NinetyForChill: The #Podcast with @CatBusRuss: AniMAY...be 2 Furious: Redline & MFKZ

 NinetyForChill.com: The #Podcast...with @CatBusRuss

Episode 122: AniMAY...be 2 Furious: Redline & MFKZ

AniMAY...be 2 Furious: Redline & MFKZ

4 days ago

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CatBusRuss could not have fallen into a more appropriate way to close out the month of May (a.k.a. AniMay [anime + May]). Coinciding with the release of "Fast X", our host watched a couple of features that actually succeed at what the Vin Diesel franchise tries to capture. These are crazy stories that do not get caught up in male soap opera and "Just Kiss Already!" moments. Unlike "The Fast and the Furious" franchise, both "Redline" and "MFKZ" are must see films for entirely different reasons.

Neither of them are thankfully a "Point Break" knock off. Each represents an element that "The Fast" franchise that just seems to be too ridiculous. "MFKZ" is all about the craziness presumed of non-white communities and how action packed that must be. "Redline" is all about the living life a quarter mile at a time, or should I say parsec. Each feature should be seen by any animation fan. One for its "Saints Row" vibe. The other for nearly being perfect.

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

I am always busy, but it does not feel too hectic right now. The bills have been paid. Fun was had at Pour Bros. Free Trivia. Hell, there was minor league (A-ball like the Peoria Chiefs) flirting to be had.

On the flipside, there was trying to be supportive to a friend who feels like the outcast of their trivia team. (I only feel like the one to be ousted from my trivia team). Then there was taking home a 25, generally wise, year-old home after an alcohol and medication mishap. The crew at the Barrel House 34 on Walnut were kind of assholes about him taking up the only stall in the men's room to find relief from that.

I am not a fan of Quality (the bar on Neil) because of the lack of atmosphere, but at least the staff does not judge someone for getting sick. You make sure they are cleaned up and ridicule them playfully their next visit. If we end up there next week, that best be their attitude. Of course, there is a great deal of pride that I possess about being the ideal patron.

Do these details of my week make for a fine excuse to not writing this blog until four days after the podcast was posted? Probably not. I guess I am really patting my own back about just living my life a little healthier. Wednesday was a movie night, but I only had one shift to worry about. Tuesday, dinner was had and it was straight to bed. Tucking myself in before 11 pm narrows down my time to blog, but do I need to? The answer is yes. If I am going to post the support of Chris Hardwick from the "ID10T" podcast before my episodes that tell the listener to head to ninetyforchill.com, I have to.

Yes, I only had one shift yesterday, but I had to finish my rewatch of "WestWorld" Season 3. All it took was one ad for Kevin McCarthy's victory lap over the debt ceiling deal on YouTube to tell me to further appreciate my physical media. There is a work story to be told about regretting some charges to secure there building, but I digress. But a PS5 media controller would be nice.

So, this episode is me just talking about cartoons for a half hour. I am doing my best to come up with a guest for the June 6th episode (if you can recall my episode which was dedicated to Jim Carrey's sub 100-minute movie filmography, "The Number 23" can officially make the upcoming episode 666.). Hopefully somebody will step up. Two weeks of me on my own seems a bit much. June 13th will be my "Renfield" podcast to celebrate the feature's physical release.

I am still determined to keep up the podcast, but the past week was tough. 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.

"Underworld: Blood Wars" and R-Rated Table Reads for Kids

The original subtitle for this blog was "Maximizing the HDR but not Charles Dance." I bring up Charles Dance in the blog title having recently seen "Godzilla: King of the Monsters". Do not forget the birthday gift that your parents had gotten your significant other. There are consequences.

Insert rant about seeing "Godzilla: King of the Monsters" instead of "John Wick 3: Parabellum. How good PG-13 Charles Dance was "Last action Hero". Suggest table readings for R-rated movies be done in the presence of children. Read all about this at MainEventoftheDead.com

You would think it would be tough to get back to my latest 90-minute movie review after that rant, but I must be clairvoyant. The first word of the review I wrote in what I think was January of 2018 was...

Bookworms are tough to read as film goers.

Underworld Blood Wars:

Before my current beloved, my last girlfriend was a lost 22-year old on Seroquel-prescribed mess (the past is the past), so it was easy to keep her amused with flashy imagery. The William S. Burrough readers who left me bankrupt would find other means to distract themselves. The roommate I had a literal falling out with had little time for appreciating pop corn cinema because her boyfriend at the time embraced it while ignoring our tendency to indulge in Milla Jovovich films not directed Luc Besson.

