Remember when Valentine’s Day was about fancy chocolates, dozens of long stemmed roses and Cupid targeting lover’s hearts with his trusty bow and arrow? With the release of the soft-core-porn soon-to-be-blockbuster, “Fifty Shades of Grey,” this year Cupid’s arrow isn’t aimed at the heart.
Based on the erotic thriller by E. L. James, the movie stars Irish actor Jamie Dornan as handsome C.E.O. and slap-and-tickle enthusiast Christian Grey and Dakota Johnson, the daughter of Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith, as Ana Steele, a literature student sent to interview Grey, only to find herself under the spell of the businessman’s exotic proclivities.
According to the young, impressionable woman he is “polite, smart and really intimidating.” Showered with gifts like a first edition of “Tess of the D’Urbervilles,” she submits to his charms—he’s wealthy, good looking—allowing him to go all a-type on her, in and out of the bedroom.
“I exercise control on all things Miss Steele,” he says, a character trait he expresses through BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism). “I don’t do romance. My tastes are very singular.”
I’ll cut to the chase. There are sex scenes, there is nudity and yes, Virginia, there are whips and chains but don’t expect the smutty stuff from the books. Director Sam Taylor-Johnson has whipped the material into mainstream theatre shape, shaving the rough edges off the novel’s explicit kinky sex scenes.
The randy pair spend more time talking about their sexual liaisons than actually getting horizontal… or suspended… or anything else. They blabber and negotiate—“I’m not going to touch you,” he says. “Not till I have your written consent.”—yammering on about submission, domination and safe words till even the Marquis de Sade would nod off from boredom. But for all the talk, we never learn anything about why Grey is disposed to liberally mixing his pleasure with pain. “It’s the way I am,” he says. He doesn’t go to dinner or movies; he simply wants her to earn his devotion by being his submissive.
This is communicated simply, with a combination of “sweet” talk –“If you were mine you wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week.”—and predatory behaviour that, if not for his billions, would land him in jail for stalking or worse. The psychological introspection on display here makes Dr. Phil seem like Friedrich Nietzsche.
Of the two leads Dakota Johnson seems ripped from the pages of the book. Her gamine innocence and girlish giggle convey the emotional rawness necessary for the character to work. She is naked, emotionally and physically—unlike her co-star who, for all we know, is as anatomically correct as a Ken doll—with a propensity for drunk dialling and permanently dewy look about her that betrays the confusion and attraction Ana feels toward Grey.
Dornan has the thankless role. His grim-faced Christian Grey is an unemotional cipher, a bubbling cauldron of unexplored trauma and Dornan plays him straight faced which much have been tough while delivering unintentionally hilarious lines—call it a domination comedy or dom com—like, “Roll your eyes at me again and I will take you across my knee.” His delivery is just as sexy as that time your cranky old grandfather said it to you when you were ten. His burning passion is conveyed by his intense gaze, which often looks clinical, as if he’s examining her naked body for irregular moles.
“Fifty Shades of Grey” feels like an elegantly made—the cinematography and score are top notch—night time soap opera. It’s a cliff-hanger—expect the inevitable sequel to pick up EXACTLY where this film leaves off—and the kind of R-rated movie that feels more like a cold shower than a hot romance.
Like a violent “My Fair Lady,” “Kingsman: The Secret Service” takes a guy from the wrong side of the tracks and transforms him into a Kingsman Tailor. They are a super spy organization with manners that would make Henry Higgins proud and gadgets that James Bond would envy.
Harry Hart (Colin Firth) is a Kingman, codename Galahad. He’s a dapper Dan and a dangerous man who takes rebellious teenager Eggsy (Taron Egerton) under his wing, in part to repay a debt owed to the boy’s father, in part to groom him to join the organization.
The Kingsman are the modern day knights; their finely tailored suits are their armour. If Eggsy makes it through “the most dangerous job interview in the world” he will adopt the name Lancelot and take his place in a glamorous and dangerous 007ish world of intrigue.
While Eggsy is in training Galahad is investigating the interesting case of internet billionaire Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson)—imagine a more malevolent Bill Gates or Steve Jobs with aspirations of world domination… oh wait….—and his evil plot to save the world by destroying it and starting again.
At one point Galahad says, “Give me a farfetched theatrical plot any day,” and director Matthew “Kick-Ass” Vaughn grants that wish. Working from a 2012 spy comic book series written by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons, the director has embraced the story’s absurdity, delivering a demented movie that is at once an homage to James Bond and his ilk and a satire of spy movies.
Then idea of the gentleman spy is played out to the nth degree—a proper Kingsman even has his own martini, gin, stirred for ten seconds while glancing at an unopened bottle of vermouth—but this isn’t a genteel movie. Ultraviolent—one frenetic fight scene makes the shooting, stabbing, punching and impaling of the bloody “Walking Dead” look like “My Fair Lady”—and raunchy—a smirky sex joke at the end would make even James Bond raise an eyebrow—“Kingsman: The Secret Service” pushes the limits, and is as extreme as it is entertaining.
Vaughn clearly has franchise hopes here and lays a good foundation despite some lapses in taste, but it is difficult to see how much more he can push the envelope before even the not-easily-shocked Galahad might think it was too farfetched.
Based on Jason Robert Brown’s Off-Broadway hit, “The Last Five Years” is a musical about half a decade in the relationship of struggling actress Cathy (Anna Kendrick) and novelist husband Jamie (“Smash” star Jeremy Jordan). Told from two perspectives the story weaves and bobs as we’re told, simultaneously, about the birth and death of their love affair.
Her tale begins with the breakdown of the relationship. His starts at the beginning (it’s a very good place to start, as they say in musical theatre) as they court and eventually marry.
