Killer Klowns From Outer Space: Are English Subtitles For Nerds?

*Blog post was started on April 8, 2021.

 

It is really cool that Podbean and its promotion options required "NinetyForChill dot Com - The Podcast - The Facebook Page". At least bugging 20 people a day shows there is degree of support with every like and accepted invitation. Still, securing guests for the podcast is a challenge, so that Facebook page's success is driving me a little batty.

Or it may just be jealousy. I asked a coworker today about doing the podcast. He stated his interest, but he is the father of a four-month old. This means time is not really a luxury. It means he has a life. Too bad cats do a great job of taking care of themselves. My furball(s) need to be needier.

If you are able to get a lot of bookings, expecting my friends in the wrestling business to be available is silly. But I have not heard from any of them looking to promote themselves since the podcast started at the end of the third wave of COVID-19 perplexes me. They are aware Colt Cabana is not recording "The Art of Wrestling", right?

A half asleep Ally from Ally's Accessories Shop accepted my invite to the podcast this week. Upon realizing that, she has been pulling for me to come up with someone else. Of course I have the intrigued, but noncommittal and me checking out all the possible DVD retailers on the Northside of Champaign looking for a copy of "Coraline" because surely if I found that, it would make the universe will another hesitant prospective guest into asking when we were going to record.

Of course Movies Anywhere is not selling "Coraline" through their site, thus I cannot buy a copy of that and get a free movie from Universal...most likely "Happy Gilmore". I do not know what I should be more upset at NBC/Universal for. No "Coraline" on their service (Every streaming app needs Neil Gaiman.) or how Peacock is handling the WWE Network migration. No, Vince McMahon should not use the N-Word or be shown using it, but if you are keeping the matches of Chris Benoit on the service, maybe keep Roddy Piper versus Bad News Brown. It was racist, but it was not a double-murder suicide. That is what context warnings are for.

Truth be told, I am not overly upset about the lack of a complete WrestleMania VI card. The match was part of WWE's retrospective on Piper, "Born Into Controversy". If they do delete Benoit's matches however, Peacock and Xfinity may be out a customer.

I am suppose to record the podcast tonight during both NXT Takeover Stand & Deliver: Night 2 and Kenny Omega's first match on Impact on AXS TV. Hopefully Ally will not back down so that I do not have to make a decision on which show to watch (She requested a delay, so I cannot win).

My only fear is that with the lack of 90-minute movies that we shared together (If you look at the highest grossing movies of all time, once your ass is in the seat, you will watch whatever they put on the big screen no matter the length.) my suggestion was for her to come over to watch "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" and then chat about it. Doubting that would be the case, I entered the Trash Feature library she has supplied me with to watch that feature. With my luck, she chooses that instead of faking it over Zoom for a half hour.

Why do I make these decision? My decision making skills are not that good. Or perhaps my loyalty is what gets me. Keeping an ex in my life and betting on Newcastle United and the Chicago Cubs. The wise thing to do would be to quit counting on people, but then I would not have a podcast. I guess it is a catch 45, because 22 is not the number of LOSERS.

 

Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988; 1 hour 28 minues)

Crescent Cove is a typical small college town. You have farms on the outskirts, overly aggressive police veterans, a make out point, etc. At the make out point, after the goofy ice cream truck operators failed to make any sales or get their dates in the mood, Mike and Debbie see a shooting star pass closely overhead. Debbie believes that it has to have landed close by and convinces Mike to go and investigate. 

When they arrive where it landed, they find a circus tent. Despite Debbie's apprehension, the two go inside to find a big top TARDIS. The interior is massive with what seems to be a fusion reactor while the design aesthetic matches the carnival exterior. As they explore and avoid any being that seems to be heading their direction, they find what Mike believes is a cotton candy factory while the rational Debbie believe UFOs must be the only reasonable explanation. When Mike tries to prove it is fluffy sugar, he discovers a human body cocooned inside of it.

