RogerEbert.com — Fifty Shades of Black
I’m not saying it’s good. But this Marlon Wayans spoof of “Fifty Shades of Grey” isn’t quite as terrible as you might expect. And it may have something substantive to say, in between all the prosthetic penises and pop-culture references. My RogerEbert.com review.
Hate the thought of supporting the original story in any way, but somehow Wayan’s parody appeals to my funny bone. Hubs and I deserve a good laugh leading to Valentine’s day. Thanks for the review.
Thanks for the response, Jozie! You’ll have to let me know what you thought of the movie.
Oh, yuck. What a sad excuse of a movie. Valentine’s Day weekend. Six audience members (3 women, 3 men). All walked out within the first 20 minutes. Gross, disgusting, juvenile. We laughed at the opening scenes where it looks like Christian Black scams a haberdasher and valet. That was it.
The street talking RebelWilson-wanna-be girlfriend with Chlamydia was an embarrassment and the film quickly dovetailed from there.
Why are jokes about drinking penis smell, equating eating raw meat with chewing a penis, and touching a penis doesn’t make you gay . . . what makes that funny? Homophobic, is my guess.
I wanted to like the film, to support Marlon Wayans. I’ve seen him in other venues and think he’s usually funny. This is a long holiday weekend. I wanted to laugh. Sadly, I just walked away feeling like my intelligence had been insulted, and my pocket picked.
My hat’s off to you as a film reviewer for sitting thru that mess.
Luckily, we popped over to a packed house of The Revenant. Afternoon showing. Could hardly find a seat. Goodness, that’s a stunning movie. At the end I was moved to tears. Screen fades to black. Everyone just sat there silently listening to the sound of his breath. Now THAT’S a movie. Although I haven’t seen all the Oscar contenders, if Innaritu and DiCaprio win awards for Revenant they will be well-deserved. That was Tom Hardy as Fitzgerald?!?!?!? He really immerses himself into a role.
Christie,
Good to see that the holiday celebrations and festive activities, have not blunted the ‘personality’, and edge of the wit and sarcasm that the ‘What the Flick’ panel are still able to command between them.
Especially, when it comes to dealing with the ‘hard to talk about’ subject matter, for pro movie reviewers. Things that should have happened, things that should never have happened.
Cough.
Zoolander Two.
(Clears throat some more)
Probably, the movie did not require it’s own blog entry, but since so much of the panel’s review of the Ben Stiller work, reached for ‘Fifty Shades of Black’ to use as a reference point, and Matt made a hurried reference to ‘Carol’ as having some laughs in it – I thought that here would be a good place – to send a request to your team.
Would it be possible, perhaps, in review of the movie Carol, perhaps to look at the work of the sound track composer, Carter Burwell. I only looked up this composer’s work this evening, and found to my delight that he is also behind some other lesser known work, for music in movies over the years, and I always remembered those movies, because of that. Not so much the stories, the actors. But really, the combination sometimes of very good music, which nearly brought to the movie, it’s own story – and combined with some of the photography – in some movies that Burwell has worked on, there are a few very memorable pieces.
Not every movie, indeed, becomes a ‘large’ movie.
Here in Ireland, the talk all over the morning radio, was from excited sounding morning radio hosts (who normally deal with boring subjects, like the ‘economy’), were tripping over themselves to announce the Irish successes as the BAFTA awards. I had to smile, to myself.
The BAFTA’s and Oscars, can and do, add a little bit of sunshine into many folk’s hum drum lives. As does, What the Flick and it’s panel, in it’s own way.
I appreciated your colleagues efforts in doing his ‘my take’, on a twenty year old movie, which featured in a ‘large’ way, in my own early years – Trainspotting. It mentioned various things about being Scottish, about lavatories and about how to appreciate one’s pals, or not. If ever there was a small movie, that became a ‘large’ one, at least in the part of the world where Francis Maxwell is from, Trainspotting was it. Although, Francis and also Mr. Piker, who did the ‘My Take’, are both far too young, to have been around, when Ewan McGregor first bolted into our lives, and with the sound track chosen by director Danny Boyle.
Danny Boyle, was in the news this morning in Ireland too, with news and views about his latest work about the life and time of Steve Jobs.
But yeah, it was repeated several times, on radio here, that ‘Room’, by Abramhamson had started out with the intention of being a ‘small’ movie, and somehow that didn’t happen. It became something, much more.
Having listened to Hasan, and Francis doing ‘My Takes’ on What the Flick, I had to go an reassure myself. I had to reassure myself, not having seen Trainspotting movie, since I last saw it ‘on the big screen’, in the mid 1990’s – if it was indeed as I had remembered it. Or indeed, if it was anything remotely like I had remembered it.
It was a lot like that line from Ocean’s Eleven or Twelve, a great line, that actor Brad Pitt and George Clooney get to say. The old Las Vegas, it seemed big back then. It was big enough to them, who remembered it.
That’s all that I could really say about Trainspotting now, after twenty years. It was big enough, to those of us, who do remember it, when it was new. It was small movie in fact, and it was a small movie that touched on something, and whatever that was, made it seem a lot bigger.
I haven’t seen ‘Room’, but I’ve heard enough about it on media here. The Irish are proud and delighted, as are the folk in Britain. All the best of luck, when the panel gets around to looking at this, and doing a review. I’m sure that I’ll enjoy it. And I hope that the panel, will get a chance at some stage, when to talk about the music artists also, behind some of these movies. Because in all fairness, whether it is Trainspotting, or some old movie with a Carter Burwell soundtrack, that I can’t even remember the name of – sometimes, it’s just the sounds and the pictures that remain vibrant in the memory, after a long, long time. All best, B.
There’s no doubt, a chap here in Ireland, named Michael Dwyer, really did have the low down and background, on it all, even in 1999. He wrote in the Irish Times back then, “The period detail is distinctively captured in Russell J. Smith’s production design and enhanced by Carter Burwell’s infectious score”. And in his review, Dwyer, the movie reviewer had also filled in his readers of that newspaper in 1999, about someone named Sam Peckinpah (who had intended to make a movie based on a Max Evans book).
Wasn’t it wonderful once, when journalists really did research?