Fifty Shades of Grey versus 365 Days

In recent years, two erotic romantic dramas Fifty Shades of Grey  and 365 Days , were hailed by audiences as massive successes despite being heavily criticized by movie critics. One broke numerous box office records whilst the other was a massive worldwide success on Netflix 

Let us take a closer look at both movies for a more thorough comparison.

Christian Grey, the leading man of Fifty Shades of Grey   versus Massimo Torricelli, the main protagonist of 365 Days.

Similarities between Christian Grey & Massimo Torricelli

• Extremely rich and successful.
• Ambitious, they seek the means to live a lavished life.  
• Handsome with impeccable taste in fashion. Always well-groomed from head to toe.
• Very sexual individuals with a great stamina and physic.
• Determined and relentless they never back down.
• Overconfident in their looks and physical attractiveness.

Differences between Christian Grey & Massimo Torricelli

Despite the similarities, there is a world of difference between these two men.

One, a rich spoiled entitled brat in serious need of extensive therapy whilst the other is a macho gangster who fights his own nature for love.

Christian Grey, a narcissist, who prays on an innocent, horny girl, with extreme inferiority complex and subjects her to a world of sadistic practices. Grey, falls even deeper for his prey when he finds out that she is a virgin who never fell in love before him.

For people who do not see things in shades of grey, they might find the movie extremely painful to watch.  Some would argue that the film is exotic and that one should keep an open mind when it comes to sexual practices. Others might say that there is no harm done, after all, Ana is a willing participant and that Grey does not really hurt her. However, what about the intent to hurt for pleasure?! Love, by default, doesn’t find pleasure in inflecting pain, nor is willing to risk the other’s emotional and physical wellbeing, nor gets turned on by humiliating the other. Dominating a lover in such an abrasive way is demeaning. Aside from that, there is the issue of the contract that Ana needs to sign before becoming his lover and the ultimatum she is faced with. A pinch of dominance in bed is a big turn-on and role-playing is exciting but this is pushing it to a degree that is neither sexy nor fun.

Massimo Torricelli, is a handsome rich Mafioso who is used to getting his way, he doesn’t tolerate disobedience and lacks patience. Although used to regarding women as toys, he goes against his nature to win over Laura’s heart. You can see it in his reactions, how he stops his violent tendencies, even when Laura provokes him to the point of insanity, he does not let his nature win.

The romanticism behind a cold-mobster who he has been searching for the past five years for a woman he once saw, and the fact that he has forced the hand of faith to make her fall inlove with him, gives the movie that endearing “je ne sais quoi”.

Unlike Grey, Massimo is neither calculative nor sadistic, he is willing to wage war, break his own rules, and go against his own nature, just to keep Laura safe and happy. He, even, asks her to help him understand how to love her the way she needs to be loved.

He isn’t manipulative like Grey nor forceful. Although he is a ruthless killer, yet when it comes to Laura, he is willing to do any exception to make her happy.

Despite being dominant in bed, Massimo is submissive to Laura’s every caprice outside the bedroom.

Let us admit that, at least, Massimo does not need toys and a playroom to satisfy Laura. He has the talent and prowess to do that without resorting to the fetishes of psycho Grey.

After all, a man is as good as the happiness he brings out of the woman he loves. Unlike Ana, whose eyes are always filled with deep sadness, Laura goes from being an unsatisfied feisty woman to a calm, happy, confident, and satisfied lady. Even her health problems seem to vanish thanks to her lover. Massimo’s love for her has brought her back to life, awakened her from her slumber, added color, excitement to her existence. Massimo was able to satisfy her emotionally and physically. Like a damsel in distress, he rescued her from the unsatisfactory, boring, life she was living.

So when it comes to a face-off between Fifty Shades of Grey  and 365 Days , 365 days wins all the way. So indulge yourself with part 1 and brace yourself for part two.

