NinetyForChill: The #Podcast - Three Decades of Michael Biehn

NinetyForChill.com: The #Podcast

Episode 87: 3 Decades of Michael Biehn (If only I could some how incorporate Eva's toe beans.).

Three Decades of Michael Biehn - The Insatiable, Timebomb, The Victim

September 27, 2022

Michael Biehn should be as highly regarded as great character actors like Bill Paxton, but for whatever reason, his work seems to be more difficult to find. The man's characters handles themselves better in James Cameron movies that Mr. Game Over Man, so he deserves a lot more respect. Cool Movies Darth is a fan, and is quick to rent any feature, regardless of budget, that Mr. Biehn has acted in. Thus, NinetyForChill's host revisited some of these rentals.

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 did my damnedest to set up a multiple guest panel to discuss Kevin Smith's filmography. Wildfires in California kept one guest from being able to commit to a panel. A podcast regular's work schedule changed without any notification. Another past guest did their best to come through at the last minute, but life happens for other people. This was not the fall out that I needed after my short term therapy program had concluded.

Fortunately, I have three stacks of sub 100-minute movies that star the same actor. One stack is dedicated to Sean Bean. Another consists of Gary Daniels movies. The third is devoted to Michael Biehn.

There are also two extra movies in the Biehn stack, but one belongs to Ally's Accessories Shop on Etsy's Trash Feature Revue while the other only features Biehn in a smaller supporting role. One of the features that will be discussed has him as the third lead, so I did not want to feature anything lesser that that on this episode.

For this episode, I had seen all of the features...mostly. "Timebomb" is one I had never seen from start to finish. As for "The Insatiable" and "The Victim", it has probably been 10 years since I watched either of them. 10 years ago, my focus was on appreciating low budget movies since I had aspirations to make my own, "Main Event of the Dead" (If you have means of advancing the feature to a crowd-funding stage or if you would like a script treatment, send an email to russthebus07@gmail.com). Am I still as forgiving as I was then?

I only own one of these films, "The Insatiable". Vampire "drama" is something that I have been fascinated with since I saw "Interview with the Vampire". Any chance to see these monsters as human is one that I will take. After falling into "The Boondock Saints" fandom, there was a subconscious desire to help further the career of Sean Patrick Flannery. Since this "horror" movie billed Michael Biehn, how could this feature not be worthwhile.

And then comes the surprise of it being a comedy. ThinkFilm is notorious for misleading trailers and box art. I would have featured the audio of the video above to describe the film on this episode, but it was clearly edited to better sell the film by other fans of it.

"Timebomb" is another classic end of Dino De Laurentiis era feature. It even includes a cameo from "Earth Girls Are Easy" star Julie Brown. This may have been meant as the star-turning role that Biehn had seemingly earned, but it may not have made it to home media until the 2010's. This feature is better than most Cannon movies, but not quite on the level of ridiculous Schwarzenegger features like "Total Recall" or "The Running Man". I would say calling it a made for HBO "Bourne" movie is fair.

"The Victim" is probably the most interesting film featured on this episode. It is the directorial debut for Michael Biehn. Inspired by working on Robert Rodriguez's "Planet Terror", he decides to star in a grindhouse film. His feature has all the trademarks of that genre, but there are some moments where you think he may have inspired all the driving scenes in "Birdemic: Shock and Terror".

I just Googled the Rifftrax classic. Biehn may have been trying to perfect the long drive scenes. He does do it better. There is now a need to check out his IMDb to see if he has any directorial efforts in development. 

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.