Fifty Shades Freed

On Sunday I saw Fifty Shades Freed, starring Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan.

In this third (excruciating) installment of the most popular worst trilogy ever made, Anastasia (Johnson) is married to Christian (Dornan) and has to navigate their new life, which includes taking an extravagant honeymoon to France; preparing a new mansion/love nest; 'working' as a book editor and fending off the attacks of her disgruntled former boss (who harbors a secret that involves her husband).

Before you question why I even sat through this, let me provide you two reasons:

1) The films are set in Seattle, near where I live and work, so I enjoy seeing "home" on the screen.
2) My friend's birthday is this week and she planned a girls' night around the film to celebrate.

See—I had no choice. But no, this wasn't good.

Was it fun to hoot and holler at during the saucy scenes? Sure. Was it great to see beautiful scenes of France and Washington? Absolutely.

But dear God, that dialog couldn't be worse. Honestly, Ms. Johnson and Mr. Dornan should get some kind of award just for keeping a straight face during what are supposed to be "dramatic" scenes. They are amazing.

And for pure visual pleasure, I still think we should have had more of Christian than Anastasia, but that's not how it played out.

At least in a few moments Anastasia truly exerted her girl power and took control of her situations.

Small consolation for such a dud.

~~~

I Wrote for Drink Tank 300

Yep, the Hugo-award winning Ezine recently published volume 300 and I wrote a piece for it in the 'My Favorite Movie Theatre' section.

You can check it out here.

My story is on page 172 (entry 240/241) and my bio lands on page 260.

I couldn't be more honored that I was asked to participate!

Outsourced

This morning I screened the film Outsourced, starring Josh Hamilton and Ayesha Dharker.

Stay tuned to Cinebanter for my full review—coming soon.

Zoo

Tonight I saw Zoo, a disturbing docudrama about a community of people who have sexual relationships with horses and other farm animals.

What possessed me to sit through this?

Well—the fact that the story it's based on made major headlines in my state, and that horrible curiosity I'm plagued with because I'm human. Thankfully, I had a friend who was just as curious as me, so we went to the film together (as this was not a flick I wanted to show up for alone).

Anyway, the movie details the events of the summer of 2005 as told by some of the members of the 'zoo' community who were present and the horse 'rescuer' who took possession of the animal after the incident.

What happened was, a group of men would meet at an Enumclaw, Washington ranch (after making initial contact through a zoo chat room), have drinks, watch movies and take the party outside. I don't need to be more graphic than that.

And what transpired one July night is what the entire film focuses on—one man—a divorced, father of one and engineer for Boeing, bled to death after intercourse with one of the horses.

Horrific, eh?

Yes. And what's more horrific is that by all accounts (save for the zoo habit), this guy was a productive, taxpaying member of society who boasted a promising career, loved his kid and had a great friendship with his ex-wife.

So how did he get there?

That's the problem with this movie. We have no idea.

Although the interviews are honest and meditative, they don't really offer any insight into why these individuals don't seek partnership with members of their own species. If I went into the theater wanting to learn anything tonight, it's how the hell some people find themselves so mentally messed up that they prefer the stimulation of an animal to a human.

But nothing about the film answered that question—and it's not exactly something you want to have in your browsing history should you decide to investigate for yourself.

If anything good came of the incident, it's that beastiality is now illegal in Washington state (it wasn't at the gentleman's time of death) and perhaps the awareness the movie will bring will make ranch owners check up on their livestock more often.

And I thought I'd seen it all...