I saw this floating around the internet, so here it is. I’ll have another post later today.
Category Archives: humor
ALIEN AND DUNE MOVIES AS ANALOGIES FOR AMERICA RIGHT NOW
Balladeer’s Blog remains the only site on the web that equally criticizes both elected Democrats and elected Republicans, depending on which party has been committing greater offenses at the moment.
“We’re a world of 7 billion people, 10 billion blogs and 20 billion political poses” is always the opening line. So, let’s have some fun framing American politics as part of the Alien and Dune franchises. Both political parties are bashed.
RIPLEY and the other humans in the Alien films are American VOTERS. As we struggle to survive in this dangerous setting we need to stand together against the common threats. And that applies whether a voter considers themselves Independent or Democrat or Republican. Political labels have become meaningless for US as the Neo-Feudalists view all of us as peasants and cannon fodder, anyway. Continue reading
Filed under humor, LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, opinion
THE LIGHTER SIDE OF JORG BUTTGEREIT: FOUR FILMS
Over the years, Balladeer’s Blog has reviewed several of Jorg Buttgereit’s envelope-pushing, taboo-breaking horror films. Because I review everything from the extreme fringes like Buttgereit (at left) to mild, even family-friendly items let me offer a warning for readers who don’t like extreme violence or extreme concepts. If you fall into that category, please DO NOT look up my long-ago reviews of Jorg’s most notorious films and then blast me because the subject matter appalls you. I am giving fair warning about what they’re like.
On the other hand, all readers might enjoy THIS look at some of Buttgereit’s much lighter – but still bizarre – productions, many from his days of guerilla film-making in West Berlin, covertly pulling off some footage on both sides of the Berlin Wall.
CAPTAIN BERLIN: RETTER DER WELT (1982) – Buttgereit was only 18 when he made this 10-minute short film. He wrote, directed and played the title superhero with Bela B. from the German punk band Die Ärzte co-starring as Mister Synth. This work about West Berlin’s only superhero fighting a monster from outer space is of interest only because of Buttgereit’s and Bela’s involvement.
Jorg’s youth and inexperience show in this fun, anarchic but amateurish effort. Back when this flick was first made, its satirical combination of Adam West’s Batman series with the low-budget charm of Ray Dennis Steckler’s Rat Pfink a Boo Boo and a “piss off” punk sensibility earned it a cult following. Here in 2023, such intentional camp has been done to death.
Decades later, Buttgereit would revive the Captain Berlin character in one of his stage show-radio show hybrids, titled Captain Berlin versus Hitler. That production – which I will review at some point in the future – was eventually filmed and released to theaters and on dvd.
HORROR HEAVEN (1984) – Jorg starred as an old-fashioned Horror Movie Host introducing several horror shorts of his own making in this 24-minute project. Buttgereit structured it as a salute to Boris Karloff but with some gore thrown in.
This production at last showed the flashes of genius in the future auteur with shorts about mummies, Frankenstein, a cannibal girl and Gazorra, a stop-motion item sending up Godzilla movies and starring Daktari Lorenz. Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies, Halloween Season, humor
DEMOCRAT SLOGANS: IT’S THAT TIME AGAIN
BALLADEER’S BLOG
“Many a true word is spoken in jest” as the old saying goes, and that becomes ever more valid by the year regarding Balladeer’s Blog’s handy list of Democrat Slogans. These slogans capture what the Democrats have REALLY become, not the glowing image that they have of themselves.
Back in 2017, when I started compiling this semi-annual post I didn’t realize how hard the Democrats would work to prove how accurate these tongue-in-cheek slogans for them are. (I used to be a Democrat until I turned Independent.)
DEMOCRATS: YOU PEASANTS ARE ALLOWED TO SAY, DO, WRITE OR POST ON THE INTERNET ONLY THOSE THINGS WHICH DON’T UPSET US DEMOCRATS.
DEMOCRATS: NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF SIMPLE-MINDED FASCISTS IN LARGE NUMBERS!
DEMOCRATS: WE’RE THE CONFIRMATION BIAS COMMUNITY!
DEMOCRATS: ALL OF OUR OPINIONS SHOULD CARRY THE FORCE OF LAW!
DEMOCRATS: WE OVERUSED THE WORD “RACIST” TO THE POINT OF MEANINGLESSNESS. NOW WE’RE DOING THE SAME WITH “WHITE SUPREMACIST” AND OUR NEW FAVORITE: “TRANSPHOBE!”
DEMOCRATS: WE ARE THE FASCISTS WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR!
DEMOCRATS: THERE IS NO OBJECTIVE TRUTH … UNLESS IT’S ONE OF OUR PARTY’S TALKING POINTS.
DEMOCRATS: ONLY THOSE NEWS OUTLETS WHICH PANDER TO OUR PREJUDICES AND PRECONCEIVED NOTIONS ARE ACCURATE. ALL OTHERS ARE PROPAGANDA.
DEMOCRATS: WE NEVER VOTE AGAINST OUR OWN BEST INTERESTS BUT WE EXPECT EVERYONE ELSE TO DO THAT.
DEMOCRATS: REMEMBER WHEN SEXISTS TOLD WOMEN TO “SHUT UP AND GET BACK IN THE KITCHEN?” WE DEMOCRAT SEXISTS NOW TELL WOMEN TO “SHUT UP AND VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS!”
