The Great Gatsby Film Review

I saw The Great Gatsby last weekend. It was definitely worth the price of admission. Normally, I don’t read reviews, but I was curious to see what the film critics thought of it. And if it would do the F.Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece justice. Despite the mixed reviews I was thoroughly entertained and impressed that Baz Luhrmann was able to pull off such a visually stunning, lavish, fun movie without watering down the themes of the story.

Baz Luhrmann, whose previous films Moulin Rouge and William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, showcased his ability to incorporate pop music with classic stories. This time Baz Luhrmann used hip hop music which caused a lot of controversy before the film opened. However I didn’t find the music to be the least bit distracting at all instead it worked well with the scenes in which they were placed.

When I first learned of this latest remake of The Great Gatsby, I was curious to see how Leonardo Di Caprio would be as the mysterious self made millionaire Jay Gatsby. Not surprisely Leonardo Di Caprio disappeared into the role of Jay Gatsby with such ease that it is almost easy to forget this was an actor playing a role. As a matter of fact I was quite happy with the casting choices for Daisy, Tom, Jordan, and Tobey. I felt they all worked well together. The only issues I had with the film were the underdevelopment of the relationship between Nick and Jordan as it was in the book, and the miscast of Isla Fisher as Myrtle Wilson. I am guessing that Baz Luhrmann was trying to save time by not further exploring the Nick/Jordan relationship any more than he did. As for the character of Myrtle Fisher, I thought that Christina Hendricks,from the tv series Mad Men, would have been a better choice in my opinion. Simply because Christina Hendricks fit the description from the book and could do the character better justice than Isla Fisher did.

Last but not least major kudos to Catherine Martin who was responsible for the costumes. She absolutely got every detail right. All the suits and dresses were elegant, flirty, and fun. Hopefully we will see more of Gatsby’s twenties fashions as the new trend in the upcoming months.

Have you seen The Great Gatsby? We would like to know. Please kind enough to leave a comment to let us know what you thought of it.

DP~MVBCLUB

My NaNoWriMo Experience

I decided to participate in this year”s National November Writing Month aka NaNoWriMo challenge.  One month to write a 50 thousand word book beginning on November 1st.  Ok I can do this became my mantra for the entire month. As any writer can tell you writing can be a rewarding but often frustrating experience as you try to tell an entertaining ,coherent story. Some days the words would flow like water out of a faucet. Other days, it would be like being stranded in the Sahara Desert searching for a puddle of water to drink. On these days I read books, spent the holidays with family and friends, and survived devastating Hurricane Sandy.  I am proud to say that I completed my book on November 29th. The word count was 50,950.  After I submitted my story to NaNoWriMo I decided to take a break from it. No editing, revising, or reworking it for at least a few months. Perhaps one day soon I will revisit the story maybe even try to get it publish.  Until then I will enjoy this achievement with a well deserved pat on the back and a job well done to myself. 

We at the MVBClUB would love to read about your experiences with NaNoWriMo. Please come and share with us.

Remember Reading and Writing is Sexy.

 

DP~MVBCLUB

Halloween Reading

Happy October everyone. Halloween is rapidly approaching.  I usually like to read something that is scary or suspenseful.  One of my favorite books is The Dark Half by Stephen King. It has a great combination of suspense, spookiness, and a touch of humor to keep you reading to the last page.  We would like to know what is your favorite scary book? Which author makes you want to hide under your bed covers?

Remember Reading is Sexy and Spooky Good

DP~MVBCLUB

The Great Gatsby — Book Review

I heard so much about how much people liked or disliked The Great Gatsby. I had to read it for myself. I am glad that I took the chance and read it.  I was surprised by how short the book was. It came in around 175 pages. I had been expecting 600 pages at least.

I was captivated from the first sentence to the last. F. Scott Fitzgerald definitely has a way with words. I felt like I had been transported to 1920s West Egg, Long Island where the wealthy partied with absolute abandon. Champagne flowed endlessly like water out a faucet. Jay Gatsby was the epitome of this era with his polite yet mysterious demeanor. Once in his presence he made each person feel like they were the center of the universe.

But little does anyone know there is one person that Gatsby feels is his reason for being. Daisy Buchanan, his married love interest who happens to be Nick Carraway’s cousin. Daisy seems to be in a loveless marriage to Tom Buchanan who has a mistress. Daisy is tormented by this knowledge. It factors largely in her relationship with Jay Gatsby.

