I've been having this back and forth in my head for a while:
"We should go see that stupid movie."
"But it's going to suck."
"Yeah, but at least it'll give us something to write about..."
"But then we'll line that idiot author's pockets with even more cash. We don't want to do that."
"I know... But what self respecting, snarky writer would miss out on an opportunity like this? It'll be like shooting fish in a barrel."
Like that, for months.
In the end, I just can't make myself do it, I don't think. I've no problem sitting through really rancid movies, I've seen enough stinkers to know that about myself... But something rubs me the wrong way about paying cash to see something that pretty much goes against everything I try to express the importance of here. Consent, safety, healthy-happy relationships, "abuse is bad"... You know. Stuff like that.
So today I settled for watching the rating on rotten tomatoes (to my everlasting delight it started out low and then just got lower and lower as the evening passed. Currently it's at 27% approval rating on the Tomatometer ).
When I got home from doing Very Important Stuff and Things I started reading the actual reviews.
John Serba who writes for Mlive.com said- "Last time I checked, the desire to fast-forward through the boring stuff to get to the good stuff was a key characteristic of two specific genres: porn and ninja movies" and "Every line of dialog is loaded. Loaded like a diaper." Something stinks and I don't think it's your toddler...
Eric D. Snider from GeekNation pondered the future of the franchise in his witty, well-written review- "Presumably the sequels will explore forbidden taboos like "character development" and "plot." 50SoG makes sex more boring than you thought possible.
James Berardinelli of ReelViews opened his review with the line "Who would have imagined that a movie about sex could be so boring?" And drove that point home with "For most movies, a one or two sentence synopsis does a disservice - not so for Fifty Shades of Grey, which is so plot-deficient that its essence can be captured easily in a 140-character tweet: Shy college girl meets kinky rich dude who attempts to manipulate her into becoming a submissive to his dominant." 140 characters might be a bit generous.
Bill Clark (From The Balcony) called 50SoG "be the first film in history made specifically for the purposes of hate-watching." You'll love to hate me!
And I have to agree- I fully intend to hate the holy hell out of the movie just as soon as it's available on Netflix. I'm looking forward to that, at least.
Sadly, what I haven't seen yet are any reviews from the kink "community." You'd think that with a movie this big that portrays WIITWD on the big screen someone would have written something about it already... But then, maybe they're like me and have no desire to give EL James another, bigger, payday or to suffer through something else that slaughters the entire concept of healthy, happy kink.
Sigh.
So maybe I should go see it after all.
Goodness knows, I do enjoy a good snark, and getting annoyed by stupid shit is one of my favorite pass-time activities... And if I'm recalling correctly, Cookie's got two free movie passes in his wallet.
We shall see. Especially considering that tomorrow is VD and anything remotely couple-friendly is going to be a hot mess of jam-packed PDA consumer frenzy. Dunno if I'm that much of a masochist.
Edit to add:
I found this article by Salon that critiqued the BDSM in the movie, so maybe I can save myself a headache- The movie is even worse than the book.
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