DEMOCRATS: WE RUINED LIBERALISM! WE RUINED THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM! WE RUINED THE COURT SYSTEM AND UNDERMINED THE ELECTORAL PROCESS ITSELF! PLEASE DON’T STOP US NOW! Continue reading
Filed under humor, LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion
MY NEW FAVORITE IMDB SYNOPSIS
Regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog are familiar with my odd sense of humor. While searching for some more obscure films to watch and review, I came across this synopsis of the storyline for a 1974 Italian comedy. The movie in question is La Cugina (The Cousin), and the English translation of whatever the contributor actually wrote in Italian is … a bit garbled. Hilariously entertaining, but garbled nevertheless.
Here it is, word for word: Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies, humor
VALENTINE’S DAY WITH A CLASSIC POP FICTION COUPLE
Happy Valentine’s Day from Balladeer’s Blog! In the past I’ve marked the day with sentimental items regarding President and First Lady McKinley or my heart-felt (yet sappy) review of the 1942 movie Casablanca, so this year let’s go with some dark humor instead.
For everyone who’s tired of couples who are held up as being epitomes of a “perfect” romance:
But then there are those couples who remind us of good old Mom and Dad: Continue reading
Filed under humor
CAPTIONING THIS DAY OF THE DOLPHIN AD
I’ve had days like that. One time I unwittingly trained a dolphin to kill the president of the Teamsters Union. I had a hell of a time hiding Hoffa’s body. “Thanks for all the fish” my ass!
IF YOU PREFER YOU CAN SUBSTITUTE ONE OF THE FOLLOWING CAPTIONS INSTEAD:
A) Personally, I’ve always subscribed to the “Second Dolphin” theory myself. Continue reading
Filed under humor
I GO POGO (1980) ELECTION DAY FLUFF
I GO POGO (1980) – A possum for president? This stop-motion animation rendition of Walt Kelly’s iconic comic strip Pogo is, sad to say, even more aimless and unentertaining than the 1969 conventional animation show The Pogo Special Birthday Special. That IS the actual title, by the way. The approach to that half-hour cartoon special was, as the title indicates, so cloyingly cutesy that even Walt Kelly himself disliked it.
Walt Kelly passed away in 1973 so at least he didn’t have to see this second travesty of his brilliant series. Pogo (1948-1975) featured cartoon animals who lived in the Okefenokee Swamp and were as cute and memorable as anything that Disney or Hanna-Barbera ever produced. Like the much later children’s franchise The Muppets, Pogo appealed to adults as well as children, and even sprinkled in a fair amount of political and social commentary.
Kelly was a master of making his political allegories blend so seamlessly into the tales of his cartoon animals that the deeper meaning would go over children’s heads as they enjoyed the antics of the Okefenokee Swamp’s denizens. For a comparison, think of how Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels was a very biting satire but the story outline is so perfect it survived as a children’s tale long after the political and social topics that Swift was writing about faded into history.
And though each side of the American political aisle tries to claim Walt Kelly as their own he was actually my kind of guy and took shots at BOTH SIDES. The political left could point to the way that Kelly’s 1950s cat character Simple J. Malarkey was an unflattering caricature of Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy, but the right could point to Walt’s cowbird characters who embodied pretentious, parasitic communist activists.
Blame the 1969 television special and this 1980 bomb for helping to consign these brilliant cartoon figures to oblivion, even though they once rivaled the Disney Empire in merchandising. Peanuts and Winnie the Pooh had nothing on Pogo and company. Continue reading
Filed under humor
POLITICAL CARTOON AND MEME ROUNDUP: SEPTEMBER 16th
Hectic personal situation at the moment, so please excuse this quick collection of recent political memes and cartoons.
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Filed under humor, LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, Neglected History, opinion
BIDEN IS NOT FIT TO DECIDE WHO IS OR IS NOT “PRO-AMERICAN”
Independent Voter site Balladeer’s Blog will once again jump in on this topic. Just as it’s repulsive when Republican presidents try to define what does or does not make someone “pro-American” it’s every bit as nauseating when a Democrat president does it. Even more pathetic is the way that senile yet corrupt Joe Biden tried to tie it in with the mass-trespassing incident which Democrat party demagogues pretend was an “insurrection.” LMAO!
Corrupt, senile, tiny-handed Joe Biden
At any rate, to use unblinking, vacant-stared career criminal Joe Biden’s own wording against him, here we go:
YOU CAN’T BE IN THE POCKET OF THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT AND PRO-AMERICAN.
YOU CAN’T BE HIDING IF UNDERBOSS HUNTER BIDEN HAS YET DIVESTED HIS STAKES IN CHINESE FIRMS AND PRO-AMERICAN.
YOU CAN’T BE HAVING YOUR CORRUPT DOJ HIDING EVIDENCE ABOUT YOUR FAMILY MEMBERS’ SCHEMES & SCAMS AND BE PRO-AMERICAN.
YOU CAN’T BE PRO-CHEAT-BY-MAIL AND PRO-AMERICAN.
YOU CAN’T BE CALLOUS ABOUT THE SUFFERING YOUR POLICIES HAVE INFLICTED ON THE WORKING CLASS AND THE POOR AND BE PRO-AMERICAN.
YOU CAN’T KEEP POLITICAL PRISONERS IN WASHINGTON DC JAILS FOR OVER A YEAR AND A HALF WITH NO TRIAL AND BE PRO-AMERICAN.
Continue reading
Filed under humor, LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, opinion