Tuscola's finest nose being in books made it so she never kept track of gimmicky cinema, and since all of our motion picture library for the first year of our relationship had to be viewed in the common living space, it was tough to catch her up on it. Despite all of the distractions, she is amused by chicks fighting monsters. Regardless if she retains any of the plots, I am not allowed to watch any of their sequels without her.

www.pinterest.com/CloakedReaper

Thankfully, with me initially installing the 4K equipment in the bedroom, she would have to become a cinephile. There are no arts and crafts to distract her. Just the need to deal with all of her questions from the previous franchise installments that competed against yarn balls for her attention.

Fortunately, "Underworld: Blood Wars" did not inspire a refresher. The film returns to what the first film in the series promised, vampires versus werewolves. If it makes a viewer inquisitive, it is only about what they had previously seen the British actors in.

Humanity has abandoned their purge of violent "Twilight" characters. This leaves the war between vampires and lycans to focus on capturing a hybrid to dissect for the cause of securing their clan's respective future.

The only person who can lead anyone to one of the werepires is the death dealer Selene. To ensure this cannot happen, she has hidden her daughter and arranged it so she will not know the child's location. Thus, she is left wandering the Earth only to be amused by killing those dumb enough to chase her. That can get dull, so she has become nothing more than a reverent of regret hoping it will end soon.

David the vampire prince is able to track her down and tell her that she will be welcomed back into the coven to train new death dealers since the lycan threat is only growing. If one half of her pursuers can be eliminated, this may allow her to knock off the absentee mother routine. But everything in her thousand-year life has been based on a lie, so there must be a vampire or two planning her demise.

Selene will need a new trick to escape and end her foes, so the film leaves you to brainstorm. Will you guess correctly or inadvertently prepare a treatment for the sixth film?

It is a good time for fantasy with the success of "Stranger Things," and "Underworld: Blood Wars" capitalizes on the audience accepting any convoluted premise. The viewer has fun trying to out think the dungeon master/screenwriters Cory Goodman's plot and is rewarded with an amusing story advancement. There is nothing about this film that can be taken too seriously, you will catch on to that quickly and enjoy the ride.

There is nothing noteworthy about the fight sequences, but the environments and the amount of action will keep your attention. Unlike the previous films, characters who survived  are further developed (Charles Dance), so you get something they totally dismissed with Scott Speedman's character. If you were angry about that hollow love interest was left out of the previous film, you receive a quite satisfactory resolution to your complaints.

Perhaps the best aspect of this feature is that it keeps moving. No moments are taken to add weight to events. It is a "Dynasty Warriors" video game put on 35 mm. You came to see vamps and wolves bash heads. As an indie wrestling fan, I can appreciate the decision to skip story and just spreading the thumbtacks on the canvas. We do not need Stephanie McMahon showing us how she verbally loves licking her lips for 20 minutes...ever.

And that is why people immediately doubt my sophistication when I mention wrestling, regardless of the alliteration.

"Underworld: Blood Wars" is how a ridiculous 80's feature premise can still work in the 21st century. A familiar face and action is all you need. Just keep it brief (under 100 minutes) and the effects worthwhile, and you can get the audience to accept anything. This is "Cruiser Weight Classic" film making, not "205 Live".

Pluto TV: "Arena" Missteps to the Best Mono-Y-Mono Flick of 1989?

As a guy who went to "Mystery Science Theater 3000 Live" and has a Tom Servo tattoo, I was definitely familiar with "Starcrash", so HDTGM had me for at least a couple of weeks. It should have been three when they announced "Friday the 13th: Part 6 - Jason Lives", since Paul Scheer said it was on Amazon Prime. They must have watched it on that before October because Bezos knows you can sell anything horror related in October. At least to everyone but me.

A Voorhees romp is something I presumed my girl would not want to watch, so I was waiting for her to go to bed (12:00 am). I had forgotten to check out iTunes deals for the week, so I did not make it to check out Prime Video until 12:30. The time was not too late since the flick would fit this website's time restraints, so everything seemed to be going well. Six hours of sleep would be enough.

Then I found out the lack of free Jason flicks. Being stubborn, I was going to check out every subscription service to see if it was available for free. It was not, but I need content, and Pluto TV was the last place I landed on. Surely a cult flick would come through to me, and I have yet to watch a "Man versus Monster" tourney flick. I know, ironic because my first completed script is a zombie versus pro-wrestling comedy, "Main Event of the Dead". (If you want a treatment of the story, email me russthebus07@gmail.com).

www.pinterest.com/KaleKikuchi/

Empire Pictures's "Arena" from 1989 would take that experience would leave me the wiser B-Movie maker. As for the film as a narrative, would it be a classic like "Re-Animator" or unbearable like "Trancers"? There is no middle when it comes to a Charles Band production.

