This blog will present news items about the motion picture business, with emphasis on lower budget, independent film in most cases. Some reviews or commentaries on specific films, with emphasis on significance (artistic or political) or comparison, are presented. Note: No one pays me for these reviews; they are not "endorsements"! Starting in May 2016, many of the reviews for new feature films have been done on a hosted Wordpress site, and this blog now mostly does shorts and older films.
Since the 1990s I have been very involved with fighting the military "don't ask don't tell" policy for gays in the military, and with First Amendment issues. Best contact is 571-334-6107 (legitimate calls; messages can be left; if not picked up retry; I don't answer when driving) Three other url's: doaskdotell.com, billboushka.com johnwboushka.com Links to my URLs are provided for legitimate content and user navigation purposes only.
My legal name is "John William Boushka" or "John W. Boushka"; my parents gave me the nickname of "Bill" based on my middle name, and this is how I am generally greeted. This is also the name for my book authorship. On the Web, you can find me as both "Bill Boushka" and "John W. Boushka"; this has been the case since the late 1990s. Sometimes I can be located as "John Boushka" without the "W." That's the identity my parents dealt me in 1943!
"Fifty Shades of Grey": aka "The Ocelot the Way He Isn't"
There’s a lot of hype about “Fifty Shades of Grey” (directed by Sam
Taylor-Johnson, a woman), based on the novel by E. L. James.
The basic setup is that a gradually college co-ed Anastasia
Steele (Dakota Johnson) does a clumsy interview with young billionaire
Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan), and he, by persistence, manipulates her into
becoming his private sex slave.
Actually, as the movie progresses, it becomes a question of who really
controls the relationship, which is always a main point of S-M. He doesn’t sleep with anyone or marry anyone. He controls his partner. In return, the partner gets to have him (or
experience “upward affiliation” with him).
He even draws up a legal contract between the Dominant and the
Submissive.
Does all this deserve the controversy and objection from
some women? Probably not. Because the movie is really about what can be
done with fantasy life, where someone can take it.
It’s possible to compare this film to a couple others,
dealing with abusive or perhaps S-M relationships. One of these is “The Duke of Burgundy”,
reviewed here Feb. 10. That was in turn
compared to “Bugcrush”. That is, when a “yielding”
person is courted by a “power” person and wants it, where will the storyteller
take it, since so much of a fantasy element, which tends to dead-end, is in
play?
Christian’s company is housed in a spectacular tower in
downtown Seattle. The movie says that
Anastasia lives in Portland, OR, and goes to school in Vancouver, WA. The film credits say much of the harbor
scenery is in Vancouver, BC, and some indoor work was shot in London. There is also a side trip cross-country to
Savannah, GA, which looks real. (Remember “Midnight in the Garden of Good and
Evil” from 1997? -- "New York is boring") That is followed by a
glider trip in Georgia mountains, which would be 200 miles away. There is also a scene that looks like it was
shot in Olympia National Park (I have been there once, in 1996). In fact, I saw John Grisham’s “A Time to Kill”
in Port Angeles, WA on that trip.
Christian does have about fifty business suits all in “grey”,
which kind of gives him a “cloudy day” look.
(Somehow I think of the antonym, actor Richard Harmon who calls himself “just
a big ball of sunshine”). He does not
like to be touched. He says he is 27 but
looks more like 34, as imdb says the Irish actor is. The repeated disrobings in the film tend to
dilute erotic suspense; the bodies are
not the most remarkable in the world, in my taste. The dialogue, though taking itself seriously, often comes across as genuinely funny. Twice in the film Grey says he is not "gay", with some funny effect. (The first time, Amanda indeed is in mandatory "do ask do tell" mode as a reporter.)
The film (official site here) is officially distributed by Focus, to brand it for the “indie market”, but
produced in part by Universal, which puts its Wagnerian logo on the film. That’s unusual.
Fox has another YouTube video where it reads comments by
Robert Jeffress to the effect that this movie in combination with gay marriage
will bring about the Apocalypse, here.
One could make a distant comparison to “The Man in the Gray
Flannel Suit” (1956), which I saw around 2000 on cable, with Gregory Peck,
directed by Nunnally Johnson. Not the spelling of the garment tint adjective.
Besides these other comparisons, there is a basic similarity
to the short story “The Ocelot the Way He Is”, which is the last chapter of my “Do
Ask, Do Tell III” book. Again, a
power-submissive relationship, encouraged by the aggressor, in my case in a gay
context, but subtle and in a “road movie” setting. And the “submissive” character winds up doing
what he should do after he gets what he wants.
In the meantime, the world around them is being taken apart by external forces. My story involves where fantasy takes you when you are confronted with external realities.
I saw the film at Angelika Mosaic in Fairfax, VA before a
fair audience Friday afternoon. The title might also appear as "50 Shades of Grey" (or "Gray"), but correct is to spell the number out.
Wikipedia attribution link for downtown Seattle picture in public domain, by “Rattlhed”. I have been in the city in 1966, 1976, 1978,
1990 and 1996.
Update: March 8
Vox Media has a story by Kelsey McKinney about the "Bechtel Test" for motion pictures, regarding the engagement and importance of female characters (when not played by Bette Davis), here. I'll have to consider this test for my own writing.
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