Sunday 19 October 2014

80 From the 80s - Flash Gordon



Flash Gordon

He’ll Save Every One of Us!

Studio: Universal Release Date: 5th December 1980
Director: Mike Hodges Starring: Sam Jones, Melody Anderson
Budget: $27M 2015 Equivalent: $82M
U.S Box Office: $27.1M 2015 Equivalent: $82.3M

When the plane carrying football star Flash Gordon and journalist Dale Arden crash lands into the house of Dr Hans Zharkov, the duo find themselves coerced into travelling to the plant Mungo, the apparent source of a series of bizarre weather phenomenon that Earth is experiencing. Once there, they discover Mungo is ruled with an iron fist by Ming the Merciless, and its up to Flash to put a stop to his plans before Earth is destroyed. 

The origins of Flash Gordon stretch back to the early 1930s. Created by Alex Raymond, the character first appeared in comic strip form on January 7th 1934 and was both inspired by, and in direct competition with, Buck Rogers.

Saturday 11 October 2014

80 From the 80s - Krull



Krull

‘A world light-years beyond your imagination’

Studio: Columbia Pictures Release Date: 29th July 1983
Director: Peter Yates Starring: Kenneth Marshall, Lysette Anthony
Budget: $26M 2015 Equivalent: $62M
U.S Box Office: $16.5M 2015 Equivalent: $39.3M

On the eve of a wedding meant to unite two rivals kingdoms, The Beast's army attacks, slaughtering many and kidnapping the bride to be. Prince Conwyn must join forces with a wise man, a magician, a cyclops and a band of theives in order to locate the only weapon capable of destroying the Beast. With time and many the forces against him, can Conwyn save his bride and the kingdom? 

Despite being one of the most expensive movies of the time, Krull is seemingly forgotten amongst the releases of the early 1980s. Taking its primary influence from Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, it sought to score box office gold in the late summer of 1983. With Return of the Jedi starting to look a little long in the tooth, Krull staked its claim to be the next fantasy epic.  

80 From the 80s - A New Project Announced

Welcome to the first chapter in a new project – 80 From The 80s. The idea is to take 80 movies released in the 1980s and chart their production and release history, adding background details and facts, along with analysis of their box office performance.

The series will take in all manner of movies, covering a variety of genres, actors and directors. The ultimate goal is to create a brand new book that takes in all 80 essays. Not every film choice will make sense, and there will surely be classics that won’t make the cut – but I hope everyone will find something of interest. This isn’t a best of the 1980s, rather a collection of movies that entertained.

The idea came about when I was watching Beverly Hills Cop at the Astor Theatre recently. It occurred to me that unlike today, when every single detail is known about a film prior to its release, little was generally known about the stories behind movies back in the 1980s. Only the bigger releases generally got ‘makings of’ and they were rarely seen outside of Starlog, Cinefantastique and the like. 80 From The 80s hopes to go some way towards rectifying that situation.

The project is anticipated to take around two years to complete, and I aim to try to and finish a new essay every couple of weeks. I hope to put a number of them online as they’re done – depending on how the writing goes moving forward. At the end, they’ll be compiled into a book – hopefully both print and digital versions.

80 From The 80s won’t be a film review guide, but will offer an insight into the films you loved and a desire to see those you haven’t.

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