Tunisia’s Star Wars Hotel

Star Wars fans can now rejoice as they can experience a true Luke Skywalker fantasy by lodging in Sidi Driss, a hotel where was filmed scene of the hero’s childhood home on the planet of Tatooine.

Located in the village of Matmâta, small Berber speaking town in southern Tunisia renowned for its typical structures created by digging large pit in the ground;  Around the perimeter of this pit artificial caves are then dug to be used as rooms, with some homes comprising multiple pits, connected by trench-like passageways.

Opened all year round the hotel offers affordable accommodation and can lodge over 145 guests in 20 rooms, grouped in four separate caverns. The fifth is dedicated for the hotel’s restaurant/bar. The traditional Berber hotel offers a historic and calm atmosphere. In Sidi Idriss you can delect yourself with traditional dishes, cave rooms and an exceptional bar. Prices are fairly cheap, ranging from 30 dinars per person to 47 dinars, with 12% discount for children aged below 10.

American filmmaker and entrepreneur George Lucas, picked Hotel Sidi Driss as an ideal location to film for his movie Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope.

After filming, most of the decorations used were removed by the owners but thanks to a French Star Wars enthusiast by the name of Philip Vanni, the hotel rooms were restored and in 2000, George Lucas filmed one of his prequels, Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones.

The Hotel Sidi Driss is not a Universal Studios re-creation; it is authentic and real. The rooms are compact caverns dug into the base of a tall circular courtyard whilst beds are blankets placed on the floor. So if you are looking to have a full Star Wars experience, it can’t get more authentic than that.

Hollywood Genius

We often regard the most beautiful and intelligent people as born under a lucky star. However it is solemnly the case, as the Venuses of this world are rarely lucky and their lives are usually clouded with misfortune. Despite having the beauty, grace and intelligence that most would die for, they often suffer tragic lives.

This is the case of Hollywood star Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, known as Hedy Lamarr. Hereby are the things you never knew about this gorgeous legend:

• She was married to a wealthy Austrian ammunition manufacturer.
• After her 1993 movie,   Ecstasy she fled from her husband, and hid in Paris.
• Louis B. Mayer, gave her, her first Hollywood break.
• In 1960, she got her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 
• Lamarr played the lead in the highest-grossing film of 1950 Samson and Delilah which won two Academy Awards, for Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design.
• Lamarr opened her own production company with Jack Chertok but her movies  The Strange Woman & Dishonored Lady went over budget and made minor profits.
• Lamarr was a self-taught, inventor who has been behind many inventions such improved traffic stoplight , a tablet that would dissolve in water to create a carbonated beverage, a radio guidance system ,  Bluetooth technology similar to methods used in legacy versions of Wi-Fi
• She dated  aviation tycoon Howard Hughes, who supported her inventive to the extent of putting his team of scientists and engineers at her disposal, in order to execute anything she asked for.
• She relentlessly wanted to join and offer her services to the  National Inventors Council. She succeeded in her quest, and in 1997, she was awarded the Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award and the Bulbie Gnass Spirit of Achievement Bronze Award. She was featured on the Science Channel, the Discovery Channel and was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
• Lamarr married and divorced six times and had three children of which one she claimed was adopted during her marriage to Gene Markey. It later turned out that she had lied, her son James Lamarr Markey/Loder was the out-of-wedlock son with actor John Loder whom she later married. Her lies tarnished her relationship with son, James Lamarr Loder, to the point that he moved in with another family. They remained in conflict for over 50 years and she ended up leaving him out of her will.
• Lamarr was arrested twice for shoplifting, in 1991, it was attributed to depression as she failed to return to the screen.
• In the last decades of her life, the telephone became Lamarr’s only means of communication with the outside world, even with her children and close friends. She often talked up to six or seven hours a day on the phone, but she spent hardly any time with anyone in person in her final years. A documentary, Calling Hedy Lamarr, was released in 2004 and featured her children, Anthony Loder and Denise Loder-DeLuca.
• In her final years Lamarr turned to seclusion and stepped away from her children and friends. She opted for telecommunication rather than face to face encounters. According to a documentary, Calling Hedy Lamarr, which featured her children, Anthony Loder and Denise Loder-DeLuca, she reportedly used to talk six to seven hours a day on the phone.

