Movie Adaptations...50 Shades of Grey

Last night, I rented via on demand, the controversial movie adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey.

Overall? I agree with A.O Scott's review in the New York Times.
Anthony Lane's New Yorker review reminds me of a upper crust Brooklyn Heights society dame reviewing a restaurant in Jamaica, Queens, as if she expected to eat at the Four Seasons. Madame Bovary this isn't, Lane states. Well, duh. Be like going to the Avengers and expecting, well The Watchmen or Dark Knight Returns. Not going to happen.

OTOH...it's no where near as risque as Last Tango in Paris, Five and a Half Weeks, or ahem Story of O. But neither were the books. Actually, it was a pretty tame movie. I've seen more explicit and far crazier not to mention violent sex scenes on HBO.

Snippets from Scott's review that I agreed with appear below the cut.

( Read more... )

Television Adaptations - Game of Thrones...

In my last post, in regards to 50 Shades of Grey film, I mentioned that I've seen far more violent sex scenes on HBO. Yep, pretty much. Take "Game of Thrones" for example - the writers only show us a sex scene if somebody is being raped. We rarely see anything else. Mainly because sex in of itself isn't all that interesting to watch. But still.

I've finished watching the most recent season of Game of Thrones, or GOT S5. And...
it has definitely left the books behind in some respects. Have no idea where they're going next. If you didn't read the books, you need no longer worry about fans of the books spoiling you. As shipperx pointed out in a post a while back, we're all Unsullied now. Book purists need not apply. [I think the book purists have stopped watching the television series for that very reason.]

Overall, it wasn't a bad season. There were some good points. Jon Snow, Ayra, Theon, Dany and Cersei's arcs for the most part followed the books fairly closely. Cersei actually is more likable in the television series, and more sympathetic. In the books, I kept wishing they'd just kill her off already. They didn't. Tyrion, Jorah, Stannis, Brienne, Sansa, Davvos, Mance Ryder, Melisandre, Little Finger, Jamie, Sam, and Myrcella's arcs did not follow the books - in some respects this was a good thing. The books meandered in part due to those characters arcs and GRR Martin's desire to add new characters to the plotline, as if he didn't have enough already.

I could have done without some of the added character deaths. Seriously, it's not like Martin doesn't kill off enough characters on his own.

( spoilers, in case there's anyone out there who hasn't seen it already. )

[ETA: Go buy my book!]

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The appeal of the movies of Wes Anderson are admittedly lost on me. I remember my brother lamenting about a bunch of film-makers that Kit and Cindy Carson were mentoring back in the 1990s. They were doing this film called Bottle Rocket, which my brother considered derivative and like a lot of indies out there. But alas, Hollywood loved it. While my brother and his wife's films were considered too experimental to be considered.

Guess who those young film-makers were? Luke Wilson, Wes Anderson, and Owen Wilson. I have to say I agreed with my brother - I find Anderson's films dull. They just don't engage me.

The latest is the Oscar nominated Grand Budapest Hotel. None of these movies had characters that I cared about. And the humor is in the commentary. It's absurdist humor, but you feel as if it is outside the story - so comes as a sort of after-thought.

The only ones that I sort of liked were The Amazing Mr. Fox and Moonrise Kingdom. But I thought they were sort of overrated as well. I guess I know why people go nuts over these films - they are different from most of the films out there.
But it's hard for me to forget my brother lamenting about the two privileged and irritating guys doing Bottle Rocket.

While on the other hand, I thoroughly enjoying watching Independence Day again.