PRIME CUT (1972): MINI-REVIEW

prime cutPRIME CUT (1972) – Directed by Michael Ritchie. Prime Cut was released less than 4 months after The Godfather but it’s difficult to think of two more different gangster films. And I say that as a good thing. Prime Cut is not trying for the epic, operatic scope of The Godfather, it’s just a fairly solid street-level gangster flick with a few admittedly silly action sequences.

The story:

The Chicago Syndicate bosses are being disrespected by a subordinate Kansas boss who is itching to break out from under their thumb and take complete control of his own little empire. Part of that figurative declaration of independence took the form of not sending the Chicago boys their required tribute, or “cut.” 

hackman marvinThe Windy City mob sent a tough-guy “negotiator” to try leaning on the Kansas rebel only to have that Jayhawk State gangster take things to the next level by having the tough-guy killed, then literally ground into hot dog meat. Adding insult to injury the Kansas boss sent the hot dogs/ bodily remains of the negotiator back to Chicago in the package they were supposed to use to send their tribute money.

Chicago’s response is to send four button men under the command of one of their coldest, most hard-assed enforcers, to Kansas to bring the upstart back into line by whatever means prove necessary. Much bloodshed ensues, with butchery and slaughterhouses of all kinds reflecting the title theme.

The characters: Continue reading

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NEGLECTED DC SUPERHEROES OF THE GOLDEN AGE

With the bulk of Balladeer’s Blog’s light-hearted superhero blog posts featuring Marvel Comics characters, DC fans have been demanding some love. I previously looked at the Justice Society, so this time here’s my take on their overlooked Golden Age heroes.

air waveAIR WAVE

Secret Identity: Larry Jordan

First Appearance: Detective Comics #60 (February 1942)

Origin: District Attorney Larry Jordan became disgusted with the way so many criminals escaped conviction in the courts. He adopted the costumed identity of Air Wave and set out to fight crime on his own terms.

Powers: Air Wave was in peak physical condition and was more agile than an acrobat. He excelled at unarmed combat and wore special boots which let him glide or skate along power lines and phone lines. He also had radios in his costume’s earpieces. In addition, his trained parrot Static served as his mascot.

Comment: This hero appeared in nearly 80 adventures from 1942 to 1948. Continue reading

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22 MORE WORKS OF ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION (1839-1911)

Balladeer’s Blog’s looks at “ancient” science fiction are always popular. Here are nearly two dozen MORE of those neglected wonders. 

fantastical excursionA FANTASTICAL EXCURSION INTO THE PLANETS (1839) – By an unknown author. An advanced alien life form makes contact with the novel’s anonymous narrator and takes him on a guided tour of other planets in our solar system. Among other things he encounters angelic creatures on Mercury, warlike males and females on Mars, enormous humanoids on Jupiter and a pack of Lovecraftian horrors on Saturn. For my full review click HERE.

THE SPIDER OF GUYANA (1860) – By Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian. It’s ancient Creature Feature time in this tale set at a health resort in central Europe. Curious patients of the resort discover that the healing waters of the place flow from a cave. Exploring the cave they encounter a gigantic spider, with a war breaking out between the creature and the patients at the resort. For my full review click HERE Continue reading

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CLARIFYING THE ONGOING 2020 ELECTION AUDITS AND INVESTIGATIONS FOR OVERSEAS READERS

.Biden crushing dissent

repub dem otherNot to get maudlin but I am once again humbled by the way that so many overseas readers trust my opinions regarding America’s political scene which clarify the situations obscured by the shrill partisan media outlets of both our major parties. Regular readers know I would love to see both the Republicans and the Democrats splinter into multiple smaller political parties because they stopped representing the needs of their constituents long ago and now exist just to perpetuate their own privileges and greed.

This time around the questions from overseas centered around the ongoing audits and investigations into the 2020 presidential election results. I will post the links to relevant articles at the bottom of this blog post. NOTE: Members of both major parties will be offended by different aspects of my opinion below. 

ITEM ONE: I’ve been asked about the sheer possibility of a stolen election, especially at the presidential level. MY ANSWER: It’s more than a possibility. It’s already happened at least twice in our nation’s history. Ever since Balladeer’s Blog launched in 2010 I’ve made frequent references to the stolen 1876 and year 2000 elections, so I am not just dragging these examples out now to justify skepticism about the 2020 results.

              The 1876 election was likely won by Samuel Tilden, but because of contradictory vote totals submitted by a few states the awarding of electoral votes was up in the air. A special commission was appointed with the end result that Rutherford B Hayes, the likely loser, was declared the winner. As time went on and tempers cooled it became generally (but I grant you not unanimously) accepted that Tilden was robbed of his rightful victory. A street in Washington DC was named after him in recognition of this. (Sheesh. Even the set of steak knives from Glengarry Glen Ross looks almost generous compared to that.)

