The Great Gatsby Review

Let it be known that I loved this movie.
Yes, this review is late, but my opinion and I are so important I know you've just been on the edge of your seat waiting for my thoughts.
I'll get the practical stuff out the way first. I do understand where the criticism is coming from - the green screen was a bit not-pretty at the beginning, but got better, and the soundtrack did not fit the time period.
HAVE YOU LISTENED TO THE SOUNDTRACK?!
It's AMAZING.
And I think we were not given time period music because, well, it wouldn't be a soundtrack, it'd be an album of old, fuzzy recordings that were probably ethnically offensive (white musicians in the 20s weren't known for their tact.)
Anyway, Leonardo diCaprio was beautiful and perfect, as always, and if he doesn't win the Oscar, who wants to storm the Academy with me?
Carey Mulligan was wonderful, and I think she captured the soul-sucking frivolity and vapidity of Daisy accurately. To be quite frank, I thought the casting was impeccable.
I thought this movie was pretty damn close to perfect. I mean, think about how truly and undeniably horribly it could have gone, and it didn't.
This movie gets 5 out of 5 stars from me.
I'm going to get the DVD for my birthday.
I'm gonna get a Netflix account just so I can watch it.
Might buy it on iTunes (and I NEVER buy things on iTunes).
Might get stills from the movie on a T-shirt and never take aforementioned T-shirt off.
All you poopooheads that didn't like it?
Buh-bye boo boo.

Dystopia

The sky was a steely gray, the air bitingly cold. A pungent smell hovers on the outskirts of the City.

The Clamor has begun. Across the City of the Berlin Commune, girls wake early and prepare themselves. Boys sharpen knives and practice throwing them telekinetically; small animals are expended for practice.

At noon, the Academy doors are opened, and the pale faces of the Aryan masses look to the promenade.

 Der Miester steps to the edge of the stage and surveys the crowd. He clears his throat, and when he speaks, his voice is amplified to reach those even in the far reaches.

“Welcome to The Clamor. Today, we begin the continuation of perfection. Our father Hitler left us this legacy; we are his progenies, and we will carry his vision out.

“Every ten years, girls and boys that have reached majority are placed in a sort of... competition. The girls are evaluated for their suitability as wives and mothers; boys are evaluated for their suitability as protectors and providers.

“Those that do not do well in the competition are killed, along with their families. There is no need in our society for inferior beings.” His expression changes - a sadistic mockery of a smile. “Good luck, and good games.”

The girls are ushered through a door to the right, the boys to one on the left. Analiese turns back to look at her mother, who is staring at her calculatedly. Was she the right one to send? Analiese can almost hear her thinking. Even though Analiese has always been more supernaturally talented than her female and male cousins, even though she has demonstrated levels of intelligence and raw talent superior even by Aryan standards, one wrong move on her part could result in the death of her entire family, and her mother knows that.  There is no love in her eyes as she regards Analiese, just measured speculation. Analiese does not care about her, either, but there is a twinge of fear at the unknown. Will this be the last time that she sees them? She turns around to where a bright light has begun to shine. The door slams shut behind them, sealing them from their previous lives and pushing them into the madness.

****

At the edges of city, the smell is stronger. Workers with face masks pulled up over their mouths sweep, build, and prepare.

The concentration camps are reopened.

****

In each holding facility, the Aryan girls are sat in rows. There is another room leading from the antechamber. 

This is the first round: the test of fertility. Two months ago, girls were given blood tests and ultrasounds to determine whether or not they were physically able to bear children.

A woman stands upon a stage to the right of the door leading from the room they are in, her ice blue eyes settling on the matching ones of the girls in front of her. When all have settled in their seats, she clears her throat.

“When I call your name, please stand.”

She begins to recite names from a long list in front of her. When she reaches the end of the list and stands, staring, for a few moments, Analiese begins to worry.

Her name has not been called. She frowns, surveying the girls standing around her, some of them with smirking smugly.

“If you name has been called, please enter the next room.”

The girls file out. The woman upon the stage glances at the door and it slams shut. The screams on the other side begin immediately after it closes, muffled by the metal but still audible to the girls’ finely honed ears.

She allows the smallest of smiles. “Congratulations,” she says to the remaining girls, who are glancing alarmedly at the now empty seats around them, occupied just a few moments ago by schoolmates, by people that were almost friends.

“You have survived the first round of The Clamor.”

****

The boys are ushered into the holding room opposite the girls’ and sit in rows, too. Der Meister’s voice echoes from the stage upon which he stands. 

“If I call your name, please stand.” 

When Henry’s name is called, he springs to his feet. His eyes are at the ready; his parents have told him stories of The Clamor. The girls’ challenges are less dangerous, less sudden. The boys can die in seconds.

Der Meister finishes the list. “If I have called your name, you may step into the next room.”

Henry follows the line of boys as they file out. The door is shut behind them.

On the other side, you can hear the yells and ripping of flesh, and roars of wild beasts.

Der Meister’s voice is heard through the metal of the door that has shut behind them.

