The nearly unwatchable Fifty Shades

Dakota Johnson should not have been given that role. She wasn't ready and the film suffered.

"Was the writing in the novel this poor?"

Yes, yes, and yes. The writing was godawful, absolute shit. Only cretins liked it.

Yea, I'm not even sure why anyone likes that or Twilight. I think it's mostly young female teens.

The oatmeal does a good job of summarizing what the movie series is about.

"Yea, I'm not even sure why anyone likes that or Twilight. I think it's mostly young female teens."

Teenage girls and middle aged women. Those are the only people who like shit like "Fifty Shades of Grey" and "Twilight."

R5, I wonder what types of middle aged women. LOL. probably not any from the upper tiers. Anyone in their right mind could see through this delusional bull.

At one point he describes being seduced by an older woman at age 15 and being her submissive for a number of years.

That would have been a more interesting movie than what they turned out.

Long, long before the shitty "Fifty Shades of Grey" there was a book entitled "Nine and A Half Weeks:,which has been called "the original Fifty Shades of Grey." I don't know if anybody remembers it. A crummy movie was made of it that bore little resemblance to the book, starring Mickey Rourke (before his face was destroyed) and Kim Basinger. Set in New York, it was supposedly the true story of a young professional woman who meets a man, also a young professional, at a street fair and immediately begins a sadomasochistic affair with him. I found a cheap paperback copy of it in a bookstore recently and reread it. It's well-written in spare prose; a good read. The back of the book describes it thus:

"By day she was a high-paid young executive in a Manhattan office. By night she was the willing slave of a man who bathed her, fed her, dressed her...and choreographed her every move in an ecstatic and terrifying ritual of total sexual surrender.

This is not fantasy. It is the actual night-by-night diary of a woman who gave herself unconditionally for nine and a half weeks to a man she hardly knew. It is perhaps the most powerful erotic book ever written by a woman. "

That's kind of laying it on thick, but it is a compelling read. Written under the pseudonym Elizabeth McNeill, it details how he seduces her into submission. He bought all food, cooked all meals, washed all dishes, dressed her and undressed her, read to her, washed and dried her hair, brushed her hair, inserted and extricated tampons, ran her bath every night, took off her makeup. She did nothing....except submit to sexual demands and beatings, which become progressively worse. After nine and a half weeks of being a sex slave she had a mental breakdown and has to be hospitalized. She never sees him again after that and she ends the novel with these lines "what remains is that my sensation thermostat has been thrown out of whack. It's been years and and sometimes I wonder whether my body will ever again register above lukewarm."

The New Yorker did a piece about the author entitled "Who Was The Real Woman Behind "Nine and a Half Weeks?" The real woman was Ingeborg Day. Her life was troubled; her father was a Nazi, one of her children was constantly ill and died at age 7, She had a daughter at the time of her sex slave affair; it's unclear where she was at that time. With her father? She was working for Ms. magazine at the time of the affair. How ironic; working for a feminist magazine during the day, a sex slave at night.

Day put out another memoir "Ghost Waltz" , which dealt with her early life and her father's Nazi activities. It didn't do well, and she fell of the literary map.

Day committed suicide on May 18, 2011, at age seventy, having been ill for several years beforehand. She’d spent years as the primary caregiver for her infirm husband, who died just four days after she did. HarperCollins is scheduled to reissue “Nine and a Half Weeks,” bearing Day’s name for the first time—though no publication date has been set.

Anyone wanting to read about a woman being totally submissive to man who likes to inflict pain during sex should read "Nine and A Half Weeks." It's compelling. And supposedly true.

OP, do you have a vagina? If you answered no, I think I figured out why you didn't like it.

Unreadable book, unwatchable film. Someone finally packaged shit and successfully sold it to a gullible public.

OP, Have you ever heard of Harlequin Romances? Fabio was once their cover model. As a young teen I once looked at a copy. I was fond of romance novels like Jane Eyre. After a couple of paragraphs I started skimming the paperback trying to find a more descriptive, better written part. Then I threw it down in total disgust. I could not believe something so badly written had gotten published. It was the absolute worst book I'd ever read.

Fifty Shades is far, far worse and more repetitive than any Harlequin Romance garbage. The author is a marketing whiz with fab connections who stole another online writer's basic story line. At least that individual could write half way decent pap fluff, although I never got beyond the 1st few chapters of that one either.

The subject matter of S&M fantasy mixed with standard Prince Charming fairytale has nothing to do with reality on any level. It was merely packaged and presented in a way that fraus could gossip about the subject matter to see if any of their girlfriends had bought any kinky toys lately. Their bed partners could bring up the book's subject safely hinting they'd like to experiment a little. The commercial tie ins from 50 shades of grey nail polish to light bondage style clothing kept the topic on everyone's radar.

I read this Amazon review and was hoping the book would be hilariously bad but it's not so-bad-it's-good. It's just bad bad.

