I think of Dean Moriarty

While I didn't actually prancercise my way through Hull today, like Joanna Rohrback (LLC!)...

... I'm sure I did get some exercise - travelling through time. 

One of my favourite books, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, was recently adapted (to put it politely) into a film. Said film (that's all I have to say about it after watching it) was partially filmed in Hull. Now, every time I find myself there, I'm suddenly transported to the '50s. 

Groovy.

 

Suddenly, after crossing a bridge, I was in another book turned movie, this one set in the twenties.

Until finally I made it to "downtown" hull.

A.K.A. the 1970s.

Are your ankle weights in place?

Gatsby the great

"Gatsby? What Gatsby?"

Since watching The Great Gatsby on Sunday I have been in a JG, or Jay Gatsby, induced haze. 

The movie literally left me breathless.

From the lush sets and Prada designed costumes to the Jay-Z driven soundtrack and genius dialogue (F. Scott Fitzgerald's to thank for that one!) there isn't one thing about the movie that I didn't love.

While some people may have been left wondering "What Gatsby?" indeed as Baz Luhrmann only introduces us to the main character incarnated by Leonardo di Caprio well into the movie, I think the suspense achieves the desired effect when Gatsby finally appears on screen - after, of course, we are treated to several fleeting views of his (absolutely gorgeous) pinky ring. 

"And I like large parties. They're so intimate. At small parties there isn't any privacy."

I have always been a fan of the roaring twenties (who are we kidding? I've always been a fan of every decade before my own) but Luhrmann's version of Gatsby's '20s is literally good enough to eat. Old-fashioned champagne coupes and red velvet curtains intermingle with vintage automobiles and pink suits (for men) to create the kind of world I was meant to live in.

A moveable feast. A living, breathing work of art. 

While the reviews seem pretty divided, with people either loving or hating the movie, I really don't understand how you can critique a film for being too beautiful. 

* "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." 

In the end, Luhrmann's version of the book originally penned by Fitzgerald in 1925 makes me want to read it again, which is a testament to the film in its own right. A classic of American literature about the Jazz Age, debauchery, idealism and love, The Great Gatsby remains great, even after all these years.  

* What a great last line! Fitzgerald's I mean, not mine.