“This is your reward for being infertile. Shame upon your families.”

On the other side stands another of the member’s of the Academy Council.

“Congratulations; you have completed the first round of The Clamor.”

****

The girls that failed the first task have been gathered here. Some are bruised, others bloody, still others both.

The failure of a task by a girl is not greeted with immediate death; no, Der Meister says, they must first suffer. 

Once they are led from the antechamber, they are flung from metal wall to metal wall by Academy members, their superhuman abilities allowing them to torture the girls without laying so much as a finger on them.

They sit at the High Table and gaze down upon them, inflicting agony with their ice cold stares. 

Then, the girls are led from the antechamber, limping, and are met by their families in the courtyards.

They travel to the camps together, and it is there that they suffer the worst humiliation possible: they must gaze upon the Untergebenen, or, simply, the inferiors.

This signifies their removal from the race of the Aryans; they are now no better than the disabled or the dark skinned.

The Untergebenen are kept around for two reasons: to be ridiculed and mocked by the Aryans, and to be the worst punishment an Aryan can receive. Aryans have no emotion save for hatred and love. Hatred they are taught their entire lives; love they are granted if they survive The Clamor.

Now, not only are they receiving the death penalty, but at the hands of the scum of the earth. 

This alone is almost too much to bear for the former Aryans; they turn their eyes upward, the burn stinging in the back of their hearts - they are not able to produce tears, though. The only thing visible in their emotionless faces is the physical pain caused by coming too close to the  Untergebenen; due to the centuries long separation of the two, mutations have erupted between the two races.

Acelin turns his head from them, not wanting to see their pain.

Though they look at him with disdain, contempt, though he has heard tell of their unnatural beauty, paleness, and inhuman powers - the ability to move things with their mind, run faster than lightning, control the elements! - he cannot bring himself to truly hate them.

Are they not people, too?

****

Analiese lies in her bed that night, an unfamiliar thing housed in The Clamor District, which she must stay in until the end of the challenges. 

Somewhere in the distance, there are faint sounds of the camps being put back to their original sense. She can smell the gas, and hear the labored breaths as those who have failed the challenge and their siblings, parents, grandparents, and any other family members are locked in the chambers, their deaths supervised by members of the Academy.

She turns away from the window and covers her ears with her pillow.

The other girls crowd around the windows, trying to glimpse the carnage.

****

The boys have a second challenge during the night. They are locked out of The Clamor District, which is protected by walls and accessed by several doors set around the perimeter. 

The boys are given a map, a flashlight, and a warning.

“There are members of the Academy outside to injure, but not kill you,” Der Meister announces. “However, the key to get back into The Clamor District is buried in the wilderness. We have released some of the mentally ill Untergebenen into the forest, and, mind you, the beasts are always present. Good luck, and good games.”

He turns and enters the District door, and it slams shut behind them, leaving the boys in the midnight. The sound of steps is heard, and heavy breathing.

Lightning flashes across the sky; in the middle of the Plaza, an Academy member stands with raised hands raised, commanding the skies.

Several boys are struck; a bolt falls near Henry and he quickly sidesteps it. Yells and chaos begin to fill the air. Henry starts to run towards the forest, his eyes sweeping the expanse of the Plaza. Lightning strikes the tree directly in front of him and it falls towards him.

He holds his hand up, and it slows. Seeing a boy with his back turned a few yards away - still in range of injury from the tree - and he drops it on him. The boy crumples with a thud.

Henry turns, squares his shoulder, and enters the woodland.

The darkness swallows him whole, cutting him off from the The Clamor District, the City, and everything he has ever known.

A growl sounds behind him. He turns, to see the shadow of something move quickly behind the overgrowth. He stalks forward, body tensed. 

A wolf springs out at him, its gray eyes wild and claws poised. He pivots and back toward a tree, pulling out a dagger. The beast whips around to find him and growls again. It launches itself at him, a paw hitting the dagger out of his hand. He rolls towards it, his outstretched fingers grasping for the hilt. The wolf falls behind him, but quickly gets to its feet. Henry grabs the dagger and turns just as it brings its bared teeth down where his exposed back had been moments before.

He stabs the thing in its temple, and it howls with pain, a loud, echoing sound. Henry pulls the dagger out and plummets it into the wolf’s chest. 

And there, glistening and embedded among muscle, blood, and fat, is a golden key. 

Henry pushes the animal to his left, bends over it, and digs the key from its chest cavity.

He troops back to The Clamor District’s door and unlocks it.

He is the first to come back alive.

****

Analiese is woken in the night by a shrill, sharp cry. Her eyes snap open and she swings her feet out from underneath the sheets and stands, cocking her head to pinpoint the sound.

She opens her door and descends the staircase, coming to a stop where a few other sleepy and confused looking girls are gathered.

There is a line of flames, with small bundles in the middle.

Analiese gasps as she realizes that the cries are coming from the center of the flames; there are babies inside each column of fire.

She rushes forward, and, with a wave of her hand, the flames disappear. The other girls, not caring about the babies but surmising that this is the next challenge, follow suit.

