Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Touching Base

Hey everyone,

Sorry I haven't written much this week. Part of the reason is that I'm really struggling to the the Sept GameDay issue out the door, but it's also because there have been two unforeseen developments that have gobbled up time, Pac Man style.

1. I got an iPhone on Friday. I haven't found a time waster this impactful since, well, probably since blogging. I just love the damn thing but I spend the whole weekend learning all it's little secrets and battling AT&T to get it activated.

2. Flash Gordon was released on DVD last week. Words cannot express my delight at spending Tuesday night watching this with my kids. All you really need to know about it is that if you check out the IMDB.com page, the lead actor doesn't have a submitted picture. Nor does the lead actress. Or fully 2/3 of the cast.

And yet it was one of the most delightfully bad movies of my youth, and after watching it almost 30 years later, it's both better and worse than I remembered. I don't know how a movie with such terrible special effects, forced dialogue and automaton acting can still be so entertaining. Add all that to a soundtrack from Queen and you can almost come to the conclusion that they were trying to make another Rocky Horror Picture Show. And frankly, I think the theater dorks just beat the geeks to the punch on that one.

So anyway, I'm not writing baseball tonight. But by Monday I'll have the 2008 GM Cheat Sheet up on the site, so you can start working on next year's team.

You know, this was

3 comments:

Scott said...

Plus wasn't Rick Springfield in that movie? He's not listed on IMDB, but I swear he was in that...near the beginning.

scotharr said...

I've got two words for you: Ornella Muti.
I believe I remember Pauline Kael writing in her review that when Ornella came on screen there was an audible groan from the male members of the audience.

Anonymous said...

Well, the cast wasn't completely without talent. Max von Sydow, Brian Blessed, and Timothy Dalton (okay, that one may be a stretch). And Scott, you are right about Ornella Muti. Not only did I groan when she came on screen, I think I also hyperventilated. But the kicker was the big fight scene at the end where Flash levels a whole room full of evil minions using his football skills. At the time, Flash Gordon was the best bad sci-fi film since Barbarella.