FLESH GORDON

Flesh Gordon offers to repay Prince Precious

FLESH GORDON (1974). Directors: Michael Benveniste; Howard Ziehm.

In this erotic parody of the Flash Gordon serials, Flesh Gordon (Jason Williams) and Dale Ardor (Suzanne Fields) travel with Dr. Jerkoff (Joseph Hudgins) in his Phallic spaceship to the planet Porno, where the evil Emperor Wang (William Dennis Hunt) is aiming a destructive "sex ray" at the earth. Most of this is a sophomoric semi-romp featuring painfully obvious double entendres (some of which are amusing) with some stop- motion animation by David Allen [The Day Time Ended] and Jim Danforth to enliven the proceedings. The "penisauruses," with big eyeballs at the end of their stalks, aren't badly done; there's a metal insectoid creature that reminds one of the moonmen in First Men in the Moon; and a giant, talking, hooven satyr who carries off Dale at one point -- there are some smooth shots of this creature as well as crude ones. The movie is both progressive and regressive for its day, with the members of the Amazon Underground trying to have their way with Dale and called "Dykes!" by Jerkoff. Meanwhile Prince Precious (Prince Barin in the original), played by Mycle [sic] Brandy, leads a band of gay merry men. Unlike the amazon queen the prince is not played as a stereotype except for one scene when he screams like a woman. After the prince helps save Flesh and the others, Flesh asks him if he can repay him -- Precious gives Flesh a blow job! While there are plenty of naked breasts "fleshing" about, this is pretty soft-core, with sexual activity being more suggested than anything else. Joseph Hudgins, who is actually quite good, does a dead-on imitation of Frank Shannon in the original serials. (As Dr. Jerkoff puts it as regards his rocket ship: "I was able to get most of the parts from the Sears catalog.") Fields and Brandy are fine in their respective roles, getting into the spirit of the silliness, while it's tempting to say that Williams makes Sam J. Jones (as well as Buster Crabbe) in Flash Gordon look like Laurence Olivier, but he's adequate. Hunt chews the scenery as Wang, which is appropriate, but doesn't erase the memories of the much more restrained Charles Middleton. Ultimately, this would have worked better as a short sketch instead of a 90 minute movie! Craig T. Nelson [Poltergeist] did the voice of the giant Satyr. Followed by Flash Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders which replaced Jason Williams with Vince Murdocco, and which, if I recall correctly, had some gross if imaginative touches to it.

Verdict: A somewhat clever, more often dopey, college kid's movie, with occasionally decent visual effects. **.

FIFTY SHADES OF GREY

Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson in the tub

FIFTY SHADES OF GREY (2015). Director: Sam Taylor-Johnson.

"I don't make love. I fuck. Hard." -- Christian. 

Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) interviews handsome 27-year-old billionaire Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) and eventually falls into a romance with him -- of sorts. Christian is a "dominant" who needs to be with a "submissive" and goes so far as to show Ana his s&m playroom. Ana turns out to be a virgin -- quite literally -- making her perhaps not the best person to be a happy candidate for the kink and fetish scene. Another problem is that Christian tells Ana that he's not really looking for a romance, doesn't like to be touched (without permission) and draws up a contract for her to sign detailing her rights and responsibilities as to being his submissive. Now most women not into the kink scene would run screaming into the night at this point, but dumb Ana (or not so dumb, remember Chris is a handsome billionaire) continues to see Chris, although she holds off on signing that contract. Clearly things will not go well for this couple ... Despite the erotic trappings, Fifty Shades of Gray is old-fashioned at its core, does nothing to explore the scene with any depth, and amounts to little more than a romantic fantasy crafted by the book's author, E. L. James, who is highly unlikely to be lusted after by a handsome billionaire. This is only the umpteenth movie to have a heroine falling for a guy who wants no entanglements (at least at first) and there's even a point when he tells her what amounts to "don't get hooked on me, baby!" That said, Fifty Shades of Grey is not as cheesy as it sounds, because the actors are quite good, the production gloss high, and the direction solid. I'll leave it to others to judge if this is a sad story of a man unable to commit due to his kinks, or a clueless woman who can't deal with the fact that the man she loves has kinks (what in a less enlightened era would be called "perversions") in the first place. Conventional at its heart, there is nothing that risky or edgy to the movie [it might have been fun to have Ana find Christian in bed with his hunky chauffeur.] While Dakota Johnson is attractive and appealing, by Hollywood standards she is comparatively plain, which may or may not be the point, but makes the sex scenes less sizzling than they are, perhaps, meant to be. No less than two sequels are being filmed even as I post.

Verdict: This might have worked better if it had been played as a wild and campy comedy. **1/2.

LAST TANGO IN PARIS

Unlikely coupling: Maria Schneider and Marlon Brando

LAST TANGO IN PARIS (1972). Director: Bernardo Bertolucci.

"I'll be smirking and giggling all the way to eternity."

Jeanne (Maria Schneider), a young woman whose boyfriend, Tom, is filming a documentary about her life as it happens, enters into a "no names," no frills affair with an older man, Paul (Marlon Brando of On the Waterfront), whose wife has just committed suicide. Tom (Jean-Pierre Leaud) is unaware of Paul and his girlfriend's sexual obsession with the man. Will the two lovers manage to keep things casual, or will one of the participants want something more than just the eroticism? Last Tango in Paris was heavily promoted as an "art film" -- an Italian director and set in Paris! -- with screenings only in certain New York theaters and with tickets sold in advance with assigned seats. Without the frank sexual activity  -- a sodomy scene with butter was especially notorious -- it's unlikely anyone but Bertolucci's most fervent admirers would have cared about this fairly dull movie. The film is pretentious and all over the lot, as if Bertolucci had cobbled a screenplay around Brando and Paris and hoped for the best -- a series of tableau's that never really jell, although there are some interesting bits and pieces along the way, and the film does get at certain truths in some relationships where there is a distinct age difference between the parties. Some scenes seem thrown in because they might seem unique -- Paul has a talk with his dead wife's lover, Marcel (Massimo Girotti) for instance -- but they don't convince, just as it's hard to ever take seriously the "relationship" between Jeanne and Paul. [After passing on the street, they meet when both look at an apartment for rent, but there is nothing to suggest an attraction between the two. Yet Paul simply picks Jeanne up and begins having sex with her without her protesting.] Another senseless scene has Paul chasing after a potential client of a hooker who has changed his mind and calling him a "faggot." There is some humor on the sophomoric side -- Paul moons an older woman at a Tango palace --  and the performances aren't bad, but the actors have no fully dimensional characters to play, and Paul is essentially an asshole. Ultimately what Tango seems to be about is an aging, bitter man objectifying and debasing a younger woman even as she exposes how pathetic he is. Scheider appeared in quite a few movies both before and after Tango.  

Verdict: Like La Luna this is another Bertolucci movie that may make you want to say yuck! **.