Reviews of Alien: Earth are chock full of jokes about the endless Peter Pan references from Boy Kavalier, so it occurred to me that I hadn’t posted anything about silent movies in a while. In honor of the forced references in Alien: Earth here are a few movie posters from 1924’s very FIRST big screen adaptation of the James Barrie tale, starring Betty Bronson as Peter.
Filed under Neglected History, opinion
CLOSE CALL FOR NUMBER THIRTEEN – In NCAA Division Two the 13th ranked COLORADO STATE AT PUEBLO THUNDERWOLVES traveled to face the UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL MISSOURI MULES. A 10-10 1st Quarter tie became a 17-10 Mules lead by Halftime. The 3rd Quarter ended with the Thunderwolves on top 20-17 and the 4th in a 29-24 CSU-Pueblo victory.
STAMPEDE – On the other hand, D2’s number 2 team in the nation – the HARDING UNIVERSITY BISON – had no such difficulties with their guests the SOUTHWESTERN OKLAHOMA STATE BULLDOGS. The Bison seized a 14-0 advantage in the opening Quarter and doubled that to 28-0 at the Half. From there Harding U. buried the Bulldogs by a final count of 55-0. Continue reading
Filed under college football
No mere words will suffice to mark the passing of Charlie Kirk, the Turning Point USA hero who never hesitated to set up a chair inside the lion’s mouth and try to talk sense to political zealots. This husband and father was always thought of by me as “the amiable firebrand” because of the way he combined political passion with a willingness to engage with opponents he surely knew harbored hatred toward him.
This assassination by forces that still dominate college campuses across America highlights the way that university administrators have been paving the way for such violence for decades now. Those administrators were often 1960s generation leftists or had the misfortune of being “educated” by 1960s leftists.
Remember that self-confessed school bomber Bill “Guilty as sin, free as a bird” Ayers, the embodiment of the most hate-filled elements of the 1960s left, not only became a “teacher” himself but also influenced the politically intolerant approach to “education.”
For decades now, the intolerant Democrats and other leftists who run America’s colleges and universities have done everything they could to show hostility toward any speakers to the right of Lenin or Mao. Heckler’s vetoes and the violence toward opposing opinions were spitefully ignored by the politically biased professors and administrators.
The murder of Charlie Kirk was not a bug to those intolerant political robots. Such killing was the intention all along. May Charlie Kirk’s name live forever, and the names of Bill Ayers and his ilk return to the sewage from which their bearers came.
LINKS TO ARTICLES SALUTING FREE SPEECH MARTYR CHARLIE KIRK:
TRUMP TO AWARD PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF FREEDOM TO CHARLIE KIRK POSTHUMOUSLY.
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR CALLS KIRK “THE MOST ELOQUENT TRUTH-TELLER OF AN ERA”. Continue reading
Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, opinion
Several years ago a big deal was made over whether or not the 9-11 attacks could have been prevented by greater coordination between elements of the forever corrupt intelligence community. Amid the predictable partisan bickering and childish finger- pointing that characterized the 9-11 Commission and its findings an important consideration was overlooked.
That consideration was how events would have unfolded if the attacks had actually been thwarted. Let’s take a quick look at the idiocy that might have followed. Continue reading
Filed under opinion
WITHIN AN ACE OF THE END OF THE WORLD (1900) – Written by Robert Barr. No doubt about it, Barr was obsessed with the notion of humanity possibly bringing on its own demise through ill-considered scientific tampering. Recently Balladeer’s Blog reviewed another of his stories, The Doom of London, which mined the same creative territory.
This time around the tale is set in the “present” and the near future of 1903. In 1900 a scientist named Bonsel treats a crowd of VIPs to a lavish banquet, after which he announces that all of the food consumed was created artificially. This was done through his new process of drawing nitrogen from the atmosphere and combining it with other chemicals.
Thus the Great Food Corporation is launched, with many of the banquet’s attendees being its initial investors. The company thrives until 1903, when the Guildhall Banquet degenerates into a chaotic bacchanal and partial riot. Soon this “Guildhall Syndrome” spreads, with the most beastly aspects of human nature on display everywhere it manifests.
