AND THE WINNER IS ... JOHN MONTANA WATCHED AND COMMENTED THE OSCAR CEREMONY FOR US

So the 88^th Annual Academy Awards were on last night. And as usual, they were filled with controversy because many black actors/actresses felt they were victims of racism because no black actors were nominated this year. And certainly many people have jumped onto this bandwagon, because that has become the most popular thing…find a cause of injustice and jump on it and rife it till it ends and then you jump to the next one. 

Is there racism in Hollywood? Probably. Racism exists everywhere, why wouldn’t it show its ugly head here? Was there racism here? I don’t know. Or I can’t say. Because racism is an individual belief that manifests in ugly behavior, whether alone or in a lynch mob. I think what most likely happened is this: With the advent of digital cameras and less money needed to make a feature film, there were literally hundreds of films to watch and consider. 

THE GREAT GATSBY? NOT QUITE, BUT THERE IS GOOD TO BE FIND

Baz Luhrman's latest movie is still in some  theaters and has so far divided audiences - as expected - and overcome any promising financial plan. Either you love it or you hate it. This is   what usually happens after you watch one of Luhrman's films. Lisa Keys has seen The Great Gatsby and wants to share her musings with us, here at FLY HIGH. Do you agree with her? Did you like Leonardo Di Caprio's Gatsby? 

Having seen the trailer for The Great Gatsby, which plays like a pretentious R&B/Rap video, one can be forgiven for entering the cinema with fairly low expectations of this adaptation of the American literary classic. Was this to be another flashy, CGI laden, piece of film making folly, all style, no substance? It teeters on the brink at times, as the occasionally over the top set plays threaten to drown the heart of the movie in a soup of visual trickery, modern music and rather out of place slow motion violence. However, the film does manage to remember that at it's heart is the 1925 novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, constantly referring back to the book almost word for word at times. This, combined with some notable lead performances, serves to save the film from itself.       

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD AND THE AMERICAN DREAM

Leonardo di Caprio & Kate Winslet in Revolutionary Road

(by guest blogger Lisa Keys) American fiction went through several noticeable phases in the twentieth-century. Naturally, there were those writers who strayed from the trend, but key movements can be identified that appeared from social, political and economic changes.

The century began with explorations of modernity, with the likes of Henry James discussing the foibles of modern society, before writers stepped excitedly into the world of the American Dream. This rapidly gave way to a less hopeful tone, following the Wall Street Crash of 1929, after which literature became awash with depression. From this depression emerged works such as Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1949), which used the Loman family as a microcosm through which to explore the anti-climax of the American Dream. Finally, writers began to rebel a little and question the importance of this capitalism that they had all been fighting for. Leading this rebellion was Jack Kerouac, and the Beat Generation. Finally, in 1961 came Richard Yates' debut novel: Revolutionary Road. The book was recently made into a film starring Kate Winslet, (who also stars in Sense and Sensibility) and her now two-time on-screen lover, Leonardo Di Caprio.