Boats Against the Current: Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby

I've seen Baz Luhrmann's version of The Great Gatsby five times now. I'm not even ashamed to admit it. If I were to somehow become Alien out of Spring Breakers, it wouldn't be Scarface I'd have on repeat, it would be The Great Gatsby. Anything remotely Gatsby I snap up - whether it be reblogging my 100th gif of Jordan Baker or changing my cover photo on Facebook or finding something pretty to adorn my bedroom walls with.

Despite all this, I don't actually like The Great Gatsby as a film all that much. Let's put all of this into context: last term I did this huge research project about modern adaptations of classic films. Now, I won't bore you with the gory details since that thing ended up being like, 40 pages long, but The Great Gatsby was my main focus. This was because I had never seen so many people around my age go absolutely nuts for this one movie. Admittedly, this was mainly because of the fact that Leonardo DiCaprio is descended from angels and we're all materialistic magpies that will swoop in on anything that glitters (so you can imagine the field day we had with this). Let's just say, I wasn't the only one reblogging, cover photo-ing or adorning everything Gatsby.

How Zero Dark Thirty was the Most Oddly Inspiring Movie of the Year

Zero Dark Thirty (2012) / US / Out in cinemas now / Directed by Kathryn Bigelow / Written by Mark Boal / Starring Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Jennifer Ehle, Mark Strong, Kyle Chandler, Joel Edgerton, Mark Duplass, Chris Pratt, James Gandolfini, Edgar Ramirez / 157 mins.

Zero Dark Thirty is not a movie I went into expecting to feel uplifted. But uplifted was exactly how I felt as I made my way out of the cinema, slightly shaken by what I had just seen. It may sound silly to the Oscar haters or Avatar lovers, but when Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman in history to win an Oscar for Best Director, my life pretty much changed right there and then. I decided I wanted to become a director too, but that aspiration has had some fine tuning over the years and now I realise that it was because of that moment I have learned two very valuable things about myself: I always have wanted to be a leader and do things that not everyone else can do (in this case, Kathryn is a female director who makes 'male films'). In a way, I guess you could say that a very large reason behind the fact that I'm Head Girl at my school comes down to Kathryn Bigelow being a badass woman. While I didn't absolutely love The Hurt Locker (but I sure as hell love it more than most) - but I do quite love her 1995 cult hit Strange Days - Zero Dark Thirty presented something that was rather inspiring to me. It tracks the biggest manhunt of the century, and there was a woman at the centre of it all.

"We can't control what happens to us or our loved ones."

Film: Trust
Year: 2011
Director: David Schwimmer
Written by: Andy Bellin, Robert Festinger
Starring: Clive Owen, Catherine Keener, Liana Liberato, Jason Clarke, Viola Davis, Chris Henry Coffey, Spencer Curnutt, Aislinn DeButch, Noah Emmerich. 
Running time: 106 min.

Trust is a film which takes a look at something that is a very real and happening thing, but very few have dared to make a movie about it. Now, we are all on the internet (if you're reading this right now, I'd be highly worried if you weren't on the internet). Most of us don't physically know each other, but we still have nice conversations and stuff like that. Trust focuses on 15 year old Annie (Liana Liberato), who often chats to a guy named 'Charlie' online, who she thinks is similarly aged to her, and they are connected through their love for volleyball. They talk at every opportunity possible, and she often calls her beautiful and really boosts her self esteem. But then she finds out that he isn't really 16, he actually is 20. Turns out that was a lie too, because he then confesses that he is 25. Charlie and Annie decide that they should meet, and it's then that Annie discovers that this Charlie is really a man in his mid-30s (he is played by Chris Henry Coffey). While Annie is at first very disappointed and a little scared by this fact, she still hangs out with him, before he takes her back to his house and gets her to wear some lingerie that he bought her, before raping her.