Screening Log

This new site feature is a collective effort to summarize our viewing habits. Occasionally, you will find titles here that are coming to a theater near you, in addition to films viewed on television, and even films viewed in piecemeal. The screening log is archived each month; to view past entries select a month in the menu below.


January 2008 activity

Total Log Entries: 53

Total Comments: 41


Full Archive



Flash Gordon / USA/UK / 1980

Without question my favorite film of my formative years. Others preferred Star Wars or Superman, but it was the pure spectacle of Flash Gordon that made me fall in love with cinema’s ability to transport me to another world. Gordon resonated with me in a way that the other fantasy heroes of the period could not because he is as human as I am. He had not inherited the ability to manipulate some cosmic force, nor was he a superhuman savior from another planet. Skywalker and Superman were exclusory fantasies; they had been born different, better than everyone else. Gordon was, as Queen put it, “Just a man, with a man’s courage.” You could aspire to be Flash Gordon when you grew up and as a child I found that simply enthralling. Revisiting the film as an adult fills me with nostalgia and an appreciation for what I feel is a vastly underrated film. Flash Gordon was the last gasp of seventies’ cinematic excess before being replaced with the clockwork precision of the eighties’ blockbuster. Its an homage to the Hollywood of Cleopatra and The Ten Commandments; each set piece, each costume more elaborate that the one before. In an age where locations and even characters are created whole-cloth by computers, I have an overwhelming appreciation for the skilled men and women who were able to create an entire universe by hand.

by David Carter | Source: Universal DVD
05 Jan 2008 11:26 PM | Submit Comment


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