OP, Someone counted the times the author repeated the same, totally inane phrases and posted the results online. The most obnoxious was "my inner goddess." Wish Jackie Collins had taken the same basic subject matter and written a pap novel. It would at least be a quick page turner.

Very funny review (with gifs) on Good Reads at link.

If you thought the lead actor was attractive in 50 Shades, you should watch the TV series "The Fall" on Netflix, OP. He plays a sadistic serial rapist/strangler and his role in The Fall was the reason he was cast in 50. The Fall is very well done and stars Gillian Anderson as an English investigator who comes to Belfast to try and catch the killer.

I saw "Fifty Shades" for the first time on HBO, a couple of days ago. I was hoping it would be as hilariously awful as the "Twilight" movies, but mostly it was just boring. Girl whines, boy glowers, and the nudity and spanking get boring very, very fast.

There's nothing as entertaining as that silly vampire sparkling in the sunlight!

[quote]Fifty Shades is far, far worse and more repetitive than any Harlequin Romance garbage. The author is a marketing whiz with fab connections who stole another online writer's basic story line

Fifty Shades was Twilight slashfic based on another fan writer's original ideas, right? Then James filed the serial numbers off and turned it into some weak-ass BDSM romance?

That is so fucking common in the romance genre it's pitiful. I was once given a romance to review that was poorly-disguised Neil Diamond slashfic, where the author had turned all the real-life, non-famous women (family friends, secretaries, etc.) in the dude's life into psychopaths. She just did a query-replace on all the names to disguise what it was, then sold it to some bottom-feeding romance publisher. But she didn't catch all the names so sometimes a real name got through -- that's how I figured out what was going on. It was gross, but if you read the reviews on Amazon, you'll see people saying this is a very common practice nowadays.

Not sure if Fifty Shades started the trend or was just the luckiest example of it. Considering what it's based on, it's no wonder the movie is awful.

R16, Writers wanted to make a hard R version of Twilight for adult fans' enjoyment. Twilight 's author was a Conservative using the concept of Vampires as an excuse so everyone would stay celibate.

Stephenie Meyer is Mormon, and yeah, her story was so obviously conservative I was shocked when it became so popular.

I get it on a logical level, but emotionally, a hard-R conservative sex story just baffles me.

[quote]Long, long before the shitty "Fifty Shades of Grey" there was a book entitled "Nine and A Half Weeks:,which has been called "the original Fifty Shades of Grey."

Wasn't the book/movie The Story of O the original Fifty Shades of Gray?

Twilight is the original FSG. If it were a college essay that fanficfrau would have been expelled for plagiarism.

I bought a used copy of this book, fully expecting it to bad, but it was worse. There is no exaggeration of how bad this shit is.

I wish it had starred Jamie Dornan and _________________ (male actors only, please).

I would like it to have been Ben Whishaw. We'd [italic]know[/italic] he really, really liked being naked with Jamie Dornan. Or maybe someone American, such as Jake Gyllenhaal, in which case we'd [italic]assume[/italic] he really, really liked being naked with Jamie Dornan.

I'm a middle age woman. Never read the book but watched the movie the other day. What a dumb piece of crap. Of course if Charlie had been in it as planned I would have suffered through it with a smile on my face.

Implausible plot, wooden acting, ridiculous dialogue! What's not to love? My favorite part was after weeks of the guy tying her up, spanking her and various other bd activities, she finally asks why he wants to hurt her. His response of "I NEED TO! Because I'm 50 shades of fucked up" had me and my friends howling.

[quote]I wish it had starred Jamie Dornan and

Well, Armie Hammer has said he's into S/M in real life, so he'd have brought some enthusiasm to it.

Nicholas Hoult. No real reason, he just strikes me as a pervy bi guy who'd be into anything.

Nick Jonas. With strict, fundie parents, I'm sure he and his brothers got plenty of spankings growing up. And he's got the right ass for it.

Justin Bieber. I don't think he.could act, I'd just like to see someone beat the shit out of him.

The writing is terrible OP, he said this and I did that. Jesus Christ, I've seen better sentence construction from a 10 year old. The fact that it originated as a fan fic of Twilight says it all. And the fact that as a fan fic it was called Master of the Universe (woman I work with used to read it and converse with the author when it was posted online).

Jamie Dornan in The Fall on the otherhand. He's better suited to that character.

Dornan's pubes were the highlight of the film.

I heard that for the scene shown in R27 they used a body double named Richard Simmons.

Can someone enlighten me as to exactly how this is a piece of Twilight fanfic? Aside from them both being indescribably horrible, I don't see the resemblance.

The movie is much better than the book! That means absolutely nothing, because the books are complete and utter shit.

R24, At least the movie had some beautiful scenery and cinematography. That can compensate for a lot in a really bad movie.

Jamie Dornan was basically miscast in the same way that no one would believe Tom Hanks was a "Master of the Universe." At least the former didn't mind showing off his body. The women I saw it with all said he should have shown 100% of everything. They liked the movie far more than I did but then no one expects soft core porn to have a good story and believable acting either. If you view this movie as non-explicit, full length porn I guess it could pass.

