The Great Gatsby: Movie VS Book

                    

Recently I have read and watched the movie and book, The Great Gatsby.  At first when I found out that I had to read this book for my AP English and Language class, I thought it was going to be terrible, and hard to read. But when I actually got into the book it was really good. Considering it is such an old book, I thought the teens my age would actually really like it.

The Great Gatsby takes place in New York, where the writer Nick moves in next door to a mysterious man, that nobody knows a lot about, other than he throws huge parties every weekend. Gatsby is a millionaire, so he has everything in life that someone could possibly want, except for one thing, Nick’s cousin Daisy. Daisy and Gatsby used to be in love until Gatsby went off to the war. Daisy married a different man, Tom Buchanan, who is also very rich. Everything is turned upside down when Gatsby asks a favor of Nick, which is to invite Daisy over to his house, so Gatsby can rekindle the relationship he once had with Daisy. Through the book we see everything from love, to heartbreak, to death, all in what I think is a relatively short book.

I thought The Great Gatsby was a great book because I loved the love story that occurred throughout the book. I thought it was romantic how Gatsby did all those extravagant things just to get Daisy’s attention, to try and win her back after he lost her the first time. I like the drama they came with the intricate love triangle. Actually it was more like a love pentagon if you think about it. I also like how the book was written from Nicks point of view, looking in from the outside, since Nick in the book and movie was not rich, so he wasn’t really a part of that life style.

I loved the movie too, because of how closely it relate back to the book, and how accurate it was according to the book. The movie had really great actors in the movie including Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, and Joel Edgerton. These actors really made the movie complete. I loved all the colors that were included in the movie, all of the party scenes were so beautiful with all the colorful people and things in the movie. Even though that is a little thing, I think that that is my favorite aspect of the movie, because all throughout the movie I was thinking to myself “this movie is so colorful”! I also loved the way that the movie mostly related the movie back to how it takes place in the 1920’s, so the cars, electronics, and way of life all resembled the way life was in the 1920’s. However some things I questioned in the movie about how they probably would have actually happened or had in the 1920’s, such as the amount and difficulty of fireworks that they had in the movie, I don’t think they would have had that intricate of fireworks in the 1920’s, also just some of the furniture in Daisy and Gatsby’s houses, I don’t think they would have had in the 1920’s.

Overall however both the movie and book were excellent and I highly recommend this book to anybody, especially if you have to read an older book for class, and want to actually enjoy the book you are reading. 

Love Triangle

   

Monsters University Movie Review

 

This weekend I watched the new Disney movie, Monsters University. This movie was surprisingly a great movie! I remember watching Monsters Inc. when I was a little kid thinking it was a really great movie, and now almost ten years later, I’m thinking that was almost as good as the first! Notice how I say almost as good, because pretty much with any set of movies, the first one is the best, and that is true about the Monsters Inc. movies.

Monsters University is about life before the two main characters, Mike Wazoski and James Sullivan (Sully), became friends. 

The movie takes place at Monsters University where monsters learn how to scare. In the beginning of the movie Mike and Sully are rivals and want to be the best at scarring. This determination to be the best, gets the best of them and eventually get them kicked out of the scarring program. The only way back into the scarring program is for the two of them to team up in the scare games and show that they are the best at scarring. Along the way Mike and Sully make new friends, stand up for themselves, and show the university the a group of misfits can win the scare games!

The whole movie is really about the scare games. The only way Sully and Mike can get back into the scare program is by finding a team who can lead them to victory. The problem is Mike’s team is terrible and everyone thinks that his team will be out first, but Mike is determined to win and get back into the scarring program.

The movie does a great job of tying back to the first movie and keeping everything the same as in Monsters Inc. A lot of the same characters come back and are shown again in the movie, which I thought was why it Monsters University was such a great movie.

Since this is a children’s movie there are many themes and lessons to be learned. One theme is not to give up on your friends, because they can get you through anything. I think this is a really great theme for the movie because it shows kids that you should leave your friends because of what other people say, you should stick by their side even in the worst of times. Another lesson that is present in Monsters University is determination. Mike and Sully have a lot of determination throughout the movie because they truly believe that they can get back into the scarring program, because it is there lifelong dream to work at scarring children.

Overall this is a great movie for all ages, although I would highly recommend it for children, especially for those who have seen Monster Inc. 

    

Royals Review

                                        

A song that has been playing on the radio lately and has been very popular is the song Royals by Lorde. I had never heard of Lorde before I heard the song royals. However with not being well known until now, she is very known because of her song royals. Lorde is just Ella Maria Lani Yelich-O’Connor, no wonder she uses a stage name she really does need it. Lorde is from New Zealand, and Royals is her first single that has made her famous.  With the record being released on November 22, 2012, it had already hit number one in 2013. Lorde only being sixteen, she is very young to have such a hit song in a different country than her own. I see Lorde having a strong music career in her future.

This song is so popular because it has an unusual beat that a lot of people seem to like. The beat gets stuck in your head and is never forgotten, which is why so many people know and love this song. I also love this song because it had a cool echo part. This is where Lorde sings Royals then echo’s royals in a higher pitch. If there was one part of the song that everybody knows by heart it would be this echoing part. The echoing happens a lot throughout the song, almost like its apart of the chorus.

This song also has a great meaning behind it. The song talks about how you don’t have to have the best things in life to be happy.  The song talks about how they are living in a motel with barley anything, but they can live like royals depending on how they look at life. A lot of people can relate to these ideas and like how she sees’s life that way too. The music video takes place mostly in a motel room, where her and too guys are making the best of their living situation. They make living in the motel enjoyable because of how they look at life. Overall this song gives off a good vibe and a good meaning too it also. 

