alyssa is a mess.

calumet412: Europe-bound soldiers saying goodbye before leaving...

Sat, 25 May 2013 13:27:05 -0400

Europe-bound soldiers saying goodbye before leaving Chicago, WWI, 1918

This was most likely taken at the LaSalle St. Station.

Chicago Daily News

wifi-in-hell: People Magazine February 1996 John Lennon...

Wed, 22 May 2013 21:00:27 -0400

wifi-in-hell:

People Magazine February 1996

John Lennon & Yoko Ono

Displaying Intimacy In A 1980 Promotional Video For Double Fantasy

...

Tue, 21 May 2013 01:12:35 -0400

Blue Skies | Noah And The Whale

I don’t think that it’s the end
But I know we can’t keep going

Audio

Mon, 20 May 2013 17:15:37 -0400

Happy Monday.

Mon, 20 May 2013 13:50:33 -0400

Happy Monday.

catbountry: steveholtvstheuniverse: every achievement in...

Sun, 19 May 2013 18:38:12 -0400

catbountry:

steveholtvstheuniverse:

every achievement in cinema history has led up to this moment

Greatest entrance in all of movie history.

This is the reason we watch Space Jam.

Peter Travers, has been a reviewer for Rolling Stone magazine almost 20 years and running. In recent...

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:05:54 -0400

Peter Travers, has been a reviewer for Rolling Stone magazine almost 20 years and running. In recent years, his opinions of most of the major motion pictures are very bitter and he has a good reason to be. The film industry is lacking, audiences no longer go to movies for good whole hearted stories, they go for visual effects, sex and violence (not all movie viewers do but, taking a look at some of the bigger blockbuster box office movies that have come out in the last few years doesn’t exactly prove that isn’t true). I’m not trying to discredit big budget films such as ‘The Avengers’ or anything else Robert Downy Jr. are Michael Bay want to make, but it seems as though they’ve set a different standard for what movie goers want to see. So when Baz Luhrmann says “I want to make a movie based off of The Great Gatsby.” Hollywood says, “Ok but, you have to make it ‘good’ and by good we mean ‘sell it’ and by sell it we mean ‘put it in 3D and get Jay-Z to commission the soundtrack for it’”
         I don’t think this negative review has anything to do with film itself, Peter Travers is angry because a movie that should’ve been a classic, and is itself based off of a classic, by a director who did a fabulous job, and actors who did some of the best work I’ve seen them do in years, has succumbed to a new standard of film that he personally doesn’t like. It wasn’t anyone’s fault but, the production companies for wanting to out sell each other.
         The Great Gatsby was fantastic and yes it was over the top and yes it was dramatic but THAT’S THE POINT. Not only is anything Baz Luhrmann directs so glitzy it’s almost bad, but the Jazz Age itself is so glitzy and expensive it makes you sick. This film captured that without needing to add loops of 1920s music to popular hip-hop music, or 3D. I think that they even handled that very well, the 3D played really well into some parts of the film and the soundtrack could’ve been much worse.
            As for the acting in this movie, is anyone really pretending that it was just “okay”? It was the best performance I’ve seen out of Tobey Macguire probably ever and Leonard DiCaprio did more than just “understand” his role, he became his role. I was just as skeptical as anyone about Leo but, goddamn did he give a performance in this. As a viewer I forgot I was watching Leonardo DiCaprio act and instead felt like I was watching Jay Gatsby.
        The direction was fantastic. The shots Luhrmann choose captured so much of symbolism and the irony in the novel. Yes, you could say the symbolism was a little over done but, you sure as hell can’t say it wasn’t there. Fitzgerald wrote the symbolism to be over the top in fact most every lost generation writer wrote about nothing but symbolism, literally pages and pages of symbolism.
        I was also a little bit uneasy about the way the story was being told but, as terrible as it sounds, a lot of people might not have read The Great Gatsby. How many movies or TV shows are out anymore that are made for people who, read the book or the comics or seen the original? Movie makers today do not give their audiences as much intellectual credit as they used to. Watch any movie from 1940 and try to zone out for 5 minutes without having to rewind to figure out what you missed. Now try watching something that came out last year and do the same thing. One is obviously easier to do and it offends me a little. Baz Luhrmann, has Tobey MacGuire narrate the movie because, his character narrates it in the book. He also has him narrate for people who didn’t read the book, and for people who don’t want to have to focus too hard and to keep some of the more classic well known lines from the book relevant in the film without making them direct character dialogue.
          This movie was nothing short of brilliant by today’s standards and maybe that’s what we needed. We needed a big budget movie to come along and upset us by the things we deemed so important in movies we watch today. If we were to see a preview for the next Avenger’s movie and they said, it wasn’t going to be in 3D and the soundtrack is going to be purely scored music by Hans Zimmer and the actors are not going to use dialogue that directly explains every single thing that’s happening, there would be uproar and that movie we be dubbed the worst Avengers movie ever. I’m going out on a huge limb here, not knowing Peter Travers’ but, I really feel like the negativity surrounding this movie has nothing to do with the movie itself but with him (and myself as an audience member) realizing we’ve finally gone too far.
       Movies that are made with budgets like this and to the standard that this film was made are for our enjoyment as viewers but, mostly to make money. Hollywood, like any other industry unfortunately, is about making money. With that said, I think F. Scott Fitzgerald would’ve loved this movie. After all, on his death bed Fitzgerald was buying up copies of his own novels to make it seem as if they were selling rapidly again. It was about money. I read a separate review of this movie claiming that F. Scott Fitzgerald would’ve considered this movie to be an awful rendition of his novel. Like most of the viewers, he would’ve been so mesmerized by the colors and the 3D; he would’ve believed it was good. Even if he did hate it, the release of the movie caused the book itself to reach a new height in sales in the last year, and he would’ve been pleased with that regardless of how the movie was.
     Go see it for yourself, don’t let myself or Peter Travers’ or Scott Fitzgerald dictate your own opinions because, we need more people to form their own opinions of films. Without selective audiences, film makers don’t have to try to make movies good, anymore

