50 shades of a cultural phenomenon
Friday, 27 February 2015 06:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amnisiasOkay, I've now succumbed and seen the 50 Shades movie with some girl friends (we all blamed each other for going - ah, is't peer pressure a wonderful thing).
main points:
The ads before the show were the best! We had condoms, cherry flavoured lube, lingerie & perfumes. Funniest though was an informercial about Premature Ejaculation from the aptly named Fire Too Quickly campaign.
Movie previews were really depressing. Man, are there many horribly bad movies around. We had Melissa McCarthy in a housewife as Bond comedy, something truly awful involving an American girl band battling it out with a German band at some competition, and something with lots of explosions and nothing much else. Will Smith is still looking good at 46, though. The UK was represented with the usual mild-mannered and whimsical fair (something involving gardening & Alan Rickman, and a sequel to the Marigold Hotel feat. Richard Gere.) At least the trailers didn't make me cringe....
As to the actual film, I find myself pretty much agreeing with this reviewer. Considering how .... really not good... the book was, the film is actually not that bad. Straight off the bat the movie is more palatable because it does not sprout Ana's exceedingly stupid internal monologue. The plot pretty much identical to th book with all the set pieces in place, but much less exposition and debate. The film is not really concerned with the whys and wherefores and leaves the viewer to figure it out for themselves, if they want to. It's much more of a visual affair, and I think that's a wise choice given the subject matter. On that note, I really liked the use of grey, muted shades and clear lines for everything relating to Christian's world, contrasted with warm colours for Ana and the play room.
Just like with the book the biggest stumbling block really is that there is just no basis for Christiian and Ana so completely and utterly fall for each other. Yes, they're both not bad looking, and Christian is very rich, but their initial encounter is so insipid and bland that it is ridiculous to stipulate that both of them are instantly infatuated with each other. They've also kept the extremely irksome trope of ugly duckling only to drop it after the frist scene. There is no explanation why Ana suddenly no longer wears frumpy dresses (the book at least superficially addressed this by Christian controlling what she was allowed to wear) and goes from falling over her own feet and mumbling to being self-assured and graceful.
In a nutshell, it's a perfectly okay film given what it aims to be, and even enjoyable, if you watch it with that in mind (and in the right company)
main points:
The ads before the show were the best! We had condoms, cherry flavoured lube, lingerie & perfumes. Funniest though was an informercial about Premature Ejaculation from the aptly named Fire Too Quickly campaign.
Movie previews were really depressing. Man, are there many horribly bad movies around. We had Melissa McCarthy in a housewife as Bond comedy, something truly awful involving an American girl band battling it out with a German band at some competition, and something with lots of explosions and nothing much else. Will Smith is still looking good at 46, though. The UK was represented with the usual mild-mannered and whimsical fair (something involving gardening & Alan Rickman, and a sequel to the Marigold Hotel feat. Richard Gere.) At least the trailers didn't make me cringe....
As to the actual film, I find myself pretty much agreeing with this reviewer. Considering how .... really not good... the book was, the film is actually not that bad. Straight off the bat the movie is more palatable because it does not sprout Ana's exceedingly stupid internal monologue. The plot pretty much identical to th book with all the set pieces in place, but much less exposition and debate. The film is not really concerned with the whys and wherefores and leaves the viewer to figure it out for themselves, if they want to. It's much more of a visual affair, and I think that's a wise choice given the subject matter. On that note, I really liked the use of grey, muted shades and clear lines for everything relating to Christian's world, contrasted with warm colours for Ana and the play room.
Just like with the book the biggest stumbling block really is that there is just no basis for Christiian and Ana so completely and utterly fall for each other. Yes, they're both not bad looking, and Christian is very rich, but their initial encounter is so insipid and bland that it is ridiculous to stipulate that both of them are instantly infatuated with each other. They've also kept the extremely irksome trope of ugly duckling only to drop it after the frist scene. There is no explanation why Ana suddenly no longer wears frumpy dresses (the book at least superficially addressed this by Christian controlling what she was allowed to wear) and goes from falling over her own feet and mumbling to being self-assured and graceful.
In a nutshell, it's a perfectly okay film given what it aims to be, and even enjoyable, if you watch it with that in mind (and in the right company)