The Only Cure To My Illness Is My Blu Ray Player...
I have a whole bunch to do. So very much to do, getting ready to move and all. But the problem is I am sick. Not too sick to take care of the real vital stuff with a deadline (I didn’t write stuff at first, but I am on a kick to curb the profanity for some damn reason) but just at that I don’t feel well enough to do anything I don’t have to do except for lay around on the couch with the dog (who is snoring) and watch movies. Whenever I get sick it aggravates my celiac symptoms, so joints get sore and stiff… couch and movies, that’s the answer.
What kind of movies? After a couple of decades working in movie theaters (where I literally did everything… I started delivering schedules for an art house when I was in elementary school and plugged away until I was a manager), I am very sure of what I like in a movie: escapism. Sure, there are times when I prefer something with more substance, something that stays with you and forces you to think for days. But when everything is just kind of aching and the dog is taking up all of the prime couch real estate, then there is nothing better than something that is light on substance that really won’t make you tax yourself further by thinking. Something starring Godzilla or Franco Nero or someone who had never been heard of before and would never be heard of again!
As I type, Sam Jones is fighting Chaim Topol (stop autocorrecting that dammit!) for control of a rocket while Melody Anderson screams away… yup, I’m watching 1980′s Flash Gordon. HEY! Screw you, I like it! I remember seeing this in the theater as a kid… My uncle, who would soon be managing an art house movie theater and giving me my first job, took my brother and I. I think he probably had to review it. If you haven’t seen it lately, you really should give it a chance. I picked it up for like $5 on Blu Ray recently on a whim… if you get that version, check out the special features for what Alex Ross has to say about the inherit awesomeness of Flash Gordon… with the exception of his love of Queen (I am more of a punk rock kind of guy), I agree with everything he says! He points out that Flash Gordon is basically cut from the same cloth of the 1966 Batman TV series, which I had never really thought of but he is right. That is probably why I accepted the movie as a kid; I was in like third grade when it came out and I am sure I watched Batman on a regular basis at the time. Plus, Flash Gordon has Melody Anderson and I love Melody Anderson. She is not only in this but Firewalker (with Chuck Norris) and episodes of BJ and the Bear, Battlestar Galactica and even HBO’s excellent Phillip Marlowe… so she was pretty much in everything that made my childhood awesome. Yes, I do count BJ and the Bear as something that made my childhood awesome. What typifies the 1970′s better than a big rig with a wacky chimp?
I also watched Godzilla vs Megalon the other day. That is the one with Jet Jaguar. I heard recently that some people don’t like Jet Jaguar… how can that be? I have been reading August Ragone’s excellent book on Eiji Tsuburaya (which also doesn’t need to be autocorrected you stupid machine), although I didn’t start it until after I watched GvM. Tsuburaya was behind the special effects in many of the Godzilla films as well as the force behind the Ultraman shows. With all the attention that Doctor Who got and now Star Trek is receiving for their 50th anniversaries (well deserved attention, by the way), it would be nice if Ultraman would get a little more hoopla in America. The series started in 1966 with Ultra Q and there are still Ultraman related shows in production today! I wonder where my copy of the Ultraman series is… too much stuff is already packed up for the move!
When I first started to get sick I had coincidently just noticed that Warner Brothers is finally making the Gamma One series available on DVD through their print on demand Warner Archives series. Another great example of the kind of movies I am talking about, the Gamma One moves are kind of forerunner of Star Trek. Mike Halsted (Tony Russel) is a devil may care, two fisted astronaut who leads his space station team against several threats to Earth, such as crazy eugenicists (that doesn’t get autocorrected? seriously?) and Diaphinoids from Alpha Centari, over the course of four made for TV movies (five if you count an unofficial Japanese film) directed by Antonio Margheriti (who also directed The Stranger And The Gunfighter and Yor, Hunter From the Future). They aren’t the greatest movies but they try really hard. They have lots of cool model work, a couple of custom “future cars” and some great ideas. One of the problems faced by Halsted and crew, for example, is strife between the global government and “the corporations.”
Italian science fiction is highly underrated. Everybody goes on about spaghetti westerns and the sword and sandal stuff, but there are some really fine Italian science fiction movies out there, too. The 10th Victim, Last Man On Earth, Planet Of The Vampires, Barbarella… there are some very watchable movies out of Italy!
Okay, Flash just escaped from the Tree People. More importantly, the dog just curled up into a little ball and freed up a good deal of the couch. I am going to call this quits now, stretch out a bit and finish Flash Gordon. Then, well, then I do not know… but I am sure I will find something cool to watch.
