Box Office Big Spenders: Tony Stark vs Jay Gatsby

Excess was in this weekend, the second of the summer movie season despite the slight technicality of Spring having just started. Billionaires Tony Stark and Jay Gatsby were flaunting their expensive suits and pining for Pepper & Daisy everywhere you looked.

Iron Gatsby via Nathaniel R

Cheer up boys, you can now afford your second twenty-second home.

BOX OFFICE TOP DOZEN
01 IRON MAN THREE $72.4 (cum. $284.8) Reviewed
02 THE GREAT GATSBY  $51.1 *NEW* Reviewed
03 PAIN & GAIN  $5 (cum. $41.6)
04 PEEPLES  $4.8 *NEW* 
05 42 $4.6 (cum. $84.7)
06 OBLIVION $3.8 (cum. $81.6) Reviewed
07 THE CROODS $3.6 (cum. $173.2)
08 THE BIG WEDDING $2.5 (cum $18.8)
09 MUD $2.3  (cum $8.3)
10 OZ: THE GREAT AND POWERFUL $.8 (cum. $229.9) Reviewed
11 SCARY MOVIE 5 $.7  (cum $30.6)  
10 THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES $.6 (cum. $19.9) Reviewed

Though I'm nearly always pleased when a non-franchise non-genre drama wins big gold coin, The Great Gatsby's huge gross fills me with dread for our collective future. I  think the movie is admirable in some ways and a failure in others but the movie isn't really the point. I was holding on to Drama as my last refuge from those fucking 3d glasses and you know Hollywood will assume that it was the EXCITING 3-D that drove audiences to purchase tickets to a lengthy romantic drama. Worse still, Baz Luhrmann -- a true original who works so infrequently he probably only has about 3 more movies in him before he dies --  apparently has his heart set on doing Hamlet next... and with DiCaprio, too (meaning DiCaprio would have starred in 50% of his filmography). Annoying Fact: Hamlet has been filmed over 50 times for the screen and is revived somewhere on stage every year.

FOR GOD'S SAKE BAZ... AT LEAST PICK A LESS OVER-WORKED SHAKESPEARE IF YOU GOTTA HAVE THE BARD. THERE ARE DOZENS TO CHOOSE FROM!  AND P.S. YOU'VE ALREADY DONE THE BARD WITH LEO AND YOU'RE NOT GOING TO TOP ROMEO + JULIET. FIND NEW TOYS TO PLAY WITH!

What did you see this weekend?  And are you, like me, weeping over the apparent future of Bazmark Productions?

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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Link-o-logy

Indiewire Robert Redford on whether or not he'd start the Sundance Film Festival again today
Gold Derby on Leo DiCaprio's slightly odd Oscar history 
Los Angeles Times Kathryn Bigelow pens an editorial on torture and her depiction thereof
Stale Popcorn on the Hitchcock meets Lynch vibe of the Bates Motel posters 
Observations on Film Art has a passionated detailed essay for fans of The Hobbit
CHUD Trey Parker and Matt Stone have lots of money. And now a movie production company to spend it.

Movie|Line looks at Bradley Cooper's showbiz past including a nude beach humiliation?
In Contention wants Argo to win Best Picture
Salon wonders what the Golden Globes mean to us, culturally, and to the industry they celebrate
Unreality looks at a study of the colorology of movie trailers. Turns out blue and orange are the winners. I could've told you that without the study. Most overused colors ever in the movies.  
The Advocate has an odd story about anti-gay harassment at a movie theater. At a Barbra Streisand Guilt Trip no less. (Wrong crowd, asshole.)
The Envelope Fox Searchlight will rerelease Beasts of the Southern Wild this weekend in about 70 theaters to celebrate its Oscar nominations. If you haven't seen it, go. It deserves the big screen treatment 
Broadway.com is Miss Julie next for über busy Jessica Chastain? 
Guardian Shortcuts  Les Misérables provoking buckets of tears

Finally... did you hear that the cast of Les Misérables will  be singing at the Oscars? Yes, the whole cast! Which either means they're reworking Original Song nominee "Suddenly" as a rousing choral piece or Hugh Jackman gets to take the stage twice. Either way, we win.

Yes, No, Maybe So: "Django Unchained"

If Quentin Tarantino can make us wait an average of 2 years and ten months between each movie (I'm counting Kill Bill as one and assuming Django Unchained will arrive on schedule. But will it?) than you can all forgive me for not jumping on every piece of Tarantino news-- even the excitement of a trailer -- the minute it arrives. 

What's your name?"

His name is Django. The D is silent. Let's stay silent no more about the trailer ... or the teaser the teasler... the traiser? Aren't teasers support to be 1 minute long? We'll break this traiser into three pieces as we do.

YES

• Things that are off the chain: the shot of the blood sprayed cotton, the self-aware zoom-in on Leonardo DiCaprio casts gleefully against type, Django throwing off his coat, the shot reverse shot of Jamie Foxx and Kerry Washington in the water (dream sequence?). More after the jump...

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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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