John Rule, a British gentleman put off by the poor taste of it all, probes deeper and determines that the scandalous orgies and accompanying violence have been caused by an atmospheric imbalance. That imbalance was caused by the Great Food Corporation’s siphoning off of too much nitrogen from Earth’s atmosphere. Continue reading
Filed under Ancient Science Fiction
Here’s another current events roundup from Independent Voter Site Balladeer’s Blog.
*** NEW – FREQUENT DEMOCRAT TARGET CHARLIE KIRK SHOT AT SPEAKING EVENT IN A UTAH UNIVERSITY. As is my usual policy on such an incident I will comment on this after the initial fog of confusion clears up in a few days.
BIDEN REGIME EXPOSED FOR DISTORTING JOB FIGURES DURING THEIR TERM – IT TURNS OUT THE REGIME CREATED NINE HUNDRED ELEVEN THOUSAND FEWER JOBS THAN THEY TOOK CREDIT FOR. More HERE. Is anyone surprised? Related item HERE.
FORMER HAMAS HOSTAGE CREDITS PRESIDENT TRUMP WITH SAVING HIS LIFE.
FURTHER PROOF THAT THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION FAILED IN ITS PURPOSE: TWELFTH GRADE READING AND MATH SCORES HIT TWENTY YEAR LOW. Administrative bloat and hiring activists instead of teachers let down all the students.
MORE DEMOCRATS EXPOSED AS HAVING ACTUALLY VISITED EPSTEIN’S ISLAND. Not just allegedly sending a birthday card back in 2003.
DEMOCRAT COMPLICITY IN THE IRYNA ZARUTSKA MURDER. They also tried to censor the part of the tape where the killer says “I got that white girl.” NEW YORK TIMES SAYS ONLY “THE RIGHT” IS UPSET ABOUT THE MURDER.
WHOLESALE INFLATION DROPPED IN AUGUST, DESPITE ANTI-TRUMPER PREDICTIONS THAT IT WOULD GO UP. The greatest president for the working class and the poor during my lifetime.
MICHIGAN JUDGE CORRECTLY DISMISSES THE CHARGES AGAINST FIFTEEN PEOPLE FOR THE PERFECTLY LEGAL ACT OF SELECTING ALTERNATE ELECTORS YEARS AGO. More HERE. Imbecilic anti-Trumpers apparently don’t understand that separate slates of electors happen all the time. It doesn’t change which slate will be sent to certify the election results.
SENATOR WARNS OF THE ONGOING CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS CAUSED BY THE ILLEGITIMATE BIDEN PARDONS. Continue reading
Previously, Balladeer’s Blog reviewed various examples of Bruceploitation Movies, that odd subgenre full of martial arts spectacles exploiting and otherwise trying to cash in on the explosion of popularity in kung-fu films that the real Bruce Lee brought to the west.
I examined The Clones of Bruce Lee, about three clones made from the dead Bruce’s cell samples; The Dragon Lives Again, about Bruce fighting his way back from the Afterlife; and Fist of Fear, Touch of Death, in which a tournament to crown Lee’s successor features moves like tearing out your opponent’s eyeballs in what the film calls “a dazzling piece of showmanship.”
Here are some more of the weirdest, most bottom of the barrel Bruceploitation productions ever made.
BRUCE, KUNG FU GIRLS (1977) – Also released as Bruce’s Angels, Bruce Lee’s Kung Fu Girls and several other titles, but I have a soft spot for this more inane title selection. I really hope that movies titled Bruce, Gone with the Wind; Bruce, Whose Life is it Anyway? and Bruce, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues also exist. But as we’ve established, I’m kind of weird.
Taiwan’s Sweetheart Polly Shang Kwan stars as Polly, who works as a martial arts instructor at a health resort. When her police superintendent uncle is at wit’s end dealing with the reign of terror of a criminal who can turn invisible, Polly gets called in to help the force take him down.
