David Lynch – master of the surreal, pioneer of pastiche, maestro of the grotesque, visionary purveyor of all things weird, mood magic man, subterranean cinematic dreamcatcher. His movies were events, labyrinth journeys into the unconscious.
Thanks for the memories. And there are a lot.
I can barely remember even seeing this before but I’m sure I would have remembered how great it is … so I suppose I hadn’t seen it before.
What a hoot! It’s a pastiche of cheese so well put together it transcends cheese and elevates itself way into the spheres above cheese. It’s what one deems a self-aware movie – it knows exactly what it is and that’s the foundation. The visuals and set design could have been absolute gash but for some reason they are not. The cartoon-like quality to them serves to amplify the admittedly silly story, but that’s what it’s all about. Not many films today have a sense of ‘world’ about them, as in a universe onscreen in which the environment and the backdrop actually means something and has a relationship, and vice-versa, with the characters. This is how fantasy should be done.
Some cast graces this bonanza – a young Timothy Dalton, Max von Sydow, a raving Brian Blessed, and Topol! And what happened to Sam J. Jones? He popped up in Ted (2012) but this aside I am without a reference. Oh, here we are: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristenlopez/2019/02/23/life-after-flash-acts-as-a-dual-celebration-and-redemption-of-flash-gordons-leading-man/
It has the psychedelic feel of a Pink Floyd music video, and for almost the entire duration I thought it was Roger Waters and chums on soundtrack duties. It turned out to be Queen. I don’t like Queen at all. But I liked them here. And Mike Hodges directed this cracker and Get Carter (1970)? I did not know this.
Versatile.
Further reading/viewing:
https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/flash-gordon-film-review-a4520191.html
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jul/31/flash-gordon-review-mike-hodges-superhero
22 November, 2010 and this ridiculous … thing came into the world.
For me, it’s the Greatest Album Ever Made. And I find Kanye West nauseating, an attention-seeking baby who needs muzzled. Not the tunes, though. These are simply glorious, the album track-for-track mastery without equal. It’s the production, the melodies, the bombast, the deep thinking at work. Like all art, you can appropriate the material and line it up with something personal.
The (Stranded in) Belgium Odyssey of December 2010. Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong, but it was all very life-changing and I’ll never forget some of the epic moments. And no one died, which is also great. This album was played quite literally 125 times in 11 days and every track I associate with an image.
Once again:
This deepfake stuff is going beyond the nonsensical and getting out of control. I’ve just seen one in which Tom Cruise replaces American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman for the infamous Sussudio homemade porno.
https://futurism.com/the-byte/deepfaked-tom-cruise-american-psycho-sex
It’s creepy as fuck, not helped by the fact there appears to be a lot of Cruise in Bateman, and that in the novel both the sofa-jumping Scientologist and the Whitney Houston-loving serial killer share the same building and even meet in a lift (rather the hilarious scene).
There’s another one doing the rounds, Jim Carrey’s The Shining (1980) shtick. Appropriating images for YouTube vids, ruining the sacredness of classics. It’s pointless and crude, bedroom technology piggybacking off artistry.
And then we get into politics and porn, a rabbit hole of ethical discourse. The world would be better off with deepfake. Still, Tom Cruise as Patrick Bateman is inspired. Sorry.
Further reading/viewing:
https://www.creativebloq.com/features/deepfake-examples
https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/security/a28691128/deepfake-technology/
My attempt at ‘conceptual art’. There it is, scanned continent pages of an atlas all messed up. I want my Turner Prize now.
Conceptual art is where the talentless can hide yet prosper, a contradiction laced with mountains of cash. You get these cretins taking shites on Pot Noodle cups or showing the world their unkempt sleeping quarters in an exhibition, equating the display as representative of the decline and all-round decadence of Western Civilisation. It’s poppycock. You look at a Rembrandt or a Caravaggio and think, “Fuck me, I wish I could paint that.” You view conceptual works and cringe that ivory tower society could ever even write copy about such meaningless garbage.
Here is my modern art masterpiece. It’s about the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Enjoy. I expect to have this displayed in MOMA next year.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 