As mentioned in yesterday's entry, George forced* me to watch Flesh Gordon.
*Note: I say 'forced' because it makes me feel less dirty for sitting through the whole movie...willingly.
So we watched it and, because I love you all SO much, I took notes. Let me share with you a portion of last evening's viewing:
Somewhere around the opening scene, there is a guy standing on a sidewalk in front of an office building and he's waving around newspapers and we hear him yelling about some breaking news story, all "Read all about it!" but...it didn't match what his lips were doing.
Gracie: "Wh---wh..what...WHY...WHAT is he saying?? And WHY doesn't it match the soundtrack???"
George: *Laughing* "Ohhhh, this is NOT a good sign."
--4 minutes later--
Gracie: "Um..."
George: "I KNOW..."
Gracie: "Is..."
George: "...is this..."
Gracie: "...PORN???"
George: *In baffled awe* "Y'know...I...I don't know. I...didn't think it was. I mean, I knew it was a spoof and would be bad, but..."
George & Gracie, simultaneously: *Surprised, both gasp and say* "OHHH!"
Gracie: "Hey...hey they're DOIN' stuff!"
George: "Oh, God."
Gracie: "PENIS! I SEE PENIS!!"
George: "Ohhh, Oh geez."
Gracie: *Giggles* "It's FLOPPING! He's running...and it's..."
George: "I KNOW"
Gracie: "FLOPPING!! Dude. Rewind. I need to see that again!"
George: "Um, NO."
Once we got over the shock of this being like (yet much, much worse than) a Cinemax Skin-a-max-type movie (and what must've been scandalous in the early '70s) I began noticing how truly awful the film was (despite this being the 'Collector's Edition' and all) and, like I always feel the need to do, started pointing things out and asking questions. I had to. Because I was simply and utterly confounded at the willy-nilly screwing going on and just the basic idiocy of it all, and I felt the (ridiculous) need to gain some sort of understanding, as though this would be POSSIBLE with such a film. And believe me, I get --and devour-- all things 'dark' and 'satirical' and I love a good laugh at a reeeeally bad movie, but this just went waaaay beyond anything I'd ever seen. Truly. And so I asked things such as:
Gracie: "Why was his mouth moving? There was no sound. Clearly he was talking...I saw his lips moving in the generally-known-as-SPEAKING motion. The HELL? What was he saying?" and finally, after about the 64th "I DON'T know" from George --said with the same level of confusion as my questions-- during the first 25 minutes of the movie, I said "...and WHY am I even asking QUESTIONS anymore??"
Care to guess his response? That's right: "I DON'T know."
Doy.
We now return you to our periodic outbursts of shock and discomfiture:
Gracie: "Is...wait a minute. Is that...a penis on a STICK?!"
George: "Yep."
Gracie: "....it's a plastic penis."
George: "That's right."
Gracie: "On. A. STICK??"
George: "Uh-huh! It's his RAY GUN!"
Gracie: "Oh. my. GOD."
George: "I KNOW!"
Gracie: "Does it shoot white lasers?!"
George: "Hee."
A few minutes later, there is a scene in what looks to be a ballroom, and there is a ...king, I guess, sitting on a throne at the back of the room while dozens of his...subjects, I suppose, are all on the floor having much of The Sex with each other. It was very hard to concentrate on what was being said (mostly because the dialog sucked...you know...and cause of...other stuff) but also because it reeeeally looked like it wasn't totally acting. They really appeared --some of them anyway-- to be ...Doing It.
Gracie: "Ooo...look at that guy over there. Look how fast he's goin' at it with her! Certainly gettin' it while he can, isn't he? Prolly not even in the script!!"
George: "Yep, scene's almost over! Gotta get HIS!"
Gracie: "Oh god. I cannot BELIEVE we're watching this."
George: "This is GREAT! I LOVE IT!"
Gracie: "You're sick."
George: "Hey! You're still watching it, TOO, lady!"
Gracie: "No. I am watching this merely for journalistic purposes."
George: *Snorts* "HO-kay. WHAT-EEEEEVVVVV-uuuurrrr."
Gracie: "Hey...that's a ... *squints* "...flying ...SWAN??"
George: "I think so."
Gracie: "the HELL does a flying SWAN have to do with Planet Porno?!"
George: *Shrugs*
Once again, the characters burst into inexplicable and completely inappropriate ...sex-shoo-uhl relations and I had an epiphany:
Gracie: "Oooo! Listen! Even back THEN they did the horrible Porn Sounds!"
For those not In the Know: it's a hissing sound made by sucking air in through your teeth --sssssssssssss-- followed by variations of "hhhhhaaaaaaahhhh" and/or "oooooooo" repeated endlessly and annoyingly for the duration of whoopie.
George: "Oh God, you're right!"
Gracie: "Hey...look at all the real boobs in there. I almost forgot what they looked like."
George: "Hehehehe!"
Gracie: "Seriously, though? I'm almost uncomfortable with this."
George: "With what?"
Gracie: "Seeing real boobs all over the place!"
George: *Gives Gracie a quizzical look*
Gracie: "See, because in today's porn, it's always these ridiculously massive, fake boobs and I guess you just get ...anesthetized to it."
George: "I don't get it"
Gracie: "Well...with fake-boob-porn, it's like it's fake people. It's almost cartoonish and it's so out of the realm of reality, you know? And in THIS...it's all so REAL. It's more like watching REAL people doing stuff, so it feels almost..."
George: "...dirty?"
Gracie: "YES!!!"
George: "Huh."
....later....
Gracie: "Wait. I thought his name was FLESH Gordon."
George: "It is"
Gracie: "Then WHY does that Jerkoff jackass keep calling him FRESH!?"
George: "Hehehe, I do NOT know."
A few minutes later....
George: "Hehehehe, check out the fake fire! Isn't that SCARY!?"
Gracie: *Takes break from writing all of this and looks up* "Aaaahahaha! That's a RIOT!!!"
George: "Look at it! It never changes! Even when the scene changes - it's the same flames in the same locations and everything!! TERRIBLE superimposing, there."
Gracie: "This is HORRIBLE!"
George: "I KNOW! ...Isn't it GREAT!?"
Gracie: *Stares at George, bewildered, but of course he's too engrossed in this CrapFest to notice*
Yet another agonizing few minutes go by....
Gracie: "Did she just say she was going to do something bad to them with her...POWER PASTIES!?!"
George: "Mmmm-hmm"
Ooohh, and it just keeps going on....
Gracie: "Is that seaweed around their necks???"
George: "Uuuh...yeah"
Gracie: "But...weren't they just swimming through the sewer??"
George: "Yes."
Gracie: "So there's SEAWEED in the SEWERS of PLANET PORNO!?!"
George: "Apparently."
Gracie: "...Seriously? He's trying to save her by PUNCHING a ROBOT in the KIDNEYS!?"
George: *Nods his head*
Gracie: "Jesus."
George: "Oooo look. Isn't it good that he saved the men first, and not those pesky WOMEN-FOLK?"
Gracie: "Hehehe" and then "Ooooo, I just LOOOOVE the cartoony and bewitched-like sound effects. The zings and boings and stuff. AWESOME effects, man. Simply AWESOME!"
Later still...
Gracie: "Dude. things are blowing up all around them...so why is that guy walking along all slow and calm, like he's at the MALL or something??"
George: *Shakes his head several times and says...* "I don't claim to understand ANY of this."
And then, because my brain was MELTING from this horrid film, I couldn't write another word. It was awful. And yet...magically delicious.
