Tag Archives: Edward Wozniak

November 21, 2012 · 12:16 am

TURKEY DAY: BAD MOVIES AND SHORTS FOR THANKSGIVING

For this holiday week Balladeer’s Blog is taking a break from more mundane items like news and politics to focus on topics that are more fun. This time around I’m focusing on bad movies and hilariously lame educational shorts that have a specific Thanksgiving theme. As always my Bad Movie page contains full-length reviews of the films I’m offering a brief synopsis of here.

BLOOD FREAK (1972) – This movie is about a man who turns into a murderous monster with the head of a turkey after he eats a chemically treated gobbler at the turkey farm where he works. Blood Freak has been a cult classic for Thanksgiving for decades now, with many Movie Host shows of the late 70’s onward making a point of screening it at this time of year (including The Texas 27 Film Vault). The biker who turns into the blood-crazed turkey monster is Continue reading →

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November 15, 2012 · 11:31 pm

BAD MOVIE PAGE SHORT SUBJECT: BE YOUR OWN TRAFFIC POLICEMAN

BE YOUR OWN TRAFFIC POLICEMAN (1958) – I’ve been meaning to review more short subjects ever since I started writing Balladeer’s Blog in June of 2010. With all the other topics I cover I’ve only reviewed two short educational films so far: A Metric America, about how 1980’s America was going to be completely converted to the metric system, and The Energy Carol, a Canadian short about energy conservation adapted to fit the structure of A Christmas Carol. 

Both of those reviews can be found on my Bad Movie page, and I’ll be reviewing plenty more short subjects in the very near future. For today I’ll examine Be Your Own Traffic Policeman, an educational short about pedestrian safety. This little honey clocks in at barely 10 minutes and was produced by Portafilms, an outfit that was neither as prolific nor as enjoyably frantic as, say, Sid Davis or Dick Wayman. When Davis or Wayman clubbed you over the head with a message you were laughing far too much to mind. 

This traffic safety short is narrated and hosted by Officer Maxwell, known to all of us bad safety short fans from Helping Johnny Remember and Holiday From Rules. Officer Maxwell is accompanied by two children who mindlessly agree with everything he says, obviously fearing for their lives from the unintentionally sinister-seeming Maxwell. After all, at any Continue reading →

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October 19, 2012 · 12:10 am

THE BEST SILENT HORROR FILM SHORTS 1896 – 1909

masc graveyard smallerI’ve never made any secret out of the fact that I’m a hopeless silent movie geek. As we get closer to Halloween Balladeer’s Blog will examine the greatest silent horror films of all but for this little teaser I’ll take a look at the best silent horror shorts from 1896 to 1909.

THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL (1896) – Unless an earlier example turns up this is the very first horror movie with a semblance of a story. This 3 minute film from THE Georges Melies features the Devil setting up housekeeping in a creepy mansion and conjuring up his infernal lackeys like witches, goblins and a living skeleton man to keep him company. Much as the early film world owes to Melies we all know if you’ve seen one of his flicks you’ve seen them all so this will be the last work by him that I cover for this list. His camera trickery and broad characters get old REALLY fast.

FAUST AND MEPHISTOPHELES (1898) – George A Smith, a British stage magician, presents this very brief depiction of Faust selling his soul to the devil named Mephistopheles.

THE MISER’S DOOM (1899) – Like an 1899 Twilight Zone episode this Walter Booth short features a clutching, grasping miser getting his comeuppance in the form of a fatal encounter with a woman’s ghost. 

THE FREAK BARBER (1905) – In a sort of “Extreme Sweeney Todd” story a mad barber decapitates his customers until the tables are turned and he himself gets his head chopped off in the finale. 3 minutes of weirdness.

THE THIRTEEN CLUB (1905) – A group of Continue reading →

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October 12, 2012 · 12:10 am

THE TOP 11 NEGLECTED BAD MOVIE CLASSICS FOR HALLOWEEN

The less than frightening title menaces from Attack of the Beast Creatures (1983)

Laughing at bad movies is one of the greatest pleasures in life. Regular readers of Balladeer’s  Blog are very familiar with my Bad Movie page where I focus on various film flops that I feel deserve larger audiences because of how dementedly enjoyable they are. Since it’s the Halloween Season this list will present eleven of the most neglected bad horror movie classics, many of which deserve Plan 9- sized cult followings. These are short takes. For my full-length reviews of these and other cinematic turkeys see my Bad Movie page. https://glitternight.com/bad-movies/

MORE HALLOWEEN MOVIE TREATS: MEXICAN MONSTERS https://glitternight.com/2011/10/31/a-halloween-mexi-monster-bestiary/

BLAXPLOITATION HORROR: https://glitternight.com/2011/10/26/a-very-blaxploitation-halloween/

11. THE LIFT (1983) – A killer elevator is the unique menace in this joyously absurd horror film from the Netherlands. A heroic elevator repairman tries to stop the bloody reign of terror of a sentient elevator which the movie’s ads described as “the perfect killing machine”. (?)