Bruce, Polly has her four best female students join her in this elite crimefighting unit as she romances the young scientist who made the stolen invisibility formula, lip-synchs (horribly) to a pop song and guards a moon rock so that it doesn’t get stolen. Bruce, this flick is a head-shaker. Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies
THE BARON (1966-1967) – This ITC/ABC venture starred rugged he-man Steve Forrest as wealthy Texan John Mannering, who works for British Intelligence under the codename the Baron. Mannering’s assistant was Cordelia Winfield, played by the British actress Sue Lloyd.
Underneath his two-fisted Texan surface persona, John Mannering was highly cultured and knew his way around the art world just like Joe Bob Briggs was the surface persona for John Bloom, Dallas’ classical music and opera critic. (Yes, I still love wildly inappropriate comparisons.)
Viewers are told that the Baron started working in intelligence operations during World War II as part of the real-life Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives unit recovering plundered works of art from the Nazis who stole them.
Mannering’s cover in London was an antique dealer and jet-set playboy. He drove around in a Jensen C-V8 that had the personalized license plate BAR 1. The Baron was originally a character from novels but John Mannering bore little resemblance to his printed page counterpart.
Dalek creator Terry Nation was one of the writers for this series, which ran for 30 1-hour episodes. Continue reading
Filed under Forgotten Television
Lysistrata
LYSISTRATA (c 411 B.C.) – When I first started examining ancient Greek comedies here at Balladeer’s Blog I jokingly stated that surely readers would want me to start with Aristophanes’ most notorious and bawdiest satire.
Lysistrata was written by the Big A himself, Aristophanes, and this comedy always makes a perfect introductory play for newcomers to Ancient Greek Comedy. Part of its accessibility to modern audiences obviously comes from the risqué premise of the play, of course. For me the notion that we can understand and laugh at the same simplistic but brilliant story that Athenian audiences from over 2,400 years ago laughed at and appreciated embodies the value of these ancient works.
THE PREMISE
By 411 BC the Peloponnesian War between Athens (and its allied city-states) and Sparta (and its allied city-states) had been raging for roughly 20 years. The war provides the backdrop for many of Aristophanes’ surviving comedies and is especially relevant where Lysistrata is concerned. Weary of the long, drawn-out conflict the women of Athens, led by the title character Lysistrata (supposedly based on Lysimache, the Priestess of Athena in Athens at the time), join forces with the women of Sparta and decide to withhold sex from the men until they agree to bring an end to the war.
THE PLAY Continue reading
Filed under Ancient Greek Comedy
Independent Voter Site Balladeer’s Blog offers up another current events roundup.
A DEMOCRAT MAYOR IN NEW JERSEY IS THE LATEST TO LEAVE THAT INCREASINGLY UNHINGED POLITICAL PARTY. He’s become a Republican and endorsed one for governor.
A SECOND TEACHER AT A WISCONSIN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHARGED WITH SEX WITH CHILDREN. Democrats, can you please leave children alone?
MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE BIDEN-HARRIS REGIME’S BIGOTED OPPRESSION.
IN DEMOCRAT-RUN MINNESOTA, ICE HAS ARRESTED AN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT PREVIOUSLY CONVICTED OF SEXUAL ASSAULT WHO WAS EMPLOYED WITH MINNESOTA’S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION. Let me emphasize that for overseas readers – A CONVICTED SEXUAL ASSAILANT WHO IS ALSO IN THE U.S. ILLEGALLY WAS EMPLOYED BY DEMOCRAT-RUN MINNESOTA’S DEPARTMENT OF “EDUCATION.”
So, did this Kenyan’s fellow employees know they were working alongside such a figure? Was he employed with full awareness of his past or did Democrat delusions that doing background checks is a “racist” activity mean that nobody even looked into his past or his immigration status?
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION BUSTS ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT SMUGGLING RING.
MARGOLIS ON THE WAY DEMOCRAT POLICIES ENDANGER PUBLIC SAFETY.
THE HORRIFIC CHARLOTTE STABBING BY ATTACKER WHO HAS BEEN ARRESTED OVER A DOZEN PREVIOUS TIMES. Continue reading
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