A FILM REVIEW OF ''FIFTY SHADES OF GREY" (2015)

Despite its unsavory sadomasochistic subject matter, this cinematic adaptation of author E.L. James’ erotic bestseller “Fifty Shades of Grey” (** OUT OF ***) qualifies as puritanical.  I can say this because I managed to get through ten chapters of the book before I saw the Universal Pictures release.  “Nowhere Boy” director Sam Taylor-Johnston and “Saving Mr. Banks” scenarist Kelly Marcel have sanitized James’ novel and turned it into an antiseptic, “Cinderella” style fairy tale about an affluent Prince Charming and a bookworm of an English Lit major.  Not that it matters, director Sam Taylor-Johnston is a woman rather than a man.  Johnston and Marcel have forged a film that features simulated sex scenes without steam and cardboard characters without souls.  Mind you, “Fifty Shades of Grey” isn’t as abysmal as the amateurish “Addicted.”  Johnston stages several sex scenes where actress Dakota Johnson bares only her breasts, while actor Jamie Dornan displays little more than his carefully sculpted abs and buttocks.  Ladies hoping for a glimpse of male genitalia are going to be sorely frustrated because “Fifty Shades” is R-rated rather than NC-17, like both “Shame” (2011) and “The Lover” (1992) where full frontal nudity was conspicuous.  Comparatively speaking, little if anything risqué occurs until the concluding scene.  You won’t see anything like the candle dripping sex in the Madonna movie “Body of Evidence” (1993); the kitchen sink sex between Michael Douglas and Glenn Close in “Fatal Attraction,” or the infamous “Last Tango in Paris” where Marlon Brando improvised on Maria Schneider with a blob of butter.  Subsequent adaptations of James’ two novels may pass up on the prudish approach after Universal studio executives have analyzed audience tolerance.  Altogether, this soft-porn entry in the trilogy shouldn’t hoist anybody’s eyebrows.

Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnston of “The Five Year Engagement”) is a shy, virginal, doe-eyed brunette who majors in English Lit at Washington State University and works at a hardware store.  She shares an apartment with her best friend, blond-haired Kate Kavanagh (Eloise Mumford of “In the Blood”), who serves as the campus newspaper editor.  As the action unfolds, woebegone, pajama-clad Kate is wrestling with a cold.  Kate persuades Anastasia to pinch hit for her on a newspaper assignment.  She sends her out to interview bachelor billionaire Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan of “Marie Antoinette”) who rules a colossal corporate empire.  Basically, Christian is the Bruce Wayne of hanky-spanky.  An orphan who survived the death of his crack-addict mom, Christian has amassed a fortune, but he harbors a deep, dark secret.  When she enters ‘The House of Grey,’ Anastasia knows little about him.  Anxious about her assignment, Anastasia makes a klutz of herself when she enters Grey’s office.  No sooner has she crossed the threshold than she stumbles and crumples to her hands and knees.  Realizing she hasn’t made the best impression, Anastasia recovers her confidence and begins the interview.  Initially, Christian adopts an icy attitude toward her, but he thaws out once they start talking.  Christian finds the way Anastasia chews her lip so irrestible that he cancels his next appointment.  Some of Kate’s questions shock Anastasia, particularly when she quizzes the tycoon about his sexual orientation.  A life-long bachelor who has never been photographed in public with a woman, Christian explains that he has little use for conventional romances with hearts and flowers.  A relieved Anastasia leaves Christian behind in his phallic monolith of a building and cruises home.  As it turns out, Anastasia is just as captivated with Christian as the latter is with her.  Later, they go on a date, and eventually he deflowers her.  He wants Anastasia to join him in a sexual liaison as a ‘submissive’ to his ‘dominant.’  Christian and she negotiate terms of a contract.  For example, the open-minded Anastasia has no problems with being tied up and titillated with a peacock feather, but she draws the line at vaginal fisting and genital clamps.  Meantime, Christian does everything he can to corrupt Anastasia, buying her a Mac notebook and replacing her classic Volkswagen Beetle with a shiny red Audi.  Ultimately, Christian convinces our heroine to let him show her how bondage can be enjoyable.  Nevertheless, Anastasia isn’t as gullible as she seems.  At fade-out, she gains the upper hand in their bizarre relationship.

