Culture Shock 02.19.15: 'Fifty Shades,' 'Kingsman' both wish fulfillment

Dakota Johnson in "Fifty Shades of Grey."

Released the same weekend, "Fifty Shades of Grey" and "Kingsman: The Secret Service" look like a classic case of counter-programming. One is a romance — of sorts — that appeals to a largely female audience. The other is a violent, explosion-filled action movie taking dead aim at a young, male and testosterone-charged demographic.

It's like a TV network putting figure skating up against the competition's pro football broadcast.

But looks are deceiving, and "Fifty Shades" and "Kingsman" are as much alike as they are different.

Both movies are wish-fulfillment fantasies. To judge either as a straightforward drama is absurd. Critics realize as much when it comes to "Kingsman," but many do not when it comes to "Fifty Shades." It's an easy mistake to make, because "Fifty Shades of Grey" takes itself far too seriously, which is why it fails to satisfy the way "Kingsman" does.

"Fifty Shades" director Sam Taylor-Johnson has her hands tied. She must, above all else, please a core audience of "Fifty Shades of Grey" readers as well as the book's author, E.L. James, with whom Taylor-Johnson reportedly clashed, if the Hollywood trades are to be believed.

At times, we can see Taylor-Johnson struggling against her constraints. An early scene in which leading man Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) surprises our heroine, Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson), in the hardware store where she works is funny and playful. It's also the one scene where Dornan and Johnson display any real chemistry. It gives us false hope. Otherwise, the only scene where either character feels like a real person is when Ana is partying with her friends — far away from Christian. (Naturally, Christian shows up to ruin the moment.)

If "Fifty Shades" is too serious to succeed as entertainment, it's too tame to succeed as erotica. The average HBO or Showtime series is more daring. The MPAA's habit of branding a commercially crippling NC-17 on virtually any movie that takes sex seriously guarantees that most movies — and especially wide-release films — won't. Anyone hoping "Fifty Shades" will rival Steven Shainberg's enchanting "Secretary" or Adrian Lyne's "Nine ½ Weeks" — or even Zalman King's feature-length fragrance commercial "Wild Orchid" — is in for a disappointment.

The best one can say for "Fifty Shades of Grey" is it dispenses with James' terrible prose. The play-by-play from Ana's "inner goddess" would have rendered the movie an unintentional farce.

The much-publicized scenes of R-rated bondage and discipline are beside the point. "Fifty Shades" isn't about kinky sex. That's window dressing. "Fifty Shades" is a more domesticated fantasy, one in which an ordinary woman tries to heal a damaged man with her love.

"Kingsman's" wish fulfillment is slightly less far-fetched. It's the fantasy of the boy of modest means plucked from the slums and given a life of gentlemanly excitement and adventure, along with beautiful women falling at his feet.

Eggsy (Taron Egerton) is the clever, good-hearted street tough recruited by Colin Firth's agent Galahad to join a secret organization of super spies who jet around the world looking fabulous, drinking fine Scotch and bedding the occasional femme fatale, all in the service of queen and country.

In this case, it means facing off against a technology tycoon and environmentalist crackpot played hilariously against type by a lisping, blood-averse Samuel L. Jackson.

Like "Fifty Shades," "Kingsman" improves upon its source material. For the second time, "Kick-Ass" director Matthew Vaughn has taken a grubby, unpleasant comic book written by enfant terrible Mark Millar and turned it into a joyously subversive movie. The result is a love letter to the Roger Moore era of Bond movies, mixed with gleefully cartoonish violence and garnished with a raised middle finger pointed at the capital-E Establishment. (How many movies dare imply President Obama is in league with a supervillain?)

"Kingsman" works because it embraces the fantasy "Fifty Shades" merely flirts with. Audiences deserve a movie that goes all the way.

Culture Shock 04.25.13: 'Skinemax' takes a stab at prestige

There came a fateful day — I think it was in 1986 — when the local cable-TV monopoly added Cinemax to its pay-television subscription offerings.

For the first month, every household that subscribed to basic cable got Cinemax free of charge. The first taste is always free. But as it turned out, one weekend would have been enough.

The following Monday at school, every boy in class knew. So did quite a few girls, too, if memory serves. We all knew there was a reason why Cinemax was nicknamed "Skinemax."

So it began: our torrid teenage love affair with clandestine, sound-turned-down, soft-focus sex. Mustn't wake mom. Earlier generations had "dirty magazines" by flashlight. We had Cinemax After Dark.

That was a long time ago, before the Internet. Now, "the good parts" of just about any movie you can name are just a click away, if that's all you really want. So, how does a premium cable channel remake itself for a brave new world where Skinemax is merely the bare Skinimum?

Answer: The same way HBO and Showtime did, shifting focus away from movies and onto original and exclusive programming.

I mention HBO, and you think "Game of Thrones" or "Boardwalk Empire." I say Showtime, and you think "Homeland" or "Dexter." These are prestige shows. Audiences love them. Critics love them. They get people talking, and if you spoil an episode, you risk grievous bodily harm. It's that serious.

