Sanctuary (2023) - Movie Review

For about as long as I’ve shown any real interest in film, I’ve always tried to advocate for enjoying films regardless of where that enjoyment comes from. I have sat through way too many bad films that I went into knowing that they’d be bad, of my own free will, to turn my nose up at what anyone else chooses to do for fun in their off-time. And while I can’t say I have all that much first-hand experience with S&M and other such play routines, quite a bit of my understanding of engaging with media, and indeed my championing of Edgelord Optimism (finding positivity in disturbing and weird shit), shares a lot of DNA with BDSM philosophy. Pain can lead to its own form of pleasure, even if it’s the hyperbolic pain of a bad movie.

Dear Fifty Shades (Fifty Shades Freed Review)

 

Dear Fifty Shades,

It is with a heavy heart and a reluctant hand that I pen this letter to you. With all the creations I have courted over the years, part of me wishes I would handle this the same way I have the others. But you are not any other creation. You and I have history together, and with everything I have put into this relationship, I couldn’t just leave you without explaining my side of the story. You may hate reading this as much as I hate writing it, but these words must be said. In the four years we have known each other, I haven’t exactly been quiet about what I perceive as your flaws. I once did this out of a sense of respect and wanting you to better yourself but… you just never stopped giving me things to notice.

Fifty Shades Darker (2017) - Movie Review

Well, the heavily-publicised holiday(?) of Valentine’s Day has come and gone, and hopefully you spent it better than I did. Back in 2015, I forewent the usual nothing I was planning on doing for this special day, put on my best suit and tie (that is to say my only suit) and went out to see Fifty Shades Of Grey on the big screen. I didn’t like it; here’s over 2000 words explaining why. Last year, things turned out a lot better with the release of Deadpool, and even considering my own misgivings with the film overall, it was still a fun night out. This year, it’s back to what I guess can be called business as usual with the follow-up to that film I am so utterly apathetic towards. So, I dusted off the same suit and (somehow) got someone else to tag along with me this time around, and sat down to prepare myself for what will be coming my way next year with the finale. Time to dig into this bewildering follow-up and see how exactly this managed to be even worse than the original.

Fifty Shades Of Black (2016) - Movie Review

Since starting my month-long movie marathon, have to admit, the results have been a lot more positive than I was expecting. Sure, not all of them have good but, at worst, we’ve only really touched the realms of lame instead of outright bad. Well, time to change all that. I’ve talking before about watching movies as a form of emotional therapy, and as masochistic as it is, that involves bad movies as well. If there is one thing that cinema has taught me when it comes to the emotional condition of humanity, it’s that even anger has its place in the output. As such, it’s time for me to delve into Fifty Shades territory again, which once again means that I’ll discuss indulging in painful acts under my own volition, as well as revisiting the spoof movie. Let the airing of grievances begin! This is Fifty Shades Of Black… ugh, even the title of this thing makes me cringe.

The Duke Of Burgundy (2015) - Movie Review

In a society where Rule 34 is enforced by smut peddlers on a global scale, we have grown strangely accustomed to a wide variety of sexual practices. That is to say that we have found a way to look at pretty much any sex act and turn it into something to mock. I would argue that this is just a more harmless side effect of our collective attitudes to whatever isn’t of the norm, except it may not actually be harmless. Sure, making fun of people who think that being a member of NAMBLA is something to be proud of is more than fair; they should be more than used to the idea of being taken advantage of against their wishes. However, take something far less repulsive at its core like, say, BDSM. It undoubtedly falls into that general umbrella of “it’s your business what goes in the bedroom”, yet it is usually treated as either an easy target for jokes or an easy target for exploitation. As much as I think Fifty Shades Of Grey is far too silly to be taken seriously as a depiction of that lifestyle, it is still another in a long line of films that never think to treat it as something that humans do. Enter today’s film, which looks set to try and change that.

Fifty Shades Of Grey (2015) - Movie Review

It seems like there’s a lot of need in the world of internet criticism to find the next Twilight; a romantic film or series of films that can capture the cynical zeitgeist and bring us so many reiterations of “This is so bad, it’s hilarious” that we inevitably grow tired of it in record time. We’ve had a couple of flashes in the pan in recent years, like The Host and a myriad of other YA adaptations, but nothing has really latched on with audiences yet or at least in the same way Twilight did. Well, when news that the most successful Twilight fanfiction of all time (no, seriously, that’s what it started out as) was getting a film adaptation, there was much frothing at the mouth that this might be just what the doctor ordered. But how does it actually turn out?