RANT - 50 Shades of Grey

Having peeked at a few pages to try and see what all the fuss was about, and quickly realizing it was badly-written tripe that was barely worth the effort of holding the book open, I avoided this masterpiece of marketing until the film hit pay-per-view.

Last night was slow enough, with no Walking Dead to entertain me, so I succumbed when Mrs P - who has read all 3 books - suggested we watch the film on TV.

What a load of unadulterated bulls**t this turned out to be. We already know the premise was suspect - a moderately good-looking billionaire with "singular" tastes wants a dominant / submissive relationship with a moderately good-looking woman - and we already know that 99% of the books' readers have been 1) female and 2) besotted. And we know that - as per usual - 99% of the men in those besotted females' lives can't make out whether they're supposed to sprint off to their local Good Vibrations store and pick up some appropriate gear or JUST KEEP THE HELL OUT OF IT!!!!

Consequently, I was blissfully unaware of just how bad this movie was. The script was limp. The dialog was banal. The pacing was glacial. And the whole effect was soporific. Surprise, surprise (an inappropriate segue considering the fact that there were absolutely NO surprises throughout this pile of hippo droppings) I was asleep well before the end, and woke up asking "what happened?".

Well, you'll just have to make a flask of coffee and watch this through to the bitter - and undoubtedly dull - end to find out for yourself.