Throughout the book my perceptions of Gatsby and Daisy changed dramatically. I thought of Jay Gatsby as a mysterious potentially sinister man. But in the end he was far that image. He turned out to be person with the drive and ambition to achieve the American Dream. Daisy becomes interwined with this need to succeed as she previously left him because he was poor.

Daisy Buchanan turned out to be a spoiled, cold,manipulative person who didn’t care who she destroyed as long as she got what she wanted. This point was driven home by the tragedies that occurred in the final chapters of the story.

Once at the end of the book it became clear that Jay Gatsby’s love for Daisy was more of an obsession which almost consumed him mind, body, and soul. While Daisy used Gatsby as a means to torment her philandering husband. They left town together to start over. Nick Carraway describe them best at easily destroying others’ lives and leaving it to others to pick up the pieces while they enjoy their wealth elsewhere. Quite a poignant and true statement.

The Great Gatsby had such a profound effect on me that I had to stop every few chapters and process every single event that happened.

One of my favorite quotes was “Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”

…for one of these characters it did.

 I am highly recommending this book for everyone to read.

Please let us know what your thoughts are regarding it or this entry.

All comments are welcome!

~DP of MVBClub

Bobby’s Boy by Mark Wilson

 The ManVsBooksClub proudly welcomes:

Mark Wilson, writer, Author, reader, friend

…. as our guest to the writers’ studio!

That Difficult First Novel…

Thank you everyone for the warm welcome! I am very happy to be writing on behalf of this Club which bases its’ notion of helping men getting back into reading books.

My name is Mark Wilson and Bobby’s Boy is my debut novel.
It’s been an interesting process, writing my first book, but a fantastic one as well. I began writing as a way of emptying my cluttered brain. Bobby’s Boy began life as a short story titled The Rusted Key in October 2011. The story was based around a simple concept, inspired by a graphic novel called Stray Bullets by David Lapham (I won’t divulge the concept here as it would act as a spoiler for anyone who hasn’t read the book).

The short story grew so I started calling it a Novella and kept writing. The Novella began to gain momentum and slowly became my first novel. I made little progress over the next few months, finding myself short of time, and even shorter of discipline. Then January came.
January 2012 was a turnaround month for the novel. I decided at the start of the month, under the advice of my best friend and Jack White (via an interview he did on keeping creativity flowing), to dedicate at least an hour every day to writing the novel. At the end of January I renamed the book Bobby’s Boy as the previous name just didn’t work anymore.

 
A thousand words a day was my target. According to Mr. White., you’ve got to work your creative muscles like any other and use them every day. To an ex-gym addict it struck the right note. Some days it’ll be shite that you write (like that wee bit of poetry I slipped in there), others you’ll produce work that’ll make you wonder where the hell it came from when you re-read. I take the rough with the smooth. The important thing is to keep the story moving continuously and to not “wait for the rays of the sun to shine on your keyboard, ‘cos you’ll rust your ideas”.

 
Some-days I managed more words than I’d  targeted, a lot more, but I never fell below at least 1000 words a day. My new “working ethos” helped me jump from 22.500 words on January 7th, to 75000 words in the completed novel on February 14th.  I’m not saying that these words were all brilliant, some most definitely were not, but they did moving the story on, and were re-written on another day. Not bad for having a full-time job teaching high school kids and my three-year old son (my top priority) to keep me busy also.

 
For me, books, movies and music have always been connected. The themes, emotions and character development that make or break a good story hold true for all three media. I’ve been a bit exasperated recently at the endless flow of vampires/detectives/spies/franchises, written to formula music, film and books. I miss good stories that develop characters over the course of one novel, making you care for, hate or love them in the process.

 
There a saying in the music industry that should relate to the literary world…work hard enough and become your own favourite band. I’m a distance behind my favourite authors, but theirs is the standard I’m reaching for.

 
I’ve re-visited some really dark experiences during the writing of this novel and in the construction of my characters and story. Some of these I’d forgotten about for decades. Other memories have resurfaced that I’ve enjoyed remembering for the first time in many years.  I had fantastic fun writing my first novel, and resent deeply the gap I have to enforce to market and Promo the book. I just want to start my next project, but books don’t get themselves noticed.

I’ve very much enjoyed putting Tom (my main character) out into the world to be interacted with or ignored, what-ever the fates may bring. I’ll be sad to leave him and will miss writing about this cool, lucky, happy, tragic and a little damaged wee guy every day. Still, onto the next one, with gusto.

