Catching the Classics: Flash Gordon

Since 1998, I have been maintaining a list of movies that I wanted to see. Sometimes these are all-time classics that passed me by, sometimes they’re genre classics that interest me. The list grows regularly and is currently more than 1800 movies long. Fogs has gone through and hand-picked several classic films for me to “fast-track” and review here. This is one of those films.

It’s something of a puzzler how it took me so long to track down this movie. It’s almost impossible, as a sci-fi fan, not to be aware of Flash Gordon. I haven’t seen the old serials, but I’ve known of them for years. I’ve read a few of the pulp novels. I’ve heard the soundtrack by Queen. Knew the character names, knew the aesthetic, and somehow didn’t ever get around to actually seeing the thing. Obviously that had to be remedied.

Movies I Want Everyone to See: The Rocketeer (1991)

Review By Richard Kirkham

Hollywood in the Golden Age, Nazi Commandos, Gangsters, Young Love, Air Speed Races, Howard Hughes, is there anything that is not found in this Walt Disney Picture from more than twenty years ago? I can’t think of anything they could have added to make this movie better. The story is a clever adventure which mixes real world events with science fiction elements and puts it in the backdrop of one of the most romantic times and places in film history. “The Rocketeer” was a modest success and not a break out hit that would justify a sequel. The movie harkens back to the serial adventures of the 1940s but is based on a racy 1982 graphic novel/comic, which has enjoyed greater literary success than it’s cinematic cousin. There are some obvious changes made in adapting this to the big screen. The biggest change was altering the character of Jenny Blake. Instead of the somewhat seedy “party girl/stripper” she is in the comic, she becomes a more wholesome ingenue. She is an innocent young actress, trying to break into the movies by playing in the crowd scenes in the movies being manufactured at the Hollywood Dream Factories of the Golden Age.

The FMR Ranking of Bond Films. All 23 From Worst to First.

Ok, Bond fans. This is it, the last Bond related post for the foreseeable future. 😦 Non Bond fans, bear with me one last time, with the exception of Wednesday’s (title pending), we’re going to move on back to our regularly scheduled movie talk starting tomorrow. I promise. 😀

But there’s one more ranking that needs to be done, and it’s a big one. The films themselves. The Bond series has had numerous ups and downs over the five decades that its been around, giving us some great movies, and some awful ones. And this weekend brought us one that wants to shoulder its way to the top, people are already talking about it being the “Best Bond Ever”.

Click through to read my ranking of all 23!

The Great Debates: Who is the Best Bond?

The big question. For years, Sean Connery was the pat answer, but lately, Daniel Craig has been making a serious run at the throne. Will the strength of the modern movie-making in his films help him unseat the King? How many fans of the campy Roger Moore era are out there? Dalton has his supporters, but just how many? Can people forgive Brosnan for the movies he was in and judge him as the Bond he was? Will anyone vote Lazenby?

Click through to read the tale of the tape!!

The Bond Month Blog-A-Thon: Week 3!

The Bond Month Blog-A-Thon rounds the turn and enters the home stretch! Once again, a number of  bloggers have submitted a healthy list of posts for you to check out, covering the world of James Bond! It’s Week Three, and we are definitely in full stride!

Click through to check out which 00s reported for duty this time out!

The Great Debates: Which “Toy Story” Movie is the Best?

A couple of weeks back, during discussion of the Top Ten Pixar Movies several people surprised me by ranking the second chapter of the Toy Story saga as the best. Prior to that I had always thought that people were merely divided between 1 and 3. So, seeing as we have an opportunity to hash these things out here, let’s! Shall we?

Click through to read “The Tale of the Tape”!!

James Bond: Classic, Cheese, or Crap? – “Licence to Kill”

“Licence to Kill”

1989

Bond: Timothy Dalton

Classic, Cheese, or Crap?: Cheese

This one is easy. If your movie has Wayne Newton in it? It’s cheese.

James Bond: Classic, Cheese or Crap? – “The Living Daylights”

“The Living Daylights”

1987

Bond: Timothy Dalton

Classic, Cheese or Crap?: CLASSIC

That’s right. You Heard me. Classic.

Now showing on cable: “The Tourist”

Premiering tonight on Starz is “The Tourist”, last year’s tale of “international intrigue” starring Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp.

If you look at the director’s IMDb page, it states he was born “Florian Maria Georg Christian Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck” A name like that demands to be used in full whenever possible.

Angelina stars as the love interest of internationally renowned thief Alexander Pierce. Johnny Depp plays a schlub named Frank Tupelo, a community college Math teacher touring Europe.

Jolie begins the movie being spied upon and followed by a team of no less than 6,000 men. Of course she proves to be too smart for them by half. She’s sent a note by her husband in hiding to find someone his height and build and make her pursuers believe it’s him. Enter Depp, who she picks out on a train. She plays Depp into thinking she’s interested him, but it’s a ruse in order to put all the spies and gangsters following her onto him.