Posts Tagged ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’

Giant new Game of Thrones Spoiler ……!

Posted: November 24, 2015 in Popular Culture et al
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Game-of-Thrones-Season-6

You know nothing, John Snow? Officially, at least.

 

Is this the confirmation worried Jon Snow fans have been craving?

Winterfell will play host to a meeting between some big characters in Game of Thrones season six.

Fansite Watchers on the Wall reports a scene with Ramsay Bolton, his reluctant wife Sansa Stark and the endlessly conniving Littlefinger is being filmed in Northern Ireland this week.

Jon Snow is also in the scene, according to the fansite, and is also the subject of a new teaser poster from HBO, (see above), despite apparently dying (or at very least, becoming very over-tired indeed) from multiple stab wounds from his Wall-watching mates at the end of season five, adding further fuel to the rumour (aka desperate female fan hope) that he didn’t die or will somehow be resurrected.

The encounter takes place in the courtyard of Winterfell, the childhood home of Jon and Sansa that is now under Bolton (boooo!) control.

Adding to the tense scene, a giant then turns up at the gate and people have to fight it off. But it’s unclear whether the giant is Wun Wun or if another giant has made it south of the Wall.

Sophie TurnerPrevious spoilers have revealed that actor Alfie Allen, who plays Theon Greyjoy, has been in Northern Ireland to film Iron Island scenes. This latest news means Sansa and Theon did survive the jump from Winterfell they made at the end of last season. Which is encouraging for the growing legion of male fans of actress Sophie Turner, who has turned into a grown up at least as hot as her tumbling red tresses.

All of which is good news, but we are still reeling, Dear Reader, from the demise of Clara Oswald (aka Jenna Coleman, who is coincidentally Rob Stark’s girlfriend in real life) in the most recent episode of Doctor Who.

claraYes, we all know that the Who writers regularly kill characters off, and Clara’s behaviour had become overly-reckless recently, but it was nevertheless suprisingly emotionally distressing to see a character we have come to know and love killed off instead of having her leave the series for some other reason and in some other way (Billie Piper getting trapped in an alternate Universe from David Tennant’s Doctor, for example.)

Dakota JohnsonIt is really odd how we come to identify so closely with characters in either movies or TV shows. It must have something to do with the way our brains “suspend disbelief” to allow us to enjoy the drama. We watched an interesting discussion with Dakota Johnson, famously the daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson, who plays Anastasia Steele in the schlock-BDSM pot boiler “Fifty Shades of Grey, and who is currently filming the sequel “Fifty Shades Darker”. She said she had difficulty finding a boyfriend because suddenly men seemed frightened of her, although apparently and happily she has recently rekindled her romance with her British rock musician boyfriend.

Apparently the men she was meeting thought she was “weird” because of the role she played, which was certainly “out there”. But why people would think the actress’s attitudes or behaviours would mimic those of a fictional character is curious.

Game of Thrones CycleAnyway, it looks like GOT fans might be grieving a little less next year.

And in late-breaking news, apparently Aslan in the Narnia Chronicles is not real.

I mean, really. Who knew?

Fifty Shades of Movie Magic (Adult)

Posted: November 21, 2013 in Humour, Popular Culture et al
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"Who would have thought Lionel could be so enraged by my forgetting he likes peas with his faggots?"

“Who would have thought Lionel could be so enraged by my forgetting he likes mushy peas with his faggots?”

Those of you, and perusing our correspondence file there are many, who view the rampant success of the suburban blockbuster epic that is 50 Shades of Grey with some confusion – not to mention those who avoided reading the books altogether, commes moi – will love this blog from Speaker 7.

Genuinely hilarious, and recommended. As, indeed, is most of the blog. Give yourself a break and have a larf … fewer calories than a Kit-Kat, after all. Click here:

http://speaker7.wordpress.com/2013/11/18/fifty-shades-of-movie-magic/

P.S. Um. Are there really so many suburban housewives suffering total frustration of their darker sexual needs that they are absolutely hanging out for this movie to arrive, having read and re-read the three books a dozen times each? Sheesh.

(It’s out on Valentines Day next year, by the way. Yup, Valentines Day, for a movie about Dominance, Submission, and BDSM. You heard it here, first.)

Homo Suburbus clearly needs to lift his game. Personally, one always does one’s best to hold one’s end up where conjugal duties are concerned, but then there’s the back to be considered, not to mention the war wound … the gardening needs finishing, then there’s that tap that’s leaking. Not to mention, of course, football to watch.

Today I heard of a voraciously fit young lady marrying a much older guy this weekend, whose female friends are genuinely concerned that she will kill him.