 
My next book, titled Nae’body’s Hero, is a tale of heroism from three unlikely characters. A Scottish laddie with a gift, an American agent tasked with hunting terrorists, and a British-born Pakistani lad who joins Al-Queda. Nae’body’s Hero will be released in December 2012.

 

Bobby’s Boy is available on amazon kindle and as a paperback.

www.markwilsonbooks.com

Contact Mark via:

Twitter: @markwilsonbooks
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Bobbysboy

50 Shades Freed by EL James –The Review Is Up!

The ManVsBooks Club presents:

50 Shades of Freed

Part III of III ~ The Finale

Here I am…on the last page of the trilogy. I was so happy when I got to the last page of 50 Shades of Freed

I was hoping this final book would make reading this series worth it. Sadly it wasn’t. After a three-month courtship, Ana Steele is now Ana Grey.  Her professional life has undergone speedy change as well. She is no longer an assistant to the Editor but now the Editor thanks to the sudden firing of her boss. Mind you Ana is still fresh out of college and a couple of weeks later she is the boss. How implausible! I wish that E.L. James would have made Ana sudden promotion more realistic.

Once again, E.L James relies heavily on constant arguments followed by sex scenes to push the love story forward. Christian Grey confronts his demons by facing them; however, Christian shows his immaturity in several situations. For example:

1. He decides to punish his wife by handcuffed hands and feet together in their kinky relations. He proceeds to mark her body with bite marks as though he is marking his territory.

2. When he found out that she was pregnant. He yelled at her and called her names for her unexpected pregnancy. I felt E.L James went to a new low writing those scenes! How disappointing!

3. Ultimately Christian and Ana reunite. They even deal with kidnapping attempt against Christian’s sister which places Ana and her unborn child in imminent danger…everyone survives. 

E.L. James doesn’t bore us with the gory details of the pregnancy and the delivery. Instead we are fast forwarded to two years later where Ana is now the owner of Grey Publishing ,a doting mother of a son, and pregnant with her second child. Christian has made peace with his past and actually enjoys being a father. Ok here I go, I’m going to note something positive…the ending is picture perfect.

At the end of the book E.L. James included a bonus chapter of Christian first meeting with Ana from 50 Shades of Grey from his point of view. I found myself enjoying his thoughts more so than Ana’s the first time.

I wish Ms James had written these books from both of their point of views.

Feel free to write your review below or tell us your thoughts and comments below.

Is the 50 Shades Trilogy worth all the hype?

~DP of ManVsBooksClub

50 Shades Darker — The Review Is In!

The ManVsBooksClub presents:

50 Shades Darker by EL James

Part II of III 

50 Shades Darker picks up a couple of days after Ana Steele breaks up with Christian Grey. I guess she couldn’t handle his “other” lifestyle as much as she thought she could.  During the course of their weekend breakup Ana pines away for Christian. I think she managed to lose 5 lbs in that time. A possible new diet plan for the masses??? Meanwhile Christian Grey has decided to give up his “other” lifestyle. After years of therapy Ana leaving him had that effect on him. Somewhere the psychiatric community sobbing uncontrollably.

It doesn’t take long for Ana and her 50 Shades to reunite. Ana is back to swooning over Christian. Throughout the course of the book Ana decides to the bondage and spanking another try. It all leads to some of most repetitious sex. I can’t believe how bored I became of it. I couldn’t flip the pages fast enough.

In between all the unnecessary arguments, sex scenes, and descriptions of Christian Grey Ana manages to work at a publishing house as an assistant to the Editor. Christian being the control freak that he is, buys the company…(Wow, I guess it’s good to have the boss as your boyfriend hey?)

During the course of the story we found out more about Christian’s past submissives: the women who Christian controlled. One of them begins stalking Ana. This woman turns out to be very elusive. Ana is forced to move into Christian’s penthouse apartment. Ana learns more about Christian first experiences in the “other” lifestyle. He was a submissive to a woman who was friends with his adoptive parents.

Once again E.L. James speedily wraps up the story by having the stalker caught and Christian publicly outing his inappropriate relationship with the family friend at his family’s home.

Overall, I thought this book should have focused more on getting to know Christian Grey.

…but we’ll see where EL James takes us next….

I will next be  reviewing the third and final book in the series…

50 Shades Freed!

~DP of the ManVsBooksClub