Len Kabasinski, the indie filmmaker behind such productions as Curse of the Wolf, Pact of Vengeance, Ninja: Prophecy of Death and many more, was kind enough to drop by Balladeer’s Blog and add his thoughts about the late Leo Fong.
Fong worked with Kabasinski on a few films and Len’s fond remarks about his late fellow action star reinforce what a gem Leo Fong was and what a gracious man Len Kabasinski is. Click HERE.
Filed under opinion
Reaction to last Sunday’s post about Women’s Flag Football was strong enough to keep it going for now.
NJCAA
INSTANT CLASSIC – In this game the BRYANT & STRATTON COLLEGE (Wisconsin) BOBCATS did battle with the FORT SCOTT COLLEGE GREYHOUNDS.
The crowd in attendance got a real treat with a game that was much tighter than many others in this emerging intercollegiate sport. The two teams went score for score for a time until the Bobcats came out on top by a final score of Bryant & Stratton College 18 Greyhounds 12.
LIKE I WAS SAYING ABOVE … – At the other end of the spectrum came this very lopsided affair between the defending champions – the FLORIDA GATEWAY COLLEGE TIMBERWOLVES – and the PASCO-HERNANDEZ STATE BOBCATS.
Pasco-Hernandez State was more like the Timberwolves’ prey than their opponents in this gridiron matchup. Florida Gateway College dominated the Bobcats on both sides of the ball on their way to a FIFTY-ONE to NOTHING blowout win. Continue reading
Filed under college sports
This weekend’s light-hearted and escapist superhero post here at Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at the first twelve adventures of Superman. Previously I looked at Batman stories from 1939-1940 HERE, but these early Superman tales are often hilariously weird.
ACTION COMICS Vol 1 #1 (June 1938)
NOTE: Though many regard this as the start of the Golden Age for superhero comics I personally go with November 1936 when the Clock debuted. Click HERE.
Title: Superman, Champion of the Oppressed
Villains: Assorted criminals
Synopsis: Just before a far-off planet (not yet called Krypton) is destroyed by “old age” (the story actually says that) an unnamed scientist and his wife send their infant son in a small spaceship to planet Earth. The space vessel lands in an unnamed state, where a passing motorist (no names for Ma and Pa Kent for a while) takes the baby to an orphanage.
As he grows, the alien realizes that he has super-strength, super-speed and invulnerability. He picks up the name Clark Kent and becomes a reporter in Cleveland (yes, Cleveland) working for the Daily Star (yes) newspaper. He begins a double life as Superman, battling the forces of evil.
Superman takes down a wife-beater, saves Lois Lane from horny gangsters and clears a woman falsely convicted of murder by tying up the real killer – and even smashing his way into the governor’s mansion to make him call off her imminent execution.
Setting up a cliffhanger ending, Clark Kent is assigned to cover a war in the fictional South American country of San Monte. On his way there, Clark becomes Superman and abducts Alex Greer, a Washington D.C. lobbyist who is trying to get the U.S. into a war. Hilariously, Supes takes Greer to the top of a high building and threatens to throw him to his death unless he reveals the name of his employer. Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
L’INFERNO (1911) – This 71-minute movie was an adaptation of Dante’s epic poem Inferno, one-third of his Divine Comedy along with Purgatorio and Paradiso. It was also Italy’s first feature-length film, beating Cabiria to theaters by three years.
Three directors collaborated on this production – Francesco Bertolini, Giuseppe de Liguoro and Adolfo Padovan. Obviously, L’Inferno is a very condensed version of Dante’s work but the special effects are impressive for the time period.
Even if I wasn’t a silent film geek aspects of this movie would have stood out to me. First, it was made in Italy toward the end of the Belle Epoch, lending it a certain poignance as the global conflict was approaching an oblivious world.
Second, L’Inferno has a certain grandeur from being filmed in Italy itself, the home of Dante Alighieri and his guide through Hell, Virgil. And third, nearly all of the footage set in the realm of the damned was filmed amid extinct and semi-extinct volcanoes in Italy, adding immeasurably to the infernal atmosphere. Continue reading
Filed under opinion
A DEMIGOD (1886) – Written by American author Edward Payson Jackson, this work preceded Philip Wylie’s Gladiator by more than 4 decades.
We readers are told that in the early 1600s physician Kenelm Vere decided that human beings were not living up to their potential. He established a remote laboratory in Greece, and purchased a female he deemed physically perfect. Dr. Vere mated with her and began a selective breeding program with their offspring, with their children and grandchildren enhanced by his own scientific tweaking over the decades.
In 1880s Greece, Kenelm’s sole surviving descendant Hector, now spelling the family surname as “Vyr”, is a human wonder. Hector has Adonis-like physical beauty, intelligence far ahead of his time, greater than human strength and amazing reflexes that allow him to dodge bullets fired at him. Continue reading
Filed under Ancient Science Fiction
This is the fifth part of Balladeer’s Blog’s look at the swashbuckling legends that surround Francois Villon (1431-1463?), remembered as one of France’s greatest poets and a notorious outlaw.
FRANCOIS VILLON PART FIVE – We left off last time with Villon on the run again, having fled Paris after the Navarre College job in which he and his fellows robbed a record amount of gold for the time period.
