Flash Gordon – Memphis Flyer

The week of May 17-23 at the movies offers lots of fun choices, including the premiere of a film I’ve been most excited about for months:

I Saw The TV Glow

Jane Schoenbrun’s psychological horror about teenage fandom is already being hailed as one of the best movies of the year. Owen (Justice Smith) bonds with Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) over their mutual love for the YA series The Pink Opaque. Years later, with adulthood’s problems pressing down, Maddy reappears in Owen’s life, telling him they can escape into the fictional world of the show — but there’s a price to pay for a permanent trip to TV land.

Young Elizabeth (Cailey Fleming) has an imaginary friend named Blossom (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) that only she can see. The catch is, she can also see other kids’ imaginary friends, including the ones whom their companions outgrew. Her neighbor Cal (Ryan Reynolds) has the same ability, and together they try to reunite the abandoned Imaginary Friends (IFs) with their former kids. This live action/animated hybrid features a huge cast of voices, including Steve Carell, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Maya Rudolph, Jon Stewart, George Clooney, Bradley Cooper, and, in his final role, the late Louis Gossett, Jr.

Back to Black

Marisa Abela stars in this biopic of singer Amy Winehouse, who scored major hits in the 00’s and set the record for the most Grammys won in one night. Director Sam Taylor-Johnson tries to separate the tabloid hype from the real person, who died in 2011 at age 27.

The Blue Angels

This new documentary takes IMAX back to its roots as the biggest documentary format. The U.S. Navy’s aviation demonstration team features some of the best pilots in the world. The film gets up close and personal with them, as they get up close and personal with each other while flying F-18s at 300 mph.

Flash Gordon

The Time Warp Drive-In returns for May with the theme Weird Realms. It’s three sci-fi movies from the ’80s that feature extreme visuals unlike anything else ever filmed. In the early 1970s, after George Lucas had a major hit with American Graffiti, he wanted to do a remake of Flash Gordon, which had started as a comic strip before being adapted into one of the original sci-fi serials in the late 1930s. Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis refused to sell him the movie rights to Flash Gordon, which he had purchased on the cheap years before, so Lucas decided to do his own version. That became Star Wars, and you may have heard of it. After Lucas struck gold, De Laurentiis decided to finally exercise his option. His Flash Gordon, which featured visuals inspired by the classic comics, didn’t impress sci-fi audiences upon its 1980 release, but has proven to be hugely influential in the superhero movie era. The best parts of the film are the Queen soundtrack and Max von Sydow (who once played Jesus) chewing the scenery as Ming the Merciless. To be fair, there’s a lot of scenery to chew on.

The second film on the Time Warp bill is The Dark Crystal. Muppet master Jim Henson considered this film his masterpiece, and the puppetry work is unparalleled in film history. If you’re only familiar with the story through the Netflix prequel series (which was also excellent), this is the perfect opportunity to experience the majesty of the original.

The final Time Warp film was Ridley Scott’s follow-up to Blade Runner. Legend has it that the unicorn shots in Blade Runner were actually Scott using that film’s budget to shoot test footage for Legend. A really young Tom Cruise stars with Mia Sara in this high fantasy adventure. Again, the best part of the film is the villain. Tim Curry absolutely slays as Darkness, while sporting one of the best devil costumes ever put to film.

Welcome to Mongo, Earth man.

This month’s Time Warp Drive-In is devoted to 80s space opera. The term comes, believe it or not, from Westerns. In particular, elaborately staged Westerns in the middle of the 20th century came to be known derisively as “horse operas,” and the term kind of migrated over to movies like This Island Earth. The post Star Wars period of 1977-1984, where studios were greenlighting big-budget sci-fi left and right, no matter how poorly conceived, was the golden age of space opera, and there was none more operatically staged than Flash Gordon.

George Lucas had wanted to license Alex Raymond’s comic strip character from the 1930s, Flash Gordon, for his followup to American Graffiti. But Italian mogul Dino De Laurentiis wouldn’t sell, so Lucas ended up creating Star Wars instead. De Laurentiis, who didn’t get to be a rich and famous movie producer by ignoring cultural trends or letting good taste get in his way, decided it was time to exploit the intellectual property he had been sitting on and make a Flash Gordon movie of his own.

After a false start with director Nicholas Roeg, and a hard pass from Fredrico Fellini, of all people, he hired Mike Hoges to direct. Playgirl model Sam Jones was cast as Flash, but by far the best casting decision in the whole project was Max Von Sydow as Ming the Merciless. In the comic and the classic Saturday matinee serials, the ruler of Mongo has an icky, yellow, peril vibe. Von Sydow, who got his start with Ingrid Bergman in Wild Strawberries and The Seventh Seal, transcends that to makes Ming both truly alien and kinda charming, in a sadistic space tyrant kind of way.

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With Star Wars, Lucas set out to create a visually believable space opera. Flash Gordon attempts to emulate its source material — which is to say, comics of the 1930s and 40s. You might think the whole thing look irredeemably cheesy, and you’d be right, but you have to admit they achieved what they set out to do.

But admit it, we’re all just in it for the Queen soundtrack, which is absolute perfection. Let’s roll that theme song.

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Speaking of classically trained actors going over the top, the second film of the evening is Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Widely regarded as the best big-screen Trek, it cements Khan Noonien Singh as Captain James T. Kirk’s arch enemy.

So many things passed from this classic into the larger culture. “Kobayashi Maru” became geek slang for a no-win situation, and the “Genesis Wave” sequence, a Lucasfilm masterpiece of early CGI, was recently referenced in Dark Phoenix. But Ricardo Montalbán steals the show from William Shatner, and the folks at Paramount who made this 1982 trailer, knew it.

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The final film of the evening is Masters of the Universe, which stars Dolph Lundgrin as toy superhero He-Man in what is probably his finest role, and Academy Award nominee Frank Langella as Skeletor in what is definitely not his finest role. Is it so bad it’s good? You be the judge.

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Time Warp starts at dusk at the Malco Summer Drive-In on Saturday, August 17.