              If anyone wants more details on the 1876 situation let me know in the comments. I’m trying to save space here in the main article. At any rate, 1876 was so long ago that virtually nobody gets filled with anger anymore at the mention of Hayes not really winning that election. At the time, however, a second Civil War was feared for awhile. People eventually accepted the tainted results and moved on.  

The year 2000 election featured two figures I despise – George W Bush on the Republican side and Al Gore on the Democrat side. That election was recent enough that I don’t need to recap the chaos, suffice it to say I am definitely among those who state that the evidence indicates Bush was not the real winner. Emotions still run high on that election because of its nearness and because of the way Bush went on to lie the country into still-ongoing wars in the middle east. 

This brings us to the 2020 election. Democrats, with typical partisan hypocrisy, praise me for openly stating that George W Bush was in all likelihood NOT the real winner in 2000 but feign outrage when I openly state that much of the evidence indicates that in all likelihood Joe Biden was NOT the real winner in 2020. THAT is why the investigations and audits need to continue, just as research went on regarding the 1876 and 2000 elections. 

              Again, with appalling hypocrisy, the Democrats, who spent Donald Trump’s entire presidency trying to claim that he was not a legitimate president because of non-existent Russian Collusion, are now pretending that it should be against the law to point out how tainted the 2020 results are. They were free to speak out, but they and their corporate accomplices try to prevent public airing of the issues surrounding 2020.

Also, don’t forget there was the obscenely brazen Time magazine article PRAISING the “cabal” (Time‘s word, not mine) which removed Trump.

third party mattersITEM TWO: CAN THESE INVESTIGATIONS AND AUDITS RESULT IN BIDEN BEING REMOVED AND REPLACED BY TRUMP?

MY ANSWER: No. I know there is a LOT of speculation and discussion in the media about such a potential result, but in my view that will not happen. The time for any possibility of Trump remaining in office passed because:  States were not able to quickly complete the audits and investigations that are going on NOW. (Again, my view is that the process must continue to try to prevent the apparent mail-in vote fraud and other issues from affecting future elections, but not because it would supposedly return Trump to office.)

              The Supreme Court, which has a long history of ugly, shameful decisions, ranging from Dred Scott, to segregation, to upholding the atrocity of child labor over and over again, to upholding the Japanese internment and many other examples, darkened their own history once AGAIN with their evasive treatment of the 2020 election cases.

              The most blatant example was the court’s failure to hear cases challenging the changes to mail-in voting procedures BEFORE the election on the grounds that the election had not been affected yet. Then AFTER the election they refused to hear various election cases by declaring them moot since the election had already taken place. Pretty disgusting.

              At any rate, in the months since last November, many court decisions around the country – as covered here at Balladeer’s Blog – have since declared that the arbitrary changes some states made to counting mail-in ballots were against the law because they should have gone through the state legislatures and not been unilaterally imposed by Democrat officials who overstepped their authority. Continue reading

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WHAT’S NEW PUSSYCAT? (1965)

what's new pussycatWHAT’S NEW PUSSYCAT? (1965) – TWO PETERS, ONE WOODY should probably have been the title of this blog post. Peter O’Toole, Peter Sellers and Woody Allen starred in this brazen (for its day) sex comedy set in Paris during the Swinging Sixties.

Woody penned his first original screenplay for this movie and by many accounts was not happy with the way writers were so often the doormats of the film industry. The big name stars and starlets had the power to demand script changes which favored the characters they portrayed and which often diluted the thrust (as it were) of Allen’s satire about the breaking of sexual taboos.

what's new 2The end result is still hailed for its pioneering depiction of promiscuity in a major studio release. The relaxing of cinematic standards permitted What’s New Pussycat? to be bolder and kinkier than any pre-1965 production could have been. Compared to films of the past 55 years, however, it often seems as mild and self-consciously “zany” as an episode of Three’s Company, which was daring for television of the 1970s but certainly not today.

Peter Sellers is top-billed and looks like he’s cosplaying as Mayim Bialik from The Big Bang Theory in his portrayal of German psychiatrist Fritz Fassbender. Sellers is more annoying than anything else in this role with the vaudeville level German accent he puts on as Fassbender. The psychiatrist frequently cheats on his rotund wife with his patients. Continue reading

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TEN TELEVISION FLOPS

This time around in Balladeer’s Blog’s recurring feature Forgotten Television we’ll take a brief look at some dumb attempts at launching sitcoms.

mcgurkMCGURK (1979)

Stars: Barney Martin, Hamilton Camp, Sherry Lynn

Premise: Five actors dressed up as dogs hung out and joked about their human owners. The dogs’ owners, that is. Believe it or not the talented Peter Bonerz directed this unsold sitcom pilot and Brandon Tartikoff was executive producer. How either of them had the nerve to show their faces in public again is beyond me. (ORIGINALLY TITLED A DOG’S LIFE)

WHERE’S MOMMA? (1974)

Stars: Richard Mulligan, Michele Carey

Premise: Mulligan starred as a widowed real estate agent who was so ill-prepared to raise his twin children that his wife, played by Michele Carey, returned from the afterlife to help him out. Only Mulligan’s character could see the wife’s ghost, leading to the usual “comedy” set pieces.  Continue reading

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… AND TRUMP IS PROVEN RIGHT YET AGAIN OVER ITEMS THAT HE WAS ACCUSED OF LYING ABOUT

President Trump and flagIt has been shown over and over again that there are few things more true than something that anti-Trump fascists claimed was a “Trump lie.” Independent Voter site Balladeer’s Blog has already covered well over one hundred such items and now we have another blog post for that ever-rising pile. If someone tells you “Trump lied about ____” don’t bother believing them at this point.

