This is a movie I was highly looking forward to and very skeptical of all at the same time before I went to saw it. Like most people, I read F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic about one of the most volatile decades in our nation's history (other than the 1960's of course) when I was in high school. The first time I read it, unfortunately, I had a teacher who severely over-analyzed it and ruined it for me. Later on in high school I read it again for myself after seeing the Robert Redford version of the movie and fell in love with this tale. It is a tale spanning so many timeless themes such as love, betrayal, anger and revenge.
I have to admit that I was captivated at the idea of this film from the time I saw the first trailer for it about 6 months ago. When I saw that it would be directed by Baz Luhrmann, I was even more excited. While I am not a huge fan of the movies, the visuals that he portrays in both Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet are tremendously beautiful. Luhrmann has a nack for taking the past and giving it modern flare without losing out on the plot. In Romeo + Juliet he takes Shakespeare's script verbatim and instead of setting it in 17th century Verona, he puts it in what looks like late 20th century southern California. In Moulin Rouge he makes an old love story, sets it obviously in the past, but has his characters singing very modern songs. It is beautifully done, and The Great Gatsby is no different.
In this film, we see the beauty and majesty of the Roaring 20's complete with the lavish costumes and even more lavish parties, thrown by the millionaire Jay Gatsby. Even with that, we have a soundtrack of modern hip-hop and see the characters dancing to the music as it plays. Luhrmann does a great job of making sure we don't see this as a music montage with some dialogue included. He pays perfect homage to Fitzgerald's beautifully written story by pulling much of Nick Carraway's narration directly from the prose written by Fitzgerald himself. It is very beautifully done.
The acting in this movie was top notch also. I am generally weary of casts billed as "all-star" such as in Ocean's Eleven, but this movie did it perfectly. You could tell that none of the actors were fighting for having themselves be notable in comparison to the others. Three time Academy Award nominee Leonardo DiCaprio gave what I believe is his best performance since Blood Diamond, which garnered him his most recent Oscar nod some 7 years ago (disclaimer - I have not seen his performance in Django Unchained but do know many believe it to be the best of his career). While it will not get him an awards nomination, DiCaprio's performance, and screen presence, is captivating in this whole movie. Tobey Maguire gives a great performance as well as the young and naive Nick Carraway, Gatsby's neighbor. Great performances from Joel Edgerton (who, in my opinion, should get awards consideration for this film as Tom Buchanan) and the always solid, though never memorable, Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan help make this movie one of the best full cast performances I have seen since The Social Network.
All that being said, this is a slow film. We do not even see Gatsby until half an hour in and while billed at 2 hours, 23 minutes, I did feel like it was much longer. However slow, it was captivating from start to finish. Overall this was a great film, but not one I would recommend to those looking for mindless entertainment. I give it an A.
Monday, May 13, 2013
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Iron Man 3 Review
Along with Star Trek: Into Darkness, this may be the most anticipated sequel of the entire summer. (I would say year, but I believe that goes to Hunger Games: Catching Fire.) But did it live up to expectations.
I just looked at the Box Office numbers from the weekend. Iron Man 3 led with 174 million, and the number 2 movie, Pain and Gain, made only 7.5 million. That tells me that anyone reading this has probably already seen Iron Man 3, but you know what, I just don't care.
When I found out that the writer of this movie had changed from the original screenwriter and that the director had changed from Jon Favreau to anyone not named Jon Favreau I had my doubts of whether it could stand up with the original movies. Then I found out that Shane Black, the writer of the Lethal Weapon movies and director of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was essentially running this project, and my fears were alleviated. That being said, on to the actual review.
In this installment in the franchise that, along with Chris Nolan's Batman trilogy, reinvented the superhero genre, Iron Man goes up against a ruthless terrorist known as The Mandarin (played by the always solid Ben Kingsley). He at the same time goes head to head with another scientist named Aldrich Killian (played by one of the most underrated actors of our time in Guy Pearce). I will say that Aldrich Killian and The Mandarin definitely make better villians than Justin Hammer and Ivan Vanko. That being said, the plot for this movie has it all. The twists are great and some of the action you see coming (such as when Tony Stark gives his home address to terrorists and essentially says come and get me) but it is very well done. The script is great though it lacks some of the laughs I have come to love from the earlier Iron Man movies, and from Tony's character in The Avengers.
One thing I did love in this movie was how they expanded the character development of Tony Stark and allowed Robert Downey Jr, the only actor who could have played this role, to really show his ability to act. We see personality traits of Tony Stark other than narcissism and impulsive behavior. He shows a full range of emotions and while never expressly shown or said, you can tell a lot of that has to do with Pepper Potts. They perfectly play homage to the events of The Avengers (such as the line "nothing's been the same since New York") and you can really see how it has changed Tony for better and for worse. While I don't think it will garner nominations with the rest of summer coming and fall Oscar contenders still to come, I believe Downey's work in this movie is worthy of awards consideration.
All that being said, I think parts of this movie were predictable. I think it lacked laughs where it was possible, and tried to hard for laughs in other places. This is one of the most entertaining movies I have seen this year, and believe it will hold up on sheer entertainment, but it lacks some of the substance that the other movies have had. I give it a B+
I just looked at the Box Office numbers from the weekend. Iron Man 3 led with 174 million, and the number 2 movie, Pain and Gain, made only 7.5 million. That tells me that anyone reading this has probably already seen Iron Man 3, but you know what, I just don't care.
When I found out that the writer of this movie had changed from the original screenwriter and that the director had changed from Jon Favreau to anyone not named Jon Favreau I had my doubts of whether it could stand up with the original movies. Then I found out that Shane Black, the writer of the Lethal Weapon movies and director of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was essentially running this project, and my fears were alleviated. That being said, on to the actual review.
In this installment in the franchise that, along with Chris Nolan's Batman trilogy, reinvented the superhero genre, Iron Man goes up against a ruthless terrorist known as The Mandarin (played by the always solid Ben Kingsley). He at the same time goes head to head with another scientist named Aldrich Killian (played by one of the most underrated actors of our time in Guy Pearce). I will say that Aldrich Killian and The Mandarin definitely make better villians than Justin Hammer and Ivan Vanko. That being said, the plot for this movie has it all. The twists are great and some of the action you see coming (such as when Tony Stark gives his home address to terrorists and essentially says come and get me) but it is very well done. The script is great though it lacks some of the laughs I have come to love from the earlier Iron Man movies, and from Tony's character in The Avengers.
One thing I did love in this movie was how they expanded the character development of Tony Stark and allowed Robert Downey Jr, the only actor who could have played this role, to really show his ability to act. We see personality traits of Tony Stark other than narcissism and impulsive behavior. He shows a full range of emotions and while never expressly shown or said, you can tell a lot of that has to do with Pepper Potts. They perfectly play homage to the events of The Avengers (such as the line "nothing's been the same since New York") and you can really see how it has changed Tony for better and for worse. While I don't think it will garner nominations with the rest of summer coming and fall Oscar contenders still to come, I believe Downey's work in this movie is worthy of awards consideration.
All that being said, I think parts of this movie were predictable. I think it lacked laughs where it was possible, and tried to hard for laughs in other places. This is one of the most entertaining movies I have seen this year, and believe it will hold up on sheer entertainment, but it lacks some of the substance that the other movies have had. I give it a B+
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)