Some stars are born to shine and when their light goes dim, they just can’t survive. Lamarr couldn’t cope with being seen as anything other than a ravishing beauty with a genius flair. Her wild spirit and arrogance were too big for Hollywood who failed to give her the recognition she deserved.

The Real Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes is a fictional private detective created by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He is the father of forensic science, as he always uses science and attention to details to solve murder cases.

Behind this fictional character stands, Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, a genius physician and British writer acclaimed mostly for his fifty crime fiction stories featuring the captivating character: Sherlock Holmes. Although he was the author of historical, spiritual and fictional stories, Holmes remains his most celebrated one.

Hereby some facts that you didn’t know about Conan Doyle:

• Conan Doyle came from a highly artistic background. His father as well as uncles were artists.
• Conan studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh Medical School and practical botany at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh.
• Doyle was a loyal man, he remained married to Louisa Hawkin, his first wife, despite falling in love with another. He maintained a platonic relationship with his second wife-to-be Jean Elizabeth Leckie while his first wife was still alive. In 1907, after the death of his first wife, he married Jean Elizabeth Leckie.
• A Study in Scarlet was originally named Tangled Skein, however after several rejections, it was renamed. Published in 1887, it was written in 1886, the story marks the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, who would become the most famous detective duo in popular fiction.
• All of Doyle’s children died, from health issues, at a young age.
• Conan was obsessed with justice as his protagonist, Sherlock was. He often investigated cases that he believed were faulty. Thanks to his analytical skills and forensic savoir-faire, he successfully exonerated innocent people that were wrongfully convicted.
• He was initiated as a Freemason (in 1887) but left it for good in 1911.
• Conan Doyle believed in the paranormal, that the spirit of the dead continued to exist and were reachable by the living. He believed in the existence of fairies.
• Conan Doyle played sports in his lifetime. His favorite sport was cricket.
• In 1900, he ran for parliament twice in Edinburgh but failed to be elected.
• He despised Sherlock Holmes and thought that he was taking all the attention away from his other features. He tried sabotaging Sherlock Holmes by asking extortionate fees from publishers, but failed as they were happy to pay.
• A square was named after him in Meiringen, Switzerland, where the scene of The Adventure of the Final Problem took place.
• He said to have died in 7 July 1930 in his garden, after whispering to his wife: “You are wonderful.”

Whether you like Sherlock Holmes or not, you can’t but admire his acute sense of observation and analytical skills as well as his intense sense of pride. Conan might not have been a fan of the detective but in essence he was his alter-ego.

A Pill for a Spotless Mind

In the movie:  Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet resort to a procedure to erase each other from their memories, in an attempt to reduce emotional repercussion of their break-up. Fiction meets reality with Propranolol, the pill that promises to do exactly that.

A Canadian psychiatrist Alain Brunet began giving Propranolol, a medicine used to reduce bad memories, in an attempt to help, broken-hearted individuals, survive a bad break-up.

In Canada, this treatment is already administrated under the supervision of a psychologist or a psychiatrist, the patient takes a tablet and writes his traumatic memory. An hour later, when the drug has taken effect, he reads it. The memory of the traumatic break-up, loses its intensity and becomes bearable. It doesn’t fade away completely but its impact is less ravaging.  Patients are thus allowed to continue their lives in a normal way, free of the burden of a love wound.

 According to, Le Parisien, the Canadian psychiatrist Alain Brunet, is currently training French doctors in order to treat broken hearts.

One of the hardest things to get over, whether in love or friendship, is being forgotten thus replaced, as it stipulates that there wasn’t any real love nor friendship in the first place.

