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The Great Gatsby - Remake in the Works

Doublegun

Practically Family
Messages
773
Location
Michigan
Face it: today's average movie goer doesn't want to pay $15 to have to think about anything. Subtlety is a lost art form.
 

Doctor Strange

I'll Lock Up
Messages
5,245
Location
Hudson Valley, NY
Another underwhelming early review:

http://www.hitfix.com/motion-captured/review-luhrmanns-great-gatsby-is-okay-and-nothing-more

Sample comment from this review:
DiCaprio is a total misfire as Gatsby, thick and expressionless and unable to evoke any real sense of longing, and Tobey Maguire plays Carraway more as feeble-minded than anything else.

Despite how gorgeous the cast looks, between the UTTERLY WRONG! contemporary song soundtrack and the already disappointing reviews, I think this one will slip off my see-it-theatrically list...
 
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Messages
531
Location
The ruins of the golden era.
Another underwhelming early review:

http://www.hitfix.com/motion-captured/review-luhrmanns-great-gatsby-is-okay-and-nothing-more

Sample comment from this review:
DiCaprio is a total misfire as Gatsby, thick and expressionless and unable to evoke any real sense of longing, and Tobey Maguire plays Carraway more as feeble-minded than anything else.

Despite how gorgeous the cast looks, between the UTTERLY WRONG! contemporary song soundtrack and the already disappointing reviews, I think this one will slip off my see-it-theatrically list...

Interesting. Wasn't that the knock against the Redford Gatsby version too?

Goodness, it looks like the film is two hours and 23 minutes. You may be able to read the book in that amount of time.
 
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justalex

New in Town
Messages
8
Location
seattle
I was sad to hear they had a modern soundtrack. But really movies are never as good as the book, so im not expecting too much.
 

Edward

Bartender
Messages
25,074
Location
London, UK
Interesting. Wasn't that the knock against the Redford Gatsby version too?

Goodness, it looks like the film is two hours and 23 minutes. You may be able to read the book in that amount of time.

Well, not quite (I went a dramatised complete reading last year - Gatz, well worth catching if you can; that took seven hours), but it'#s certainly longer than I'd have anticipated. Such a shame we can't go back in time and get a competent director, though.
 

Gingerella72

A-List Customer
Messages
428
Location
Nebraska, USA
Just the previews have turned me off of wanting to watch it. I don't know what kind of camera effect they're using but everyone looks plastic and fake, and the sets all look like total greenscreen CGI. No thank you.
 

dhermann1

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,154
Location
Da Bronx, NY, USA
Pretty favorable review in today's NY Times. One of my vintage buddies here in NYC was with a group (which included Don of Club Wits End) who went last night, and his comments are consistent with the Times's review. So I am holding a glimmer of hope.
 

sheeplady

I'll Lock Up
Bartender
Messages
4,479
Location
Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, USA
[video=youtube;QdU8Uksj8p4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdU8Uksj8p4[/video]

So I'm sitting here listening to it, and I'm thinking, it's not half bad. It could be a little more developed (I think the arrangement sounds a bit sparse, there should be more instruments in it). Then Beyonce (is that Beyonce?) *opens her mouth.*

And the singing sounds obviously dubbed, as if it was just sped up. I couldn't finish it. It's butchering a song that at it's best I would call OK.

How about they have some of the original hits of the 20s recreated by modern artists? They could even give them a modern twist. Somehow that would seem much better. Or maybe that would be even worse.

Also, please please tell me that the interpretation of the book in this movie isn't that Gatsby was truly "crazy in love" with the real flesh and blood Daisy. I always thought he was in love with his own image of her, something which she was not. The true tragedy being he built a life purely based upon his "dream girl" that didn't exist and never existed. Write a new song about that.
 
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Edward

Bartender
Messages
25,074
Location
London, UK
Absolutely. Anyone who thinks Gatsby is a love story is as flat-out wrong as those who think Romeo and Juliet has a damn thing to do with love. They are, respectively, about obsession and teenage infatuation. No more, no less.

Oh.... and Gatsby is also about the corrupting effect of capitalism and the class system, but that's a whole nother animal...
 

flat-top

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,772
Location
Palookaville, NY
Without reading any of the above reviews, the one I did just read in my local paper says (paraphrasing) that with the casting and set design, a true film adaption could have been made, but Baz Luhrmann seems to be going out of his way to NOT make that happen.
 

Feraud

Bartender
Messages
17,190
Location
Hardlucksville, NY
So I'm sitting here listening to it, and I'm thinking, it's not half bad. It could be a little more developed (I think the arrangement sounds a bit sparse, there should be more instruments in it). Then Beyonce (is that Beyonce?) *opens her mouth.*
Unfortunately JayZ was tapped to produce the soundtrack and has to stick his awfully mediocre wife in the mix.


The Wall Street Journal gave the film a bad review. Apparently the hip hop elements in the soundtrack are the least of the films failings.
The film is described as grating, dreadful, and lifeless. It attempts to showcase the style without substance and fails to present the themes that made the novel an American classic.
If a director cannot adequately present the failings of excess and social climbing in this economic environment there's no hope for his storytelling ability.

I think I’ll go see Iron Man 3 this weekend.
 

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