Life After Flash Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		2.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.0

Life After Flash Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 19, 2019

Can you name all of the performers who have been nominated twice for Academy Awards for playing the same role? This rather exclusive group of icons started way back in the 1940s when Bing Crosby scored two nominations (and one win) for his work as Father O’Malley in Going My Way and The Bells of St. Mary's. It took a couple of decades for that feat to be repeated, when Peter O’Toole scored separate nominations for playing Henry II in Becket and The Lion in Winter. The sixties also saw Paul Newman score his first nomination as Fast Eddie Felson in The Hustler, a role to which he would return and ultimately score a Best Actor statuette for decades later in The Color of Money (becoming the only twice nominated actor other than Crosby in this aggregation to actually take home a trophy for his work). The seventies brought two almost successive nominations (Crosby’s were successive) for Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II. Sylvester Stallone scored his first nomination as Rocky Balboa in the seventies as well, becoming the performer with the longest span in between nominations when he scored another one for playing the same character in Creed. Cate Blanchett is the last member of this exclusive society, and the only woman (thus far, anyway), garnering Oscar nomination nods for her two portrayals of England’s legendary Queen in Elizabeth and Elizabeth: The Golden Age. After having watched Life After Flash, a rather interesting if detour laden “journey” with Flash Gordon star Sam J. Jones, it occurred to me that recent Bohemian Rhapsody Best Actor winner Rami Malek might be able to join this august group by recreating Freddie Mercury once again in a film focusing exclusively on covering Queen’s music for the film, which even this documentary suggests at times may be Flash Gordon’s most memorable achievement.

The fact that there even is considerable “space” given over to Queen’s involvement, including a sidebar featuring Brian May at the piano, is perhaps just one sign of the one major issue afflicting Life After Flash: it sometimes doesn’t seem to know what its focus is. The documentary starts out as a rather heartfelt exposé of Sam J. Jones’ travails in the wild and wooly world of Hollywood, travails only exacerbated by Jones’ own self confessed ego problems and other issues. But the piece keeps darting off into kind of weird tangents, all of them admittedly related in some way to Flash Gordon, but frequently without much in the way of necessary contextualizing or development.

Even the ostensible main focus on Jones could have used a bit more information at times. There’s some really fascinating data imparted about Jones’ “temperament” as shooting was getting underway, but precious little insight is offered about what was evidently a major blow up between Jones and producer Dino de Laurentiis. Martha de Laurentiis (whom I interviewed for Blu-ray.com years ago when she was on a promotional junket for Hannibal: Season One) gets into some of the fracases Jones was involved in (as in physical altercations), but she only offers a few passing comments on Jones simply not returning to the shoot after a break for the Christmas holiday that year. Then there are some brief talking head comments about Jones being dubbed as a result, but no actual underlying “cause” for it all is ever really divulged. (Jones does state he was being given bad advice by his management team, but even that doesn’t really offer a whale of a lot of explanation for what actually happened.)

All of this seems relevant since there are a number of other talking heads, including co-star Melody Anderson and actress Teri Copley, who seem genuinely upset by what happened to Jones. In fact Copley actually tears up in discussing Jones’ troubles over the years. But the documentary kind of steadfastly avoids getting into those troubles, only hinting at things. All of this said, Jones comes off as a really decent, hardworking guy who was forced by fate to reinvent himself (there’s footage of him running a security company, one of his main “gigs” these days). There are also some wonderful interviews with Brian Blessed (who is incredibly animated), Topol, and a gaggle of folks attending various Comic Cons, where Jones and Anderson evidently do quite a few personal appearances.

Life After Flash will probably be a field day for Flash Gordon fans one way or the other, but even they may come away wishing the documentary had elucidated some of its issues a bit more clearly, or at least more fully. What becomes obvious, though, from the standpoint of both those involved in the production as well as those who saw the film as kids is that Flash Gordon turned out to be unforgettable for any number of reasons.

Life After Flash Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Life After Flash is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of MVD Visual and Cleopatra Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.90:1. This has a somewhat more heterogeneous appearance than even many similarly structured "talking head" documentaries do, to the point that I suspect some of these interviews may have been captured at lower resolutions than others. A few isolated interviews look a bit digitally sharpened at times, though the bulk of this presentation offers good detail levels and an accurate looking palette. There is repeated use of snippets of the film, replete with "tracking issues" seen on the "view screen" that is part of the film itself (see screenshot 9), and that same "view screen" approach also offers archival video (screenshots 12 and 15), some of which can look pretty ragged. A couple of suit jackets that some of the interview subjects wear present intermittent resolution issues, with moiré patterns just on the verge of breaking out, especially when the guys move a bit and the jacket "topography" changes as a result.

Life After Flash Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Kind of strangely for a label which has made its name in the music industry, Cleopatra offers only a lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 mix for this outing. That will probably suffice well enough for fans who are here for the talking head information, but the documentary does travel to "Queen land" (sorry) for a moment or two, and lossless audio certainly could have upped the ante for the music if for nothing else. There's nothing here to really complain about, other than the fact that this far into the Blu-ray era, my personal opinion is that lossless audio should be as much of a standard as 1080 video.

Life After Flash Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Brian Blessed on Hawkman Filming (1080p; 3:42)


• Extended Comic Con Sequence (1080p; 13:05)


• Deep Roy "Ambition" Rap (1080p; 1:21)


• Melody Anderson on Improvisation (1080p; 1:48)


• Sam J Jones on His Move Into Acting (1080p; 9:04)


• "Tell Me More About This Man Houdini" (1080p; 1:27)


• Sam J Jones "Prayer Walk" In Full (1080p; 2:09)


• Excerpt from Chattanooga Film Festival's SCRIPTS GONE WILD Script Read with Sam J Jones as Flash Gordon (1080p; 5:22)


• Official Trailer (1080p; 2:19)


• Slideshow (1080p; 1:58)

The supplements feature a "Play All" option.

Life After Flash Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I wish Life After Flash had been a bit more thorough in its discussion of issues Jones faced (or perhaps created), but that said, there are a ton of really great interviews in this piece, including with many members of the principal cast and crew, as well as a number of notable fans (including Stan Lee, amazingly enough). Fans of Flash Gordon will probably want to check this out one way or the other, but even those who can't stand that particular film may find this a rather touching account of one man's quest for his own redemption. Video is decent if occasionally problematic, but the lossy audio may prove to be more of a disappointment for those considering a purchase. With caveats noted, Recommended.