We do not always have the time for a two-hour movie. No one ever wants to sit down and watch a one-hour TV drama knowing that they might not be able to stick around for an entire second episode. With this said, 90-minutes (perhaps 75, maybe 99) is the ideal runtime. This concise time has given us some of the most rewatchable movies that may not win any Academy Awards, but are properly fun-sized for the audience. That is what NinetyForChill.com is all about, the fun-sized sweets be it experimental terror, outlandish horror, over-the-top action, or the most radical comedies and dramas. Your host Russ Stevens and his friends chat about the movies that require few cuts to put on basic cable when it comes to fitting into a two-hour time slot and embrace all the craziness that the censors will need to bleep or blur.
Episodes
Wednesday Mar 20, 2024
Wednesday Mar 20, 2024
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.
Tuesday Mar 12, 2024
Tuesday Mar 12, 2024
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 Hospital). If only there was some classic action, but we will let the elder sibling speak on that (Runaway).
Wednesday Mar 06, 2024
Wednesday Mar 06, 2024
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.
Thursday Feb 29, 2024
Thursday Feb 29, 2024
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.
Tuesday Feb 27, 2024
Tuesday Feb 27, 2024
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.
Thursday Jan 04, 2024
Thursday Jan 04, 2024
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.
Wednesday Dec 13, 2023
Wednesday Dec 13, 2023
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.
Wednesday Dec 06, 2023
Wednesday Dec 06, 2023
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.
Thursday Nov 23, 2023
Thursday Nov 23, 2023
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.
Wednesday Nov 15, 2023
Wednesday Nov 15, 2023
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.