She looks down, realizing it is an Untergebenen baby, used for only practice. She feels a strange twinge as she realizes she will have to kill it, now that it has been used. 

She does not want to. She turns away from the other girls, passing her hand over the little girl bundled in her arms, her burnt skin a raw and angry red. She wills the child into unconsciousness, then slips to the bathroom unnoticed.

Behind her, the cries of the children being murdered, and those of  the girls upstairs being beaten and taken to the camps for failing the challenge by failing to wake mingle into a cacophonous din.

The noise covers up the sound of her leaving.

****

On his way back to the sleeping chambers after re-entering The Clamor District, Henry thinks he sees, through the windows, someone moving 

Henry sits in his room, rubbing antiseptic on the one injury he suffered from the wolf, a swipe across the shoulder blade and traveling down his chest. 

He stands to retrieve more cotton balls, and notices a figure, in black, walking along the edge of the forest, towards the camp.

The figure is slight, girlish, and unescorted - they are not being taken to the camps for extermination, as the boys who failed to return to The Clamor District on time were about a half hour ago.

Why, then? Why would an Aryan competitor be going to the camps?

He shrugs, not wanting to risk his own life by traveling to the camps without the explicit permission of Der Meister. He turns back to the mirror, inspecting his wounds.

****

The Untergebenen women and men cower against the walls of their metal shacks, looking at Analiese’s pale eyes, skin, and hair, knowing to be afraid of her.

She could kill them with a single glance, but instead she is pleading, trying to hurry back to The Clamor District.

“Please, I just mean to return the baby,” she says, trying to seem unthreatening.

There is silence, and then a woman steps from behind her husband, trembling.

“A baby girl?” she asks timidly, her husband glaring at her.

“Yes. Brown eyes, brown hair. There is a birthmark on her hand.”

The woman looks back to her husband. “She is ours.”

He shakes his head, and Analiese sighs, walking over to them. They look at her fearfully.

She places the baby in the woman’s arms and turns to leave.

As she begins to open the door, a boy about her age rushes forward and takes her arm.

“Thanks.”

She smiles. “You’re welcome.”

She turns, opens the doors, and looks up into the eyes of Der Meister.

****

Final Questions

1) What does the green light in The Great Gatsby represent? A.) Gatsby’s longing for the simultaneously near and far Daisy. B) Nick’s yearning for Jordan. C) The clash between new and old money. D.) Myrtle’s yearning to marry Tom. (Katherine Powell, 8th Period)

 

2) What does ‘neophyte’ mean? A) A new duel. B) Veteran. C) Someone whose never tried something. D) Beginner (Katherine Powell, 8th Period)

 

3) What does Amanda’s constant retelling of her “seventeen gentleman callers” (in The Glass Menagerie) represent? A) Her anger at Laura for quitting school. B) Her anger at the women that don’t buy her magazines. C) Her wish for grandchildren. D) Her wish that she’d been sensible and not married Tom and Laura’s father. (Katherine Powell, 8th Period)

4) What is the theme of ‘The Cask of the Amontillado’? A) Never trust anyone. B) True and complete revenge. C) Never celebrate holidays. D) Italians should not have catacombs; I mean, why wouldn’t you bury someone down there, it’s the perfect place. (Katherine Powell, 8th Period)

 

5) What is Nick’s opinion of Tom and Daisy at the end of The Great Gatsby? A) They are good people, just misguided. B) They were lucky to escape Jay and Myrtle’s clutches. C) They are selfish and havoc wreaking creatures. D) They did what was best for their daughter. (Katherine Powell, 8th Period)

10 Things Everyone Should Know

1) Smile, or laugh, at least five times a day. 

2) When in doubt, twerk it out - dancing can have a very positive, very freeing effect on you. 

3) Be nice to other people. Even when they're annoying. Then everyone knows you as that one person whose really nice to that other person and they think of the other person as that one guy that's really annoying and TADA, you've won. 

4) Read and write a lot. It's the quickest way to become a genius. 

5) Travel. Love may be in the air in another country. 

6) Classical music is for everyone, bot just old German men. 

7) You can only save the world if you do something stupid. 

8) Don't be friends with people who don't like you. 

9) Love and be free. 

10) Stay awesome, stay yourself, stay happy in your own way, and you'll be okay. 

What's In Your Suitcase?

Am I an introvert, ambivert (is that how you spell it? according to Autocorrect, it's not a word.), or extrovert? I'd like to think I'm an ambivert. Sometimes, I want to stay at home and read a book and eat chocolate and listen to Lykke Li; other times, I want to go out with my friends and have sleepovers and gossip and not go to bed ever again. There are some advantages to being an ambivert: you're equally as comfortable alone as in a crowd, able to collaborate but able to function on your own, and just a social butterfly (if I do say so myself).
Feels good being versatile.
Another thing: I do like the point the speaker makes: introverts are good and, sometimes, better. So next time you see someone working furiously alone, don't interrupt them, let them be.
Let them be themselves!