Fifty Shades Darker Review

I can count on one hand how many movies I walked out of: four. Walking out of a movie that you paid for is a big deal. It is like walking out of a date that you are fitting the bill for. You basically are wasting money before the climax (whether it's the movie or the date). The movies I walked out of are Pootie Tang, Life Aquatic, Norbert, and now Fifty Shades Darker.

I went into see the sequel even though I still remembered how the first one was dumber than me after a night out on Homo Hill. Fifty Shades of Grey was the first movie I went to see upon returning to the US. It was ok. The two leads were wooden and the story dumb but there was something there. Maybe it was a morbid curiosity about how straight/gay mainstream people view BDSM. (Gay sex is now vanilla even with oral and anal.) Still as dumb as it was, there was something in it that kept me in my seat. The thing is though I am a completist, so when the new one, Darker, came out I bought a ticket despite my hesitation. I walked out more than 30 minutes in.


I regret to tell you I then snuck in to watch Lego Batman because DAMN Darker was horrible and I needed a mental palate cleanse. I used to dabble in movie reviews that were not quite plot synopses so here goes one:
"One day you receive a gift from someone and the package is pretty and bright and expensive. The giftor in question is questionable. You only had sex once after a disastrous first date but the dick was sooooo good you kept his number in your phone along with the dick pic he sent you after wards. Sometimes to get off you think about that night and the kinky shit you did (deftly forgetting about the racially tone deaf way he talked to the Asian-American waiter). Sometimes you even text him and tell him how wet you are each time you think about his cock. So getting a surprise present from him isn't all that unexpected. In the nice pastel package with its black ribbon is a cock ring with real diamonds where the studs would be. At first you balk at this and then remember you haven't got nutted in or on in weeks. You agree to see him. The date is as bad as before. He told a story on how he screwed a competitor and was gleeful. Still the cock ring is in your bag and your mind is in the bedroom. Both of you........... Actually you came back to reality and walked out while he was in the bathroom and you were sexted by an ex who cosplays the Dark Knight but makes you laugh in bed."

Have you ever walked out of a movie?

Is Milo Yiannopoulos human?

Milo Yiannopoulos (not to be mistake for Milo Ventimiglia, gorgeousness and all) is a troll, something we all know but Milo is also the kind of man that sets humanity back in ways which can not be measured. In the periphery of pop culture, I had heard of him, especially his attack on Leslie Jones. Truth be told, I myself was not a fan of Ms. Jones when she first arrived on the scene of SNL but after watching her become comfortable in her place on camera and in the Ghostbusters reboot, (terribly maligned by horrible misogynists) I quickly saw the humanity in her comedy which was endearing. What Milo Y. did to her was the opposite of human, it was monstrous. It lacked human compassion.

I became a Buddhist about 4 years ago. The Buddhist way is about following The Noble Eightfold Path. For me the part of this path I find myself coming back to is Right Speech and Thought. This is hard when I see someone like Milo Y. speaking because my first thought is to fight him with the same arsenal he uses. That is a mistake. For one, Milo is better at it because he practices it on a minute to minute basis. He is up there with the likes of Perez Hilton who espouses to be a reformed bully but uses words to torment others with vile intentions. When a Buddhist meets a person like Milo, we are supposed to come at them with compassionate listening to understand why they are who they are. We are supposed to see the humanity in them. But my instincts I honed from my trailer hood days tells me some monsters wear human clothes to operate in this world. Milo Y. is not a human so therefore compassionate listening doesn't work. Milo Y. is a monster. I believe evil does incarnate. And sometimes it takes on familiar forms. 

Milo is a problem in many ways and I don't want this post to become a tl;dr one. But again how do you solve someone like him who says he represents gays when he also represents the worst in us and enjoys it? Men like Perez Hilton and Milo Y. thrive off of destructive rancor. Maybe to fight these types of virulent incarnations is to shed sunlight on them. 

Riverdale or Are Ginger Men Hot?

I just watched the second episode of Riverdale. Not sure how I feel about it. I didn't catch the first episode but did read a recap to catch up. Riverdale for those in the dark (my roommate being one of them) is a re-imagining of the ARCHIE comics. It is a grab bag of genres (pastiche for word nerds) that works mostly but sometimes falters. (Twin Peaks, Buffy, Gossip Girl, Heathers, etc.) But the teen show is distracting in its sexual tones and it also begs the question--since the nexus of the show and comics is a ginger--are red headed men hot? I am not talking about auburn headed men. That brownish tawny color that is the equivalent of a dirty blonde. No, I am talking about full on firecrotches. The kinda red that looks like it came out of a Feria box. In the show I find Archie vaguely hot. Yes he has the requisite muscular physique but his hair (obviously from a Feria box) is distracting and his bushy brows look in need of a YouTube glam tutorial. I am not sure if I am going to give this show a shot but the intrigue is there. And I ask you dear readers, are redheaded men hot?