The Screengrab : white elephant blogathon

White Elephant Blogathon: Flesh Gordon (1974, Michael Benveniste and Howard Ziehm)

Paul Clark — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 14:00:00 GMT

This review is part of the White Elephant Blogathon, hosted by Benjamin Lim’s blog Lucid Screening.

It’s been said that the two cinematic qualities that one can’t be objective about are comedy and eroticism. Every person has different things that make him laugh or turn him on, and if that doesn’t happen for someone, you can’t explain it and make it work. And combining funny with sexy is an even riskier proposition, since the filmmakers have to work out the proper balance of humor and sex to elicit the natural responses to both without one overwhelming the other. Michael Benveniste and Howard Ziehm’s Flesh Gordon doesn’t come close to achieving this balance. It’s not funny, it certainly isn’t sexy, and it’s just kind of a waste of time. It’s hard to imagine what motivated the directors to make it.

Well, maybe it’s not that hard. I imagine Benveniste and Ziehm, struggling for a movie idea, sitting around one day looking at old Flash Gordon comics- perhaps while high, this being the early seventies. Suddenly, one of them starts chuckling even more than one normally would while stoned, and calls the other over. “Ever notice how much a space ship looks like a penis?” he asks. And the other one would respond, “yeah, and check out Dr. Zarkov! That sounds kinda like jerk-off!” The pot-addled ideas keep coming, and soon they’ve got their new project. Now, I’m not saying that good movies can’t spring from unlikely circumstances- after all, To Have and Have Not was made on a bet between Hemingway and Howard Hawks, and that led to one of Hawks’ best movies, as well as the romance between Bogey and Bacall. But while Hawks’ classic is a fully realized film, Flesh is nothing more than a series of lame jokes and halfhearted softcore scenes in search of a coherent movie.

I’m actually sort of reluctant to use the word “jokes” to describe the comedy in Flesh Gordon, since that word implies a setup and a punchline. Not a single would-be laugh in the movie transcends basic gag status- the filmmakers seem to believe that naughty imagery is a joke in itself, so they don’t do anything to make it actually funny. Consider the ship, which as I’ve already mentioned looks like a penis. But why stop there? Why not make the dick-ship pass through a nebula in the shape of a birth canal on the way to its destination? Why not have make its final destination a vagina-shaped port, only it has trouble clearing the doors so that it has to thrust a few times in order to enter? Sure, these ideas aren’t exactly sophisticated, but at least they use the already-established sight gags in order to form honest-to-goodness (albeit tasteless) jokes. Flesh Gordon can’t be bothered to do this. It’s the kind of movie that assumes that phallic objects alone are hilarious. And if you’re in agreement with that, you’re probably late for your shift at Burger World, Beavis.

What’s more, the movie isn’t remotely sexy. There are acres of (mostly female) skin on display in Flesh Gordon, but as with the comedy, nothing interesting is done with it, so it fades into the background. In researching this review, I discovered that the film originally contained hardcore scenes, but the filmmakers were ordered to cut them and shoot less explicit footage. However, eroticism doesn’t necessarily mean pornography. It does, however, imply more than perfunctory shots of nudity and fleeting glimpses of couples making love. In my experience, the most erotic moments in movies require some patience on the part of the filmmakers in order to let the scenes unfold at an unhurried pace, without letting the plot or the filmmaking get in the way. But the makers of Flesh Gordon don’t care about this- not when they’ve got more dick jokes up their sleeves!

The result is a movie with a strangely juvenile attitude toward sex. With such elements as a monster called Penisaurus, the nefarious villain Wang the Perverted, and his much-feared SeX-Ray, the humor of Flesh Gordon appeals only to those who think naughty words are funny in and of themselves. When it comes to actual sexuality, the movie becomes skittish, turning on the wacky music and turning it into a joke, which takes away the eroticism in the service of a cheap gag. I believe it was Roger Ebert who once reviewed a movie by writing, “if you’re old enough to see this, you’ve already outgrown it.” I can’t think of a better response to Flesh Gordon.

Paul Clark Meets the White Elephant

Paul Clark — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 12:00:00 GMT

Yesterday I interviewed Benjamin Lim, host of the Second Annual White Elephant Blogathon, who kindly explained the idea behind his crazy little brainchild. In light of his explanation, I’m sure you’ll understand why I was a little confused about six weeks ago when I received my assignment, Seijun Suzuki’s Princess Raccoon. After all, this didn’t quite seem to fit: Suzuki is something of a cult icon among Asian cinema fans, and Princess Raccoon received mostly positive notices. Truth be told, I almost thought Ben was playing an early April Fool’s prank on me with the intention of pulling a bait-and-switch the next day. You know, the old “wait, did I say Princess Raccoon? I meant In the Army Now” gag.

Then I saw the movie.

Don’t get me wrong, Princess Raccoon is by no means a bad movie. Truth be told, I enjoyed the hell out of it. However, it’s easy to see why someone would in all seriousness believe this was White Elephant material. Not only is it a textbook love/hate movie, but it’s a pain in the ass to review. I originally had a suspicion that it was submitted by my friend, fellow Blogathoner, and avowed Princess Raccoon fan Steven Carlson as an attempt to share the love, but he dispelled this notion. So whoever the wiseguy is who submitted Princess Raccoon, thanks, and feel free to out yourself in the comments if you wish.