R2, Adult readers of Twilight took the basic characters and then added their sexual fantasies, writing R and X rated dialog online Then other writers added to it. The better version I started to read has Ana as a very conservative, sexually inexperienced librarian who accepts a date with a customer and extremely wealthy library patron who is very controlling in bed and out. She is extremely flattered that he's interested in her.

"OP, Someone counted the times the author repeated the same, totally inane phrases and posted the results online. The most obnoxious was "my inner goddess."

If "my inner goddess" is the most obnoxious, then the funniest must be "Holy cow!" Yes, the heroine actually says that in FSOG.

R29 EL James wrote this as a fan fiction story based on Twilight. I read the first book/installment where it used Bella and Edward as the character names. She had a huge fan fiction following. To get the book published she literally did a find and replace on the character names and changed them to Anastasia and Christian.

Thanks, R31 and R33. Dear lord, this is what American publishing has sunk to...

I'll preface this by saying I'm a woman in her mid 40s. I attempted to read the book, and managed to get through one chapter before I had to put it down due to the poor writing. As to the movie, I sat and watched the whole thing over the course of three viewings, as I couldn't do it in one sitting. Awful. Truly. Fucking. Awful. He was creepy to the point of me expecting Huey Lewis to come on in the background and him to whip out an axe, a la American Psycho. She was just an idiot. It wasn't particularly sexy, just dull. I've seen porno flicks with better acting.

Do women actually fantasize about a handsome billionaire tying them up and beating them? Seems...odd.

This movie is just crap! Her voice is terrible, I nearly fell asleep watching this show. The male lead isn't ugly but ughhhhh....just terrible movie.

Apparently some women do fantasize about the billionaire doing dirty things to them while saying stuff like "I don't make love, I fuck!" Shocker, well for any 23 year old virgin, who doesn't own a computer or a brain, it must be truly shocking. What if Christian was some redneck construction worker, who lived with his mom? Would women still fantasize about being tied up by that guy? I think most of them would call the cops in that situation and get a restraining order.

R36, I've read a lot of odd adult fan fiction, and FYI two things are true:

1 Women do fantasize about being subs.

2 Women fantasize about acting as a combination girlfriend and therapist for men who are out of their league, like movie stars and billionaires. They seem to believe if they fix him he'll be grateful forrever, and marry them without a prenup.

r35 IIRC, I got to about page 60 which coincided with the first dirty bit.

Is this movie a joke or is it supposed to be taken seriously?

R34, Thank you. At the beginning of the hype I approached my local library if they would be offering it considering the subject matter is basically soft porn and very kinky. Even with 47 copies there was a 3 month waiting list. The librarian made a face when I asked her if she had read it. No it wasn't the risque subject matter that made her frown. We agreed people were interested in reading it because it was publicized to an extreme degree. At least it makes people want to read a book, she said, and it is written for someone with a junior high level of reading comprehension.

R36, There's a huge difference between a woman's fantasy and what she'll actually attempt in reality, even with a trusted lover. I've noticed that very religious women and/or raised in a morally conservative household yet now have tattoos are more likely to be into S&M. Being tied up is one thing. Really being beaten and bloodied is quite another. Those interested in the movie's content asked me about the whipping scene and were happy that you didn't actually see any whip marks or even her skin being hit.

As far as dreaming about a young, handsome, giving, protective, intelligent billionaire? Well I would sure hope he's not an abusive jerk.

I think the logic of female rape fantasies etc is the weird guilt complex around sex and not wanting to be a "slut" who enjoys it. If it's out of your power then you can enjoy it in a less conflicted way.

You may fantasize, or watch porn about, things more extreme than anything you'd want to do because porn only engages your sight and hearing, and fantasizing doesn't strictly engage any of your senses at all. It's more likely in fantasies that the person with whom you have not-so-consensual sex does everything completely right with no prompting and effortlessly makes you cum. You're also completely in control of the fantasy and interacting with psychopaths in real life can obviously have some unfortunate consequences.

Very popular amonge college girls. S&M for the masses.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

The book is frau porn. Think Hairy Pooter and Leather Harness.

Better in my day.

R44 and the fraus.

I found Jamie Dornan too pretty to be intimidating as a dominate.

Fifty Shades of Boredom. And yet, my hat is off to the set decorator.

Tune out the actors. Watch the sets.

See how much grey furniture, paintings, carpets, doors, walls and even the grey skies that they filmed and incorporated in to the film? And those are in the scenes that aren't even in that guy's mansion.

It became fun to notice it. God knows the actors and story were unwatchable.

Have two straight actors cast opposite each other so visibly loathed each other on screen more than these two?

The chemistry between then was the only thing that could save the movie, but you can't believe for a second they want to fuck or even kiss each other. Dakota Johnson seems completely asexual.

[Quote] The chemistry between then was the only thing that could save the movie

Seems like they didn't even bother with a chemistry read.