Audio

Tue, 14 May 2013 17:30:30 -0400

Audio

Tue, 14 May 2013 12:50:39 -0400

What (am) I(‘m) listening to do today?!

Tue, 14 May 2013 12:38:58 -0400

What (am) I(‘m) listening to do today?!

Emo isn't dead. Fall Out Boy isn't/wasn't emo music. It was just pop punk. Emo is alive in bands all over. It's a genre entirely misrepresented by the media. Bands like American Football, Sunny Day Real Estate, Mineral, Cap'n Jazz, Rites of Spring, etc. Sorry I'm just a big fan of emo music and get kind of irked when people use the term incorrectly.

Mon, 13 May 2013 22:28:48 -0400

I completely understand. The media is miss using the term.

I have never felt more proud to be a Fall Out Boy fan than I am in 2013...

Mon, 13 May 2013 18:52:49 -0400

I don’t care how lame that sounds. I remember being called ‘emo’ and taking a huge offense to it and now emo’s dead and we’re all still here and so are they and I think they rock and I think I rock too. Believers never die.

Someone hit my car and my insurance won’t cover it. Why the fuck do I pay $169 dollars a month...

Mon, 13 May 2013 11:22:41 -0400

Someone hit my car and my insurance won’t cover it. Why the fuck do I pay $169 dollars a month to my insurance?

I don’t have enough money, I’m not ready for anything.

There’s something almost beautiful in the way an iPod screen cracks like the pattern on butterfly wings.

thebitchboys: Rolling Stone // Getting Back The Beatles’ final...

Sun, 12 May 2013 23:46:22 -0400

thebitchboys:

Rolling Stone // Getting Back

The Beatles’ final live performance, on Apple Records’ rooftop, January 30th, 1969.

Photo

Fri, 10 May 2013 14:15:58 -0400

this is amazing.

Fri, 10 May 2013 09:18:01 -0400

this is amazing.

Why are they so perfect? Just why? Sometimes I want to cry...

Thu, 09 May 2013 23:05:32 -0400

Why are they so perfect? Just why?
Sometimes I want to cry because I love The Beatles so much.
Why? Why? Why?

(protecting unrealistic expectations on famous people, yeah yeah yeah)

Audio

Thu, 09 May 2013 13:25:34 -0400

"I don’t think there is any truth. There are only points of view."

Tue, 07 May 2013 20:03:48 -0400

“I don’t think there is any truth. There are only points of view.”

- Allen Ginsberg (via wickedinnocence111)

Things I Want To Do In The Next Year Or So: 1. Learn to speak...

Tue, 07 May 2013 16:36:44 -0400

Things I Want To Do In The Next Year Or So:
1. Learn to speak French
2. Lose 10 pounds or Learn to accept that when you grow up you get hips.
3. Learn to do the Charleston
4. See Paul McCartney again
5. Wear dresses or make up or whatever. Don’t be afraid to feel pretty.
6. Start Meditating or Stop Stressing myself out.