As I look at this distributor's Wikipedia page, "Robot Jox" was the last film in their filmography. If their Lovecraft adaptations was not enough to warrant respect, pioneering replacing "ck" with "x", a 90's to early 00' standard, should.

Out in deep space, a space station serves as the center of entertainment for the entire universe. This satellite holds The Arena, the greatest combat sports venue ever devised. Or at least it was that before the gangster/promoter Rogor took over. He holds more power than the leagues commissioner and using his illicit ties can determine nearly every outcome. This has lead to no humanoid being able to climb the ranks for the past 50 years and dashing the dreams of any earthling, like Steve Armstrong.

Armstrong has been barely surviving on the station. He arrived there with asperations on becoming a champion, but he soon realized that the sport is just a business. His goal is now to just scrape up enough cash to get a ticket home. Sadly, his temper does not allow him to be a great short order cook, and as a result, he ends up injuring a fighter, Vang, from the Quinn Camp, the only stable fighting the uphill battle against Rogor.

This ends up being a blessing in disguise for Quinn since she needs a new fighter, and the fans have been yearning to see a non-monster in the ring. With debts to pay, Armstrong really has no choice but to return to the ring, but it is not long before he is ready to embrace his destiny. But will destiny be enough to top Rogor's influence?

"Arena" is definitely a movie that should not be watched in a clean or sober state. That is a good place to start because that means it is watchable, and I may be encouraging you to watch. And the influences that should be applied are not because of a bad story, but because it completely comprised of knock or "Star Wars" masks and poor make up that dare not interfere with actors hairlines.

The acting for the late 80's is passable. If anything hinders the dialogue, it is the ridiculous alien jibberish they use or horrid ADR altering. As for the characters themselves, they are all ridiculous, but the premise of man goes into a hand-to-hand fight with a bug similarly structured to Heimlich the caterpillar allows for this. You know from the box art this is going to be cinema, so you can forgive a lot.

The story follows a very easy to follow narrative, and, contrary to other 1989 flicks of more realistic combat, does not involve rape and murder to push the story forward. It has every other cliché in the book and given the film's premise it does not try to reinvent them. "Arena" could have tried to figure out a way to build this world, but if it was over ninety seven minutes, you would need to start mixing substances to continue having fun watching it.

All the budgetary shortcomings to try and execute a sci-fi action flick is an experiment worth viewing. "Arena" is a rare low budget alien flick that does not try to shock its audience which is quite a refreshing change from most extra terrestrial flicks of the late 80's. It does not take the time to insult your intelligence so it is fun trip that is even more jocular the less seriously you take it.

There are times when fun can triumph fine art. "Arena" is one of those times.

"He Never Died" - The Henry Rollins Show The Movie

The lack of appreciation may get to us all. You start to develop a chip on your shoulder, and eventually it becomes a boulder that you need to chuck. It is better than constantly lashing out because throwing pebbles is just annoying to a perceived adversary. A genuine stone will finish them off. A possible mess to clean up is why we keep letting it snowball.

You cannot cut yourself off from people. If you do, you will be the considered the asshole. Imagine an eternity of that and you get the Henry Rollins starring classic "He Never Died."

I do not know what it is, but I have always been hoping for a good Henry Rollins movie. He is a cult of personality (Rollins and Bernie 2020) that you want associated with any flick and I have yet to find a supporting role that I have not enjoyed. The thing is, with the exception of "Feast," he may be the only reason to sit though some bad films.

There are some redeeming qualities to "Johnny Mnemonic" and "Lost Highway", but definitely not "The Chase." Since there is not any range to his performances, one can be trepidatious about the idea of him in a leading role. Especially when the film is from a production company with an intro reel suitable only for PS2 games.

As I stated, Rollin's is a cult of personality. If you can let him be him, it should work. He would be the perfect "Highlander: The Series" immortal, so his immortal flesh eater character in "He Never Died" may be perfection on a streaming service.

Well, that is hyperbole. You need a Scottish accent somewhere with this premise to be perfect...or whatever Christopher Lambert can bring to the table.

Jack seems to be burnt out. He just has to live, but nothing seems to motivate him. Even thugs mistakenly attacking him does not get his pulse rate up. A little tape and Visine, the man is ready to be an hour early for Bingo.

Finding out that a daughter he never knew he had has tracked him down is a bit of hiccup to his existence, but he might be to dull to keep her attention. Worrying about her finding out that he may survive on human blood and viscera might be a waste of time. She would be so bored, her efforts to get him out on the dating scene would be moot.

