Fifty Shades of Grey (2015) Lacks That Something Special

Photo Credit: Fifty Shades of Grey / Universal Pictures

One of the most negatively panned and yet most talked-about series ever should have nowhere to go up but up when it's adapted to the big screen. Of course, pun implied, we're talking about Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy by E.L. James, the literary, erotic, and controversial phenomenon. And yet for all the anticipation both by legions of devoted  haters and fans, the highly anticipated adaptation manages to coast between the lines to lack that something special the books achieved.

BDSM billionaire Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) recruits a young virginal graduate Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) into "his red room of pain", aka a sexual contract where she becomes his submissive. He has rules. If she follows them, he'll reward her. If she fails them, he'll punish her. A chance encounter sparks a torrid relationship between the two, one that leaves Ana questioning if she wants a relationship where pain is a part of the package and forces Christian to confront his emotional limitations.

Despite its reputation as an erotica and a relationship that's supposed to jump off of the page, the movie doesn't offer much in terms of an actual story. Ana meets Christian and is propositioned to be his submissive, but for reasons that are continuously glossed over (probably to save for the sequel), we just don't understand why they're attracted to each other. If the movie is trying to explore a young woman discovering her sexuality, Ana's struggle to decide whether or not to sign the contract comes in last to pushing and failing to break Christian out of his shell. And to be honest, as Grey, there's not much there in terms of actual brooding you'd want to know more about. In-between the awkwardly male-gaze sex romps, you just can't help but realize that in place of what could be an interesting romantic drama, the characters just go at it all the time because they can.

While there is no grand love story in the first film, it's admirable that this is not a straight-up porno. Though it has its fair share of inserting a sex scene just because there's a lot of them in the books, the erotica is still surprisingly tame. (Johnson physically bares so much more than Dornan, it makes one think: wasn't this supposed to be for female audiences?). Even if it's all there in terms of going at it like rabbits, the film is nowhere near the taboo adult world people can find and already enjoy online or the real world. So critics might imply that the sex was too safe, but a lack of gratuity set a refreshing pace for the never-ending honeymoon-mode lifestyle.

What ultimately saves the movie is how it translates the books, especially for the haters who ripped it apart for grammar and narrative issues. The movie aptly removes the ridiculous first person perspective of Steele invalidating herself with inner goddesses and forty sub-consciousnesses to elevate her as much as possible. And because the film relies on the headlining stars to make the story shine, credit for making Ana someone worthy to watch goes to Johnson who brings a smoky humor, sass, and confidence to a role that you didn't know had that capability to shine. And for Christian, though Dornan wasn't everyone's first pick, he manages to make Grey charismatic enough to wonder if there's more to him than meets the eye. Together, especially since Dornan was cast at the last minute, make a decent pair for what they have to work with.

No matter the creepy logistics that Grey continually shows up wherever Steele is, and every important conversation of getting to know each other is unevenly shelved for awkward sex scenes, director Sam Taylor-Johnson does her best with what she wanted to achieve. She manages to bring  tangible aspects of the books to life through the cinematography, costume, production design, soundtrack, actors, etc. while a smarter tongue-in-cheek script can be found underneath a story that jumps all over the place.  If you are a fan of the books, Taylor-Johnson makes it possible to want to watch the movie over and over, and I dare say, she gave the film more consideration than many probably would've. And her foundation is surely something the sequels will miss out on if she isn't there to helm Darker and Freed.

More than anything else Fifty Shades of Grey aims to please fans and author. Surely, hardcore fans will be satisfied with the results and the studios who scored on curious moviegoers. Everyone wins except for those who fall outside of those two circles. But to rise above its hostile criticism already, the film doesn't or can't strive to raise a bigger discussion about Ana and Christian's relationship. It skimps along the surface of its inspiration because if it delved too deeply into James's world, it could be one huge joke (an even bigger one to those who hate the series). What remains is a well-intended production trying as best as possible to get out of the grasp of the inner circle of the author and the mind-boggling success of her story.