Before they can settle into their panic, a seven-foot tall clown enters the room. It soon notices them and chases them away with a popcorn cannon. Debbie decides the city must be warned and is certain that her ex-boyfriend on the police force, Dave, will believe them. This proves more of a challenge than they expected. The senior officer, Mooney, believes this to be a prank since Mike is friends with the ice cream truck driving jokesters, the Terenzi Brothers. Dave does not want Mike to involve his ex in these shenanigans. While Mooney refuses to entertain the concept of killer clowns from outer space, Dave is willing to entertain the concept to appease Debbie, provided she stays at home.

These two approaches end up leaving the town to fall into shambles. Even as Dave finds evidence supporting Mike and Debbie stories and starts to witness clown attacks, Mooney refuses to act once the calls start coming in. He believes it all to be a conspiracy to drive him mad and off the force. With no means of communicating with the state police, it is up to Debbie, Dave, Mike, and the Terenzis to save the day. With all the strength and alien technology the clowns have, will these five young adults be enough to save the city and possibly the world.

I think my description of "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" may be overly wordy. The DVD box art probably says something like, "After a giant circus tent arrives in Crescent Cove, townsfolk start disappearing with only popcorn and cotton candy left in their place. It is up to Mike, Dave, Debbie and the local ice cream salesmen to solve the mystery and defeat the evil "Killer Klowns from Outer Space." Maybe I am just showing this feature too much respect. That makes my efforts to find subtitles on this MGM/UA DVD seem futile.

"Killer Klowns from Outer Space" seems to be a satire in the vein of "Gremlins" but lacks any worthwhile characters to get behind to hold the feature together. "Gremlins" also had 15 more minutes to work with to establish lore and get to know the players, but with totally unrealistic characters, there is no cohesion and fails to establish lore until some throw away dialogue in the third act. This is a shame because most of the comedic violence can get a chuckle or two.

An upside to a focus on the mischief and mayhem is that it moves a long pretty quickly. The special effects have their moments and even the bad effects, like when a clown explodes, are played for laughs. John "Dean Wormer" Vernon as the long-in-the-tooth cop refusal to take the threat seriously is also amusing, so the comedy is there, just none of it is involves our handful of heroes.

I am on the fence on how to make this Troma-budget feature better. The satire could have been darker if we did not make the klowns so warped to look at. On the surface, it is easy to deem that they are scary, but clowns are scary enough to begin with. A greater commitment to gore effects may have cost the film its PG-13 rating, but if you want to entertain a horror audience, that would be the direction to take it.

In the end, "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" works as an idea, but not as a picture that you should provide much attention to. You will end up thinking too much and which results in a four-paragraph plot summary. All it needed to do was to make us care about the leads, but focusing on random klown attacks gets a more immediate reaction.

This could have been a great NES video game and it is good content for meme and YouTube content creators. For that, I understand the cult classic status. But if you are not looking to integrate these painted buggers as click bait, one watch is enough.

 

 

90-Min. Red Box: Once Upon a Time in Venice...Bruno Was Way More Chilled

*Blog was originally published on December 2, 2018.

 

It is a rare night. I am actually considering calling for delivery. Sadly, all my favorite take out is wrestler hair greasy. Being a hotel front desk agent frowns on my clothes looking like I had just headlocked Bret Hart.

Roman ruined everything. His apparent admiration of Hart lead me to question Bret's style in the 90's. If anything, that should be taken as a good prognosis in his current cancer bout. If televised wrestling could not thrive with him, neither shall leukemia.

Hair and hunger do not mix. That seems like a great way to transition to a Bruce Willis straight-to-DVD feature, "Once Upon a Time in Venice" (beach).

Steve Ford (Willis) is a disgraced cop turned private investigator who is trying to make ends meet taking on any ridiculous job. His range of work spans from making his protege John (Thomas Middleditch) survey an ashamed sex addict to tracking down an aspiring, obscene Banksy enthusiast that has been tagging a crooked real estate agent's property. He seems to also lack maturity since he is considers nude skateboarding an acceptable escape method, but makes up for that by taking care of the down and out Dave (John Goodman) and his sister's family as her husband is off somewhere trying to find himself. As long as he can watch his niece's dog during the day, everything is fine.

Needless to say, when his sister's place is ransacked by a couple of addicts who fence the gains and dog to their dealer Spider (Jason Mamoa), Steve's life will go out of control. Spider seems cool, perhaps too cool because his girlfriend had the nerve to decide to run off with the dog and a case of his cocaine. It appears everybody needs to get their lives in order and it is up to Steve to do it. This is the only way to get the pooch back and leave Venice a place with some sensibility.