Furthermore, true love, in its essence, is everlasting, it doesn’t die nor fade away, that is what differentiates it from mainstream love, lust, or affection. It is not by coincidence that several Oxford studies have labeled love as addictive. Thus, whoever truly loves another can neither leave him nor stop loving him.  Like a planet and its moon, the two lovers orbit around each other, unable to break-free and forever drawn to one another. That is why in the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the estranged couple who has erased each other from their memories, starts dating again once they cross paths.

Maybe Propranolol, will have the same effect, if lovers forget their quarrels and resentments, they might reunite. Thus making, Propranolol, a make-up pill rather than a break-up pill.

Top Memorable Love Quotes

You don’t have to flip through a book or read poetry to find the most staggering love stories and memorable quotes. Check-out our selection of the most memorable love quotes.

City of Angels

Storyline:
Seth is an angel  that falls madly in love with a human, Dr. Maggie Rice, a dedicated  heart surgeon who devotes her life to her practice.  In order to be with her, Seth forsakes heaven in order to be with her, which does not turn out as he had expected.
This is one of the saddest love-story ever written because of the heart wrenching fact that the lover gave up eternity to be with the one he loves only to have her taken from him shortly after.

Memorable Love Quote:
 Seth: I would rather have had one breath of her hair, one kiss of her mouth, one touch of her hand, than eternity without it. One.

Great Expectations

Storyline:

Charles Dickens’ story of a young man, Finn, who falls madly in-love, with a  rich aristocrat Estella. He makes it his life mission to become rich and worthy of her.

This film, is particularly mesmerizing, as it is the story of a man who against proper judgment and despite being warned about his impending doom  pursues the love of his life, never thinking for a second of replacing her or giving up on her.  

Memorable Love Quote:
Finn: I did it! I did it! I am a wild success! I sold ’em all, all my paintings. You don’t have to be embarrassed by me anymore. I’m rich! Isn’t that what you wanted? Aren’t we happy now? Don’t you understand that everything I do, I do it for you? Anything that might be special in me, is you.

A Beautiful Mind

Storyline:
It is the true story of John Forbes Nash, Jr. a mathematical genius, who falls ill but doesn’t let his illness stop him from pursuing his dream and receiving the Nobel Prize.

John’s wife was the driving force behind him. Later in life, he confessed that he would have never made it without her love and support. He would have never been able to persevere without her.

Memorable Love Quote:
Nash: [Making an acceptance speech in front of the Nobel prize audience during the ceremony] I’ve always believed in numbers, in equations, in logic and reason.But after a lifetime of such pursuits: I ask What truly is logic? Who decides reason? My quest has taken me to the physical, the metaphysical, the delusional, and back. I have made the most important discovery of my career – the most important discovery of my life. It is only in the mysterious equations of love that any logic or reasons can be found. I am only here tonight because of you

Click

Storyline:
Michael Newman (Sandler) is a hard working family man, struggling to juggle between his job and his family. His life changes when Morty (Walken), a crazy sales clerk, offers him the ultimate remote, which enables him to mute, skip and dub his life. The remote soon starts to malfunction causing nothing but mayhem.

This movie has one of the most heart wrenching scenes, where at the end, in a moment of enlightenment, Michael regrets everything he has ever done and acknowledges his undying love for his wife.

Memorable Love Quote:
Donna Newman: Will you still love me in the morning?

Michael Newman: Forever and ever, babe

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Storyline:
A mysterious killing spree terrorizes Seattle and threatens the life of Bella who finds herself in the middle of a malicious revenge quest. Amid the tumult, Bella must choose between her love for Edward and her friendship with Jacob.

Some might consider Bella and Edward to be the ultimate couple but I, on the otherhand, prefer the relationship that ties her to Jacob, the man who fearlessly loves her and doesn’t let any obstacle stop him. Whilst Edward once walked away from her Jacob simply never could. He is her ultimate best friend, always there, demanding nothing from her but her presence by his side and her happiness. I prefer him to Edward, the softy, who despite his good intentions often fails to protect her, whilst the manly Jacob always rises to the occasion.  Love comes in many shapes and forms but this kind  is the ultimate one.