In 2018 de facto Third Party President Donald Trump suggested plans to California for reducing the chances for the repeated forest fires which devastate that state but, in their usual childish “we MUST disagree with everything Trump says” attitude, Democrats and their media outlets accused Trump of lying and ridiculed his suggestion. NOW THEY ARE FOLLOWING TRUMP’S ADVICE AFTER RIDICULING HIM AND ACCUSING HIM OF LYING IN 2018. (link below) 

This is just another reminder that if anything was categorized as a “Trump lie” the odds are that the slobbering fanatics who spend their every waking moment hating Trump are REALLY the ones lying. Anti-Trumpers have forfeited all benefit of the doubt. They have been proven to be liars over and over again, not him. Continue reading

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BALLADEER’S BLOG TURNS ELEVEN YEARS OLD TODAY

mascot sword and gun pic

BALLADEER’S BLOG

THANK YOU once again to all of you readers for making Balladeer’s Blog so enjoyable to write. As I always say the unusual and controversial items I sometimes churn out here mean that readers have to be open-minded and very secure in their own beliefs not to just take offense and leave.

Here are some of my most popular blog posts from the past 12 months.

latitude zero pictureLATITUDE ZERO (1969) – My review of the long unavailable Japanese monster/ sci fi movie HERE.

DEMOCRAT SLOGANS – Yesterday’s jokes are today’s reality. Click HERE.

INSPECTOR LIPINZKI: FIVE HUNDRED CARATS – My review of this 1893 mystery story as dramatized on The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes in 1973. Read it HERE.

SHARYL ATTKISSON EXPOSES THE BIASES OF SELF-PROCLAIMED “FACT CHECKERS” – It’s brilliant and it’s right HERE

DuneAMERICA: PART OF THE DUNE SERIES – In the spirit of my blog post America: Part of the Alien Series. Click HERE.

EXPLAINING “DEFUND THE POLICE” FOR OVERSEAS READERS – A look at the ugly political game being played at the expense of community safety. Click HERE.

IRON MAN: THE FIRST TWENTY STORIES – Robert Downey Jr made Iron Man a household name, now see the hero’s earliest adventures HERE.

PROFILE IN COURAGE: DEMOCRAT TULSI GABBARD WARNED ABOUT MAIL-IN VOTE FRAUD BEFORE THE ELECTION LAST YEAR – She was proven right as we continue to learn in the ongoing vote audits and other investigations. Click HERE.

ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION – Gullivar Jones On Mars (1905) HERE, Are The Planets Inhabited? HERE. Continue reading

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I WOKE UP EARLY THE DAY I DIED (1998) – MOVIE REVIEW

i woke up earlyI WOKE UP EARLY THE DAY I DIED (1998) – Directed by Aris Iliopulos, this is the film that was made based on that notorious unproduced script written by THE Ed Wood, the master of badfilm behind Glen or Glenda, Plan 9 From Outer Space and more.

The identity of the screenwriter is the main draw for this cultiest of cult movies. A secondary draw is the way even the smallest roles are performed by famous, infamous or fashionably esoteric figures. Think of I Woke Up Early The Day I Died as an arthouse companion to 1994’s Ed Wood from Tim Burton.

i woke up early zaneThere’s no dialogue, Easter Eggs regarding Wood’s various Golden Turkeys abound and excerpts from the actual screenplay appear on screen at times in case viewers are skeptical that the weirdness they’re witnessing really was in the original script.   

Billy Zane is in the lead role as a violent mental patient who overpowers his nurse, dresses in her uniform and escapes from confinement. He pulls off an armed robbery but has the proceeds stolen from him in turn at a bizarre funeral held by a deranged cult. Zane then commits multiple murders as he works his way through the list of people who may have the money from his heist. Continue reading

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GHOST OF JUNETEENTH PAST AND PRESENT

Here at Independent Voter site Balladeer’s Blog Juneteenth continues with this look at the continuing struggle faced by people of color when it comes to freeing themselves from pompous white Democrats and their notions that they still “own” black people. For the present see this courageous and heroic man in the video below. For the Ghost of Juneteenth Past see the rest of this blog post showcasing some of last year’s Juneteenth items.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1405624322643873798

Continue reading

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