"Once Upon a Time in Venice" is amusing until you stop and think about it. The story ends up working out, but is a mess until the third act. You are impressed that all the loose events resolve rather smoothly, but aside from some fun performances, you spend the first two acts getting fed up with the wacky scenarios that are constantly introduced and yearn for a cohesive story.

The movie starts with misdirecting you into thinking that Middleditch will be your lead. Having been given nothing to do, he is virtually replaced by Goodman. Willis is fun, but it is John McClane as the cocky hero the entire film who is unaffected by any situation's levity. As for the rest of the performances, you may get a good scene from an actor, but the ridiculous set up for what are primarily cameos is migraine inducing.

Mark Cullen's directing ability is not any more adequate than his and his brothers writing. He seems to think that Kevin Smith's method of filming comedy can apply to action, hence there is none. You are surprised that they even took the time to allow for gun play because it cannot be framed by this talent.

I could not find out the budget of this film, but I am thinking that it all went to get Bruce Willis since these are also the writers of "Cop Out." That film left us with a Willis and Kevin Smith Feud. "Cop Out" only has one subplot. You are telling me that Willis wanted his character to be drawn and quartered across that film, and that is the he hated filming that was because Smith said no.

"Once Upon a Time in Venice" is funny but it is not a movie. It is a series of "Saturday Night Live" sketches at best. The problem with that is the Cullen Brothers fail to realize that show requires all new characters for each sketch. Venice Beach is not "Dante's Inferno," and if Willis is not required to show more emotion than he offered in "The Expendables" you have dog poo without any poo jokes.

teaser-trailer.com/

 

NinetyForChill dot Com: The Podcast Episode 12: @Disney's Damnation and 80's Animation (Just Press Play)

Films Researched for this Episode: The Last Unicorn (1982), Fire and Ice (1983), and Prime Rose (1983).

NinetyForChill.com: The Podcast

Episode 12: Disney's Damnation and Eighties Animation  (Just Press Play)

Read more: https://html.com/media/#ixzz6jIeBsAn5

ThePoeticCritic (TPC) returns to the podcast for our most comprehensive and hence longest episode too date. If there was ever an episode for later members of Generation X (like TPC and I), this is the episode.

I mean, this is the episode about content instead of the disconnect between the woke generations. If your halfway through life, "Episode 7: Gen X and Scorsese V. Millenials and Marvel" would be the installment for you.

TPC guides us through a year-by-year breakdown of the most important/notable features of each year of the 1980s. This was a time where independent studios were looking to fill the void of a Disney company that was in the middle of restructuring. As a result, we go in depth about the rise and eventual fall of Don Bluth (An American Tail)that even bleeds into his 90's catalog. We discuss the evolution of adult animation pioneer Ralph Bakshi (Fire and Ice), the end of Rankin/Bass's forays in to cinema (The Last Unicorn), I throw in a little anime from the Streamline Pictures era, and we mention all of the blink and you missed their airings on Disney Channel and HBO features.

 

 

 

This all occurs before the Disney Renascence, and as a heads up, we do not show much attention to "The Little Mermaid". My guest attempts to reframe the rise of Disney back to commercial success while essentially poo-pooing on their mid-80's offerings as Eisner and Katzenberg lay the foundation for their most critically and financially successful decade. I decide to go Michael Jordan "The Last Dance" meme when it came to defending "The Black Cauldron" and "The Great Mouse Detective".

 

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If you want news about the podcast, you can now subscribe to it on Spotify and Google Podcasts. I am still uploading the previous episodes up to Podbean for the appropriate distribution, so hopefully we will be all caught up in time for next week's episode, and perhaps Apple Podcast will let us join their service as well. Let me warn you, the begging for five-star ratings will be coming soon.

As the podcast grows, so does the need for contributors. I can no longer play DJ and use eight second loops from any licensed songs, so if you have some tunes that you want to get out there, I would love to use them. Send me the info about them to russthebus07@gmail.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @maineventzombie.