Perhaps kidnapping his daughter will get him to bring out some fight from him. What could be his secrets that make someone want to waste small-time crooks to find out? Is it wise to give a guy who may predate the Bible a reason to get out of bed.

"He Never Died" is an excellent allegory for those who seem to just be existing because the alternative is frowned upon. My experience with this is being cynical and feeling life is wasted on the young. To imagine 5,000 years of that serves as a wake-up call that your life could be worse. The real challenge is realizing you have new things to try and little time to use.

Henry Rollins is ideally cast in this feature. He has been a cultural mainstay for 30-plus years and his fans feel that he needs to be constantly relevant. Jack shows us that concept may be more trouble than it is worth, and the writing and performance allows the viewer to appreciate his struggles. This results in a strong black comedy that benefits from the lack of directorial resources.

"He Never Died" almost suffers because of Netflix's previews imagery sells it as a straight horror movie. If you are not in the mood for gore, you will pass by it. If you do not have the attention span for what is essentially a play on film, you will be surprised in the wrong way.

This film may solely be for the fans of Rollins. "He Never Died" shows that an appreciation of "Black Flag" indicates wisdom. It is a film for the wise, so it might not be a Thanksgiving recommendation because there is at least one uncle who will not get it. Try to tell that guy that Rollins is Cash 2.0 or just two since he does not understand smartphone updates.

Film Affinity - Espana

https://www.filmaffinity.com/es/film417154.html

Netflix DVD - Brigsby Bear: A Mental Disorder to Rally Around

I can work to find the bright side of any situation, so my girlfriend's 24-hours of sleeplessness on Thursday (was it inspired by concluding "Fight Club" or just her buyer's remorse on skipping a B1G1 deal at Rue 21?) allowed me to finally get comfortable enough to explore a feature about captivity, mental illness, and Teddy Ruxpin, "Brigsby Bear".

James Mitchum has been growing up in a post apocalyptic world where VHS is the only thing that allows him to escape the isolation. Every week, a new video is delivered to the bunker. It is the only TV show anyone born after the fall of man knows. At least that is how it was for James. Once Ted and April Mitchum are captured for abducting him as an infant, he is thrown into a world where nothing that he grew up knowing actually exists.

"Brigsby Bear Adventures" was a show produced and developed by Ted to serve as educational programming for his pseudo son, so in order to keep up the illusion of "Fallout: New Salt Lake", James was the only person to ever watch the show. It is the only thing James is interested in, but after his real father, Greg, takes him to see a movie, he discovers there is a way to still hold on to the world he knew, or at least grow beyond it. He is going to conclude the Brigsby story by writing and producing his own feature film.

Being James's only passion, people who try and get to know him cannot help but be mesmerized by his tales of a Chuck E. Cheese robot battling a bearded, cackling sun. His sister Aubrey's friends are all in on making this film and aspiring director Spencer uploading the old tapes to Youtube, the kidnap kid's popularity only grows. With some sympathetic former actors in the police department having access to the show's props, the only things that could possibly stop the film from wrapping up are his real parent's need for him to identify with them and his Google search history that raises a lot of red flags at Homeland Security.

Practical effects are a lost art. If their was ever a greater reason to destroy the Patriot Act, I would like to hear it.

At one hour and 37 minutes, "Brigsby Bear" is a work of genius. You get this convoluted story on top of actual moments of dealing with the trauma of being throw into a world that you have never known. The story is an inspiring and great tale about the need for compassion and understanding.

There are still some nits to pick. Imagining this film with a budget is something you cannot help but do. The feature does not offer anything in exceptional in terms of primary cast and direction. I think it is a bit too meta to direct the film like the characters directing their own film.

The lead and primary writer Kyle Mooney displays passion well, but the characters who turn out to be his adversaries are too restrained. Perhaps they could have been exaggerated in their efforts to make James face reality, but with Greg Kinnear, Mark Hamill, and all the adolescent characters shine when they get their chance, director Dave McCary's approach may have been appropriate.

With concise direction and writing, it is a shame that "Brigsby Bear" did not get a wider release. It is funny and clever and has a message that I think everyone could benefit from. The actors you came to see deliver and any one from Generation X to Millenials can appreciate the celebration of not quite ready for PBS productions.

My only other wish is that it was released eight years earlier when I started trying to promote "Main Event of the Dead" my low-budget, pro-wrestling themed zom-com. Feel free to request a treatment at russthebus07@gmail.com. It may have let more of my acquaintances giving my weird and passionate self a chance.

Lonely Island, are you interested in another sub $7 million project?

http://www.brigsbybear.jp/