As I said, this isn’t going to be easy. But I’ll forge onward. For a Suzuki film, Princess Raccoon tells a fairly straightforward story- a king banishes his son for being more beautiful than he is, after which the son is rescued by the legendary Princess Raccoon (Zhang Ziyi), and the pair fall in love, although not without complications. So it’s basically Snow White in reverse. But that doesn’t begin to approximate the magical weirdness of this thing. Suzuki’s style is heavily influenced by Kabuki theatre, and he tosses in a number of catchy songs for good measure.

Now, I know what you’re thinking- “what, another Kabuki fairy tale musical?” All joking aside, it’s Suzuki’s style that really makes Princess Raccoon infectious. As with his last film, Pistol Opera, Suzuki makes no concessions to photo-realism, often placing his actors on stage-y sets or CGI backdrops. But the difference between Princess Raccoon and its predecessor is its irresistible sense of fun. True to Suzuki's rep, there are some priceless moments in the film, most of which I wouldn't dream of giving away.

All right, maybe one. Early in the film there’s a scene in which the prince (played by Jo Odagiri) and the Princess Raccoon are rowing a boat, and they hit some (animated) rapids. Suddenly the boat begins to spin, and Zhang and Odagiri start throwing themselves wildly around like the Star Trek crew whenever the Enterprise suffers a direct hit. I mention this scene because it’s exactly the kind of make-or-break moment that might cause some of the less fanciful viewers out there to tune out, and I figured I would warn you in advance. But for those of you who are on Suzuki's wavelength, there's much more where that came from.

Princess Raccoon has a few problems- for example, Suzuki’s sense of pacing takes some (okay, a lot of) getting used to- but they fade away compared to the enormous grin the film left on my face. It’s the sort of movie I think I would’ve enjoyed when I was a kid, full of singing and dancing, colorful flights of fancy, and awesome lines like, “please die in peace to become delicious raccoon soup!” I’m sure there are a few stabs at serious subtext in the film (e.g. pitting the Christian king against the pagan raccoon people), but this is mostly one heck of an infectious romp. The film opens with the line, “no raccoon should ever love a human. Even less should a raccoon ever love a man. But this is the thirteenth moon…” In other words, you’re about to enter Seijun Suzuki territory, so buckle up and enjoy the ride.

For those who haven't seen it, here's a little taste for you, the Japanese-language Princess Raccoon trailer. All of the dialogue's in Japanese, but it conveys Suzuki's style and the film's good-natured lunacy pretty well.

White Elephants on Parade

Paul Clark — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:00:00 GMT

April Fool's Day is traditionally a day for pranks and other oddball behavior, but to Benjamin Lim and his readers, it's all about criticism. Ben, who writes for the site Lucid Screening, is hosting the White Elephant Blogathon for the second time this year. Starting tomorrow morning and continuing throughout the day, writers from all over the blogosphere- including yours truly- will be contributing reviews to the cause.

And not just any reviews, either. The blogathon was inspired by the idea of a white elephant gift exchange, in which the participants exchange crappy gifts for fun. Ben's incarnation is like that, but with movies. In Ben's words, "the intention of the blogathon is that people will suggest really horrible movies which will then be given an overly serious reading by the person it was assigned to."

The impetus behind Ben's brainchild came from his friendship with Andrew Hedden, another of Lucid Screening's writers. Having worked together since high school, they've written a lot of reviews of films both serious and goofy, and according to Ben, "in March of 2006 he and I thought it would be fun to do serious review of silly movies again and we ended up writing about The Garbage Pail Kids Movie and a little known classic called No Retreat, No Surrender. The GPKM review went on to get published in Bright Lights Film Journal and my NRNS review is a popular search result when Googling 'Jean Claude Van Damme' and 'Vagina' together. A year later we decided to do something fun for April fools day again except we wanted to get more people involved. Over the previous winter, I had participated in a white elephant gift exchange while at work and it just hit me one day that the two would work brilliantly together." And like that, the White Elephant Blogathon was born.

So the goal here is basically to write pompously about really terrible movies, right? In Ben's experience, it's not that simple. "The submissions range from movies that most people will agree are pretty awful to some that are generally well respected films that the submitter just hated. It's a pretty fun mixture of films and it might even yield some previously unknown treasures for people that are always on the lookout for a good bad film."

Ben's keeping mum about most of this year's entries except to say that "there are multiple Hulk Hogan films and a Turkish remake of an American classic." But if you'd like to get an idea of what we participants are up against, check out the selection of last year's films. Quite an esoteric mix, if I do say so myself. Ben is especially high on his colleague Andrew's piece on Troll 2, which he says "cemented his place in the pantheon of pretentious criticism of bad films."

Ben's right about the Google thing, by the way. Try it and see!

So what cinematic gift was bestowed upon me by the White Elephant? Tune in tomorrow morning and find out!