Tag Archives: blogging

January 26, 2018 · 9:18 pm

MARS NEEDS WOMEN & NIGHT FRIGHT ON THE TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT

Tommy Kirk's Greatest Moment

Tommy Kirk’s Greatest Moment

IN THE MIDDLE 1980s/ WAY DOWN ON LEVEL 31 …

 Before MST3K there was The Texas 27 Film Vault! In Balladeer’s Blog’s latest look at this mid-1980s cult show from the Lone Star State I’ll examine “The Dallas Double-Feature” from May 10th, 1986.

My research through VERY old newspapers and other sources has uncovered several episodes where exact broadcast dates can be determined. 

THIS DOUBLE FEATURE FIRST BROADCAST: Saturday May 10th, 1986 from 10:30pm to 2:30am.

IF THE ONLY BAD MOVIE SHOW YOU KNOW IS MST3K THINK OF: Attack of the the (sic) Eye Creatures.

FILM VAULT LORE: Usually The Texas 27 Film Vault ran 2 1/2 hours, from 10:30pm to 1am, and would feature  machine-gun toting Randy Clower and Richard Malmos presenting (and mocking) episodes of old Republic serials followed by a cult movie. The previous Saturday night our “Film Vault Technicians First Class” showed the 12th and final episode of Radar Men from the Moon followed by the film Queen of Blood.  

The night of May 10th Randy, Richard, Tex, Joe “The Hypnotic Eye” Riley, Laurie Savino and the rest of the Film Vault Corps (“the few … the proud … the sarcastic”) presented a special called The Dallas Double Feature. The episode dispensed with a serial and showed (and mocked) two films made in Texas, one by Larry Buchanan and the other by Russ Marker. Also featured was an interview with good old Bill Thurman, a Buchanan regular who also appeared in the Russ Marker film Night Fright. Thurman was also promoting his latest film appearance, in the low-budget horror film Mountaintop Motel Massacre.   

MARS NEEDS WOMEN (1967) – Texas’ Larry Buchanan is known for Continue reading →

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January 23, 2018 · 9:01 pm

THE CHANCELLOR MANUSCRIPT (1977) BY ROBERT LUDLUM

Chancellor ManuscriptTHE CHANCELLOR MANUSCRIPT (1977) – With the latest revelations about blatant abuses by the FBI and other politicized agencies here’s Robert Ludlum’s novel about the dangers of such abuses by BOTH the left and the right. There are Deep State operatives and an ugly “we know best” mentality like in today’s headlines. (Think of fascist garbage like the CIA’s John Brennan.) 

TIME PERIOD: From shortly before J Edgar Hoover’s death in 1972 up to early 1973. The novel’s “what if” premise depicts the 77 year old FBI Director’s death as a planned assassination to prevent the Nixon White House from getting ahold of Hoover’s legendary files. (That’s NOT a spoiler – all that is made clear in the novel’s opening pages.)

Those files contain so much “raw meat” on powerful U.S. figures that we readers are told that whoever takes hold of said files will be able to rule the U.S. from behind the scenes by blackmailing the rich and the powerful.

The novel’s naïvete shows in that premise. I despise Hoover but I’ve always considered his abuses to be the EPITOME of the behavior of “the intelligence community” (LMAO), not an aberration from it. The accumulation of private information about people carries with it the implicit intent to USE that information against them. Of course, these days Zuckerberg and his fellow Corporate Fascists cheerfully help “the intelligence community” (LMFAO) spy on all of us. 

At any rate this is an escapist novel so the tale gets told in a simplistic “good guys vs bad guys” way, despite Ludlum’s attempts at a more nuanced approach.   

HERO: Peter Chancellor, an up and coming novelist who is part muckraker and part conspiracy hound. His successful espionage novels have not only made him rich but have caused minor public uproars over the kind of governmental abuses we take for granted these days but which were considered shocking in this novel’s time period.  

chancellor manuscript 3Chancellor’s notoriety also means he gets a lot of conspiracy kooks feeding him “tips” about supposedly real intrigues of varying degrees of believability. Hey, there was no Internet yet, so what do you expect?

Peter’s high public profile attracts a mysterious man who tries to convince him the recently deceased FBI Director J Edgar Hoover did not die of natural causes but was instead assassinated. Chancellor doesn’t believe it but considers the idea the perfect springboard for his next novel. 

Before long Peter’s background research makes him a target of so many threats and acts of violence that he wonders if the notion of Hoover being assassinated is as far-fetched as he at first thought.