And of course, I need guests to chat to. If you have a topic/theme, director or actor that you want to chat about from 30 minutes to 90 minutes, I would love to hear your pitch. Just send an email to russthebus07@gmail.com or a direct message @maineventzombie on Twitter.

Thanks for coming back to the NinetyForChill.com - The Podcast. I hope you enjoy.

90-Min (75) Prime - "The Care Bears Movie" and Its "Heavy Metal" Vibes

*Blog post started on March 12, 2021.

The week has not been too hectic after putting together my Stuart Gordon tribute episode of NinetyForChill.com - The Podcast. In other words, my pleas on Wednesday for a guest for next Tuesday's episode did not fall upon deaf ears. At this time, the plan is to bring @QuidPro_Joe to discuss TV shows that were adapted into motion pictures.

Read more: https://html.com/media/#ixzz6jIeBsAn5

It is either he really wanted to return, or my suggestion of dedicating the episode to the fake Irish holiday with a fake Irish actor in Will Ferrell was a bad idea. There was somebody who commented on the response to my original plan implying they would step up for it, but determining how serious it was a challenge thanks to "LOL". The biggest problem with podcasting is needing to be dependent on social media and email.

Wrestling promoters and baby boomers can just avoid that element of modern life it seems. I needed my folks to scan and email a lease they were going to cosign for. That resulted in me getting an earful from two sides. The landlord was not happy that they needed to extend the deadline. My parents were disappointed that I would think they would frequently check their email.

As for wrestling promoters, they still seem to be dependent on phones. Hence, you cannot get a hold of them if you cannot get their phone number. This is probably wise so they do not get bombarded by booking requests. Their email addresses are just a bin for them. If they want you, they will find you.

And if they have to look into their mail boxes, everything must seem like crazy talk to them. If you have a wrestling idea that is a bit timely, do not email it to them. When they get to it three months later, you become a person they will not take too seriously.

When revisiting 1985's "The Care Bears Movie" is part of pursuing your current goals, perhaps they were right.

Buzzfeed: "The Care Bears Movie": An Experiment In Testing The Limits Of Sanity

The Care Bears Movie (1985; 77 minutes)

It turns out that being cute icons on greeting cards was not the sole purpose of the citizens of Care-A-Lot. Care Bears are dedicated to making sure everybody cares about something, and usually the best way to do that is through friendship. If you think that you are your own, be prepared to question your sobriety when colorful, Ewok-sized bears crash their cloud car in front of you. This will be something you can most likely avoid because kids seem to be their primary focus. But if little Jason and his big sister Kim are high, let me have what they are having.

The two siblings' parents have left. Since people are going to leave your life (their folks' exit is not elaborated on), why should you take the time to get invested in anyone else? That is their philosophy and they are not buying what Friend Bear and Secret Bear are selling about friendship. Serendipity steps is as the four end up being Rainbow Rescue Beamed to Care-A-Lot after the machine's inadvertent activation by Baby Hugs and Baby Tugs. Grumpy Bear does not seem pleased to have visitors (more so about the baby bears messing with his machine), but at least his teleportation device works. With so many cute bears so willing to make sure the children know that someone cares about them, Kim and Jason may just come around to the Care Bear way of thinking.

Tender Heart Bear is having a more difficult challenge in restoring young Nicholas's faith in humanity. He has no friends and the only person invested in him is the Great Fettuccine whom he serves as a magician assistant to. Fettuccine is not the most patient person, and with so many demands, it is easy for Nicholas to screw something up. While digging through a crate the magician had purchased, the boy finds a locked book that starts talking to him. If he unlocks it, the spirit says that she will provide him with the magic to obtain anything he could/should desire. Having to hide in the magician's trailer (because who cares about adults), Tender Heart cannot prevent the spirits influence and cannot prevent Nicholas from unlocking the vengeful spirit.

A couple of spells from the book later, Tender Heart is caged and Fettuccine is under a sleeping spell. It does not take much effort for TH to get free, but as he heads back to Care-A-Lot to advise the other bears of the evil on Earth, Nicholas is hosting his first show. After one failed trick, the children comprising the audience start giving him the "Stephen King's Carrie" treatment. In response, the spirit has him read a spell that turns the kids on each other. The aspiring magician asks why he was told to cast a hateful spell, and the spirit tells him that it is more important that the kids know how he has always felt. If they all quit caring, Nicholas can at least have power to make him happy and claim superiority to all of those who mocked him.

