As it turns out, the makers of the legendary "Flesh Gordon" were also the makers of the first-ever theatrical hardcore feature. What's fascinating is that the genre has really not fundamentally progressed one inch past what they do here. Oh, some of the details may have changed, but we still get about fifteen seconds of plot every ten minutes, interspersed with the predictable carnal content. Which isn't bad, actually, and the plot stuff is better: charmingly forthright and silly. Admittedly the dominant image I'm carrying around afterward is of the unremitting full-screen vaginal closeups - probably because I saw it in a theatre; web porn has nothing on this scale of spectacle, not to mention the social component of watching it with a roomful of skeptical youngish middle-class types. (And let's not forget the peppy harmonica that accompanies these images on the soundtrack!) It's not particularly cool that the brief incest scene is played for titillation before it rotates into light irony. But for the most part this story of people of various ages and genders seeking out their various sexual relations strikes me as a positive statement, in its severely limited way. It looks like they're having a lot of fun!
Review of Mona: The Virgin Nymph
