If it does not involve pro-wrestling, this is Russ Stevens's effort to create the one stop blog for movies that are cut to the ideal run-time, 90 minutes. This blog may feature films that may range from 71 minutes to 1 hour 40 minutes, but 101 minutes and up are too long. An hour and a half can justify cutting a film into two chapters and a book into three. Hobbits and Katniss have too many ending, consider this an effort to stop that.
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.
Life has been pretty hectic recently. I have just started a second job, so finding time to write the blogs for each podcast episode has obviously been difficult. So far, Mondays have been free, but that is just the prelude to a 50-hour work week. By Sunday, catching up on all the AEW Wrestling programming is what comes first and foremost.
I am still determined to keep up the podcast, but the past week was tough. There was a recording scheduled, but other people have lives, so it did not pan out. Unless guests want to stay up late, Sundays are the only day that I am certain can be made for podcasting. With that said, if you have a movie or topic that you want to chat about, send an email to russthebus07@gmail.com.
Or, if you cannot be on the show, let me know of cool cinematic events that I can attend. Or, give me some feedback about the idea of a Patreon. I have to get gas money to drive up to the Music Box Theater every weekend. Two more stays are necessary for me to remain a gold member with Hilton Honors as well.
The actual solution to my issues is, again, to move up to Chicagoland. My landlords upping my rent another $50 like the prior year. What happened to consideration initially provided for the red stain that knocked $50 off my initial rent? What could that substance be?
So I think that means B-Fest was a success for me this year. I am bitching more about my life than enduring what is essentially a double feature in "Xanadu" and Uwe Boll's "BloodRayne". Regardless of the quality of the closing features, fun was still had throughout the two films. That is a step up from last year's "Godzilla" cartoon and "Beast from Haunted Cave".
It may have been the larger crowd. The audience must have been three times larger than the 2022 crowd. In other words, I did not get a couple of Italian exploitation films as a door prize. This larger crowd did allow for some shadow casts and other odes to "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". More importantly, I got to see Rick Moranis try to stand up to a leather suspender-sporting Willem Dafoe in "Streets of Fire".
"Big Man Japan" was awesome and "The Children" and "American Ninja" are the type of films that drive this podcast. With how hectic my life is, I am proud to say that I am already pumped for "B-Fest 2024". See you then.
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.
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.
It seems that I am getting more accustomed to these seemingly longer weeks. I was able to watch "AEW Rampage" live on Friday night despite all the Midnight Moon Blackberry Moonshine that I drank on Wednesday recording this episode, Pour Bros. Trivia on Thursday, and still just being over halfway through a six-day work week. All it cost me was not seeing the 4-star+ bout between MJF and Takeshita.
And, there was no tequila/mezcal involved in Whaddayaknow Trivia. Perhaps that is why team "Shrug Life" failed to defend our championship. Good things happen for me when agave-based booze is involved.
I suppose I could try to dedicate myself to healthier living. Rae had recently quit drinking and sounds better for it. Or that means she has finally recovered from walking pneumonia and two bouts with COVID. Hopefully, my shot of Malort to open the podcast did not offend her. She was probably more on edge about me telling her that I got shingles at 35. That was the one disease she was happy about not starting the new year with
She is a podcasting professional, so her demeanor remained upbeat. I find that to be impressive since we were chatting about two slasher movies that do so many good things that a poor executed twist lets those film fall from great to average at best.
"High Tension" was a great horror film about a mysterious killer. It is French Extreme, so the violence and gore is beautiful. But, perhaps being French, the auteur Alexandre Aja felt that it had to actually be clever. Needless to say, I wish I was in England when this film was released because the title "Switchblade Romance" would have left me better prepared for the swing and a miss the unnecessary third act is. There just had to be a better way to get that pavement saw scene into the tale.
As for "Sleepaway Camp", Rae's suggestion for this double feature, we both found it to be a quaint little horror flick. Of course it is from the eighties, so satanic/homophobic/transphobic panic had to be the reason for the evil acts taken. There is no Satanism, the trans elements are fine, but they needed to shoehorn the gay subversive subtext. Was it meant to confuse us like the killer?
"Doghouse" is a tale of immature, 30-something Londoners who decide to get away from the city for a guy's weekend in Moodley, 300 miles from London. Their mate from the town says that there is a 4 to 1 female to male ration there, so that should get the soon-to-be divorced Vince over his depression. Sadly, that ratio is now 400 to them after a bioweapon had turned all the women there into pissed off, cannibalistic feminists.
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.
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.
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.
It was a nice change of pace to have some consecutive days off during the week. Yes, this blog is being posted about 18 hours after I uploaded the podcast, but optimizing my PlayStation 5 seemed more worthwhile. Here is to hoping that I do not use the remainder of my Xfinity internet data. All the games I am downloading to make sure Sony cannot take them away from me will have a price. At least that is not the conglomerate who is going to benefit financially.
There is not really a lot of pressure on me right now. This podcast was recorded an hour after "The Lost Boys with @CouchManBakes", so there was no urgency to binge movies. I guess the shame is that the podcast has not done much with new-to-me movies.
But why worry about the new stuff when you have classics that require recognition. The best comic book movies follow the groundwork laid by "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension".
If you call yourself a fan of the eighties, this feature offers everything fun about the decade to the audience. New wave music. Robocop. The Kurgan. Jeff Goldblum's first exposition dump. Crazy John Lithgow. The actual birth of Christopher Lloyd's villainous performances.
The ensemble cast inspired a trip to "Ally's Accessories Shop on Etsy's Trash Feature Revue". With the letter C, Ally actually supplied me with a disc. We have different taste, so those are greater gambles than when I try to feel in the void. But, as it turns out, I have yet to see a bad sub 100-minute film starting with that letter (at least when it comes to Ally's trash).
"Columbus Circle" is a fun ensemble piece about a shut-in heiress who is paranoid of everyone. Of course, just because you are paranoid does not mean they are not out to get you. Selma Blair, Beau Bridges, Kevin Pollak, Jason Lee, the weakest name in the cast is Amy Smart, but I do not find that to be an insult. Give Pollak an "everything is not what it seems" story, and it may be guaranteed gold.
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.