10. ATTACK OF THE BEAST CREATURES (1983) – The surviving passengers and crew of a sunken luxury liner find themselves on an uncharted island full of ponds and streams that dissolve human flesh. The island is home to the Continue reading →

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October 4, 2012 · 12:10 am

COOL FOOTBALL HELMET: WAYLAND BAPTIST UNIVERSITY

WAYLAND BAPTIST UNIVERSITY PIONEERS

Location: Plainview, TX

Division: NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics)

Comment: The Pioneers relaunched football just this year and already have a victory under their belts! They embraced the NAIA tradition of beating NCAA Division 3 teams to get a “W” in this Continue reading →

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August 30, 2012 · 9:50 pm

LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES AND POLITICAL CONVENTIONS

” And for my next trick, I’ll make your take-home pay shrink EVEN MORE in my second term!”

Welcome back to the favorite place of Independent Voters, Balladeer’s Blog, the only site on the web that is truly nonpartisan in its criticism of the repulsive demagogues called Liberals and Conservatives.
Many of my regular readers are from overseas and they often express confusion about America’s method of nominating people for the presidency and about how we end up with the same type of tiresome partisan zealots time after time.

The important thing to remember is that our choices are severely limited by those two rival gangs of white- collar criminals called Democrats and Republicans. Neither of those political parties is mentioned in the Constitution but you can’t realistically run for dog- catcher in this country without having to deal with the party apparatus of those Continue reading →

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August 20, 2012 · 9:49 pm

COLLEGE FOOTBALL SEASON 2012 KICKS OFF THIS WEEK

 THIS WEEK THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL SEASON KICKS OFF IN THE DIVISIONS COVERED BY BALLADEER’S BLOG!

Teams like the Hutchinson Blue Dragons (helmet at left), the Jamestown College Jimmies, the William Penn University Statesmen and the Eastern Arizona College Gila Monsters will all begin their season on various days throughout the coming week!

Not only that but the CC Fighting Saints, ranked Number 1 in Balladeer’s Blog’s NAIA College Football Rankings, will kickoff this Friday the 24th at the 23rd- ranked MSU-Northern Lights. The Pima Aztecs travel to face the Phoenix College Bears on Thursday night and the Continue reading →

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August 6, 2012 · 10:01 pm

SHINTO GOD: SARUTAHIKO

 SARUTAHIKO – The god who guards the floating bridge between the Earth and the heavenly realm of the gods, Takamagahara (“High Plain of Heaven”). He is depicted as a giant wielding  the jeweled spear that once belonged to his father Izanagi and which Izanagi used to stir the primordial broth on Earth as he and his wife Izanami were preparing to begin creation.

Sarutahiko is considered the god of pathways and crossroads, both real and symbolic. He took his sentry duties so seriously that he once even tried to bar the way of the god Ninigi and his retinue when he was Continue reading →

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August 3, 2012 · 12:01 am

HAPPY FRONTIERADO! CELEBRATE WITH A LOST ADVENTURE OF BUCKSHOT BRYANT

Computer image reconstruction of what Buckshot Bryant’s mysterious visitors may have looked like … if filmed by a urinal cake

At last the day is here! All through the year we waited and now the celebrating begins in earnest! Frontierado, the greatest holiday this side of Life Day for Wookies, has galloped into town and bellied up to the bar for a drink and a hot meal.

Special greetings from me, the Blackwater Kid, to Amarillo Rose, Dusty Murtaugh, Doc Albany and her husband Casino Bill Kost, Cyclone Rachel, Buckshot Bryant, Lady London, Cactus Cathy, Kid Equus and Doc Robyn, plus the M.I.A Six-Gun Sara!

There are even more people celebrating Frontierado with us this year than last year, but various obligations have prevented me from writing official Sagas for all of them.

This holiday is being observed in the USA, New Zealand, the UK and Australia just like last year, but this year we add Canada, Germany and Japan to the list of nations that have Continue reading →

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August 2, 2012 · 1:08 am

THREE MORE NEGLECTED WILD WEST FIGURES

FRONTIERADO IS THIS FRIDAY, AUGUST THIRD!

With the Frontierado holiday almost upon us what better time to examine 3 more figures who helped make the American west wild?

3. LOTTIE DENO – Equally comfortable  dealing faro, playing poker or shooting a pistol Charlotte “Lottie” Deno was one of the most famous female gamblers of the old west, along with Poker Alice. Lottie didn’t engage in nearly as many gunfights as Poker Alice did, but she didn’t have to, since she was very skilled at maneuvering lovesick men into doing some of her killing for her. Even her no-good husband Johnny Golden was bumped off by two of Lottie’s male conquests. 

Lottie, who said she learned card-playing from her father, was a former southern belle who came west after the Confederacy fell. She spent three years in San Antonio dealing faro and playing poker in, among other places, the iconic vaudeville saloon of Jack Harris, where Texas Ben Thompson and King Fisher were killed the same night in 1884. Fellow gambler Frank Thurmond began a romance with Lottie but when he Continue reading →

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