VILLAINS: Typical of Ludlum’s later novels there are multiple groups of antagonists. The main villains remain a mystery until the end of the story so I won’t spoil the identity of the people who really are behind the successful theft of Hoover’s files.

chancellor manuscript 2Instead, I’ll deal with the secondary but more active villains: a group of high-level conspirators who go by the code name …

INVER BRASS – Though they fancy themselves a benevolent group, they’ve become more like oligarchs, begging the question: how are they any better than Hoover himself? This group seems roughly based on the high-placed members of President Franklin Roosevelt’s unofficial “Kitchen Cabinet for Intelligence Affairs” (aka The Room).  

All presidents have had such unofficial advisors who operate out of the spotlight and out of the headlines but Inver Brass and some of its members are modeled very specifically on known FDR associates who belonged to The Room. As you would expect, that makes them VERY old by the time the events in The Chancellor Manuscript take place. 

The members: Continue reading →

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January 22, 2018 · 9:40 pm

COLLEGE BASKETBALL RANKINGS FROM BALLADEER’S BLOG

Florida National University ConquistadorsUSCAA (United States Collegiate Athletic Association) – 1. FLORIDA NATIONAL UNIVERSITY CONQUISTADORS    ###     2. ILLINOIS TECH SCARLET HAWKS    ###     3. UNIVERSITY OF MAINE AT FORT KENT BENGALS    ###     4. OAKWOOD UNIVERSITY AMBASSADORS    ###     5. FLORIDA COLLEGE FALCONS    ###     

Canton Kangaroos6. SUNY-CANTON KANGAROOS    ###     7. WASHINGTON ADVENTIST UNIVERSITY SHOCK    ###     8. BLUEFIELD STATE BIG B’s    ###     9. NEWPORT NEWS APPRENTICE SCHOOL BUILDERS    ###     10. UNIVERSITY OF DALLAS PATRIOTS    ###           Continue reading →

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January 22, 2018 · 6:09 am

LYSIPPUS: THREE ANCIENT GREEK COMEDIES

ancient-greece-mapBalladeer’s Blog once again focuses on one of the ancient Greek comedians whose entire corpus is very, very fragmentary, touching briefly on all of their known works. For background info on ancient Greek comedy plus my previous reviews click here: https://glitternight.com/ancient-greek-comedies/ 

LYSIPPUS – This writer of Attic Old Comedy redefines the expression “fragmentary” because even less is known about his life than about shadowy figures like Susarion and Epicharmus. Lysippus came in 1st place with an unknown comedy at a Dionysia around 440 BCE. Fragmentary evidence survives from just three of his comedies out of an unknown total body of work so this will be my shortest blog post on ancient Greek comedy. 

We’ll start with my favorite random quote from Lysippus’ fragments. It displays his pride in Athens and reflects the city-state’s status as the combined New York, Rome and Tokyo of its era:  “If you have never come to Athens you are a fool. If you have come to Athens and not been captivated by her charms you are  ignorant. If you have been captivated by the charms of Athens and ever left her you are but a beast.” 

I. BACCHAE – Not to be confused with the various tragedies of the same title or the comedy by Diocles. Too little survives to tell if the play presented a comedic version of the tragic events depicted in other works titled Bacchae. The parabasis included the type of segment that would later be frequently repeated in Attic Old Comedy as Lysippus took shots at his competitors. That segment featured joking insults that break the fourth wall and Continue reading →

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January 21, 2018 · 3:24 am

THE ARCTIC DEATH (1927) & ON A FAR WORLD (1928): VINTAGE SCI-FI

frozen bodiesTHE ARCTIC DEATH (1927) – Written by Wilford Allen, On A Far World, covered below, was a prequel to this same tale. The Arctic Death is set in the 1930s, which was “the near future” when the story was first published.

A mysterious epidemic called the Arctic Death is spreading southward from the North Pole, leaving countless frozen bodies in its wake. Professor Charles Breinbar, the greatest scientific mind of the decade, uses high-tech “Q-Rays” to determine that the victims did not just die of cold but were snuffed out by malign disembodied entities of some sort.