Where coronary thrombosis beckons, discretion is the better part of valour, we say.

For some reason, Dear Reader. we are reminded of one of our all-time favourite poems, from a man who has created many of the wittiest and most apposite verses in the English language in the last forty years or so. Yes, OK, our mind is wandering: age will do that to you. Heigh ho. Anyway, those who are familiar with my poetry will immediately spot the genesis of my style, such as it is, in McGough’s work, which is acknowledged in the foreword to my book. Enjoy.

Today is Not a Day for Adultery

by Roger McGough

Today is not a day for adultery.

The sky is a wet blanket

being shaken in anger. Thunder

rumbles through the streets

like malicious gossip.

Take my advice: braving

the storm will not impress your lover

when you turn up at the house

in an anorak. Wellingtons,

even coloured, seldom arouse.

Your umbrella will leave a tell-tale

puddle in the hall. Another stain

to be explained away. Stay in,

keep your mucus to yourself.

today is not a day for sin.

Best pick up the phone and cancel.

Postpone until the weather clears.

No point in getting soaked through.

At your age, a fuck’s not worth

the chance of catching a ‘flu.

from Roger McGough, Selected Poems, 2006 at Penguin Books.

Speaker7

I was delighted when I saw the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly:

ewcoverFinally, the first of many issues heralding the arrival of this movie. Being a big fan of the books, I tore through the magazine pages, reading voraciously and savoring every morsel I could.

I understand it will be difficult to condense E.L. James 600-paged behemoth down to a two-hour film. Will they cut out one of the 1,200 email exchanges? Or one of the 4,507 times Christian orders Ana to eat? Or one of the 35,678 times Christian remarks on Ana’s wetness.

God, I hope not.

In the magazine, the stars were interviewed about their thoughts on the film.

fiftyshadesactorsFor the uninitiated, Fifty Shades of Grey is a steamy trilogy about a virginal sockpuppet who falls in love with a controlling oil-retention enema. They murmur and stick things in holes. It’s awesome or–to use Virginia of Lame Adventures

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Fifty Shades of Guaranteed Box Office Success

Posted: September 3, 2013 in Popular Culture et al
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Wellthisiswhatithink has a confession to make: we have not read Fifty Shades of Grey, nor its sequels.

Charlie Hunnam

Charlie Hunnam

We have nothing, per se, against Dominant-Submissive kinkyness if it’s what floats yer boat, we just simply can’t abide poorly-written prose.

Dakota

Dakota Johnson

There’s too much good prose we don’t get time to read as it is. Let alone finding time for our true love, poetry.

So many people whose opinions we respect have assured us that the series is awful that we really can’t be bothered to set ourselves up for disappointment, no matter how many bedside tables the books have ended up on, discretely hidden beneath the Sunday papers.

(The same is admittedly not true of our TV viewing habits. In Chez Wellthisiswhatithink, we breathlessly await the next in the Spartacus series, which presumably will be called something like “Spartacus: Sorry, The Hero Died In The Last Series, So There’s No Attempt At A Story, Just Plenty Of Tits and Blood All Over The Screen”. Hoo-hah. I strongly suspect the next series of Game of Thrones, with half the cast now slaughtered, will be similarly enjoyable.)

However, despite our misgivings FSOG (as it is known by the cogniscenti) has captivated its (mainly female) audience, and I suppose anything that prompts people to read is a “Good Thing” (capital G, capital T), and anything that simultaneously encourages people to be less uptight about sex is a “Very Good Thing” (capital V, G and T).

(Actually, contradicting ourselves promptly, we admit we even quite enjoyed the Twilight saga while conceding to anyone who asked why we had our head buried in them that the books were not great literature. Then again, and that said, we could hardly turn a page without wanting to throttle the ever-more-pathetic Bella Swann, a desire which transferred instantly to her on-screen avatar, Kristen Stewart.)

We will also, Dear Reader, gloss over the fact that fire brigades everywhere are being called to suburban homes to free people who have locked themselves to the bed in handcuffs and then forgotten that they’ve left the key out of reach. (Hang on a minute, guys. Aren’t you supposed to be doing this with someone? Ed.)

Such is the price, one supposes, of life imitating art, imitating life, er …

Anyhow: on effort alone we should say “well done” to authoress EJ James, who must be, by now, a very wealthy lady indeed, and get onto the point of this story.

The point of the story is that after months of fevered speculation, we now know the two major leads for the much-touted movie, at least.

Johnson and Hunnam

Johnson and Hunnam, er, again. Cute, huh?

