BEST OF FEBRUARY 2023

Here’s another installment of Balladeer’s Blog’s end of year retrospective, reflecting on February’s best.

THE KEEP (1983) – My review of this love-it-or-hate-it movie directed by Michael Mann. Part horror, part fantasy, The Keep could have been a classic but wasn’t. During World War Two, Nazis uncover a site which holds a demonic entity, and while it’s fun watching it prey on the S.S. troopers the entity goes on to prey on innocent people as well.

        Scott Glenn played an immortal warrior who has been fighting such vile forces for hundreds of years and he arrives to do battle with the dark monstrosity. Also starring Jurgen Prochnow, Ian McKellan and Alberta Watson. CLICK HERE.

FACULTY LOUNGE FASCIST ROUNDUP – The February 6th, 2023 edition. Now they claim that expecting correct answers in math class is an example of “white cisheteropatriarchy.” I wish I was joking. CLICK HERE.

RAFAEL SABATINI NOVELS – Balladeer’s Blog’s review of several books by the writer of many, many swashbuckling, sword-swinging tales of pirates, rebels, knights and cavaliers. In addition to well-known Sabatini classics like Captain Blood, Scaramouche, The Sea Hawk and The Black Swan I also reviewed overlooked works like The Tavern Knight, Love at Arms and Venetian Masque. CLICK HERE.

COOL-NAMED SPORTS TEAMS – Cuyahoga College HERE, El Paso Community College HERE.

N.E.T. PLAYHOUSE 1970 – Episodes included a Ghanaian adaptaton of Hamlet, a filmed Volpone, a telefilm about Quebec Separatist terrorists in Canada, Australian spy antics during World War Two, and a dystopia ruled by youthful tyrants. With performers like Christopher Walken, George Carlin, Jack Palance, Sam Waterston, Jean Stapleton and Christopher Guest. CLICK HERE.  

THUNDER WARRIOR: ALL THREE MOVIES – The trilogy of movies in which cult actor Mark Gregory starred as a combination of Rambo and Billy Jack, waging all-out war on corrupt law enforcement, corrupt businesses and corrupt politicians in unrealistic but kickass ways. CLICK HERE.

ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION: THE KE WHONKUS PEOPLE (1890) – The discovery of a hidden civilization near the North Pole, a civilization with advanced technology in a region with unusual creatures. CLICK HERE.

RELIC OF FORT TEJON – Forgotten Television segment about gambler/ gunslinger Bret Maverick (James Garner) winning a camel left over from the ill-fated American Camel Corps in the 1800s. CLICK HERE. 

PRESIDENT’S DAY POST – Read it HERE.

PREZ – The 1970s DC Comics comic book about an alternate future in which a teenager becomes president of the United States. As weird as it sounds. CLICK HERE. 

THIRTY-EIGHTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE TEXAS TWENTY-SEVEN FILM VAULT – One of the many pre-MST3K bad movie shows. CLICK HERE.

JOE BIDEN LIES DURING HIS STATE OF THE UNION KLEPTOCRACY ADDRESS – CLICK HERE.

ADAM WARLOCK VS THE MAGUS – Read it HERE.

N.E.T. PLAYHOUSE 1971 – Episodes included James and Stacy Keach as the Wright Brothers, Leo McKern as Julius Caesar, Anthony Hopkins as Danton, Laurence Luckinbill and James Karen as John & Sam Adams, plus biographies of Isadora Duncan, Beethoven, Virginia Woolf, Siegfried Sassoon and more. CLICK HERE.  

NEWS ROUNDUP: February 27th HERE, February 24th HERE, February 19th HERE, February 15th HERE, February 13th HERE, February 2nd HERE.   

N.E.T. PLAYHOUSE 1972 – In this final season, most of the episodes were biographies, either dramatized or in documentary form. The subjects included Lorraine Hansbury, Galileo, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lord Byron, Gertrude Stein and female writer Sidonie G.C. Colette. CLICK HERE.

AVENGERS: THE KREE-SKRULL WAR – From 1971-1972. CLICK HERE.