Balladeer’s Blog’s end of year retrospective continues with this look at April’s best:
MARS MEN (1976) MOVIE REVIEW – My review of the Thailand/ Japan/ Taiwan monster movie mashup. Click HERE.
THE HISTORY OF AN EXTINCT PLANET (1884): ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION – Plenty of brilliant concepts in this neglected sci-fi gem. Click HERE.
THE GUARDIAN’S MELANIE PHILLIPS: WHY I LEFT THE LEFT – She speaks for so many of us. Click HERE.
STALKER (1976-1976): SWORD AND SORCERY SERIES – For this look at a combination Witcher, Conan and Game of Thrones click HERE.
THE INVISIBLE MAN (1984) – Forgotten British television adaptation of the H.G. Wells classic. Click HERE.
GEORGES (1843): Alexandre Dumas’ novel about a swashbuckling swordsman fighting slavery. Click HERE.
DAYBREAK (1896): ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION – The moon hits the Earth, plus Mars’ equivalent of Jesus? Click HERE.
APRIL FOOL’S DAY WITH THE FOOL KILLER – A quick guide to the original Fool Killer Letters of the 1800s and beyond. Click HERE.
TOOMORROW (1970) – My movie review of Olivia Newton John’s deep dark secret. Click HERE.
TRUMP’S PAYROLL PROTECTION PROGRAM FURTHERS HIS FDR IMAGE – As I’ve said before, de facto Third Party President Donald Trump has been the best president of my lifetime when it comes to his aid for the working class and the poor. Click HERE.
A PLUNGE INTO SPACE (1890): ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION – A Steampunk journey to Mars. Click HERE.
TOP MOVIES OF SHINYA TSUKAMOTO – Balladeer’s Blog looks at the director’s best HERE.
DOCTOR THORNDYKE – A rival of Sherlock Holmes in a great mystery adapted for television. Click HERE.
THE AMERICAN GIRLS (1978): FORGOTTEN TELEVISION – Female reporters as the new Charlie’s Angels? Click HERE. Continue reading
I MET FATHER CHRISTMAS aka J’AI RENCONTRE LE PERE NOEL (1984) – Not to be confused with I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen, I Met Father Christmas is a 1984 children’s holiday film from France. This little honey is directed by Christian Gion, known mostly for his sub-Police Academy level comedies. I Met Father Christmas is partially enjoyable as a Yuletide kiddy flick but most of its entertainment value comes from the filmmaker’s ineptitude and their inclusion of some very questionable story elements. 
Simon (Emeric Chapuis), who lives with his grandmother, is a withdrawn little boy often bullied by his peers, like the protagonists of so many other children’s tales. What makes him UNLIKE the protagonists of so many other children’s tales is the reason for his melancholy nature – his parents were seized by African terrorists and the French government has refused to meet the conditions set by the warlord for releasing them alive. 
SIX-HUNDRED & SIXTY SIX (1972) – Directed by Tom Doades and written by Marshall Riggan, this film is a very unusual blend of science fiction, horror, post-apocalypse drama and religious message. Cult actor Joe Turkel, perhaps best known as the ghostly Lloyd the Bartender in The Shining, stars as Colonel John Ferguson. 
Obviously, a post-Omen film would not blow their story’s final reveal in the title, like we get with Six-Hundred & Sixty Six.
Thanksgiving week rolls along here at Balladeer’s Blog with this look at some of the most enjoyable – on whatever level – B-movies from the one and only Leo Fong! Leo’s been called a poor man’s Bolo Yeung cross-bred with an even poorer man’s Joe Don Baker … but I was drunk when I called him that, so make of it what you will. 
MURDER IN THE ORIENT (1974) – Leo Fong IS Lao Tsu, but not THAT one, in this lethargic treasure quest/ revenge story. Leo (He’s ALWAYS Leo to me no matter what his character is named) learns his sister has been killed by the Golden Cobra crime gang. That gang is after a pair of samurai swords on which Imperial Japanese war criminals serving in World War Two engraved a split map leading to a fortune in stolen gold. 
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