Balladeer’s Blog’s annual end-of-year retrospective continues with this look at February’s Best.
FURIOUS (1984) – The Rhee Brothers star in one of the most joyously bad and disjointed martial arts movies of all time.
My review is HERE.
BALLADEER’S BLOG RANKS THE PRESIDENTS – And I do it the way that ANYONE trying to be objective would do it – by omitting the most recent presidents because there is still too much emotion surrounding the perception of such figures. Click HERE.
AUSTRALIA’S SUPERHEROES OF THE 1940s & 1950s – An examination of Atom-Girl, the Grey Domino, Jet Fury, the Blue Ghost, the Vesuvian and many more HERE.
MY TOP TEN HORROR FILMS OF THE PAST FIFTY YEARS – Click HERE. Some expected titles plus a few surprises.
QUENTIN DURWARD (1971) – A French-German television series about Sir Walter Scott’s lesser-known swashbuckling hero. It was produced in the same spirit as Desert Crusader and The Flashing Blade. My review is HERE.
Balladeer’s Blog continues its look at the Forgotten Television item 
IT’S HOT IN PARADISE (1960) – This is a film about hot nightclub ladies and their schmoozing manager getting stuck on an uncharted island after a plane crash. They learn that a now dead mad scientist made the place his lair and his experiments spawned dog-sized spiders whose bite transforms people into half-assed human-spider creatures. 
THE MARVELOUS LAND OF OZ (1904) – We’ve all been exposed to countless variations of the adventures of Dorothy Gale and company in Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900). Therefore I’m starting my reviews of the Oz books with the second in the series – The Marvelous Land of Oz. 
The nasty old witch is unfazed and further proves she’s not scared by sprinkling the pumpkin-headed figure with a magical Powder of Life. The powder brings Jack Pumpkinhead to life but he’s very naive and ignorant.
Balladeer’s Blog’s Fifteenth Annual Christmas Carol-a-Thon continues! A few days ago I made an encore post about the Susan Lucci version of the Dickens classic. 
FREDERIC MARCH PRESENTS TALES FROM DICKENS: A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1959) – Basil Rathbone IS Edgar Winter as Ebenezer Scrooge! Or at least that’s what he looks like with his incredibly long white hair in this television show. 
DICK TURPIN (1925) – My review of this silent movie which starred American cowboy star Tom Mix trading in his rifle and six-guns for a sword and pistols in an exciting film about England’s real-life outlaw Dick Turpin. It’s 
SHIRLEY TEMPLE’S STORYBOOK (1958-1961) – This bit of Forgotten Television featured Temple starring alongside some of the biggest celebrities of the day in child-safe dramatizations of classics from children’s literature. Click 
DESERT CRUSADER (1968-1969) – A French tv series about Thibaud (tee-bow), a French knight who has adventures along the road to the Holy Land in between the 1st and 2nd Crusades. My review is 
THE RETURN OF THE GIANT MAJIN (1966) – We fans of oddball cinema have long loved Majin, the often-ignored distant cousin of kaiju favorites like Godzilla and Gamera. Majin is a gigantic samurai statue that comes to life periodically in Japan of a few centuries back. 
ROUND TWO: GAME ONE – The NORTHWESTERN (IA) COLLEGE RED RAIDERS visited the MONTANA TECH OREDIGGERS. A 6-0 1st Quarter edge for the Red Raiders became a 23-14 advantage by Halftime. After the break, the Orediggers rallied but came up just short as Northwestern College held on for a 32-29 win. 
ROUND TWO: GAME TWO – The BENEDICTINE COLLEGE RAVENS took it on the road against the TEXAS WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY RAMS. The Rams led 14-7 and then 24-14 in the 1st and 2nd Quarters. From there the Ravens came alive and went on top 28-24 in the 3rd before finalizing a 42-33 triumph in the 4th Quarter. 
MS. MARVEL Vol 1 #1 (January 1977) 
If it’s the Friday after Thanksgiving, then regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog know it’s the day when I kick off my annual Christmas Carol-A-Thon in which I review several versions of A Christmas Carol. I look at movies, television shows, radio shows and books which adapt the Dickens classic. Every year I present new reviews with a few old classics mixed in since newer readers will have missed them.
EBBIE (1995) Balladeer’s Blog’s Fifteenth Annual Christmas Carol-A-Thon begins with an encore review of this 1995 telefilm starring soap opera queen Susan Lucci. The eternally-sexy Lucci plays Elizabeth “Ebbie” Scrooge, our regulation “grasping and covetous” business magnate who runs the Dobson’s department store empire. This version of A Christmas Carol is kind of cute and it tries hard. 
The GEORGIA MILITARY COLLEGE BULLDOGS will host the HUTCHINSON COLLEGE BLUE DRAGONS. 
Balladeer's Blog 