is kind fitting when you look at our society right now.

A Tweet from @CatBusRuss:

If DHS operatives are going to jump out of windowless vans to kidnap protesters, they should at least offer candy before hand. Pedophiles have more class than Trump.

A response form Samuel C Winchester

He (I) should read the Patriot Act that Joe Biden voted for.

Instead of denouncing the harm our president is doing, Trump's supporter find a way to blame the victims. As long as it protects their wallets and churches, the evils of the actions are warranted. That may be thinking too highly of the right.

They voted a fellow sociopath into office, know he is ruining our country, but as long as it hurts the people they dislike, they have been rewarded. In America, it is all about the payday, regardless if Yackoff Smirnoff can now emigrate to Canada to revive his career because of it.

In Republican America, police protect and serve themselves.

I know it is a crime to wish death or harm on a sitting president, but what about being put in a Jigsaw trap with Donald Jr., Eric, Ivanka and Jared Kushner? In the last few films, the primary traps allowed for everyone to survive. If he can be an ideal person, death or hindering harm should not befall him.

So that is my pitch for "Saw 10". I would like Twisted Pictures to know that I would take everything into consideration from the previous films to make it work. Perhaps the writers of the last of the series to be released at this point should have tried to direct that feature as well to ensure the continuity was considered.

movieposters2.com

Jigsaw (2017) - 1 hour 32 minutes

It has been 10 years since John Kramer, the mass murderer known in the press as Jigsaw, died, but a desperate criminal informant claims that there is a new game. There are five players and if he does not initiate the game, he will be killed. Not soon after he is critically wounded by a barrage of police gunfire to prevent the proposed game, joggers discover a corpse dangling above a path, head stuck in a bucket. Well, half a head as ME Logan Nelson and Detective Halloran would soon discover.

The corpse also featured the Kramer trademark of a piece of flesh being removed in the shape of a puzzle piece. Being a thorough examiner, Logan finds a flash drive left in the wound. It has a label on it which states that "Now there are four" and it contains an audio file. When the file is played, it says the games have started again and demands the police do their job and provide justice so these contests will no longer be necessary. This voice sounded like and is soon verified as Kramer's.

Things only get more eerie when under the first victims fingernails is Kramer's blood. Despite his death, THE Jigsaw is the prime suspect. Halloran cannot accept that and is certain that it is either Nelson whose Iraq War PTSD must have gotten the best of him or Nelson's assistant and Jigsaw fangirl Eleanor. Impulsive and brash is not how anyone should handle a Jigsaw scenario, so it seems the other four players are the only ones who can save their selves provided they will purge themselves of their sins.

Hopefully 4K Blu-ray sales will pick up so that resellers like Disc/Mega Replay will encourage customers to sell them. "Jigsaw" might be the first I would sell. This may have been a result of a thorough third/fourth viewing. It came with a digital copy, so what would I be losing.

I assure you that I did genuinely enjoy this film. After my disappointment in "Saw III", I know you cannot straight up buy these films, so I used a discount code at Red Box to judge this feature first. The eighth entry features a clever story which harkened back to my favorite installment "Saw II" and the traps are as ingenious as ever. That felt very refreshing being a devotee to the series and having missed domestic torture porn the past seven years.

If you are into this series for the formula, this is definitely worthwhile. There are not really any strong performances, but we never expected those in these films after Tobin Bell's John Kramer had been working from beyond the grave (sorry Costas Mandylor and Sean Patrick Flannery). The gore is toned down, but the climax makes it up to all those sickos who focused on that instead of the stories. Disappointment only kicked in after multiple rewatches because someone decided to ditch the past stories.

I will not get into the time frame of the original seven films which concluded in 2010. If everything wrapped up in the "Saw" world in 2007, so be it. The film's twist ends up being too clever resulting in continuity errors and ignorance of the Jigsaw associates that were established after the second film. This is a major flaw because the story flows to quickly, and to leave out the concept of Jigsaw followers results in impossibilities playing out. There is too much for our primary character to do and make this tale seem believable.

