Gatsbysville
About The Great Gatsby. It's a movie—maybe you've seen a trailer or something? Yes? So, some friends and I went to a private screening last week. Champagne was involved, just like in the movie. Anyhoo, here's my big verdict: I liked it.
Now, I've read some bad reviews but ya know I'm not gonna be too hard on it. The book is lovely and haunting—hard to pin down. The movie is a spectacle. They're two different things—it's okay. See, I'm a reader first and movie watcher second. I don't need to love movies as much. I'm not spending hours and weeks of my life steering my eyes over tiny black markings on paper in an effort to divulge meaning. I'm just sitting here for a couple hours and I wanna be entertained.
So .... Go to see Leo perform. Go to hear how Jay Z and Kanye jazz up the jazz age. Go to see the costumes and the hairdos and the cars and the colors and the imagery. But don't go expecting tears and truth and the best movie evah. Just FYI.
Adapt Or Die
I'm curled up in a nest of crumpled receipts right now, basically in self-employed-contractor tax hell. However, I'm stoked on this movie I watched the other night. Hanna—a sort of Darwinian thriller with luminous colors, sets, and sounds. Plus, Kate Blanchett. If I could be any actress it'd prob be her because she's complex and bad ass—more than just a set of tittays.
Manipulate Me
I don't have time to go to the movies anymore. Or I do now and then, but evening-time Jen either wants to be out with friends deconstructing things over beers or at home, sweat-panted, on the couch with bubby. However, when I was at home over "holidays" I went to the theater TWICE and it was totally awesome and hedonistic. I even liked watching the trailers, which of course, are mini movies in themselves deftly crafted to manipulate your emotions (the right song, the right scene, et cetera). I was down for it. Manipulate me!
So, I went to see The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (the American adaptation). As someone who has read all the books and seen all the Swedish movies, I can say from an informed place: It was GOOD—dark and haunting, et cetera. Plus, I've long approved of Lisbeth Salandar as a female role model for modern American women. Like, it would be obvious, maybe, for you or me to heroicize Lisbeth. But this book was a best-seller, meaning "regular folk" read it in spades. All those random frumpy women in windpants at my gym palming through the pages, and the fancy ladies in gold lamé at the airport—they all secretly wanted to be a highly intelligent ass-kicking bisexual female on the fringe of society ... Cool!
On Christmas Day we all went to watch The Adventures of Tin Tin. A tale of international intrigue—completely acceptably entertaining. Anytime my attention wandered, all I had to do was sneak a glance at li'l nephew Patrick, his 7-year-old face rapt with wonder, and I'd be suddenly awash in a wave of innocence and well being.
Howl
In keeping with my James Franco phase, and in keeping with my predilection for biopics about writers, I watched Howl last night and disappeared into weird ’50s beat poet ruminations. I don't read poetry that often because it seems like you have to think too much about it. But I like Ginsberg's Howl simply because it's nice to read. Strange wonderful imagery from an eccentric brain. Here's a tad for you to chew on:
...backyard green tree cemetery dawns,
wine drunkenness over the rooftops,
storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon
blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree
vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brook-
lyn, ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind....