Dallas Buyers Club

I watched Dallas Buyers Club at the weekend and I watched with high expectations. I must admit, that these expectations were met and I really liked the film. However, I didn't enjoy it for the reasons that I thought I would. After watching The Oscars, I felt really irritated that the lovely Leo didn't win the Oscar for best actor in his recent film The Wolf Of Wall Street. I felt even more irritated after seeing Matthew McConaughey's speech  about how he is his own hero (arrogant much?) But then I realised that I was perhaps just bieng biased because I am 100% in love with Leo and I hadnt actually seen Dallas Buyers Club at this point so I couldn't really say that McConaughey didn't deserve the Oscar. I needed cold, hard proof.

So I watched the film. I genuinely wanted to come away from it feeling like I was wrong and that McConaughey did genuinely deserve the Oscar. However, after half an hour of watching, I thought that McConaughey's acting and character depiction didn't really seem very different to the style he has adopted before. Don't get me wrong, I love Matthew McConaughey. Put How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days in the DVD player, bring me a bottle of wine and some popcorn and I'm yours; and I must admit it was nice to see him in a film where he isn't taking his shirt off every five seconds. Despite all this, I still was questioning whether or not his performance in Dallas Buyers Club was Oscar worthy. I don't think it was.

However, after watching two minutes of his co-star, Jared Leto, I was 100% convinced that Leto fully deserved his Oscar (despite my love for Jonah Hill's portrayal of Donnie Azoff in Wolf of Wall Street.) I hadnt seen the trailer for Dallas Buyers Club, so I had no idea that Leto would pop up as a transvestite - and a rather attractive one at that. Once I realised the character was being played by Leto I was impressed. McConaughey's performance when compared to Leto's lacked depth and insight.

I'm not saying that McConaughey's performance wasn't powerful because it really was. One of the most moving scenes in the film for me was a scene in the supermarket where Ron Woodroof (McConaughey) makes his homophobic 'friend' shake Rayon's (Leto's) hand. This depiction of Ron's transition from a homophobe to a defender of his gay friend sends an important message to the audience. The relationship that exists and develops between Ron and Rayon comes to be one of mutual respect of one anothers sexuality. When Ron contracts the HIV virus, he is verbally abused by his former friends because they assume that he is a homosexual and that is how he acquired the virus. This ignorance from his peers forces Ron into the shoes of homosexuals and he is forced to endure the same abuse that they receive.

Although this film has a strong story and portrays messages that all should respect, I still believe that McConaughey's performance was perhaps not as deserved of an Oscar as much as everyone thinks it is. I must say that I though his performance in the Lincoln Lawyer oushines that of his performance in Dallas Buyers Club. Sorry Matt.

Jane Eyre

After reading Frankenstein for one of my modules at university, and finding it shockingly dull, I was very hesitant to read the next text that they had set us. But alas, I begrudgingly continued and read Jane Eyre. I can now safely say that this novel by Charlotte Bronte is the most inspiring and empowering novel that I have ever read. it gave me almost as much girl power as listening to Beyoncé does (because really, who radiates girl power like Queen Bey.)

In this novel, we are introduced to Jane Eyre. Jane is a fiesty girl to say the least. The novel starts with Jane as a child and when told that naughty children go to hell, she responds with "Then I must keep in good health and not die." Even as a child jane is strong and stands up for herself which is refreshing coming from anovel of this time period. Women reading this at the time that this novel was written would have been facing oppression and they didn't even realise that they could do anything about it. Being stuck in a domestic role was normal and being rude to men (especially men of a superior class and position) was outrageous. So having a young Jane Eyre speak back to a dominant figure was a clear statement from Bronte that men are not superior and should not be treated as such.

Throughout this novel, Jane makes it clear to her audience that she is aplain young lady and that she will not be told otherwise. When Rochester attempts to compliment her, she asks that she not be lied to and that she be accepted for the plain, educated girl that she thinks herself to be. This transforms Jane into a fictional role model that young girls can admire. It puts forward the idea of self-acceptance as opposed to the self-deprecation that we are presented with in other novels, such as Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice.'

In actual fact, Kane Eyre is a novel that is dominated by female characters. The only men that we are introduced to in the novel all posess a huge backlog of flaws and unlikebale characteristics. Even Mr Rochester, the apple of our heroin's eye, is rude, foul tempered and tempremental. The female characters that we are introduced to are all strong and dominant. Jane herself is self-assured, wrong willed and independent. Jane's aunt is aggressive and the head of her household. Finally, the mistress at Jane's school is kind yet authoritative. As well as giving her audience plenty of strong female characters, Bronte also expresses the importance of the bond that can exist between women. Throughout the novel, Jane has a number of mother figures, sister figures and even an adopted daughter. Through all of these relationships Bronte explores the idea that women can and will form bonds easier than men will.

Not only did I find myself feeling impressed by Jane's integrity, I also found myseld getting a bit irritated by some of the more submissive female characters in the novel. It made me think that if Jane can stand up for herself then why can't they? It was this very idea that empowered me at the end of the book. So thank you Charlotte Bronte, for I am officially a feminist.