Skip to main content

Fifty Shades of Snore

To say that Fifty Shades of Grey is a lighting rod of controversy is putting it mildly. There have been articles and counter-articles about E.L. James' best-selling novel about a young woman who begins an explicit sadomasochistic affair with a young and mysterious businessman, with some like Katie Roiphe of Newsweek criticizing the book for it's depictions of BDSM sex, and Amy Bonomi, Nicole Walton and Lauren Altenburger of the Journal of Woman's Health arguing that the author's tale of bondage and kinky sex has little to nothing to do with the sexual lifestyle and everything to do with highlighting and glorifying an abusive relationship; while others, like Sonya Sorich of the Ledger-Enquirer calling it guilty fun and escapism and Laura Barnett of The Telegraph praising James' exploration of sexual politics and her boldness to show and talk about frank sequences of sex between two consenting adults. I haven't read the book, so I'm judging the film on its own merits. Having said that? Neither the detractors of the book or it's supporters' views really ever appear in the film version, which is simply a tedious and dull affair to sit through. Like Twilight before, I understand I'm not the target demographic for this kind of thing, but would it kill the film to at least be interesting?


Dakota Johnson plays Anastasia Steele, the girl about to graduate from Washington State. She's doing an interview of successful billionaire businessman Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) for the school paper, and the sparks fly between the two (allegedly). A series of chance encounters only add fuel to the fire of their desires for one another desire (allegedly), until  Christian shows her his version of love and lust, in the form of his "playroom", complete with flogs, whips, switches, rope, nipple clamps and anal plugs galore! Basically, that's the whole movie - they meet, they fall in love, they fuck. He takes her paragliding and helicopter rides across the Pacific Northwest, she indulges him in his kinkier fetishes. She tries to get him to open up more, he pushes her away....well, you get the idea. I should note that the film hints from the very start that Dornan's Grey has a darker nature hiding beneath the surface, and with a better actor in the part, this would have made for a more complex and compelling character. In the end, Grey's dark and sexual nature comes off as a mere plot point for the film's climax (no pun intended).


I've watched Amber Rayne strapped on all fours, getting pounded in her asshole by a machine with a dildo attached to it, whilst sucking off some guy in a gas mask. I've seen Bonnie Rotten take two huge dicks in her mouth (at the same time), get chocked out, and then have both her holes plugged. Those scenes were more erotic and hot to watch than any of the sex scenes in Fifty Shades of Grey. Hell, I'd rather watch the porno spoof featuring Rayne as Anastasia and James Deen as Christian, because I'm positive there would be more chemistry between the two adult film stars than whatever passed for "chemistry between Johnson and Dornan. And that's basically the problem: the pair don't have any chemistry together, making the film's 40 minutes of build up tedious and boring to watch. Johnson's performance is mostly bland and one-note, while Dornan is miscast as this attractive billionaire with a fetish streak a mile long and skeletons in his closet, and very good character actresses Jennifer Ehle and Marcia Gay Harden as Anastasia's mother and Christian's adopted mom respectively, simply aren't given enough to do.


The script is just as dull as the acting itself, which is a shame because Kelly Marcel did a wonderful job penning 2013's excellent Saving Mr. Banks, capturing the struggle between P.L. Travers' reluctance to hand over her rights to the book to Walt Disney. Worst of all are the sex scenes themselves. Because there's no spark between Johnson and Dornan, when they do finally get down and dirty, the scenes just fall flat instead of titillating the audience. When you silently say to yourself that you've seen hotter sex scenes on porn sites like Brazzers and Naughty America, something has gone seriously wrong. The one good thing I can say about this dull film is that the cinematography by Seamus McGarvey is really good, and it deserves better than the film it's attached to. Also, Sam-Taylor Johnson knows how to set up a scene and capture the mood and atmosphere required. She, also, deserved better than what she and McGarvey were saddled with, but those two elements can't hide dull performances, a bland script and non-existent chemistry.

* star our of ****

Comments

  1. The only emotions this movie brought me were disgust that so many rapists cite it as an inspiration, and outrage that people blame the movie for white ones, but say "he was gonna do it anyways!" for minorities. The movie itself bored me to tears.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On Dynasties, Ignorance, and Moving Foreward To the Future.

In the beginning, I wanted Mr. Brown Verses to be a blog about movies, and that's it. Given how there's much more going on, like film analysis and how it relates to issues both here in America and beyond our borders; the annual predictions on the Academy Awards race; the state of the film industry; issues of ethnicity and gender roles in the business; the continued rise of fandom with both sexes; etc - it would be foolish to not  talk about it and just sticking with reviewing movies. Most of this has been hesitance on my end because I personally feel that I'm not as well-versed in the film medium to really speak on trends and whatnot. There are other, more eloquent critics and readers of the Award-season tea leaves that express these concepts so damn well, it's almost amazing they haven't been picked up by publishers like Entertainment Weekly or Rolling Stone or The New York Times, but I guess the idea that they stand apart makes their work more fearless, more rich

Cowardice

I was looking forward to watching the James Franco/Seth Rogen comedy The Interview  on Christmas Day, even more so than Angelina Jolie's WWII drama Unbroken , or Rob Marshall's Into the Woods . I like what the writing and directing duo of Rogen and his pal Evan Goldberg have done with comedies like Superbad , Pineapple Express and their debut feature, This Is the End . In light of Sony being hacked (which now appears to be North Korea's doing) and threats of attacking theaters that carry the comedy, three things happened today: 1.) Every major theater chain - AMC, Regal, Cinemark, Arclight, etc, had decided to pull out from showing The Interview  on its scheduled release date. 2.)  This prompted Sony Pictures to basically cancel the release date of the film amid threats of blowing up theaters. 3.)  Both Sony and the theater chains basically caved into the demands of cyber terrorism from North Korea. Are you fucking kidding me? We just caved into terrorist d

Mr. Brown Verses Battleship (Or: Michael Bay's Poisonous Influence On Modern Day Action/Blockbuster Movies)

Eventually, I am going to get to reviewing a movie that I actually liked, because I don't just want to be be bitching about terrible movies from the past and from the present In fact, there are two really great movies i'll be reviewing within the next week ( The Perks of Being a Wallflower and The Master ) that I think rank among the year's best; add to that the release of Ben Affleck's international thriller Argo , and you'll be seeing a weekend's worth of praise of movies from me, including my picks for the best movies i've seen thusfar. Now, before I tear into the latest review on the sci-fi action picture, Battleship , I need to give this movie some background; not as much on the board game that inspired this bloated and boring piece of crap, mind you, but rather, the director who's trademarks are all over this mess of a film: Michael Bay. See, back in 1998, Bay released a little movie that joined together an unholy union of the Dirty Dozen, the