Besides for asking of an extra effort to disband disbelief, you catch during rewatches that the games do not play out the same way. I know the latter half of the heptalogy focused on the importance of predicting the actions of the players, but the predictions Jigsaw made are far too on the nose. He could only do that if he is interacting with the players which is a no-no. You end up realizing why they are not repeating this format for the franchise's next feature, "Spiral".

"Jigsaw" is definitely worth a rent for any horror fan. It is a mandatory view for any fan of the "Saw" series, but like the weaker entries in the series, the viewer cannot be overly scrutinizing. This results in it being a hard fit in terms of series continuity, thus a wrong piece for your "Saw" home media collection.

If you choose to purchase it, be sure to redeem that digital code A.S.A.P. Universal and Sony are cracking down on expiration dates.

90-min at $9.99 - "Rambo: Last Blood", Stallone Is a Sad Liam Neeson 

NinetyForChill: The #Podcast: Rock ’n’ Roll High School - Top Secret - Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

 NinetyForChill.com: The #Podcast

Episode 92: Rock ’n’ Roll High School - Top Secret - Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.

Rock ’n’ Roll High School - Top Secret - Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

November 1, 2022

Next week (November 8), "NinetyForChill: The #Podcast" will present a round table conversation about the film that launched the auteur careers of Rob Reiner and Christopher Guest, "This is Spinal Tap".  To prepare for the humor and music, Cool Movies Darth decided to go on a musical-comedy binge. Roger Corman X The Ramones "Rock 'n' Roll High School", Zucker-Abraham-Zucker's "Top Secret", and the John C. Reilly showcase "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox" are all regarded as classics. What better way to prepare for a podcast that will turn the knob to 11?

Allow me to get out of third-person. Happy Prof. Shurtleff of Illinois Central College? I (CM Darth) will try not to make so much light of violent death in this summation. This is my declaration of changing perspective.

This waking up at 6:30 am is for the birds. I am doing well in regards to falling asleep before midnight, but that still means I am missing out on 10 hours of sleep a week. Where has the energy gone? This was something that I tried to preserve by skipping Goth Night and Goth Halloween.

The only drinking I did this past week was during the recording of next week's "This Is Spinal Tap" episode with the ThePoeticCritic and Rambling Ronnie. It was only for two-ish hours and I talked myself out of continuing through the weekend. Why must I suffer?

Could it be the lack of chicken in my diet? The body is revolting.

I best wrap this rant up. If we are going to do anything productive besides get an oil change with my rare weekday off, there needs to be a goofy blog for MainEventOfTheDead.com/DRCW Wrestling. Too have material, there is a need for me to shut the fuck up.

So, what should one expect from this podcast episode? Well, with how often I end up having issues with arranging for guests on the show, I am going to try alternating episodes with myself just reviewing movies on my own and someone like my big sister or Veronica to keep me in check.

With that said, I will try to use the solo episodes as a way to lead into the grander projects. This gave me an excuse to focus on movies I enjoy. There is no way I can guarantee this will happen every week. My current lead for the November 22 episode is Gregory Carl suggesting Chinese "zombie" movie "Sadness". We have just packed up spooky month. Do we need horror so fast?

There is also a need to finish up this year's Ally's Accessories Shop on Etsy's Trash Feature Revue. We still have X, Y, Z, and # to address.

To close out the new format chat, at least I will get these pleasant binges. This one finally allowed me to address a Zucker-Abraham-Zucker movie. With that stated, anyone up for "Airplane" or "BASEketball"? Send an email to russthebuss07@gmail.com.

"Top Secret" is fun, and I think maybe the best ZAZ movie, but it shows that they are/were never going to give us a perfect movie. I think this story just did not know how to incorporate the music.

That problem is also seen in "Rock 'n' Roll High School", but it is a little more glaring because it is Ramones propaganda. This stresses my need to see "Sid and Nancy". No message, no propaganda.

As for "Walk Hard", it is going to be part of the "This Is Spinal Tap" conversation. Perfect flicks deserve perfect flicks to stand by. Especially when they are essentially the same genre.

Follow me on Twitter @catbusruss. If you want to be on the show, contact me on Twitter or send an email to russthebus07@gmail.com. All we need is a theme, movie, director, or actor and a focus on sub 100-minute material. As long as the credits start before the 1:39:59 mark on the runtime bar, the movie qualifies.