For book fans: ★★☆

For me: ★¾☆

For everyone else: ☆☆☆

Have you seen Fifty Shades of Grey? What do you think?

Let's Go (Back) To There: Twister Soundstage

I love Twister - the 1996 action movie directed by Jan DeBont about competing storm chasers across Oklahoma. One of the perks of living in Florida is the occasional visit to Universal Studios Florida. An attraction that somehow has managed to avoid renovation is the Twister: Ride It Out Soundstage. 

The "ride" is a walk-through set celebrating the movie that broke summer box office records and beat out other action films like Mission: Impossible. Guests enjoy watching pre-production footage introduced by Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt, and then "survive" a replication of a tornado sweeping through a drive-in. 

Every time I go to Universal Studios, I'm not gonna lie: I have to do this attraction. My love for the attraction started out with simply enjoying the relief of air conditioning from the heat. But over time, I've been on it so many times, the film has become my one of my all-time favorites. 

As early as summer 2014, rumors have begun that the attraction will be replaced with something. I figured now's a perfect time to share some photos and videos. Hope you enjoy!

5 Underrated Movie Couples Worthy of More Love

Sandy and Danny from Grease. Rhett and Scarlett from Gone with the Wind. Jack and Rose from Titanic. The list of all-time swoon-worthy movie couples can go on and on. Yet it could be said that the pairings mentioned here are also a little overrated? The cinderella virgin changes her image for the high school jock. Gazillionaire Rhett Butler tries buying his way into spoiled Scarlett's heart only to say to hell with it all. Jack saves Rose in more ways than one and they end up at the bottom of the ocean together (sobs). For every favorite romantic duo, there are plenty more that deserved to make more hearts ache. Which is why for this day of love, I compiled a small list of underrated couples that deserve more ja'dore.

Kat and Patrick - 10 Things I Hate About You

Head over heels Cameron Jones (Joseph Gordon Levitt) vies for the attention of the selfish popular Bianca, who can't date unless her "heinous bitch" sister Kat (Julia Stiles) does. Matching up her anti-social feminist behavior to a mysterious troublemaker Patrick (Heath Ledger), their personalities clash at first before inevitably "falling in hate" with each other.

Before tumblr and snarky teenage films, there was this retelling of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. I'm pretty sure in smaller circles this movie is appreciated more, but there comes a time when one has to recognize that there was once a sarcastic couple before the hipster-cool Juno or John Green novels. Because they didn't play by the rules but instead made their own, Pat and Kat are mostly deemed as nobody's going nowhere and shouldn't be messed with. Their mistaken public personas help them find their other half who is just as misunderstood and a bit on the aggressive side. They have a rebellious honesty that wasn't so uncool it made them cool - they just are.

Paula and Elliot - The Goodbye Girl 

Set in New York City, dancer Paula (Marsha Mason) and her ten year old daughter Lucy welcome an Off-Broadway actor Elliot (Richard Dreyfuss) into their apartment as a renter. He, a bohemian meditative artist, battles personality-wise against she, protective single mother who have had men come into their lives, their hearts, and BAM! - hit the road. Over time as they get on each others' nerves and eventually that annoyance turns into adoration, it's wonderful to see how a couple learn to trust each other - even when one of them has to venture out on his own.

Evelyn and Rick O Connell - The Mummy

Evelyn (Rachel Weisz) is a smartypants librarian, who with her swindler brother Jonathan journey out into the middle of nowhere with an American gunslinger Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser). She has backbone, beauty and brains. Rick has plenty of swagger, an inevitability of facing death everywhere he goes, and works a gun like Han Solo knew his way around the Millenium Falcon. Waking an immortal enemy from the dead doesn't leave time for many things yet they fall for each other and slowly venture off into the sunset.

Rick and Evy are truly one of the best adventure couples, not only for the first film The Mummy but its sequel The Mummy Returns. Ever imagine how Indiana Jones and Marion would continue their trysts across the desert had the series been released as it was meant to be (Raiders of the Lost Ark after Temple of Doom). Rick and Evy return to her native England married and with a young son in tow. Yet she is still as fiesty as ever, he is still an adventurer, and they manage to kick another Ancient Egyptian's villains ass. Am I swooning in jealousy? Yes. Yes, I am.