Breinbar devises special insulation which allows him and his assistant to enter the region currently being affected by the spreading wave of fatalities. Investigating the area our heroes witness people dropping dead in the streets after being affected by energy emanating from floating balls of light.    Continue reading →

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January 20, 2018 · 12:40 am

BIGFOOT (1970): BAD MOVIE REVIEW

Bigfoot 1970BIGFOOT (1970) – Bikers battle Sasquatch!This neglected landmark in Golden Turkey history unites nearly all the bad movie Mafia from the American Southwest in the 1960s and 70s and throws in Haji, Doodles Weaver and a few Mitchums for good measure.

Hell, I could swear one of the planes from Skydivers and Red Zone Cuba shows up as well. (Look at the FAA registration number)

This movie’s crowning choice in casting finds Balladeer’s Blog’s old buddy John “He’s probably even in the Zapruder Film if you look hard enough” Carradine along for the ride. Continue reading →

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January 16, 2018 · 2:42 pm

COLLEGE BASKETBALL: BALLADEER’S BLOG’S RANKINGS

Indiana East Red WolvesNAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) DIVISION TWO – 1. INDIANA UNIVERSITY-EAST RED WOLVES    ###    2. CORNERSTONE UNIVERSITY GOLDEN EAGLES    ###    3. SOUTHWESTERN COLLEGE MOUNDBUILDERS    ###    4. COLLEGE OF IDAHO COYOTES    ###    5. INDIANA TECH WARRIORS    ###   

bethel pilots NEW6. BETHEL (IN) COLLEGE PILOTS    ###    7. NORTHWESTERN (IA) COLLEGE RED RAIDERS    ###    8. INDIANA UNIVERSITY SOUTHEAST GRENADIERS    ###    9. SAINT THOMAS UNIVERSITY (FL) BOBCATS    ###    10. SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY FIRE    ###    Continue reading →

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January 14, 2018 · 11:54 pm

THE THAMES VALLEY CATASTROPHE (1884): ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION

London in ruinsTHE THAMES VALLEY CATASTROPHE (1884) – Written by Grant Allen. The story is presented in the form of a memoir about the destruction of London as seen from “the futuristic” 20th Century.  

“Back” in 1884 a Londoner familiar with lava eruptions and flows that happened in the American West in the past tries – in what would become a trope of later disaster movies – to warn the authorities that danger lurks. Needless to say his warnings go unheeded and lava erupts in the Thames Valley. Continue reading →

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January 13, 2018 · 9:50 pm

FEVER LAKE (1997): THIS TURKEY IS NOT WHAT IT SEEMS

Fever Lake 1FEVER LAKE (1997) – I like to think of this hilariously lame horror film as Twin Peaks 90210. I sometimes toy with I Was A Teenage Shining but that mock title only applies to isolated parts of Fever Lake. Overall, I think the creative team was trying for an imitation Twin Peaks vibe, especially given the time period in which it was made.

This little honey was released theatrically in Europe during 1996 but direct-to-video here in the U.S. during 1997. The credits even refer to much of the movie being shot in the town of Twin Lakes so for all I know that name might have provided spontaneous inspiration for the director or in the way of rewrites.

Fever Lake 2I’ll elaborate on that point in a bit, but for right now I’ll point out the enjoyable kitsch-casting that elevates this turkey slightly above other such dismal efforts. Corey Haim, one-half of the Haim-Feldman Colony Creature, stars as college student Albert. Saved By The Bell‘s Mario Lopez co-stars as college student Steve.

Yes, this is one of those flicks in which NONE of the top dozen or so stars play a character with a last name, except for good old Bo Hopkins the sheriff, who gets no FIRST name. Yet very, very minor characters get full names like “Bud Martin” and “Harry Kemp.” All my fellow lovers of Bad Movies have been there before.

Fever Lake serves up the usual assortment of horny students – all of whom seem fresh from Beverly Hills 90210 – staying at a creepy lakeside house provided by Corey Haim. The filmmakers actually seem to think we viewers won’t immediately realize that he’s the little boy who witnessed the murders in that house during the pre-credits flashback scene.   Continue reading →

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January 13, 2018 · 4:37 pm

TRANSGRESS WITH ME: JANUARY 13th

Mascot with demo and repub headsBalladeer’s Blog presents another edition of Transgress With Me.

*** REPUBLICAN TRASH LIKE PAUL RYAN STILL DON’T UNDERSTAND THE FACT THAT PEOPLE WHO CROSSED PARTY LINES TO VOTE FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP HAVE NOT BECOME REPUBLICANS. WHEN TRUMP – OUR FIRST DE FACTO THIRD PARTY PRESIDENT – IS GONE, NO POLITICIAN WITH AN “R” AFTER THEIR NAME WILL BE WORTH VOTING FOR, BARRING BIG CHANGES TO THEIR PARTY.