Cinemax has nothing in that league yet. Of its three original prime-time series, one is a British import ("Strike Back") and one has already been canceled after one season ("Hunted"), leaving only "Banshee," which has been renewed for a second season to air next year, to generate something of a cult following. As of now, onetime also-ran Starz reaches more viewers and generates more buzz with its lineup of shows like "Magic City" and the recently concluded "Spartacus."

Still, Cinemax hasn't forgotten its target demographic. Cinemax After Dark remains, but equally retooled for the new TV landscape.

The new After Dark is filled with original series, from "Chemistry" to "Co-Ed Confidential." And if HBO can bolster its reputation with shows with a literary pedigree, like "Game of Thrones" and the upcoming "American Gods," based on Neil Gaiman's novel, then so can Cinemax, after a fashion.

Cinemax's "Zane's Sex Chronicles" is based on the works of erotica writer Zane. And "The Girl's Guide to Depravity" is based on producer Heather Rutman's blog and book about her dating experiences in Hollywood.

But the crown jewel of the Cinemax After Dark lineup is "Femme Fatales."

Taking its title from a long-running entertainment magazine that focused mostly on B-movie actresses and "scream queens," "Femme Fatales" is an anthology series that blends film noir plots and O. Henry twist endings with the maximum skin After Dark is known for.

Given that film noir typically involves poor saps falling for deadly dames, scorned women and murderous love triangles where three adds up to a shallow grave, at least the sex scenes are somewhat related to the plots — both story and burial.

The first season of "Femme Fatales" has been released on DVD and includes all 14 episodes over three discs, with deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes featurettes and audio commentaries for every episode. The second season is set for release July 16.

As yet, there's no announcement of a third season, so "Femme Fatales" may have run its course.

Sex sells, but in a buyer's market, Cinemax is still trying to differentiate itself. But when MTV no longer plays music videos, it's somehow reassuring that Skinemax still tries to live up to its name.

Culture Shock 03.15.12: 'Dangerous' book sees everything in 'Shades of Grey'

"Fifty Shades of Grey" is also available in
a convenient paperback.

For all of the publishing industry's ups and downs as it adapts to an environment of e-books and the Internet, it's still rare for any single book to shake up the status quo on as many levels as has the new best-seller "Fifty Shades of Grey."

First, you see, "Fifty Shades of Grey" is not your typical best-seller.

Not that most best-sellers have especially impressive literary pedigrees, but "Fifty Shades of Grey" comes from a very lowly estate indeed. It began as fan fiction — and not just ordinary fan fiction, but "Twilight" fan fiction.

Fan fiction is itself a "gray" area — a shadowy world where mostly anonymous authors write mostly atrocious stories of legally suspect status featuring other writers' characters. The Internet is full of these stories, where sex scenes are plentiful, inventive and almost invariably bad. But no one makes money off fan fiction, and most professional authors are sensible enough to leave these besotted typists alone.

Then, sometimes, a fanfic writer or a particular work of fan fiction will gain a following.

That's what happened to British writer E.L. James, a former TV executive turned fanfic phenom. Her racy "Twilight"-based fan fiction became so popular she changed the characters and expanded the story into a novel — the first novel of a trilogy, actually.

It then took off, alighting atop the New York Times and Amazon e-book best-seller lists, which brings us to the second way "Fifty Shades of Grey" is helping change everything.

After becoming a very successful e-book — and having a small print run published by something called The Writer's Coffee Shop — "Fifty Shades of Grey" has been picked up by a major imprint, Vintage. It's scheduled for publication (again) on April 3 and, as I write, ranks No. 5 on Amazon's chart. This is the new way of things: publishers turning the self-published into the really published.

And, thirdly, this is all the more interesting given the book's content, which happens to involve bondage, sadomasochism and power exchange. The book is heir to "The Story of O" and that "Sleeping Beauty" trilogy Anne Rice wrote under the pen name A.N. Roquelaure — except, judging from the free sample I downloaded, nowhere near as well written. (But what does one expect of a novel that started as fan fiction based on another, badly written best-seller?) Maybe "Fifty Shades of Grey" is actually closest to the last several Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter novels that all of Laurell K. Hamilton's earliest fans love to complain about?

Maggie Gyllenhaal learns the "proper"
way to take a letter in the cult film
"Secretary," also starring James Spader.

Even the title, "Fifty Shades of Grey," evokes the name of James Spader's character, Mr. Grey, in the kinky S&M romance "Secretary."

So, this is where things get really fun, because now "Fifty Shades of Grey" is dangerous. (The word "disturbing" gets thrown around quite a lot.) And that leads to absurdist spectacles in which professional worriers fret on chat shows about the horrible, horrible things perfectly reasonable, adult women are reading of their own free will.

Does Dr. Drew Pinsky realize that he comes off like a sexist jerk when he goes on the "Today" show and worries about the erotic fantasies of women who read "Fifty Shades of Grey"? Probably not.

This one book, "Fifty Shades of Grey," demonstrates how a novel can, via new technology and publishing models, rise from a literary ghetto, elevate an obscure author to transatlantic fame and generate controversy with sensational — but actually quite common — subject matter.

Maybe I should have kept working on that trashy "X-Men" fanfic I started 10 years ago? I could be famous by now.

Probably not.