Rachel and Luce - Imagine Me and You

Everyone remembers Brokeback Mountain. And, with the stunning performances between Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, it's not hard to be mesmerized by such a heartbreaking film. Yet released the same year and with little to almost no recognition there was another beautiful romance film starring two female characters falling in love: Imagine Me and You.

Rachel (Piper Perabo) is getting is married to Hector (Matthew Goode), and on their wedding day when surprised by a visit of the charming florist Luce (Lena Headey), the new bride's heart and attention is captivated by the beautiful redhead. Over a course of accidental outings and a bonding friendship, Rachel discovers her nonstop thoughts about Luce is more than just than but a true infatuation. It's love. Sentimental, funny, and definitely overlooked, Rachel and Luceare a refreshing down-to-earth couple in sea of misguided rom-coms that unite not in the most usual way possible but one of the sweetest.

Megara and Hercules - Hercules

As a young boy, Hercules is captured on Mt. Olympus and falls to Earth becoming a mere mortal. Once he discovers his place is actually among the Greek Gods, Hercules has to earn back his immortality. But there's two little problems: Hades (God of the Underworld) aimed for Zeus and a fiesty hellcat Megara - the latter of which is quite bewitching.

This isn't your usual Disney flick of boy-saves-girl jazz. Megara isn't the usual Damsel in Distress succumbing to a poisoned apple, bewitched spinning wheel, or barbaric beast. She is fed up with love. Even when she finds herself musing about Hercules, she won't admit it. Hercules isn't a no-personality prince. Strength and voracity isn't how he tugs on her heartstrings. By facing death and falling in love, Megara and Hercules don't try to change each other or become consumed in an all-perfect romance. They still ride off into the sunset like all royal Disney couples....but their happy-ever-after finale isn't earned in the stereotypical way.

Fifty Shades of Confused

Excluding a few excerpts I heard online and around friends, I had no idea what the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon was in 2011. The sweeping story of Anastasia Steele being swept off her feet by a control freak and "BDSM" millionaire Christian Grey didn't sound special, let alone memorable. Yet the series pulled in sales by the hundreds of millions and attracted just as many genuine readers. Parodies and celebrity readings went viral while targeted quotes haunted aspiring writers. Criticism of author E.L. James was less than favorable, and for the adult world of literature, the buzz for her series was as big as the magical obsession many bookworms had towards J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter.

If you follow me online, and put up with my incessant reblogs, you are well-aware of my current obsession with Fifty Shades of Grey. But, as obvious as my interest in the film might be, you can also call me Fifty Shades of Confused. I still don't know how I became obsessed with this series, even if most of it is directed towards movie.

What would a series where the author and editors copied and replaced the names Bella and Edward from Twilight into a literary sensation have anything to do with me? Three years later when the first movie teaser was released mid-2014, a little inkling of curiosity sprung out of nowhere. My excuse, was: HUH. I like the trailer. *fifty views later* Okay, I really like the trailer. Maybe in February I'd want to see the movie. Well, if I see the movie, I have to read the books. OMG, FIND ME THE BOOKS. THE MOVIE IS COMING OUT. I NEED IT NOW.

Genius of Reinvention: Matthew McConaughey

I loved EdTv growing up. The main character is an average Joe who is contracted by a television network to follow him around 24/7 by a camera crew. All of his personal relationships and family downfalls are aired for the world's entertainment. He becomes a major celebrity with college girls watching him every week together huddled in their dorm rooms, and temporarily he seems a hero to all of closest buds.

Before our culture eventually embraced the chaotic crazy world of crazies showing us every minute detail of their ordinary lives, the movie then seemed like a preposterous future. Today no channel is without a show about someone arguing with their friends, getting drunk, competing for cash, or showing off their ridiculous obsessions. Now, the movie seems less than special. Except to me it always has been because it brought Matthew McConaughey into my sphere.

