I have completely forgotten what prompted me to put Flash Gordon in the queue, but Netflix sent it anyway, so we watched it. It was better than I remembered/expected. The visuals -- sets, costumes, cinematography -- are actually quite good. An excellent spectacle. I think the movie suffers mostly from having a weak leading man who can't figure out what to do with the part. The dialogue is... not great (especially before they leave Earth), but everyone else sort of dives in and goes for it, and that works. Flash stays sort of distanced from the fundamental weirdness, and that doesn't. Plus it's got Brian Blessed as Prince Vultan, which has got to have been a role that was written for him specifically, it's so perfect. His mouth opens really wide. It's kinda scary. ...annnnnd now I'm thinking of him as Fizzgig from The Dark Crystal. Thanks, brain.
Also, I just found out that the main paper for our project at work now has 59 citations. I'm 5th author on it. Nice!