Memorable Love Quote:
Jacob Black:
You feel something for me. You just won’t admit it. So I’m not giving up. I’m gonna fight for you, Bella, until your heart stops beating.

Valentine Thrillers to Watch

Thrillers might not be the usual go-to movies one would choose for a romantic evening, but in our opinion some of them qualify as the ultimate romance. Whether you want to watch it with your date or best friend, hereby our top must-watch movies for Valentine that men can actually enjoy as well.

The Next Three Days 

Release year: 2010

Director: Paul Haggis

Stars: Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks, Liam Neeson
Storyline: Lara Brennan (Elizabeth Banks) is wrongly convicted of murdering her boss and is sentenced to life in prison. Her young son Luke ceases to acknowledge her during prison visits. Following the failure of her appeal, her attorney balks at her acquittal. Lara attempts suicide and her husband, John (Russell Crowe), becomes obsessed with breaking her out of prison.

What makes this movie legendary is the fact that you have a peaceful law-abiding ordinary man, throwing his life away and risking not seeing his son, just to save his wife. Against all odds and circumstances, this truly manly guy attempts the unthinkable for the love of his life. Let us not forget that while she was in prison, he was presented with the opportunity to continue his life with an even more attractive woman who tried to seduce him but to no avail. If that’s not true love for you, I really don’t know what is.

Best Scene:

Lara Brennan: [Picks up the phone angrily] What?

John Brennan: Just shut up. I don’t care what you say… or how you say it. I know who you are. I know what you’re capable of. And I promise you… this will not be your life.

[Hangs up the phone]

Memento

Release year: 2000

Director: Christopher Nolan

Stars: Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano 

Storyline: A man with short-term memory loss attempts to track down his wife’s murderer.
What makes this movie legendary is the relentlessness of a man with a crippling disability and his ability to endure the worst in order to avenge his loved wife. It is beyond moving seeing a man, who suffers the strains of a memory loss, not let it stop him from seeking justice for the woman he loves.

Best Scene:

Natalie: Tell me about her again.

Leonard Shelby: Why?

Natalie: Because you like to remember her.

Leonard Shelby: She was beautiful. To me, she was perfect.

Natalie: No, don’t just recite the words. Close your eyes… and remember her.

Leonard Shelby: You can just feel the details. The bits and pieces you never bothered to put into words. And you can feel these extreme moments… even if you don’t want to. You put these together, and you get the feel of a person. Enough to know how much you miss them… and how much you hate the person who took them away.

Shutter Island 
Release year: 2010

Director: Martin Scorsese

Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Emily Mortimer, Mark Ruffalo 
Storyline: It’s 1954, and up-and-coming U.S. marshal Teddy Daniels is assigned to investigate the disappearance of a patient from Boston’s Shutter Island Ashecliffe Hospital. He’s been pushing for an assignment on the island for personal reasons, but before long he wonders whether he hasn’t been brought there as part of a twisted plot by hospital doctors whose radical treatments range from unethical to illegal to downright sinister. Teddy’s shrewd investigating skills soon provide a promising lead, but the hospital refuses him access to records he suspects would break the case wide open. As a hurricane cuts off communication with the mainland, more dangerous criminals “escape” in the confusion, and the puzzling, improbable clues multiply, Teddy begins to doubt everything – his memory, his partner, even his own sanity.

What makes this movie legendary is the fact that this man is prepared to put himself in ultimate danger, endure the possibility of never leaving a cursed island yet he is not willing to give up the ghost of his dead wife. It is mesmerizing until what length true love is willing to go.

Best Scene:

George Noyce: You wanna uncover the truth? You gotta let her go.

Teddy Daniels: I can’t.

George Noyce: You have to let her go!

Teddy Daniels: I can’t! I can’t!

George Noyce: Then you’ll never leave this island.

Whether you already watched these movies or not, we invite you to check them out again on Valentine and pay attention the recommended scene. We promise you, you will be in awe of the true romantic essence behind our pick.