He became my king of the big screen. His southern drawl, his good-natured spirit, his ability to play a normal guy with vigor and passion unlike I'd ever seen drew me immediately towards such an average character. McConaughey wasn't the first movie movie star I fell in love (John Travolta) nor the one that I declare to be my husband one day (Leonardo DiCaprio), but he was the biggest underdog.

Everyone seems to love McConaughey, or on some level, always did. Do you remember when he and Kate Hudson hit out of the park with How To Lose a Guy In Ten Days? It's your average chick flick of two people using each other to get ahead in their own careers, and then their "quirky" ambitions allow them to fall in love. Their chemistry was magnetic, McConaughey showed off his pecks, and the movie was a huge hit. Even before this chick flick that put him on every woman's radar, he was then building a career with popularized Dazed and Confused and Contact.

As a celebrity-loving culture, we often take severe notes over when we consider an actor or actress have hit their peak and 'fallen atrociously from grace'. Usually this happens in the course when someone's choices seemingly go from A+ material to something that may not even be worthy of a F- ranking.

A major tide turned for the Texan cowboy and his rom-com place in Hollywood: it went all over the map. In The Wedding Planner, Failure to Launch and Fool's Gold, and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past he was attached to portraying a charming manboy who could swipe the panties off his love interest three thousand miles away. Every character slighted differently  but the scope his career took didn't reach expectations. Most people only remembered those movies and thought that's as far as he could reach.

Though he was never far away from movie making - he's made at least one almost every year since the 1990s - Hollywood and McConaughey made himself "a comeback kid" in 2011. After a "rough" decade of varying dramatic roles (several that I loved) like Two for the Money, Reign of Fire, and We Are Marshall, he finally gained notoriety in some better executed indies.

Suddenly taking notice of this electric presence on-screen, critics and audiences agreed he had finally made a return. With roles like Killer Joe, Magic Mike, Mud, and most recently The Dallas Buyers Club, how could anyone possibly ignore him. Throughout genres, he's carved an image of anti-hero. He was trying to catch lightning with more dramatic roles and he caught several bolts finally lighting up the world.

Similar to action stars like Nicolas Cage, we as audiences don't expect actors who take on blockbusters to have the level of intellect or intelligence they show when they are gifted with the opportunity to show it. They become servants enslaved to our pop culture expectations that they only have one side of their abilities whether it's blowing things up or being a shirtless sex god.

Though the material may range for McConaughey's carefully crafted talent, no one can deny the enigmatic spotlight he carries in every motion picture. That brimming smile, his thick accent, and that palpable energy. When he talks, he's on fire. You're hooked to his every charismatic and charming word. During his SAGS award acceptance speech, most people only heard Neptune and wouldn't let it go. I was watching someone with passion for his craft which was finally being taken "seriously".

Nowadays, actors are so immensely chillaxed about their life and career they barely have any personality orr energy. Everything seems to roll so lackadaisically off of people's shoulders, nobody seems to be affected either positively or negatively by their success, failures, and triumphs. Everyone is riding on neutral. Except Matthew McConaughey - he's soaring and always has been.

Wild (2014)

Photo Credit: Wild / Fox Searchlight Pictures

Experiences have a way of building up inside of us, especially ones that are traumatic such as repressing the loss of a loved one or causing pain onto others as a way of trying to deal with our own. We also make choices that feel are beyond the point or opportunity to be reconciled.

At the tender age of twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed loses her mother unexpectedly to lung cancer. Faced the absence of the glue that held the family together, Strayed is alone and overwhelmed with grief. Suffering from a heroin addiction, sleeping with multiple partners, and divorced from her husband, she attempts to reconcile her bereavement by trekking Pacific Crest Trail - a 2,650-mile hike spanning California to Washington.

Raw, vulnerable and transformative, Wild is a rare unfiltered film centering a female protagonist and her quest for redemption. Based on the best-selling memoir (one of my favorite books last year), director Jean-Marc Valle's latest film brings the author's journey to life with organic showmanship.

