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Fifty Shades of Grey

So, I’ve seen a lot of people reading Fifty Shades of Grey these last few years. I’ve seen them reading it at airports, reading in their front yards while the kids are at play, reading while driving their cars on the freeway, reading at church with the book cleverly tucked in their hymnals, reading while violently kickboxing and, most notably, reading in public lavatories while jovially humming (very unsettling, that jovial humming). Everybody, everywhere has been reading that crazy book where the girl gets all bondage-like with the rich guy harboring major, major mommy issues. The Fifty Shades phenomenon has been impossible to avoid, and that virus has now spread to movie screens. While I managed to avoid the book as if it were an ill-tempered grizzly bear infected with Ebola and brandishing a shotgun, the cinema now beckons, so off to the Red Room of Pain I go. Subbing for her sick roommate, mousy college student with a porn name Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson), who is so innocent she doesn’t know what a butt plug is, goes to Seattle to interview billionaire business guy douchebag Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan). Grey’s offices are immaculate and adorned with supermodels. The place is also riddled with fancy pencils that have GREY stenciled on them, so that when Anastasia erotically sticks one in her mouth, its sort of like she’s sucking on Grey’s dick. Shortly after the interview, Grey starts stalking Anastasia at the hardware store where she works, but that’s OK because he has billions of dollars and looks like the result of a night of passionate lovemaking between Ryan Phillippe and Eric Bana. I mean, let’s face it, if Grey looked like Zach Galifianakis and

only had a quarter in his pocket, straight to jail he would go for such behavior. His psychotic courtship eventually winds up with Anastasia becoming his prospective bondage slave. He offers her a formal contract that, if she signs, will allow him to be the dominant and her the submissive in a kinky sex relationship that will involve spanking, humiliation, by Bob Grimm nipple clips and eating toast in bed. The sex scenes eventually happen and, bgrimm@ if anything, they provide some good, hearty newsreview.com laughs. While the screenplay doesn’t explain much, Grey’s sexual proclivities and needs to 1 abuse his mate have something to do with his being a crack baby. So I guess we’re supposed to feel sorry for him when he’s torturing his girlfriend because his mom was a stupid crack whore. Fair enough. When people aren’t having sex in this movie, which is quite often as things turn out, they talk in a somber, slow, irritatingly elongated manner. Everybody in this movie is a mopey, sodden sop. I love Seattle, but watching how residents behave and communicate in this movie makes me never want to visit the city again, even if the Mariners make the playoffs. On the subject of Grey’s dick again, take note: Dornan signed a “no dick whatsoever … sorry!” clause, so he never whips it out on screen. There’s plenty of Dornan ass, and Dornan chest, and Dornan chin scar, but no Dornan dick. So any of you out there highly anticipating a chance to see some massive Dornan dick will have to score a real life date with the guy, because there is no Dornan dick to be found in this flick. The guy could be a eunuch for all we know. The movie sort of just ends at the just over two-hour mark. Yes, those of you who get intensely, emotionally involved in the plights of Anastasia and Christian will have to wait, Empire Strikes Back style, for the sureto-happen sequel. Frantic negotiations have no doubt commenced with Dornan to get him to show the dick. I saw Fifty Shades of Grey on a Valentine’s Day late-night showing. I suspect there might’ve been some tug jobs and fingerbanging going on in the theater since it was the sweetheart holiday and, well, I heard grunting and snorting. If there were various acts of covert sex commencing around me, I’m pretty sure they were a thousand times more erotic and genuine than the hilarious supposed sexual antics occurring on screen. Ω

"Let's get wired."

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3American Sniper While Clint Eastwood’s film has plenty of problems, Bradley Cooper rises above the patchy melodrama and overly slick segments with his portrayal of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle. Kyle holds the American sniper record of 160 confirmed kills, and was killed by a veteran he was trying to mentor on a shooting range. The film works best when depicting Kyle at work in Iraq, constructing some very tense battle scenes and sequences as seen through Kyle’s riflescope. There’s a subplot involving an enemy sniper named Mustafa (Sammy Sheik) that feels like an entirely different movie. For some reason, Eastwood employs a showier style in the scenes involving Mustafa, which feel a bit false and artificial alongside the movie’s grittier moments. Saddled with the film’s worst dialogue, Sienna Miller battles hard in trying to make Kyle’s wife, Taya, an intriguing movie character. Cooper, who physically transformed himself for the role, does an excellent job of conveying the difficulties and stress that Kyle’s job entailed. He’s an actor forever taking risks and challenging himself, and he’s a big reason to see this movie. 2 A Most Violent Year While the cast and crew do admirable work, the script and pacing render this movie a near miss rather than the solid outing it could’ve been. Considering the talent on hand, that’s a bit of a shame. The film is a shining example of art direction, and one that boasts a firecracker cast with the likes of Oscar Isaac, Albert Brooks and Jessica Chastain. Set in New York in 1981, it certainly has the look of early Gift certificates to local merchants for up to 50% off ‘80s Manhattan—I lived half an hour outside of Manhattan at the time, so I know—it’s just not a crack example of storytelling. Writer-director J.C. Chandor (All is Lost) takes a slow-burn look at the life of Abel Morales (Isaac), a fuel company owner trying to grow bigger in the face of lawsuits and constant criminal attacks on his truck drivers. The film opens with one driver (Elyes Gabel) getting hijacked outside an NYC tollbooth, and he suffers through a vicious beating. His story becomes one of the threads that run throughout the movie. I’ve watched the film twice, and it simply doesn’t stand up well on a second viewing. Despite how real it looks, and some credible moments and performances, the film ultimately comes up a little dull and implausible.