Dakota Johnson, who appeared in The Social Network and 21 Jump Street as well as the Fox show Ben and Kate, has been officially cast as Anastasia Steele. Her male counterpart, Christian Grey, will be played by none other than Charlie Hunnam, star of Pacific Rim and Sons of Anarchy.

The film is set for an August 2014 release, with a screenplay by Kelly Marcell. Despite the story obviously including a vast raft of sexual matter, the team working on the movie are determined to ensure it achieves an “R” (not “X”) rating in North America.

While women have been breathlessly awaiting the identity of Christian Grey, almost as much interest has been generated by the choice of Ms. Johnson to play his submissive virgin lover.

Her first notable screen role was in the multi-Academy Award-winning 2010 feature The Social Network and subsequent films include the upcoming feature Need for Speed, 21 Jump Street, and Universal Pictures’ The Five-Year Engagement. She also starred as Kate in the Fox Network comedy series Ben and Kate, which aired during the 2012-2013 season, and is currently shooting the feature film Cymbeline.

Former model Johnson is the daughter of Miami Vice star Don Johnson and Oscar-nominated actress Melanie Griffith, and had her screen debut with her mother in the 1999 film Crazy in Alabama.

Anyway, they’re both very pretty, which I’m sure is all that most of the audience will be worrying about. When it comes out we are equally sure it will mercilessly panned by critics, and go on to make squillions.

The roles were apparently two of the most desired of the current season, and the producers have received some praise for casting relatively un-known actors (we did say, relatively) to do the heavy lifting for the forecast blockbuster.

Meanwhile, other producers will have to wait awhile before capitalising on the young talent’s sudden super-stardom.

Word is, they’re going to be tied up for a bit.

(Sorry. Ed.)

One man’s porn is another woman’s, er, porn?

Posted: August 12, 2013 in Political musings, Popular Culture et al
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There has been a lot of hoo-hah in Australia in recent days over an Elle McPherson Intimates catalogue that shows a woman in what some women argue is a demeaning position. The photo in question is here:

Elle McPherson shot creates uproar

The assumption is that the woman on the floor has been the subject of domestic violence, although some have also wondered if she was doing a “line” of coke or simply trying to get a stain off the carpet.

The furore reminded me of this billboard from a couple of years ago:

Voodoo Men Dogs

At the time, a complaint against the billboard (one of some 60 received) was dismissed because the powers that be regarded it as a “satirical comment on a patriarchal society”.

Which I frankly call “bullsh*t”. The billboard is clearly sexist, and in our view fighting fire with fire only results in, er, bigger fires.

For what it’s worth, I think the McPherson pic is yet another example of “Dom-Sub chic” neo-porn, which given the runaway success of a book (I use the word cautiously) like Fifty Shades of Grey seems hardly a surprising tactic, and which is popping up everywhere.

Fashion? Porn? Erotica? How do you tell? Does it matter?

Fashion? Porn? Erotica? Just great photography? How do you tell? And does it matter? Why?

The recent story from the fire brigade bemoaning how many times they’re called on to free people from handcuffs where they’ve left the key out of reach would seem to imply that what might once have been considered extreme has become more mainstream, albeit somewhat incompetently.

Heigh ho, Whatever gets you through the night.

What is clearly impossible to ascribe to any such image, of course, is any sense or understanding of “consent”, or otherwise. Because a woman (or man) assumed to be adopting a consensual submissive role might be acceptable, whereas a depiction of a rape or other anti-personal violence clearly would not. (Well, not in our opinion, anyhow.) But how does one know from a still image?

How on earth the reader or viewer is intended to work out the difference, sometimes, is quite beyond our ken.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

OK, it’s silly. But it made me laugh. Back to serious crap tomorrow.

Posted: December 2, 2012 in Humour
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Four guys have been going to the same fishing trip for many years.

Two days before the group is to leave, Ron’s wife puts her foot down and tells him he isn’t going.

Ron’s mates are very upset that he can’t go, of course, but what can they do?Two days later the three mates get to the camping site only to find Ron sitting there with a tent set up, firewood gathered, and dinner already cooking on the fire.

They clamour round him. “Shit Ron, how long you been here? How did you talk your missus into letting you go ?”

“Well, I’ve been here since last night. After dinner at home yesterday evening, I was sitting in my chair and my wife came up behind me and put her hands over my eyes and said, ‘Guess who ?'”

I pulled her hands off, and she was wearing sexy brand new lingerie. She said had been reading ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ and she had a devilish look in her eyes!

She took my hand and led me to our bedroom. The room had candles and rose petals all over.

On the bed she had handcuffs, and ropes!

She told me to tie her up and cuff her to the bed, so I did.And then she said, “Do whatever you want, Master.”

download

So. Here I am !