Valle's vision for Wild treads deep into the visceral absorption of grief, compassion, and self-acceptance, and how nature can gift or we can give ourselves the opportunity to examine how we may be lost. It's almost a dizzying experience to become so enraptured with the unvarnished vulnerability which Strayed not only exposed to us in her memoir but how the director captures her story without kid-gloves. Strayed's torturous physical quest shoulders the haunting memories that consume her, and through finely-paced flashbacks, has the unique ability to make us lose ourselves in that sorrow. Though the cinematography is breathtaking, the environment is never a forced idyllic paradise. The story's conflict itself is not about the obstacles Strayed faces on her travels, nor even making it one from destination to another, but the inner journey she is forging one step at a time.

For Strayed, many events in her life were beyond her control. As a child, she watched her mother recover from a physically abusive relationship with an alcoholic husband, and as an adult, had to help her mom during her illness. In-between, they were best friends locked in a relationship of perpetual daughterly entitlement and motherly optimism. To help her deal with the loss, Strayed tries to temporarily fulfill her anguish such as quickies, brief affairs, and drugs. The hike becomes a freeing shift from the doubts and remorse that held her hostage to  face what it means to forgive herself and be forgiven.

A great credit to the film's vulnerability is Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern, both who deliver honest and gritty performances as Strayed, and her mother Bobby, respectively. The former portrays her protagonist over a variety of ages from teenager to young adult, all with an intense range of adolescent annoyance, emotional despair, and finally, liberation. Witherspoon's performance is nothing short of refreshing and layered after a few years of her work seesawing between critically praised and scorned. The latter is only scattered in the film primarily in Strayed's flashbacks, but magically conveys a mother's affirming love in her daughter and utmost faith in the world despite the battles she's faced. Not a scene shared between them or filmed separately goes unwasted. Both I dare say are more than worthy of the 2015 Oscar nominations they nabbed.

Quite literally living out in the middle of nowhere, I'm still plagued by the sound of the rest of the world, and sometimes even worse, my own mind. My most freeing moments is when I can silence it all by surrounding myself in nature. Ambitiously, Strayed is in search of, not a happy ending, but a better ending for herself and the one her mother always hoped for. Refreshingly, it's a wake-up call to those who plague themselves with doubts or regrets.  I don't think anyone should go entirely unprepared to hike the coast without training or knowledge of the great outdoors, or that everyone reaches whole peacefulness from a hike, but the story - both the book and the movie - prompts us to ask if could we find ourselves away from the invasive outside world. What if we gave ourselves the opportunity or an adventure to seek what might bother us underneath the surface and let it be?

One of the greatest joys in Wild is that it is decidedly un-Hollywood for a female protagonist to exert so much effort in liberating herself - from essentially - herself, and to do so because of the struggle of losing someone maternal rather than a romantic interest. The intention of Strayed's hike has nothing to do with the Hollywood fare we normally witness in a female character tangled up in romantic interests, materialism, and the outside world. It's not exactly the kind of movie that might attract a lot of attention or praise; a character sorting herself out in the middle of nowhere. But watching a character's candid heartbreak becomes an intensely rich and cathartic drama. A whole relationship between Strayed, herself, her mother, and the ghosts of her past develops, crumbles, and reaffirms itself in a few short hours (for the real Cheryl Strayed almost 100 days) - but it's the emotional and cinematic journey that will rest with me forever.

Rating: ★★★

Have you seen Wild? What do you think?

Wonder Women: Stella Gibson / The Fall

Over the past year, BBC made waves around the world with The Fall. Created and written by Allan Cubitt, it has become one of the vastly most popular crime shows in recent history. Centered around a handsome psychosexual serial killer Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan) of professional brunette women in their 30s, Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson) trails his violent depravity in Belfast, Ireland.

At first, I streamed the show on Netflix because HELLO, DORNAN with a beard. Instead, it was hard not to fall more in love with Gibson and Anderson's precise and gratifying performance. In fact, she inspired me to start a new series Wonder Women, which is my attempt to shine a light on fascinating and versatile female characters.