My review of 50 Shades

Well, I saw it tonight. The myth, the legend, Fifty Shades of Grey, in where the question is asked: can a nice young girl find happiness with a psychopath who likes to tie her up? Dakota Johnson, the grown daughter of Miami Vice's Don Johnson, plays Anastasia Steele, a trembling young virginal wallflower who gets the attention of Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan), a billionaire who's into the kinky stuff.

Johnson is easily the best thing about this whole film. She has a pleasant, sweet quality that comes across very well. The movie itself is very silly; the bulk of the scenes consist of Ana playing 'will she or won't she?' with a guy who's got more money than God and wants her to be his playmate. There's even an extended scene where they're hashing out the terms of their relationship through a written contract.

The movie makers make the mistake of thinking people care more about the characters, when it was really the racy sex scenes that made the Grey books bestsellers. I found myself fast forwarding through a lot of the movie just to get to the good stuff. And the filmmakers, to their credit, don't hold back--Johnson has full frontal nudity in her scenes where she's tied up.

I haven't read the books, but I'm not fond of the movie's view that there's something wrong with people who like bondage and S&M (for one thing, many of us bondage fans, like me, just enjoy the bondage, not the S&M). The whole master/sub relationship between Ana and Grey has been sensationalized to amp up the drama; it should not be taken as an example of the lifestyle. Still, despite the overall silliness, the bondage scenes themselves are decent. No gags are involved; Johnson is blindfolded twice, and she's always naked. It's not a favorite movie of mine, but the scenes make it a keeper for me.

Supergirl is back!

Remember when only movies had trailers? Well, now TV shows have them, too. CBS released a LONG trailer about its new series, Supergirl. It's over six minutes, and gives a lot away, but from what I've seen here, I think I might really enjoy this. There's no dark, dreary tone; it seems to be more upbeat and cheery, like The Flash TV series (another show that I enjoy). Looking forward to this.

Pssst, go check out my DA page

Yep, I got another new picture up on the DA page. It's not the one above, it's completely different. Since I started creating my own pictures from scratch, it's taking me longer to make them. That's because I'm no longer using photos as the backgrounds.

I may consider waiting until I have two or three pictures before updating the DA page. Or maybe you'd prefer one at a time? In any case, take a gander at the new pic right here.

Oh, and Happy Mother's Day!

It Follows

I've been hearing about this new horror movie for a while now. It's called It Follows, and deals with a supernatural entity that stalks the members of a group of young people right after they have sex. But Maika Monroe is having problems on her own, as she's seen here getting kidnapped by a would-be lover.

The guy ties Monroe to a wheelchair in an abandoned building while she's still clad only in her underwear.

I haven't seen this yet, so I'm not sure what's going on, but aside from the fact that it's got a nice scene, I'd still like to see It Follows because it looks interesting. This clip was from Bulldozer, and you can see it here.

NOTE: If you go to download this clip and see the above, make sure you UNCLICK the slot (which reads, "download with sendspace accelerator and get recommended offers). Once you unclick this, then hit download and it will take you to another page where you can download the clip properly.

If you leave it clicked while downloading, then you will also get ads and other unwanted stuff with your download. I have no control over Sendspace, I can't stop them from doing this, but I can at least warn people about it.

Happy Star Wars Day!

May 4 is known as Star Wars Day. To celebrate, a bunch of geeks crashed a toy super star destroyer in slow motion (just like how Darth Vader's SSD crashed into the hull of the Death Star in Return of the Jedi). May The Force (or Fourth) Be With You!

My (new) Deviant Art Page is Updated

I've got a new picture up on the new Deviant Art Page. I changed pages there because I lost the password to the old DA page.

Now I've decided to challenge myself by creating all-computer generated imagery. It's turned out to be a lot harder than I'd originally thought. But it's also a lot more rewarding in many ways. There seems to be a lot more freedom this way.

You can see the new pic right here.

Avengers: Age of Ultron

I saw The Avengers: Age of Ultron on its opening day. I watched it in "real" 3-D (as opposed to "fake" 3-D?) in a theater that was packed to the gills with people. The movie was a lot of fun. But then any film that has an army of killer robots flying around is fine by me.

Unlike the first Avengers film, which had Black Window tied to a chair, there was nothing like that in this one. No bondage scenes whatsoever. Still, despite this, I had a great time watching this. If you're looking for a good, fun popcorn film, you can't go wrong with Ultron.