The casting in “Fifty Shades of Grey” creates half of its problems.  Dakota Johnson makes an ideal Anastasia.  She gives a believable performance as a naïve college student who has just graduated and treasures the kind classic 19^th century British fiction that Thomas Hardy wrote.  The Austin, Texas, born actress seems wholly comfortable with her casual on-screen nudity, and it is interesting to note that “Miami Vice’s” Don Johnson is her dad and Melanie Griffith of “Something Wild” is her mom.  Dakota isn’t as goofy as her literary counterpart Anastasia.  Sadly, lean, handsome Jamie Dornan doesn’t cut the mustard.  He doesn’t behave like a ruthless cutthroat who owns a billion dollar corporation, and his performance is considerably less spontaneous.  Although he wears his apparel well and delivers his dialogue with crisp precision, Dornan looks more like a callow amateur.  In all fairness to Dornan, he impersonates a character that doesn’t seem remotely believable, and his lack of personality underlines his lightweight performance.  The other big problem is the film seems as impersonal as a bargain basement torture rack.  Basically, Johnston and Marcel have designed it as a bondage primer that cautiously advances from one elaborate interlude to another without drumming up any melodrama.  Primarily, the filmmakers rely more on winks rather than winces as our heroine navigates the dire straits of Christian’s sexual calisthenics.  Keep in mind, Anastasia doesn’t say no until she knows better.  Gradually, Christian peels back the layers of his paranoia, revealing himself as an onion that initiates our heroine’s tears and fears.  When director Sam Johnston shifts the focus from the game of sexual chess between Anastasia and Christian, the film sacrifices suspense.  Undeniably, “Fifty Shades of Grey” will keep your eyes wide open, but it dwells more on tease instead of sleaze.

FILM REVIEW OF "THE BALLAD OF JACK & ROSE" (2005)

You either love “The Ballad of Jack & Rose”(**** out of ****) or you hate it. I loved it, but I hated watching it the first time because it is a genuine work of art with shocks and surprise that you cannot prepare yourself for and you shutter when you see what is going to happen. Furthermore, I can understand why some people would heap praise on this quirky bit of avant-garde filmmaking while others would condemn it to oblivion. The characters lack sympathy. They are all very selfish. The protagonist turns over a new leaf toward the end, but you don't see it coming. “The Ballad of Jack & Rose” is for people who take movies seriously and have no time to waste on Hollywood hokum. You don’t watch this film to relax and unwind. The story of the destruction of family is serious business despite some humorous interludes. Imagine watching a soap opera that could masquerade as social commentary about America after the 1960s. It is the kind of movie that would be terrific as the epilogue to class about the Hippie movement, Free Love, return to the wilderness, and it segues into the environmentalist movement. This movie is not suitable for children and if you cannot watch it in a single sitting, you are liable to feel like you are serving time just to get through its one hour and fifty-one minutes. The cast is extraordinary with Oscar-winner Daniel Day-Lewis delivering a slam bang performance while Catherine Keener. Writer & director Rebecca Miller has helmed a film that is the American equivalent to an Ingmar Bergman film. Subtlety is the order of the day in “The Ballad of Jack & Rose.” The characters are neither stereotype nor are they unrealistic. There are times, perhaps best described as uncomfortable, when lenser Ellen Kuras makes her camera such an integral part of the setting with the characters that you feel like you’re eavesdropping on these two families and their troubles.

“The Ballad of Jack & Rose” takes place in the year 1986 on an island off the East Coast of the United States. Essentially, this is a soap opera about the theme of jealousy. Jack Slavin (Daniel Day-Lewis of “My Left Foot”) is a naturalized Scotsman who was once an engineer. Now, he is an ex-hippie turned environmentalist who sees no salvation in a future hard-wired by technology and growth has settled on this anonymous island where he lives now with his 16-year old daughter Rose (Camilla Belle of “Push”) since his wife went away. You can catch glimpses of the Slavins’ earlier lives during a scene about three-fourths of the way through it when Rose shows 8mm home movies about them. Jack’s wife left him and he has been raising Rose. Every quarter our protagonist leaves the island for the mainland and hooks up with Kathleen (Catherine Keener of “Living in Oblivion”) to satisfy his sexual needs. Recently, Jack has learned that he has heart disease and he isn’t getting around as agilely as he used to so he invites Kathleen and her two sons, Rodney (Ryan MacDonald of “Halloween: Resurrection”) and Thaddius (Paul Dano of “The Girl Next Door”) to join them.

