The Great Gatsby (2013)

[Edgy MD]

Notice how desperately he avoids the Romeo & Juliet question.

[Guest Swan Swan H]

I'm going on Saturday night after I get home from the game. My wife would rather watch her own foot be cut off, but I actually like going to movies alone. I never have to sit through something someone else wants to see and I don't.

I suppose after seeing Gatz and this I'll have witnessed the full spectrum of Gatsby adaptations, unless Michael Bay takes a shot at it someday.

[metsmarathon]

i'm fairly certain i've never read the book. (there's a thread related to this type of thing, isn't there?)

but i'll be seeing the movie tonight.

[Guest themetfairy]

I remember seeing the Redford version of the movie when I was young, and hating the characters.

I'm not sure that I ever read the book, although I suspect that I did.

I'll see this version at one point, if for no other reason than to see The Second Spitter on the big screen.

[Vic Sage]

The Redford version is dreadful. The Alan Ladd version actually isn't bad.
I read the book in HS and it has stayed with me like few other books ever have.
In fact, I can still see that green light at the end of the dock as I "beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

[Guest themetfairy]

We saw the film this evening. Visually beautiful, but otherwise nothing special. I know that it's supposed to be a commentary on the shallowness of the era, but a good film needs to have something that resonates with the viewer. The Second Spitter's blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance isn't enough....

If you are going to see this, see it on the big screen. The visuals are the movie's best asset.

[metsmarathon]

shoot, i must've blinked...

anywho, i kindof liked it, although at times it felt a bit too much art-direction-by-thomas-kincade fakey-fakey.

i saw it in 3d, and im not sure that it made anything better. imo, the 3d actually made the visual effects look more effect-y and fakey, and not in a good "we're doing it like this for artistic reasons" way but rather "we're not good enough to make this look less fake." the opening snowfall ruined me, i think.

[Edgy MD]

themetfairy wrote: I know that it's supposed to be a commentary on the shallowness of the era, but a good film needs to have something that resonates with the viewer.

When I was a kid, I guess in the wake of the Redford film, "Gatsby" was a theme of many an adult party, and all my friends seemed to have photos of their parents in goofy ice cream suits and flapper dresses. It bothered me in a way I couldn't get until I read the book and saw the film in high school --- these people were dreadful, and to celebrate and stylize (or, for Luhrmann, hyperstylize) their taste, seems to be about invite folks into a dark place where extreme shallowness is elevated.

[Ceetar]

metsmarathon wrote: shoot, i must've blinked...

Wife wants to see this, so we might this week/next weekend. Someone want to tell me where I should make sure I don't blink?

[Edgy MD]

Man on bench reading paper.

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

I have no idea what Spitter looks like so I'd miss him even if my eyes were propped open like Alex DeLarge.

[ashie62]

The best version of Gatsby is Andy Kaufman reading the entire book to an auditorium of college kids.

[metirish]

A scathing review in the Irish Times

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/review-the-great-gatsby-1.1394679

It would be most unfair � though satisfying � to suggest that Luhrmann has taken the book into the loo and wiped his bum with it. In fact, the script sticks reasonably close to Fitzgerald�s plot. A ludicrous, tacked-on framing sequence does, however, alert us to the impending war on subtlety.

[Frayed Knot]

"... alert us to the impending war on subtlety."

That's a great line.

[Edgy MD]

Personally I think he's too kind to those who abuse the art of adaptation. It's not about faithfulness, it's about respect.

The worst adaptations don't care about the source material at all. They borrow authority from their superiors. And don't always return it intact.