*** DEMOCRATS STILL POMPOUSLY THINK THAT POINTING OUT THE WESTERN WORLD’S FLAWS MAKES THEM EXEMPT FROM THE GUILT THEY TRY TO INFLICT ON THE REST OF US. 

*** THE AMERICAN LEFT IS STILL FIGHTING A VERSION OF AMERICA WHICH HASN’T EXISTED FOR DECADES.

*** THE DEMOCRAT MEDIA’S SLOGAN APPARENTLY IS “WHAT WE SAY IS HAPPENING IN THIS COUNTRY IS MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHAT IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING IN REAL LIFE.”

Following the path of MOST resistance is the preferable path. I don’t advocate insincere contrarianism, I mean that there’s not much point in publicly proclaiming safe viewpoints.

For instance, I was an early proponent of gay marriage. In fact I openly supported it YEARS before the weak, inept, crooked and hate-filled Barack Obama decided it was safe enough to change from opposing gay marriage – the punk even voted for the Defense of Marriage Act (LMAO) as a Senator – to supporting it.  

 

Free speech 6I still support gay marriage because I think marriage is anything that a society decides that marriage is, but I no longer bother spouting off that I support it because it’s no longer daring to do so. Considering the fact that people actually get in trouble for OPPOSING gay marriage now means we’ve reached the point where it’s mere virtue signaling to drone on and on about supporting it.

Going around saying “LOOK AT ME! I SUPPORT THE SAFE POSITION!” is not being transgressive. Plus the political left now invokes absurd notions about “morality” to justify supporting gay marriage the same way the political right used to invoke absurd notions about “morality” to justify OPPOSING it.   

For more examples:

*** I support Donald Trump, our de facto Third Party President. At the present time this is a transgressive position to hold because the conformist forces opposing President Trump are fascistic, close-minded hatemongers who try to inflict all manner of harm on anyone who supports him.   

*** I  have always despised George W Bush but that is NOT a transgressive position to hold. I could loudly proclaim my contempt for George W Bush all day long and there would be no risk involved.  

mascot-a-faceJUST BECAUSE SOMETHING IS COUNTER-INTUITIVE IT DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY MEAN IT IS “DEEP” OR “INTELLECTUAL.”

PEOPLE WHO TALK ABOUT BEING “WOKE” ARE BEING JUST AS SELF-CONGRATULATORY AS PEOPLE WHO TALK ABOUT BEING “SAVED.”

THE ABILITY TO GET ANOTHER PERSON’S  OPINION CENSORED  DOES NOT MEAN YOU ARE IN THE RIGHT. 

+++ The concept of White Privilege is a mere social construct.  

+++ Filing a complaint about everyone who says something you disagree with is NOT “activism.”

+++ Critical race theory is nothing more than bigotry with a self-created halo.

+++ People who think they’re fit to tell you what words you are allowed to use are trying to force their own narrow-minded notions of “morality” on you. 

+++ The party of the Democrats has become nothing more than an organization dedicated to circumventing democracy in order to force everyone to obey their dictates. 

+++ There is no such thing as “Hate Speech.”

+++ The Democrats are irrational for teaching children age 6 or younger that they can decide for themselves if they want to be the opposite sex. They wouldn’t let children that age decide they are capable of driving, so clearly there ARE physical and developmental absolutes.  

+++ Colleges and universities have no business holding their kangaroo courts/ Star Chamber proceedings when a student is accused of a crime. That’s what courts of law are for and the accused is entitled to council.

+++ Women, African Americans and gay people do NOT have to obey the Democrats in order to be “authentic.”

+++ All lives matter. And it is not (yaaawwn) “racist” to say so. 

+++ Preserving civil liberties from reactionary Muslim oppression will be the great Civil Rights struggle of the 21st Century.

+++ Curriculum transformation is required to stop the educational system’s misuse by fanatically partisan Democrats.

+++ The real difference today is no longer Liberals vs Conservatives, which labels have become meaningless. In 2017 the difference is between Populists vs Feudalists.

+++ Increasingly, the question that potential tourists ask themselves is “Should we go abroad and risk getting killed by Muslim fascists or stay close to home and risk getting killed by Muslim fascists?”

+++ Democrats are fine with anti-Semitism as long as it masquerades as disapproval of Israel.

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