Last movie you watched......

They chose a far better performance. Comedy's much harder than playing the part of being the smartest, most serious person in the room. A hundred actresses could play that role. Not many have Jennifer Lawrence's sense of timing.

Jennifer Ehle in ZD30 provides a more compelling, full-bodied performance than Chastain does.

 

Went to the same college as David Gordon Green, who initially trafficked in the same kinds of stories, veered off into some shit, and is now back doing those stories. Green's "Joe" comes out in the next year or so.

 

I enjoyed Gatsby quite a bit; Leo was far better than I expected, and the stylish take on everything fit like a glove. Not as much music as the trailer and commercial would lead you to believe.

 

Django

Probably 30 minutes or so could have been edited out, but the scene with the hoods is worth the rental.

And I would have never recognized Matt Houston without the credit roll.

 

Michael Cera gets to be upstaged by the girl....a-gain. Kinda gimmicky, but a nice ending.

 

Watched Lincoln. Great movie. But I almost think its flaws are all on Spielberg. So many "monumental" shots, big sweeping panoramas, that they kind of overwhelmed the story at times. We know this is Lincoln, we know what is at stake, he didn't need a crane shot or a zoom-out to sell it.
And as much as I love the cast, it almost started looking like the Love Boat with so many name actors in roles big and small. Might have been better going with no names in a lot of the roles.

 

I finally saw it Friday and was entertained, and even engrossed at times. Like a friend suggested, I did not think "Oscar" while I was watching.

I have a distinct feeling that a week from now I will have no memory of it whatsoever. One day a year or two from now, I will see it on HBO and say, "Oh, yeah. I saw that."

 

Saw "Mud" with the family today. I was really enjoying it until the climactic scene. THose that have seen it will know what I'm talking about. It's a scene that is just completely out of character with the rest of the movie.

Excellent acting though. The two kids and MM are really outstanding.

 

I was determined to like Gatsby despite the brutal reviews. My issue with the movie was that it was neither fish nor fowl. I was expecting a totally over-the-top, stylized version Gatsby. It started that way but then, in large part, was a fairly straight telling of the story. I didn't get antsy during the more than 2 hour running time, which is a sign I was entertained and that's all I ask of a movie.

Liked DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan. Didn't like Tobey Maguire as Nick at all.

I barely noticed the soundtrack.

 

I haven't seen Gatsby, but Carey Mulligan was great on Craig Ferguson, and had probably the most perfect sketch ever with Colbert:

 

The Great American Novel as interpreted by the Great Australian Director was probably a concept that was doomed from the start.

I'd disabused myself of any high expectation based on the book or the story itself before going and I was just hoping (based on the hype) for a BIG movie with an innovative soundtrack, costumes, dance numbers. But Gatsby was still disappointing.

--It seemed like Luhrmann tried to be too true to the book in many scenes, which made for a lot of bad/awkward/trite transition writing in the screenplay and made the film feel disjointed, overall. It was neither his movie nor Fitzgerald's book. Luhrmann was caught between making a movie and recreating the book on film. In the end, as Amy mentions, he gives us a little of each but not enough of either to really satisfy us.

--I enjoyed a number of the scenes but that was mostly because they were wildly compelling scenes the way Fitzgerald had originally written them.

--The costumes were great.

--It seemed like Lurhmann was trying to evoke a vaudevillian or stage-like feel for some of the party scenes but he didn't go quite big enough with any of them to really pull it off.

--Luhrmann departs from the book so he can hit you over the head a little harder with the American gluttony and indulgence theme, as if the book itself was too subtle on that count. I disliked that they overplayed Nick Carraway's drinking and that they put him in a sanitarium (primarily as a device to introduce the narration into the movie).

--Luhrmann also smashes you over the head with Fitgerald's symbolism. It was as if they spent too much time reading the Cliff Notes or something. We get the green light on the dock and the Doctor T. J. Eckleburg sign. Enough.

--The casting is bad, except for Carey Mulligan as Daisy, who was wonderful, and Isla Fisher who looked and sounded just like the Myrtle I know from the book.

--I've never liked DiCaprio in anything (Titanic, Gangs of NY, Departed) so I expected very little. In fairness, few actors could carry off the haughty accent required and all of the "old sport" repetitions. He certainly isn't among them.

--By the second half of the movie, I was hoping Luhrmann would make one final departure from the book to have Toby Maguire killed. I couldn't stand him as Nick or Nick the Narrator.

--Some of the hip-hop/Jay-Z stuff worked OK (some didn't) but it wasn't as noticeable overall as I had anticipated. It was the Jazz Age, though, so a little more jazz might have helped.

-- The (totally irrelevant) made-for-3-D contrivances are a little annoying if you choose a non-3-D showing, which I did.

With that said, Gatsby has to be a monumentally difficult story to put on the screen, made more difficult by the book's revered place in literature. I'm not sure anyone could make a good movie from it. How many great, great books make good movies, anyway? I can only think of a handful -- To Kill A Mockingbird, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Gone with the Wind, the Wizard of Oz and Clockwork Orange.

 

Saw "The Words" with Bradley Cooper the other night and the only word it made me think of was "shit."