Balladeer’s Blog’s end-of-year review continues:
ALIEN OUTLAW (1985) – A review of this vintage B-movie with a butt-kicking heroine. CLICK HERE
KEVIN JACKSON: A MARTIN LUTHER KING PERSON OF COURAGE – A look at yet another courageous iconoclast on the political scene. CLICK HERE
TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT ANNIVERSARY – The 34th anniversary of the first broadcast of the Pre-MST3K show The Texas Twenty-Seven Film Vault. CLICK HERE
PETER TORK IS DEAD, MISS HIM, MISS HIM – With Peter Tork’s passing in February came this review of the NEW Monkees show from the 1980s – CLICK HERE
FIVE MOST UNQUALIFIED U.S. PRESIDENTS – The title speaks for itself. CLICK HERE
FLASH FOR FREEDOM – A review of another of George MacDonald Fraser’s Harry Flashman novels. CLICK HERE
SIXTEEN OVERLOOKED SECRETARIES OF STATE – No Kissinger, no Hillary, just forgotten figures. CLICK HERE
BLACK PANTHER: THE FIRST KILLMONGER STORY (1973-1975) – CLICK HERE Continue reading
Terminator: Dark Fate is – as of this writing – on course to lose 120 million dollars due to its lackluster performance. (UPDATE: The projected loss has now been increased to 130 million dollars)
I have been getting a lot of readers asking me to review some of the more recent releases from major studios. Balladeer’s Blog regulars know that I tend to focus on incredibly obscure items or hilariously bad movies from decades ago. 
SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY – Thankfully someone FINALLY addressed the elephant in the room of the Star Wars universe: the origin of Han Solo’s last name. 
NO SURVIVORS PLEASE (1964) – This obscure black & white wonder from West Germany is one of the most memorably weird movies of its time. It’s not easy to describe what makes it so appealing. The fundamental story – aliens plan to wipe out all life on Earth – has been done too many times to count. Not even their method is all that unique – the ET’s project their consciousness into the bodies of freshly-dead human beings – which has been done in other movies. 
No Survivors Please
BARTHOLOMEW 
MISTER RABBEY
Representatives from film, literature, television, gaming, comic books and the arts will be there.
GET MEAN (1975)- One of the weirdest Spaghetti Westerns ever made and that’s saying something! Get Mean stars Tony Anthony and was also released under the title The Stranger Gets Mean, making it the final movie in Anthony’s series of Italo-Westerns as the enigmatic gunslinger known only as the Stranger. 
PRECIOUS FIND (1996) – This is a hilariously bad attempt to do a science fiction version of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. That description makes this movie sound much, MUCH better than it really is. 
THE COMIC (1985) – Virtually every film buff today knows the tale of Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell and Robert Tapert raising money from doctors, grocers and dentists in Michigan to finance their subsequent horror hit The Evil Dead. 
The Comic takes place “in another place and another time” according to one of the female characters. From appearances it’s a near-future police state in which fairly ambiguous laws are enforced by goose-stepping goons who wear their hair in ponytails. This film seems to be reaching for the heights achieved in cult films like Eraserhead and Café Flesh but falls so far short that it’s more like The Jar. 
