50 Shades of I Knew Exactly What I Was Getting Myself Into

50 Shades of Grey: The Movie follows 50 Shades of Grey: The Book pretty fucking closely – probably to its own detriment, seeing as the book is about 200 pages of alternating paragraphs of a woman saying, “Oh my!” and then detailing wild bondage sex sessions with a 27-year old handsome billionaire entrepreneur genius with great abs and a massive wang. 

I will shamelessly admit that I follow pop culture trends – I read the Harry Potter books, I did the Hunger Games thing, I even smashed through the Twilight series, so it was a logical progression that I picked up 50 Shades to see what all the fuss was about.  In its original form, the 50 Shades books were written by a presumably drunk, horny and borderline illiterate Twilight fan, who detailed the bedroom antics of Twilight vampire couple Edward and Bella (spoiler alert: Bella becomes a vampire, so suck on that, Jacob!) and posted it online.  She was encouraged by other drunk, horny illiterates to keep writing, and voila – welcome to the Red Room of Pain. 

The books follow the patented Twilight-recipe-for-success down to a tee – there’s no character development, there’s a smattering of unnecessary minor characters who appear and disappear within the same sentence, the entire thing takes place within a plot hole, there is next to no storyline, and (this is the big one) relationships are relayed directly to the reader instead of inferred through dialogue and action.  If two characters are in love, make no mistake – you’ll be told that they are in love.  They will tell each other that they’re in love.  And they won’t have a fucking reason as to why.  The character of Christian Grey is perhaps the most wooden, one-dimensional, unlikeable leading man in literary and cinematic history.  He is narcissistic, sadistic, selfish and fucking boring; there no reason why anyone would be interested in fucking him (well, maybe once, for the story), but to fall in love with him?  Get fucked.  Impossible. 

“We don’t care about the story!” say the housewives who lapped this shit up.  “Just give us good sex scenes!”  But here’s the kicker, dickheads - you will very rarely enjoy a two-hour movie if you don’t give a fuck about the characters, regardless of whether it’s a billion-dollar blockbuster, a low-budget indie flick or a soft-porn adaptation.  And with the restrictions on just how porno the filmmakers could go with this one, you are left with two hours of “insinuated” sex, which consists of a lot of close ups of thighs, lips and the occasional curve of a bum.  For the record, I tallied five pube sightings and a bit of shaft.  It was a good day out for me.

The movie is actually a fairly decent recreation of the source material, so hats off to whoever it was that wrote and directed it (details are my life), but the problems with the stilted dialogue and clumsy plot are exacerbated a trillion times over when it’s on the screen.  Christian’s emotional depth is shown through him playing classical music on his piano when he can’t sleep.  He manages to avoid his workplace for the entire movie to stalk a college student yet still single-handedly run his billion-dollar enterprise.  His musings on starving children in Africa are juxtaposed by him showing off his collection of luxury cars, private jets and helicopters.  His mother visiting his house for twenty seconds, from opening the front door to walking out.  None of it works, and there are no easy escapes to be made – at least the author of the books could just throw in a random paragraph about them fucking on a trapeze, but there’s no such liberties for the filmmakers, and it turns it into a clumsy, awkward mess. 

I think you're doing chocolate wrong... or something

It’s all fucking ridiculous, is what it boils down to.  It succeeds neither with the nudie bits or the other bits, and it doesn’t matter what you’ve read, heard or seen about it, you already know if you’re going to watch it.

I give 50 Shades of Grey a score of five pubes and a bizarrely featured peacock feather.  

How To Order a Pizza

Step 1.  

Ring pizza place.

Step 2.  

Say, “Hi, I’d like to order a pizza.”

Step 3.  

Realise you’re a dickhead and hang up.

Step 4.  

Ring up again a few minutes later and put on a different voice so the pizza guy doesn’t think that you’re the same dickhead who rang earlier for “a pizza.”

Step 5.

Be told, "It’s a Saturday night; the driver could be some time,” which is code for: "it’ll take long enough that you forget that you even thought about ordering a pizza" and so you watch another episode of something, or crack another beer, which undoubtedly means that you are going to forget about it entirely, who knows, you might even talk the wife into some impromptu sexy time. More realistically, maybe you decide to play some Mario Kart. "OK, man, you're tied. Rainbow Road. You SUCK at rainbow road. Alright, focus. You got this. Koopa Troopa all day."

And then that knock at the door. FUCK!  Pizza!  You don't have plates out, no napkins, no nothing. You also possibly don't have pants on, but more likely you were startled by the buzzer, thus dropping the controller, THUS eating shit off the edge of that fucking Rainbow Road and losing again.  I bet Princess Peach even beat me. What an absolute fuck face.

Step 6.  

Answer the door and grab your pizza.  I mean, everything is pretty much fine, but fucking hell, why does this always seem to happen?

My TV is spying on me... and it's really, really bored.

Idiots all over Australia are pissing their pants in anger over their Samsung Smart TV’s ability to recordprivate conversations and send the information to a “third party.”  I’m actually surprised that anyone who had a voice-activated television would be bothered to complain about anything, to be honest. 

It all sounds a bit scary, and even people who have never read George Orwell’s 1984 will be complaining about Big Brother (and how Lawson should never have cheated with Kat, and like, what’s going on with Leo?).  But what they’re not really getting is the fact that “Big Brother” has been recording their conversations for years so they can advertise straight to you.  You think Google doesn’t collect, use and sell your search history?  The advertising on the sidebar of Gmail literally changes within keystrokes depending on what you’re emailing someone about.  Those “recommended for you” items that appear on your Facebook wall aren’t coincidental either – funnily enough, they’re linked into your social media accounts.  If you change your status to “just got back from walking the dog! LOL!!!!111” you will most likely see ads trying to sell you shit for your dog, ads trying to sell you shit for walking, and a massive crowbar across the face from me.  People really don’t give a fuck about you shuffling around the block for 10 minutes while texting your friend and carrying a bag full of dog poo at the same time.  And if they do, then they are probably already being advertised to about that.  "HALF PRICE DOG POO FOR NEXT 48 HOURS!" 

When you record an episode of I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, the information it gathers might be that you’re a fan of reality shows, celebrity shows and are slightly retarded, and recommend whichever version of the Kardashians is on.  The Smart TV is the next inevitable step – it’s just being more obvious about it.  While it will analyse your viewing habits, it will also pick up on some topics of conversation, so when you’re on the couch discussing your upcoming holiday, which sports team you like, the fact that you’re out of milk or how you need a new crowbar, your telly is paying just enough attention to pick out the important words so the next time you use social media, you’ll have ads and recommendations for flight details, the official Twitter feed of @sports_team_official, some bonus Fly Buy points for buying Coles brand moo juice and a link to my blog. 

Just click the link, I need thehits.

If you’re seriously worried about all of your private information being collected, I’m afraid you’re probably too late.  But just for your own safety, you should burn your computer and phone; deactivate your Facebook, Twitter and Instagram; lose your throne as king of Four Square; let go of your Flappy Bird record; sell your Farmville farm; and for fuck’s sake, stop talking to your television, you creepy, lazy fuck.  Use your remote like the athletes among us.

Being at the end of the line

I think a good super power would be that when you join a queue and no one lines up behind you, you don't get nervous and feel like you're doing something wrong.

How did it get so far under there?

I think a good super power would be that when you throw your keys or wallet onto the bed, they don't bounce off and go underneath it.