Fifty
Shades of WTF
 This
was a real toughie. I couldn't immediately
decide if the word on the sign should read "Dignity", "IQ" or
"Standards", but I finally chose the latter
as it seemed to
cover more ground.
The movie, as though you haven't already
heard, is raking in a minor fortune at
the box office even though critics generally
agree it's a very fragrant species of tripe.
Rotten Tomatoes weighs in at 25% favorable
while Metacritic gave it a failing grade
of 47.
The plot of Fifty Shades of Grey is
stunningly ludicrous, and I haven't been
as disappointed
in America's embrace
of
a
"romantic" film
since
Pretty
Woman.
What? You thought that was a good movie?
Really? Yes, I know, it's the top-grossing
rom-com of all time but there wasn't one
single moment in that film that made a
lick of fucking sense. First and foremost
we were to believe that a billionaire with
the looks and intelligence of Richard Gere
is going to be scragging
for dates by the hour from his car? Seriously?
People, and by "people" I mean "women who
have the same fondness for Harlequin novels
that Keith Richards has for Mesopotamian
reindeer
dust", seem
to intentionally forget
that
Vivian, Julia
Roberts'
character,
was an actual prostitute, and
it takes a lot of really, really bad
personal life decisions to
end
up
as a streetwalker. It's not cute, it's
tragic.
(Minor digression: Legalize prostitution,
regulate it and tax it.)
The shame of it is that Pretty Woman could
have been a very clever movie if
Vivian had only been mistaken for
a hooker by Richard Gere. She could have
just been talking to her hooker friend
when Gere drives up. She's obviously a
smart person and could have
played Gere
along
just to see what he would do and then
found herself trapped in the lie. Who
knows, maybe Gere could have seen through
her ruse
and turned the tables without letting on,
making it a real battle of wits. Instead
we have Gere forking over his credit
cards
without hesitation to a whore he just met
so she could thrill the audience with a
common female sexual fantasy: Shopping
for clothes
without
a limit.
Ugh.
=Lefty=
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