With this lack of caring, Care-A-Lot begins to crumble. Their doomsday clock, the Care-A-Meter, has lost two hearts with only three remaining. If there are no hearts, Care-A-Lot will seize being. To ensure this, the spirit tells Nicholas that they must capture Jason and Kim. Because of the Care Bear's presence, they are immune to the lack of caring, so the spirit has Nicholas cast a spell to capture them.

The bears attempt to use the Rescue Beam to send the kids back to earth and the orphanage where two parents wait to adopt the two, but a cloud quake caused by the lack of caring drops them into the Friendship Forrest, home of the Care Bear Cousins. There, Brave Heart Lion, Playful Heart Monkey, and Swift Heart Rabbit find them and decide to escort them back to Earth. In the meantime, the remaining Care Bears have taken their cloud boat down the river to find them. It is destined that it will require at least all the love the bears can offer to restore compassion to the world. Can the kids and them reach Nicholas, or is the entire world to be doomed with spite?

"The Care Bears Movie" is the first film based upon a toy line, and per Wikipedia, the movie was a concept that American Greetings had started developing since these greeting card characters were conceived. It seems cynical, but you need to admire the company in how they approached using a film to unveil a new toy line (The Care Bear Cousins). When compared to "The Transformers: The Movie", the original line of characters is not wiped out in the first act so that their replacements can take over. Prime's death kind of left a downer mood over the audience for the last two acts.

As for the film's merits as a feature-length project, it is a solid children's movie. The story is simple enough that no will get lost, just become overly optimistic in the compassion of their fellow man. The latter might be tough for adults to stomach, but I think if you have kids that you love to the point that you will watch the precursor to the Charmin Bears for, you are not as cynical as I. Its protagonists are all cute and fun and none seem to wear out their welcome.

The films animation could be cleaned up and look smoother, but the drawings themselves is near the level of Don Bluth. What else would you expect from the studio, Nelvana, that gave us "Heavy Metal". This film's antagonist design is straight from the R-rated classic. It is also fun to realize that these polite Canucks had more nerve than Walt Disney. My only issue with that is my brain goes for mature humor, and there are so many awkwardly placed bear moments that the snickering is irresistible. Fortunately, the kids will not get that, so it is a pretty wholesome experience.

What I can complain about is the lengthiness of the songs. They are not offensive to start, but they are stretched out to ensure the feature makes the 75-minute mark. It wears on the adults because the film does seem to do a lot well in the small time frame it has. As an adult, you fear that this would be so easy to adapt to a school play. Perhaps that is a good thing because you immediately know this could be a hell of a lot worse. Just grin and bear the music.

"The Care Bears Movie" has a few painful spots for the sponsors of the audience, but if you have a sense of humor, to can snicker your way through those (Catching Canadian accent slips will help as well.). The result is a worthwhile children's film that is comparable to anything from the Disney 1970's offerings. Everyone has grown up with the Care Bears and the characters fit them as you imagined and the message and story are too sweet to poo-poo on. The only challenge is shutting down your cynicism which is something you should be able to do if you have young relatives to begin with.

 

Goon: A Good Heart for the Worst of the Game

Goon (2012) - MovieWeb

I must be working too much. Creatively, the best I've come up is pondering how little trauma is present in those children who witness their parents being senselessly murdered. You would think with the frequency in which it occurs, and no one can say it is too few, we'd get a Batman, Nightwing or Red Hood out of it. Being a millionaire is not necessarily a requirement, all you have to do is find someone who wants justice as much as you and was a trust-fund baby. If only we had a mass shooting at an Ivy League university...

That's a little too dark to tweet. It's definitely a tough premise to tag @midnight under #PointsMe.

The problem with the lack of creativity is namely the lack of Twitter and Facebook activity. It is awkward for my last three post to be a request to read the same screw the WWE blog (which reminds me that I have two hours left to jump on #Raw...phew...took care of that). Also, despite they were playful jabs about the girl I've been hanging out with recently (and I'd like to think all of my jabs as playful [it's my straight left and left hook you gotta worry about]), you don't want to place the Facebook friend request when they the bruises are still fresh.