There are some undeniably winning moments in ”The Last Five Years.” Sitting alone in her—formerly their—apartment, the opening number is a somber examination of the aftermath of a divorce. “Still Hurting”—“ Jamie has new dreams he’s building upon, And I’m still hurting.”—takes a risk by kicking things off on a downbeat note but Kendrick’s tender, heartbroken delivery is a welcome doorway into the relationship.
It’s Kendrick’s earnest commitment to the material that keeps “The Last Five Years” afloat. Her scenes are, by and large, terrific—although her line “I’m up ev’ry morning at six, And standing in line, With two hundred girls who are younger and thinner than me,” sounds a bit ridiculous coming from the lips of the wispy actress—but she is let down by the staging of the film hat confuses minimal staging with intimacy. No chandeliers fall from the ceiling. There are no giant puppet giraffes. Instead director Richard LaGravenese adopts a very natural look and tone that suits songs like the opening number but is less effective on the bigger numbers like “A Miracle Would Happen.”
Then there is the unusual story structure. The he said/she said construction, played forwards and backwards, negates the possibility of a clear-cut climax. Add to that the non-chemistry between the leads and you have an all-singing-all-dancing musical that falls flatter than Britney Spears with a broken Auto-Tune machine.
An opening shot of a pale hand reaching out of a coffin to switch off an alarm clock signals that “What We Do in the Shadows” is not your average vampire movie.
Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, creators of the series “Flight of the Conchords,” are Vladislav and Viago, two of a group of vampires who share a house in modern day New Zealand. Like their flat mates, Deacon (Jonathan Brugh) and the Nosferatu look-alike Petyr (Ben Fransham), they’re having trouble adapting to undead life with roommates. “When you get four vampires living in a flat, obviously there’s going to be a lot of tension.” They have the same arguments all roomies have—the splitting up of chores, forgetting to put newspaper down before killing someone in the living room—and things don’t get much better when some new blood in the form of Nick (Cori Gonzalez-Macuer) decides that being a vampire really sucks.
Just when you thought mockumentary and vampire movies had played themselves out along comes “What We Do in the Shadows,” a vampire mockumentary that feels fresh and funny. The movie answers some burning questions—How does a stylish vampire get dressed for a night out when they can’t check their look in the mirror?—and has fun with undead mythology but it is when the film treats the characters as regular, technology challenged, pain in the neck people, that the movie really draws blood.
In the upcoming film Kingsman: The Secret Service, Colin Firth plays a veteran of an independent international intelligence agency.
“The Kingsmen agents,” he says, “are the new knights.” He recruits a rookie (Taron Egerton) into the agency’s training program — “the most dangerous job interview in the world” — just as twisted madman Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson), launches a plan to bring down the Kingsmen and cause world chaos.
Echoes of James Bond hang heavy over the story. There are suave spies, a warped villain in the vein of Dr. Julius No or Ernst Blofeld, an evil henchman, or in this case henchlady, named Gazelle (Sofia Boutella) who has knives where other people have feet. Above all, it has gadgets. Firth and his fellow agents — Michael Caine and Mark Strong — have umbrellas that deflect bullets and Zippo lighter hand grenades among other thingamajigs that no spy should leave home without.
Ever since 007 was kitted out with an attaché briefcase equipped with a folding sniper rifle, ammunition, a knife and 50 gold sovereigns in From Russia With Love, gadgets have become de rigueur in spy stories.
From jetpacks to a mobile phone with a stun gun and fingerprint scanner, Bond always had the coolest contraptions. His most famous gadget, the Aston Martin DB5, was introduced 22 minutes into Goldfinger. Bond’s big rig came fortified with machine guns, ejector seats, a back shield, oil slick, rotating licence plates and tire slicers.
The car has appeared in six movies with later models featuring upgrades like a rear facing water canon, a jetpack stowed in the trunk and a cloaking shield.
Bond’s awesome auto has inspired many other souped-up spy-mobiles, including the Pontiac GTO from xXx. Xander Cage’s (Vin Diesel) car came with stinger missiles, parachutes, a flame-thrower and exploding hubcaps.007 and xXx have sweet rides, but the Our Man Flint spy parody had the wildest stuff. Derek Flint’s (James Coburn) watch not only told time but doubled as a microscope and his lighter had “82 different functions,” he said, “83 if you want to light a cigar.”
Richard hosted two “In Conversation” long form on-stage interviews during the Victoria Film Festival and judged a BravoFACT Pitch Competition which awarded $35,000 to Vancouver based filmmaker Mary Galloway. Read about it HERE!
Thanks to Ron James @TheRonJamesShow Feb 8 for the tweet: “Had best interview ever with @RichardCrouse yesterday AM @VicFilmFestival, praising the hidden boons of our road less travelled.#VICTORIA”
Thanks to Ratfish Comedy @RatfishComedy Feb 8 for the tweet “@RichardCrouse and @Mark_DMcKinney in fascinating chat at @VicFilmFestival” and Mark McKinney @Mark_DMcKinney Feb 9 for tweeting, “@RichardCrouse U were an awesome interviewer. I owe you a Tiki head.”
Richard shares an in-depth interview with Jason Whyte and Mark Leirner-Young of Reel West Magazine on Victoria, British Columbia’s CinemaSpiel Podcast.
Remember when Valentine’s Day was about fancy chocolates, dozens of long stemmed roses and Cupid targeting lover’s hearts with his trusty bow and arrow? With the release of the soft-core-porn soon-to-be-blockbuster, “Fifty Shades of Grey,” this year Cupid’s arrow isn’t aimed at the heart.
