Mr. Brown Versus

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

With Awards Season now in our rear view mirror, I'm spending today and tomorrow putting a capper on 2014 with my thoughts on this year's Oscar telecast, and (finally) releasing my picks for the best of the year. Sunday night was the 87th annual Academy Awards telecast, and if I could sum it up in a word it would be the following: tedious.  The Oscar telecast has always been a chore to sit through as the viewer has to endure the most boring aspects of the program - the awards for the technicals (Cinematography, Visual Effects, Sound Editing & Mixing, Makeup, etc.), the films no one has bothered to watch (Documentary Feature & Short Subject, Live Action & Animated Short), the "In Memorial" segment, but the dull & yawn-inducing aspects of said broadcast can be tolerable as long as there's a host with solid material. As someone who enjoys the less-than compelling aspects of the yearly telecast, as stated earlier, was a bloody chore for me to sit throug

Last October, I wrote a letter to Jeffrey Wells about his posts, and how I was afraid that, for all of the controversial, inflammatory and sometimes nasty and mean-spirited posts, he was simply writing them to be controversial and inflammatory, to get more hits on his site and to more people talking about himself. Over the past few days, I got his answer. And it wasn't pretty.  First, there was him talking about Patricia Arquette attending the Santa Barbra International Film Festival. What did he have to say? Arquette explained to a  Telegraph  interviewer  a year ago that “ you don’t have to buy your mate’s fidelity by looking a certain way …if you’re really in it for the long haul, ten pounds isn’t going to make — shouldn’t make — a world of difference.” I don’t know how to put this gently but nobody in the world welcomes a mate putting on weight… no one . Plus the 46 year-old Arquette has gained a bit more than ten pounds since her performances in  Flirting With