The Great Gatsby

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kJnt9_8ZM0&feature=player_embedded

Better than the original.

This is the most bizarre reading of Gatsby I've ever seen. It is so conservative it could have run in the National Review.

Is "The Great Gatsby" a rousing homage to the American dream or a disillusioned takedown of that same dream? If Fitzgerald, who died in 1940, were alive today, would he be clinking champagne glasses with CEOs and hedge fund managers or pitching a tent at an Occupy Wall Street outpost?

This kind of breathless desperate contemporaneity is what makes journalism loathsome. Too bad it didn't fade with the slow death and retirement of print reporters.

otoh Reagan has always parsed best as a Gatsby figure: born in Nowheresville, recreates himself, still a nullity even as prez but animated by weird green lights at the end of the dock.

The tragedy that befalls him — we're treading delicately here, to avoid the dreaded spoiler — is based on a misunderstanding, and could've befallen anyone. His fate is almost beside the point.

I hope this is a joke.

the reagan comparison is actually pretty inspired!

I'm rereading The Great Gatsby now. I started it on June 7, i.e. exactly 90 years after Nick's initial visit to Tom and Daisy. (It usually doesn't take me that long to read such a short novel, but I set it aside for a while.) Anyway, it's fantastic -- and incredible how modern it feels.

(The only other time I read it was in high school.)

Just reread it myself this week on vacation. (Odd, never mentioned finally reading it the first time a couple of years back.) I was vaguely disappointed on the first read then, so I'm glad the reread worked more for me, probably because since there was nothing to spoil per se I could luxuriate a bit in the telling. For all that it's a short novel, I found it something best for lingering rather than racing through.

Interesting catching the bits of descriptive detail that did end up in the trailer (like the group in the car racing across the bridge near the start) but so much of that trailer, admittedly due to the edit and soundtrack, is so skew-whiff to how the novel simply feels.

I should reread this. only ever read it in high school under the tutelage of my worst English teacher of all time.

Maybe second-worst. Didn't really stop me from enjoying it at the time though, at least.

yeah I probably should re-read it too. I was a bit underwhelmed the first time.

Maybe it's time I gave Fitzgerald a full-blown shot...

the blue honey of the Mediterranean

Saw GATZ last night, just amazing. The reading made the text absolutely sing, and the performance brought the characters to life, it's really more than the sum of its parts and I thought it was a solid 10 even though I had problems with some of the cast choices, Gatsby in particular. He was too old, too balding, too monotone. Sounds like a major criticism but because so much of the play is carried by the reading it wasn't such a big deal.

They really brought out the humour of the book, played some of the scenes almost farcically. Maybe pushed it too far once or twice but nbd. Like when girls rubbing champagne into Gatsby's hair was mentioned, Nick looked up sharply at the balding Gatsby, and he turned to frown at the audience. lulz.

the way they stage the party at tom's mistress's house in the early part of the book is amazing.

yeah this was probably the highlight.

ledge! yay! i can see the criticism of the dude who played gatsby but omg the dude who played nick!!! amirite? he was amazing.

i hope it was the same dude in london. scott shepherd?

yep, a tour de force indeed. loved the way he started off just reading, somewhat hesitantly and woodenly, and gradually became nick. well worth a standing ovation but none of the other fuckers in my row (at the front in the top balcony) stood up.

I liked the way that the actor who played Gatsby looked nothing like how I imagined the character to look. It enhanced the shifting between the story and the office environment.

Somehow I don't see Gatsby as being a summer blockbuster.

I'm still waiting for Elevator Repair Service to announce their fall plans for Gatz, I really want to see it. Now that I have money.

They know their audience. It's their only hope. xp

Already jokes on Twitter about how the plan is to make it into three movies.

just a web series will do

Yeah, this seemed perfectly suited to winter. What are the big summer 2013 would-bes it will be up against?

Iron Man, Superman, Iron Man, Hungry Man, Area Man

I'm OK with pushing it to summer if only b/c the novel takes place during summer.

Dead Man, Rain Man II: The Rainier, Rich Man Richer Man

Star Trek 2, Iron Man 3, Fast and Furious, um, 6, Hangover 3, Superman 6, World War Z, Monsters Inc. 2, Robopacalypse, Pacific Rim.

Grown Ups 2, Smurfs 2.

I'm OK with pushing it to summer if only b/c the novel takes place during summer.

Would be funny if all movies were shown exclusively during the season in which they are set.

prob a new Kiarostami too

Would be funny if all movies were shown exclusively during the season in which they are set.

"A long time ago..."

Kiarostami 2.

Tarr 2: The Reckoning.

this time it's personal.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8vkug9iozgk/SfCbK1L6NXI/AAAAAAAAAI8/3DiLCmziEbY/s400/p-28308-38250P-cat.jpg

live action garfield sequel?

the crated catsby

a couple years old -- Bilge Ebiri on mistaking TGG for a 'star-crossed romance.'

When people talk about the lack of chemistry between Redford and Farrow in Clayton’s film, I have to laugh, bitterly: Any honest depiction of this story pretty much ensures that there will be no chemistry between them.

http://ebiri.blogspot.de/2010/11/its-gonna-be-hard-for-me-to-keep-my.html

We got new trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7AFnJbETLw

this is going to be gatsby with pitchfork music isn't it. ffs.

very little gravitatsby indeed

I'm not sure why film makers think people want to see period clothes, cars, and interior design but somehow can't handle period music.

I know Nick is not an old character but Toby Maguire seems like a babe in arms compared to the considerate & understanding character in the book. Or maybe I'm just lol old, the police are getting younger every day. I think Leo could actually pull off a decent Gatsby in a less flamboyant production.

it actually looks good visually but i really don't think there's any need for some pop version of gatsby at a time when people are so obsessed with drama from that era.

People are really into the 20s right now?

somehow can't handle period music.

1) Last film version had period music, bombed

2) it's Luhrmann (in the vapor trail of Tarantino)

saw the trailer to this before django oh the lols and oh my eyes

is this thing getting dumped?

Man, never realised Ben Affleck was in the running to play Tom Buchanan.

I re-read this last year. It's great, the words are wonderful and poetic, it's a well put-together piece of literature. But it is basically all about rich people that have nothing to do but lay around all day drinking and smoking and getting into drama. It's basically a literary forerunner of celebrity-based reality TV.