i saw the great gatsby last night against my own advice to skip it. the reviews have been less than favorable, but i had to do it. it’s my favorite book, and the first one i remember really reading.
i was in 9th grade when it showed up on our syllabus. i read the whole book in one sitting. the wealth obsessed people of the 20’s and the catastrophic fall of the protagonist weren’t tragic or disturbing to me at the time. they were inspiring. when you’re in 9th grade, money, power, and girls seem pretty f**king awesome (hell, they still do, but it’s different now). in all honesty, i have to believe my 9th grade self would have loved baz lurhmann’s empty, mess of a movie. Continue reading →
the trailer for the great gatsby was released last night. i wanted to turn it off after 30 seconds. actually, i wanted to find baz luhrmann and give him a piece of my mind. what has he done? why did he do it? he took America’s greatest novel and turned it into a spectacle. when I think of the roaring twenties, surprisingly i don’t think of kanye and jay-z’s “church in the wild.” i think about jazz and flappers and stock markets crashing. where is that in the trailer? where the hell is the jazz?
i’ve read the book over 10 times. i’ve memorized the opening and final pages. fitzgerald’s writing speaks to me better than any other author i’ve ever read. the way he describes women and love and loss is the way i would want to if i was a great writer. the themes of this novel resonate with anyone who’s wanted a shot at the american dream. we want things we can’t have, but we spend our whole lives trying to find them or make them right. everyone has a “daisy” whether they’ll admit it or not.
i saw esquire’s tweet calling the film possibly the most stylish movie ever. that’s great, but where is the story? baz luhrmann’s biggest problem as a director is telling a story. moulin rouge was candy for your eyes, but not for your brain. storytelling used to be an important piece of film making. i’m not sure where it went. hey hollywood, sometimes bigger is not better. i was excited about this film and ready to give luhrmann another shot after sitting through australia, but i can’t watch this movie – especially not in 3-D as it’s intended to be viewed…”so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
to take the train 