Royals Music Video 

Willow Shields

                          

Up and coming actress Willow Shields has made her debut in the Hunger Games series. Willow had been in just a few other movies with very small parts but really became a star when she played Primrose Everdeen in The Hunger Games. The Hunger Games is about a country that is divided up into twelve districts, the districts send one boy and one girl to fight to the finish until there is only one person standing. The movie is based off the book by Suzanne Collins. More Info. Willow Shields plays Primrose Everdeen who originally gets picked to represent district twelve. But her older sister Katniss Everdeen, who is the main character steps in and volunteers for her.   

Even though Willow plays a small part in the movie I think that she did a very good job playing she scared little girl role. Willow, for such a young actor  plays the role very well and convinces the audience that she truly is poor and scared for her life. Since she is so young sometimes it is hard for younger people to act so deeply for something that is all just fake. But nothing is fake about Willow Shields. Willow has a twin sister Autumn and an older brother River. Willow says that the bond between Katniss and Primrose is just like the bond between her and her twin sister so that’s why playing that role isn’t so hard.

With the new Hunger Games movie coming out, Mockingjay, Willow has been getting a lot of publicity lately. Recently I have seen her on the cover of my Seventeen Magazine, which is a magazine for teen girls. Personally I thought she looked gorgeous in her cover picture. Her interview was very good too. I learned things about her that I never had known before. Actually before her appearance in Seventeen I only had known her as the girl from the Hunger Games.
So far I haven’t seen in the news that Willow has gotten herself into trouble, and let the fame go to her head, I just hope it stays like that. I hope she is really down to earth and won’t let the new found stardom get to her like a lot of other stars do. I think that with Mockingjay premiering in about a month her career is only going to rise from here. She is like a mini Jennifer Lawrence in the movie and in real life. Since Jennifer’s career got subcutaneously better after her role in the Hunger Games, it is only likely to think that Willow’s will rise too.

School Lunch: Good or Gross

                      

This year has been full of changes at my high school. With a new principal you would think that there would be a lot of small changes, but really there has only been one really big one that I can notice right away. This change was school lunch. There is a lot more variety in the school lunch this year. In the past there has a lot of variety with all the different stations but this year the main line has drastically changed. Such as last week at school, on each day there was food from a different place in the country. Such as there was waffles and chicken day, Hawaiian Chicken and Rice day, and Philly Cheese Steak day.

I’m definitely not saying that these are the best meals I have ever had in my life, but I’m saying that I like the effort to make the choices different and unique. I personally think that none of the school food is good because frankly its school food, but some days are better than others. Some of the popular food choices are chicken strips, turkey gravy, and bow tie pasta, although the most popular by far is the potato bowl. Potato bowl comes with a scoop of mashed potatoes, gravy, and popcorn chicken. I feel like this meal however has gotten worse from last year because the gravy now is really thin and the chicken just doesn’t have a lot of flavor. I do like however how the school is trying to get us to be healthy by giving us healthy alternatives and fruits and vegetables, but I hate how they took away dessert a few years ago. We used to receive either cake, or cookie dough, or some kind of delicious dessert item. Now the closest thing we get is flavored ice, which happens once in a blue moon.

The other thing that I hate about school lunch is how expensive it is. For just one lunch from the main line it is close to three dollars. If you want something else like burger basket, pizza, chicken patty, or pasta it is close to the same amount of money but you get far less food. This is a big problem because growing high school students, especially the guys need a lot of food to satisfy their hunger. Overall I don’t think that the food is wonderful, but it is gradually getting better, and hopefully we will eventually get better food. 

Here is a link to the school lunches,check it out and be the judge too! 

                           

Scream Acres

                   

With Halloween on its way, a bunch of friends and I went to a haunted house to celebrate the Halloween season. We decided to check out Scream Acres at Bloomsbury. I get scared very easily so it probably wasn’t such a great idea that I went, but it ended up being a lot of fun!  Scream Acres has three scare events, the clown house, the slaughter house, and the corn maze. First you would go through the clown house in groups of up to four. During this scare fest you would walk through the house, which look as if it were a circus tent, while clowns jumped out, chased and scared you. The clown house was kind of confusing because there would be certain ways that you couldn’t go so it was like a maze, where there were dead ends. The only part of the whole clown house that I really didn’t like was a part at the beginning when you would walk through this tunnel that looked like it was spinning, but it actually wasn’t. This just made me really dizzy, and wasn’t even scary. I thought that overall the clown house was the least scary, but then again some of my other friends said that they thought that was the scariest one.

Next you would get into line at the slaughter house. The day that I went to Scream Acres there wasn’t a lot of people there so the lines were relatively short. Also the people that worked at letting people in were really nice and funny so it made the wait a lot more fun. As we entered the slaughter house we saw everything from broken floor boards to pig carcasses. All of you senses were tested in this frightening house. The music and the actor’s voices added to the terror of the slaughter house, because of how creepy it was, and it added to the anticipation. Since the slaughter house was actually a barn, your sense of smell was tested because it actually smelled old, and like you were in a deserted place. I thought that the slaughter house was the scariest feature at Scream Acres, because of all the disturbing things you see in the house.

Lastly you would go through the corn maze. This for me was the most fun, and a lot of random stuff was going on, so there was mostly never a dull moment. Notice how I said mostly never a dull moment; there were a couple of times that there was nothing going on for five or six minutes at a time. But overall the corn maze was a favorite part of the night and would most definitely recommend going to scream acres if you are in for a good scare.

If you don’t like haunted houses however, and would like a more relaxed activity, Bloomsbury has a ton or things to do for all ages.