Formerly, despite his criminal career most of the notoriety Francois had earned was for his scandalous, irreverent poetry regarding The Powers That Be in France of his era. The December 20th, 1456 Navarre caper changed that.
From early 1457 and for a few years more, Villon continued his outlaw existence in and around the French province of Anjou and the Loire River Valley. Depending on the source, Francois either officially became a member of the criminal fraternity called the Coquillards at this time or was already a member and deepened his ties to them.
Falling in with a gang of highwaymen, Villon helped prey on the carriage trade, which enhanced his underdog/ quasi-Robin Hood reputation because only the wealthy and the high-born traveled by carriage in that era. No one else could afford to. Continue reading
Filed under Mythology, Neglected History
Before MST3K there was … The Texas 27 Film Vault (1985-1987)! Before Joel and Mike, lovers of bad movies had Randy and Richard (at right)! Before Pearl and Kinga there was Laurie Savino! Before Devil Dogs, Observers and Deep 13 there came Cellumites, giant rats and Level 31!
In the middle 1980s/ Way down on Level 31 Randy Clower and Richard Malmos, machine-gun toting Film Vault Technicians First Class hosted this often-neglected cult show. Balladeer’s Blog features plenty of posts about The Texas 27 Film Vault and even an exclusive interview with Randy Clower.
THE MAN WHO SAW TOMORROW (1981)
ORIGINAL BROADCAST DATE: Saturday November 9th, 1985 from 10:30pm to 1:00am.
SERIAL: None. This time around the pre-movie offering was the 1953 short titled Nostradamus Says So.
HOST SEGMENTS: At one point Randy and Richard read aloud some ridiculously bizarre predictions made in tabloids by “psychics” of the time period.
THE MOVIE: The Man Who Saw Tomorrow was a hilariously melodramatic and irrational documentary playing along with the silly notion that the 16th Century “seer” Nostradamus’ vague and noncommital quatrains predicted major future events. Orson Welles, in his “anything for money” phase, narrated the film.
This movie was up there with the campy UFO and Bigfoot documentaries of the 1970s and 1980s. Welles, who has to hurriedly pluck his cigar from his mouth at one point so that he can be understood, seems on the verge of laughter most of the time. As usual in anything about Nostradamus meanings are forced into his centuries-old poems that make them seem like he was a “prophet” who foresaw the rise of Napoleon, World War Two, the John F Kennedy assassination and just about anything else that true-believers want to read into the man’s vague scribblings. Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies, Forgotten Television, Movie Hosts
Readers let me know a few years back that they were bored with college baseball so I discontinued my coverage. Let’s give Women’s College Football a shot. Once again, it’s up to you readers if I continue covering this sport, which is Flag Football.
Right now, Flag Football is an accredited sport only in the NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) and NJCAA (National Junior College Athletic Association) as well as a few NCAA colleges. More will launch Flag Football beginning in 2025 and the Olympics are adding it in 2028.
NJCAA
“SHOW US YOUR LARK!” – This weekend the HESSTON COLLEGE LARKS – who were the runners-up in last year’s National Championship game – won a pair of games on the road. First up, the Larks delivered a 20-7 smackdown to the BRYANT & STRATTON COLLEGE (WI) BOBCATS.
The second win came against the FORT SCOTT COLLEGE GREYHOUNDS. Hesston College’s women won this game by an even bigger margin. The final tally in this Flag Football clash was 21-6. Continue reading
Filed under college sports
This weekend’s escapist and light-hearted superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog will look at the earliest adventures of Spider-Man.
AMAZING FANTASY Vol 1 #15 (August 1962)
Title: Spider-Man!
Villain: The Burglar
Synopsis: This hero’s origin is well-known by now. Student Peter Parker gets bitten by a spider that was exposed to radiation and, in typical comic book nonsense, he gains the proportionate strength of a spider, wall-crawling ability, spider-sense and more.
Peter, nerdy and bullied at school, lets himself become an obnoxious jerk in his Spider-Man identity as he cashes in on his powers to become a celebrity. His cocky attitude allows a robber to escape when Spider-Man could have easily stopped him. When that same man burglarizes Peter’s home and kills his Uncle Ben our hero is conscience stricken and realizes what a responsibility his powers are. He catches the burglar for the police. Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
THE MILLTILLIONAIRE (1895) – This novel was written by American author Albert Waldo Howard under the pen name M. Auburre Hovorre. A second edition came out in 1898.
The concepts and storyline are all over the place in this minor utopian work from the 1890s. Howard often treats mutually exclusive concepts as if they are interchangeable. He does do a deep dive into the advanced technology of the future as well as the political changes, so that is a positive factor.
BALLADEER’S BLOG
At some point in the far future, the entire Earth is under one government – the Bardic State. Howard seems at times to be using the reference to bards as if they are his version of Plato’s Philosopher Kings, and at other times as if the term means simply “rulers.”
A twenty-six-member council called the Alphabets seem to fill a parliamentary role. Sometimes. It’s that kind of book. Half the twenty-six must be male and the other half female. They each hold the title Bard.
A Bard Regent handles many administrative tasks for the figure above them – the “True Bard” or the “Positive Poet.” The wealthiest person in the world – our title Milltillionaire – is above the Bard Regent and serves as the True Bard.
Continue reading
Filed under Ancient Science Fiction
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