Aside from an occasional guest, such as Gray (Jason Lee of “Mallrats”), nobody visits the Slavins. Gray shows up to bring Rose her flowers, otherwise, Jack and Rose are left alone entirely to themselves. This unconventional lifestyle has turned Rose into a near-sighted illusionist. She doesn’t want to share anybody with Jack. Indeed, when her father raises the subject of his imminent death, Rose notifies him that she plans to commit suicide after he dies because life won’t be worth living without him. Of course, Rose’s confession horrifies Jack, and he asks her to recant. The only other interlopers on the island are the construction workers who are building a series of apartments for a land developer, Marty Rance (Beau Bridges of “Norma Rose”) and Jack has a running feud with Marty. Marty knows that Jack is responsible for harassing his workers and creating acts of vandalism against his property, but he hasn’t called in the authorities. Jack holds the issue of wetlands over Marty’s head. You see, Marty is building his real estate on government protected marshlands and Jack threatens to expose him if he doesn’t cease and desist.

Meanwhile, matters reach a boil when Kathleen and her teenage sons arrive and set up house with them. Jack assures Rose that the presence of these outsiders is nothing more than an experiment. Reluctantly, Rose accepts them. Initially, nothing untoward occurs until Rose behaves like a voyeur and watches Jack and Kathleen hope in the sack for sex. As Jack and Kathleen have sex, Rose approaches Rodney with an invitation to have sex with her. Rose is a virgin. In fact, she has never been kissed and earlier she tried to persuade Gray to kiss her but he refused. Unfortunately, for Rose, she cannot seduce the paunchy Rodney who never removes his windbreaker jacket and has decided to become a hairstylist for women. Rodney agrees to cut her hair. Deliberately, she arms herself with a double-barrel shotgun and invades their privacy. When they pause to recognize her, she discharges the shotgun more out of shock than design. Indeed, Rose wants to share her father with nobody.

Later, Rose has a tryst with Thaddius who is a diametrical opposite of his younger brother Rodney. They have sex in her room in her bed. The next day Jack sees the sheets waving in the breeze with a blood stain on it and the words “This is an experiment” with an arrow pointing at the blood stain. Of course, Jack is furious. Rose is still trying to get back at her father for having sex with Kathleen. In fact, she has stolen one of Thaddeus’s cages to trap copperhead snakes and has put it under her bed. During her rendezvous with Thaddius, their bumping and grinding released the door to the cage and snake got out. Later, Kathleen freaks out when she sees the copperhead. Jack cannot find it. Jack has a showdown with Thaddius on the site of an old commune and they fight about his having sex with Rose. Jack knocks Thaddius out of a tree and breaks both legs and an arm. Kathleen takes her son back to the mainland, but before they leave, Thaddius tells her that Rose tried to kill her by releasing the snake in the house.

Writer & director Rebecca Miller doesn’t flinch at tackling uncomfortable themes. During one scene, Jack winds up being kissed by his daughter on the lips and he feels guilty. Eventually, Jack dies and Rose turns their house (they shun television) into a floral arrangement and sets it on fire while she curls up next to her death father. Just when you think that she is going to die with her dad, she breaks out and goes off on her own to make a life.

FILM REVIEW OF "FROM HERE TO ETERNITY" (1953)

America in the 1950s developed into a land where conformity ruled. Suburbs with look-alike housing proliferated in the form of Levitttowns. People grew fearful of anybody who criticized the American way of life. These critics became easy targets for anti-Communist crusaders, like The House Committee on Un-American Activities, whose mandate it was to investigate anybody with suspicious activities that might threaten America. Meanwhile, the affluence and domesticity that swept America were reflected in lowered rates of divorce and homicide. Nevertheless, some Americans feared that people had sunk into a morass of complacency and conformity that came with the impetus of a consumer-oriented, materialistic culture. Novelists in the early 1950s challenged this ideology and dealt with individuals trying to maintain
their personality in the midst of mass culture that oppressed them. These problems had lain dominant since before World War II. Former soldier turned novelist James Jones unleashed them in his scandalous bestseller "From Here to Eternity" (1951) about the dehumanizing environment of peacetime military life at Schofield Barracks on Oahu, Hawaii on the eve of the infamous Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. The novel explored many themes including adultery, promiscuity, sadism, and racism. The climate of the 1950s virtually guaranteed that Jones' novel, which was very critical of the U.S. military, would never illuminate the silver screen. Nothing, however, could dissuade Columbia Pictures studio boss Harry Cohn would producing the novel. Cohn called on MGM contract director Fred Zinnemann to helm the project. They agreed that filming "From Here to Eternity" without the cooperation of the U.S. military would make such a production impossible.