1Black or White Kevin Costner plays a widower fighting for the custody of his black granddaughter (Jillian Estell) in this dopey, misguided and frequently offensive movie. Costner gets to be drunk for most of the movie, and it’s unintentionally funny. He and the rest of the cast are forced to play stereotypes in what adds up to a big pile of embarrassing nothing. It sometimes flirts with meaningfulness, but it degenerates into your typical courtroom drama where a bunch of jerks fight for the right to raise a precocious child. The whole thing feels dishonest, even straining for laughter in extremely inappropriate ways. Costner stumbles around, Octavia Spencer shakes her head a lot, and we face palm ourselves for over two hours. By the time the Costner character’s dead wife’s ghost goes for a late night swim, the film has become a complete disaster. It’s surprising to me that anything like this makes it past directto-video and actually hits movie screens. The film is as simple-minded as its title.

5Foxcatcher Steve Carell disappears into the role of John du Pont, the crazy rich guy who took it upon himself to shoot and kill one of the wrestlers on a team he created. Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo are heartbreakingly good as Mark and David Schultz, two Olympic gold medal-winning siblings who, unfortunately, worked for du Pont when he had his breakdown. Down on his luck and living on ramen noodles, Mark gets a call from du Pont inviting him out to his Foxcatcher farm. Mark finds a sense of purpose working with du Pont, and eventually summons his brother and his family to Foxcatcher. What follows is a descent into insanity for the attention-starved du Pont, who lives under the chastising eye of his mother (Vanessa Redgrave) and is obsessed with controlling others. The madness eventually ended with the death of one of the brothers, and du Pont living his final years in prison. Carell is amazingly good here; one only need watch a few minutes of the real du Pont on YouTube to know that he has nailed the characterization. Tatum and Ruffalo are equally good as the confused brothers. Mark Schultz is currently protesting director Bennett Miller’s portrayal of him in the film, and he might be in the right on a few aspects of that portrayal. Still, it’s a great film that leaves an appropriately sick feeling in the stomach.

3The Imitation Game Benedict Cumberbatch plays Alan Turing, who helped win the war against the Nazis when he and others invented a machine capable of breaking the Enigma code. Morten Tyldum’s film, while a tad cumbersome at times, does do a good job of illustrating the impossible odds Turing and his team were up against in trying to decipher the code. Keira Knightley (who had a nice 2014 with this and Begin Again), Matthew Goode and Charles Dance contribute to a strong supporting cast. Cumberbatch portrays Turing as a disagreeable, unlikeable social outcast who just happened to play a huge part in saving the free world thanks to his talent for solving puzzles. The film also delves into some of the more controversial times in Turing’s life, and sometimes the order of things gets a little confusing. Cumberbatch keeps the whole thing afloat with a typically strong performance.

3Paddington This one got pushed out of 2014, which had me worried it was worthy of the junk heap. As things turn out, this mixed animation treatment of the character created by Michael Bond is actually cute. Ben Whishaw voices Paddington, a Peruvian bear who travels to England looking for a home. He winds up in the abode of the Browns, where he quickly takes to causing major damage, creating a little marital strife for Mr. and Mrs. Brown (a delightful Hugh Bonneville and Sally Hawkins). Nicole Kidman has a lot of fun as the film’s villain, determined to trap and stuff Paddington. The movie has plenty of British charm, a couple of really good jokes, and the likes of Kidman, Bonneville and Hawkins in top form. As for Paddington himself, he looks pretty good, a solid animated creation mixed in neatly with real actors and actresses.

3The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water Things go bad for the sea creatures of Bikini Bottom when the hallowed secret formula for the Krabby Patty goes missing. The undersea home falls into a deep apocalypse with everybody wearing leather, and it’s up to SpongeBob and some of his cohorts to go above water and get the recipe back. The film is typical zany SpongeBob when it’s underwater, rendered in traditional animation (albeit 3-D). When they go above water, it’s a different story. Live action and CGI mix in a way that’s visually fun, but a little spastic at times. Still, there’s a spirit to the movie that’s always alive, and some great random humor (Bubbles the Future Dolphin is definitely a highlight). Antonio Banderas has some fun as a goofy pirate looking to start his own food truck using his pirate ship. SpongeBob fans won’t be disappointed, although they will probably enjoy the underwater scenes more than the flashier live action sequences.

4Still Alice Early-onset Alzheimer’s disease steals the mind of a very smart woman in this moving and heartbreaking film. Julianne Moore plays Alice, a professor at Columbia University who leads a very organized and regimented life of lectures, dinner parties and runs in the park. Alice starts forgetting words here and there, and then proceeds to lose her place in lectures. When she loses her way during a routine jog and can’t find her way home, she begins to realize that these aren’t normal memory loss problems for a 50-year-old woman. At first, Alice thinks she has a brain tumor. But some memory tests suggest to her neurologist (Stephen Kunken) that something else could be causing her difficulties. After a series of brain scans, the conclusion is made: Alice has Alzheimer’s. Moore gives us a deep, fully realized, multi-dimensional performance that never overdoes the sentiment or feels trite. Alice is a woman who prides herself on her encyclopedic knowledge for teaching, and exhibits nothing but grace as that knowledge is rapidly stripped away. Credit Moore for making every step of Alice’s tribulations seem honest and credible. A great supporting cast includes Alec Baldwin, Kristen Stewart and Kate Bosworth.