Review: "The Great Gatsby"

This review originally appeared in my column at Towleroad

"Gatsby. What Gatsby?"

Daisy asks with a rush of girlish 'it can't be!' alarm, her nerves far overpowering the tiny glimmer of hope you think you hear in her voice. Which is as sensible a reaction as anyone could have when hearing about the arrival of another Jay Gatsby in movie theaters. You don't mean THE GREAT GATSBY, do you?

The F Scott Fitzgerald classic is a tough book to crack for filmmakers, its power so tied to its gorgeous (slim) prose, its subtle and cynical evocations and condemnations of American wealth and unspoken caste system. Further complicating adaptations is that the story is subjectively narrated. It's all told by Nick Carraway and his is, despite blood ties to the wealthy, an outsider's point of view. It's an easy book to love but a difficult one to adapt. But Hollywood keeps trying once every thirty years or so. 

The story, if you are unfamiliar (though you won't want to admit that out loud) follows the attempts of the elusive mysterious extremely wealthy Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) to win back his lost love Daisy (Carey Mulligan) who he abandoned many years earlier while penniless to seek his fortune. More...

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A Cluster of Links

articles elsewhere
The House Next Door Aaron Tveit on the rise
Salon Jennifer Wright relays the joy and weirdness of tweeting The Great Gatsby line by line
In Contention Warner Bros will distribute Ryan Gosling's directorial debut How to Catch a Monster starring Christina Hendricks. I'm so excited for this one. I guess it takes a great actor to finally give Christina her due as a potential film star
Guardian looks back at Carey Mulligan's career thus far
Empire Is Joe Wright directing 50 Shades of Grey. If so my interest in the project went from minimal to lots.
The New Yorker on Upstream Color. I feel terrible that I haven't yet seen this movie and loved Primer

three things that made me lol this week that i keep clicking back to
My New Plaid Pants Myrtle mowed down in The Great Gatsby (1949)
Des Hommes et des Chatons hot guys and cute cats in mirror poses
Gosloving "Ryan Gosling won't eat his cereal" -- my favorite one is the Lars and the Real Girl. Yours? (Do you think he recoiled at the "date" scene in Silver Linings Playbook)

Something That Bugs Me That Actors Keep Doing...
Typecasting is one thing. It happens to the best of them. But why do some stars willingly dive into roles that are so much like their other roles that you'd be entirely forgiven for thinking they're making a sequel. Why is Timothy Olyphant, for example, who played a Sheriff/ US Marshall on Deadwood and then a US Marshall on  Justified taking up another violent sherrif for The Man on Carrion Road? That's the kind of tiny niche that can just wreck your career for anything else (or did I miss some trend where violent sheriffs are ubiqui-hot like zombies?). Isn't it time he played like, I dont know, a chef or a used car salesman or something?  And why is Tom Cruise starring in yet another espionage franchise based on a TV series. How will they differentiate The Man From U.N.C.L.E. from Mission: Impossible now as film franchises? Why not just make Mission: Impossible 5. Oh, wait, he's doing that too!?! STOP IT!!!

TV Cancellations
Southland is done says TNT. I'd mourn its loss after a stellar fifth season but five seasons is a good run for any show and often shows nose dive in quality after five so quitting while you're ahead is kind of beautiful. Meanwhile Smash is officially axed as is The New Normal. Is this a dark day for gays who love television or a relief given the obnoxious self-loathing of the former and the preachy self-love of the latter?

You decide!

Yes, No, Maybe So: "Inside Llewyn Davis"

Hello, lovelies: Beau here, searching for distractions from the onslaught of crap coming our way in the next few months, and the fact that I still haven't seen Before Midnight. (insert vicious, hyperbolic rant here.) Luckily for me, the trailer for the new Coen Bros. is just the ticket.

YES:

Carey? Carey... are you in there?

• Coen Brothers. Duh.
• Carey Mulligan. Duh.

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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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Oscar Isaac... with Cat

If Jonesy starts hissing, Oscar, run! He's spotted an acid-blooded alien or at least a Hyperdyne Systems 120-A/2.

Actually Oscar is just hauling around a new co-star (role size to be determined) on the set of Inside Llewyn Davis in which he plays Llewyn Davis, a singer songwriter in 1960s New York. The best part of this news is that this is the latest from the Coen Bros and it's filming already. Inside Llewyn Davis reunites Oscar with his Drive wife Carey Mulligan who is contractually obligated to be in every picture released for the next four years. Other costars include Garret Hedlund, Justin Timberlake (now no longer a musician at all though maybe someone should tell him he's more fun as a pop star than as an actor? SNL hosting aside), Stark Sands, F Murray Abraham and Coen Bros mainstay John Goodman.

You only have to wait until 2013 to see it.