I Dreamed of Gatsby

Last night I had the wildest dream (with spoilers). Baz Luhrmann had delivered a Moulin Rouge! remake with vampire characters set in the world of F Scott's Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby". No matter what happened to the characters -- whether they were shot, or run down by custom cars, or what have you -- they just kept getting back up good as new like genetically modified super soldiers or like, well, vampires.

One should never say that 'this = that', emphatically, with dreams since they're often inscrutable but the last three movies I watched were Kiss of the Damned, Iron Man Three and The Great Gatsby so perhaps this nightmare was inevitable.

When I woke up I knew it was only a dream... except for the part about Baz sucking Moulin Rouge!'s blood.

May Flowers on their way

Gatsby's waiting on them. 

Have you – got everything you need?”

Perhaps some more flowers…”

Do you think it’s too much?”

Well, we hope not. I asked Nathaniel to renew May Flowers for another year since it's one of the first things I knew the blog from (Sentiment and flowers go well together, yes?). May flowers are coming at you most afternoons. Any requests?

While on the topic of The Great Gatsby, though, are you anxious for the premiere? The film opens Friday. Don't we all feel as nervous as Gatsby at the beginning of the trailer? I want to lean over and ask, "Have you got everything you need, Baz?" Hopefully he does. 

Smash: "The Fringe"

When I first heard the title of the new Smash episode was "The Fringe" I was all 'grrl, whaaa?' since Smash is safe and exceedingly polished (the show has always looked great and well funded whatever you want to say about the writing and acting) whereas most Fringe shows are kind of the ultimate clichés of scrappy underfunded hot messes. Surprised I am but I report that this week's episode turned out to be the best of the season thus far.

2.6  "The Fringe"
What's the buzz ♫ tell me what's-a-happening? Eileen has opted for the more commercial version of "Bombshell" and Julia is horrified that her favorite song "Never Give All The Heart" might now be cut. Derek in a petulant fit quits the show. Jimmy in a petulant fit quits his show (for like ½ a day). Karen in a dead-eyed fit (there are no other kinds for her) sneaks out to perform in "Hit List" which is kind of a back-door way of quitting her show. Julia in a sulky fit vaguely suggests she might quit her show. (Ivy is too much of a professional to quit her show but it's so bad you know she wants to...) Is all this quitting brilliant self parody and meta commentary on the episode by episode erosion of Smash's audience? more

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Yes, No, Maybe So: The Great Gatsby

Jose here. The summer not only brings us cheesy special effects movies and superhero blockbusters, it also announces the start of something else in movie theaters: the arrival of Oscar season trailers! Yesterday we got our first glimpse at Baz Luhrmann's take on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby which, no surprise, showed us Baz at his Baziest.

Those of you who were expecting him to show some restraint will be highly disappointed (although didn't you learn your lesson with Australia?) while the rest will rejoice in the way he flahses his unique visual style. Anyway, before you pick a team, let's do our usual Yes, No, Maybe So...

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top o' the linkin' to ya

Sydney Morning Herald production halted on The Great Gatbsy (briefly). Baz Luhrman hit on head just before Christmas. Ouch.
Listen Eggroll Mike D'Angelo's Christmas movie viewing history. Hee.
Rope of Silicon on that revolving director chair for Thor 2. What will it mean for the movie?
Indie Wire Ninety-seven Original Scores that are eligible for Oscar this year. Only five can be nominated of course. A notable omission is Alexandre Desplat's work on The Tree of Life but we figured that would get disqualified due to the abundance of non-original music in the film. As Hans Zimmer promised, he did not submit his wonderful Rango score. (sigh)

Coming Soon Charlize Theron discusses her role in Prometheus
Wider Screenings [NSFW]  in terms of budget to profit ratio the most successful film of all time is... Deep Throat.
Horror Asylum the Whedon-less reboot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is apparently dead. Yay!
Scene Stealers Trey Hoch really hates War Horse. He's not playing around with the hate.
The Wrap finds a silver lining in some not-so-great 2011's fare: good characters in forgettable movies.
THR Scott Feinberg's top ten. 
Hollywood Elsewhere on the strange omen of movie poster defacement in NYC, Mark Wahlberg's Contraband in this case. I also believe in this theory. The more a poster is defaced the more angry or irritated people are with its star or existence for any number of reasons.
Guardian has a Q&A with Samuel L Jackson. His greatest fear is "not working" which explains a lot about his film choices!