Unfortunately, the jobs don't let me visit my folks and get satirically charged from my culturally insensitive mother. Fortunately, this give me a perfect transition into my review for the Jay Baruchel penned attempt to revive the hockey comedy genre, "Goon."

I think Baruchel's characters maybe a little too over the top with their obscenities (and homophobia) to prep the movie-going public for a "Slap Shot" reboot, but the film's story of misfits that few people, even fewer parents, seem to understand makes it a sports film that anyone with a never say die attitude can thoroughly enjoy.

Doug Glatt (Seann William Scott) is a kindhearted bouncer in Orangetown, MA, who just wants to find something to be passionate about. He is not cut from the same fabric of his Jewish-doctor father (Eugene Levy), has difficulty relating to his gay brother (David Paetkau) and just does not have the mean streak of his trash-talking, hockey-loving best friend Pat (Jay Baruchel).

Watching hockey seems to be his primary way of relaxing, but that is even made difficult when a visiting hockey player to Orangetown decides that Pat needed to shut his mouth during a five for fighting. Standing up for his less athletically-inclined friend, Doug decimates the "tough guy" to the point where the hometown coach decides that he is the ideal minor league enforcer regardless of actual hockey...or skating...talent.

With a little work from coach Rollie Hortense (Nicholas Campbell), Doug seems to have found his role in the world. Rollie's brother who coaches AA, Ronnie (Kim Coates), determines that he is the perfect addition to the Halifax Highlanders. Ronnie needs someone to protect and spiritually revive the play of the former first round pick, Xavier LaFlamme (Marc-Andre Grondin). Since Doug's idol, fellow enforcer and known headhunter Ross Rhea (Liev Schreiber), has returned to the minors to end his career, Xavier and his chemistry better develop quickly or the Glatt experiment will be for not.

As a fan of minor league hockey (sorry Hawks fans, I had to get to know the guys with the Indian Head on their sweaters before I cheered for them, hence, I cheered the Flyers on [Broad Street=Bush League] back in 2010), I really enjoyed "Goon," despite the strained attempts to remind us of the Paul Newman classic. It just cannot be that movie since the characters were not mean enough. After one locker room sequence in Halifax, you feel that the crude dialogue and scenario were just a desperate attempt to recreate the hockey cinema standard bearer's atmosphere.

The lack of meanness almost made the casting of Scott a mistake. Dimwitted characters, we know he can do that, but without a Stifler edge or at least a "Dude's Where's My Car?" confidence, the actor loses his charm. To Bauchel's credit (and perhaps casting experience), he knows how to incorporate a caring love interest (Amanda Pill in this case) to provide a third dimension to bring out his depth. His dialogue also features some great spots that shows there's something working in our naive protagonist head, so it works out well.

Scott and Schreiber's performances show the good spirits that tough guys can have which you do not usually see in sports films about bullies. These characters are far more admirable than the Hanson Brothers who were only dense and comic relief. The issue anyone would have with the movie, and discourage olde time hockey fans from watching it, is that it is a celebration and justification for what most consider to be the worst element of hockey. This element is fighting. With the exception of Don Cherry, no hockey pundit (who didn't play) will advocate that anyone should see this film.

Hopefully, if say...Michael Wilbon, saw this, they would leave knowing that this is not a film about violence, but one about good people trying to find their place in a world that just assume write them off. This is the story of my life, and I envy the characters for making it the way I try to live. Pardon that stint of cynicism because "Goon" is based on a true story. It is actually a message of hope, all be it for a short time of the emotional high I have been searching for.

The persons behind "Goon" could have probably spent more time studying the locker room atmosphere, but they do a fine job in presenting characters who have goals that most of society seem to feel are worth spitting on. It displays a great understanding of why some of us love the sport of hockey, and any one who wants to see the International game, should leave with an appreciation of why it's okay to drop the gloves.

If I've convinced you to watch this film, available on Netflix Streaming, maybe you'll give me a chance to convince you to give my B-movie zombie/wrestling project "Main Event of the Dead" support.

If you need a treatment of the script for "Main Event of the Dead" please e-mail me at russthebus07@gmail.com.

 

 

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