Producer Buddy Adler, a former Army officer himself, helped resolve the conflicts between the military and the filmmakers so that a palatable version of "From Here to Eternity" could be produced. Columbia Pictures not only had to placate the military but they also had to contend with the repressive Production Code Administration, the industry's internal censors who objected to anything that did not portray American and its institutions in an idealized manner. Meanwhile, Cohn and Zinnemann argued about the casting, especially of Montgomery Cliff, who eventually won the role over studio contract player Aldo Ray, the man that Cohn originally favored for the role. Cohn and Zinnemann cast Deborah Kerr, whose reputation for playing prim women, went against the grain of the role she would have. The most notorious bit of casting involved the hiring of Frank Sinatra, whose career was tanking horribly, instead of Broadway performer Eli Wallach. "From Here to Eternity" (**** out of ****) is best remembered for the torrid kissing on the beach scene with Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr that was later parodied in "Airplane!"

The first time that we see Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt (Montgomery Cliff of "Red River") he is marching across the parade ground in the opposite directions of the soldiers drilling. Zinnemann deliberating staged the opening scene so that it would be clear that Prewitt differed from the rest of the men. Prewitt meets never-do-well Private Angelo Maggio(scrappy Frank Sinatra) and says that he has transferred out of the bugle corp. Maggio advises Prewitt that he has made a terrible mistake. Maggio states: "This outfit they can give back to General Custer." First Sergeant Milton
Warden (Burt Lancaster of "Criss Cross") lays down the law during their first encounter. "This here is a rifle company. You ain't supposed to enjoy yourself until sundown." Prewitt meets Captain Dana Holmes and explains that he accepted a demotion from corporal to private to transfer out of the bugle corps because his first sergeant transferred in a friend replaced him with the friend. Prewitt was the best bugler, but friendship counted more to the sergeant than quality. Holmes has pulled strings to get Prewitt into his outfit so that they can win the regimental boxing finals. Prewitt refuses to fight for Holmes. It seems that Prewitt blinded his friend Dixie Wells boxing and has since refused to don the gloves and enter the ring. "Looks to me like you're trying to acquire a reputation as a lone wolf," Holmes observes, and adds, "In the Army, it's the individual that counts." All of Holmes' sergeants, who do box, except for Warden, give Prewitt 'the treatment' to make him change his mind. Prewitt, however, doesn't capitulate. Meanwhile, Warden takes up with Karen Holmes (Deborah Kerr), and they secretly date behind her jealous husband's back. We learn that Karen lost a baby because her worthless, philandering husband was too drunk to take her to the hospital. They have an agreement not to inquire into each other's lives despite sharing the same house. Karen refuses to let Dana sleep in the same room with her. Warden is playing with fire because if he were caught, he could land in Leavenworth for twenty years.

Maggio introduces Prewitt to society in town at a place called 'the New Congress Club.' In Jones' book, establishments like these were really whorehouses, but the Production Code required that Columbia sanitize these settings into harmless social clubs on the level of USO Clubs. Prewitt meets a strikingly beautiful lady, Lorene (Donna Reed of "It's A Wonderful Life") and they fall in love. Meanwhile, Maggio clashes with a brute of a first sergeant, Sergeant Fatso Judson (Ernst Borgnine of "Marty"), who prefers to plink away on the piano with all the dexterity of a monkey. Judson's bad piano music interferes with Maggio's dancing with a girl and they confront each other. Prewitt pulls him off before Judson and he can fight. Holmes' sergeants redouble the hazing, but Prewitt holds his own against them, until the irritable captain wants to draw up court marshal papers. Warden intervenes and suggests that Holmes put Prewitt on double punishment duty. Eventually, Maggio goes
AWOL when he is supposed to be on guard duty, and he winds up in the stockade where Judson beats him mercilessly until Maggio escapes. Maggio dies in Prewitt's arms and Prewitt tangles with Judson in a back alley and they fight until Prewitt stabs Judson to death. Unfortunately, Judson stabs Prewitt who flees to the safety
of Lorene's house. Lorene came to Hawaii so that she could earn "a stocking full of money" and return to her small home town in Oregon to live out her life in style and respect. At the same time, Warden and Karen date and have to hide out from all military officers.

"From Here to Eternity" won Zinnemann the Oscar for Best Director. The film claimed eight Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Photography, and Sinatra, in his career reviving role, won a Best Supporting Oscar. The title of Jones' novel was derived by a Rudyard Kipling poem and the verb before it was deleted for obvious reasons, the complete line reads "Damned From Here to Eternity."
Although television made two remakes of this steamy soaper when censorship standards had relaxed considerly, neither of those remarks matches this sterling original.