Luhrmann Makes Fitzgerald's Intentions Known

To watch Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby is to witness the intentions of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s original novel finally making themselves known. In the process of adapting the novel, Luhrmann and his co-writer Craig Pearce have not only made the best cinematic version of the story, they have actually made something better than the story itself; although the basic plot has been left virtually untouched, the weight of Fitzgerald’s literariness has at last been lifted, and we, the audience, can now see the emotions and thematic subtexts that had previously been kept hidden.

Don't Think the Mandarin is a Significant Character

I admit that my concern over the future of the Marvel Cinematic Film universe has steadily been growing. Here is a mythos that has now expanded into seven feature films, all of which are so deeply intertwined that the only conceivable way of making sense of it all at this point is to have become intimately familiar with every feature film and every title character. Without that knowledge, insider references, character appearances, and even entire plot points are liable to go over audience’s heads.

Bay Muscles Through a New Low

Sitting through Michael Bay’s Pain & Gain, I was, in all honesty, utterly stupefied. I cannot recall the last time filmmakers exhibited a more profound lack of respect and sensitivity in their depiction of actual crimes, namely the kidnapping, torturing, and murdering of innocent people at the hands of Miami-based bodybuilders in the mid 1990s.

A Soap Opera Filtered Through a Screwball Comedy

The Big Wedding answers the question, assuming anyone ever asked it, of what would happen if a soap opera were to be filtered through a screwball comedy. Here is a film in which every conceivable dramatic relationship cliché – divorce, infidelity, pregnancy, prejudice, long-buried secrets, miserable children – is not only forced into being funny but are also collectively the foundation of a plot so contrived, so strained, so completely insincere that turning it into the pilot of a second-rate sitcom might have been an improvement.

Modern-Day Twain

As reported by Rebecca Leffler of The Hollywood Reporter, director Jeff Nichols deeply admires Mark Twain, so much so that, during the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, he hyperbolically referred to Twain as “the greatest American writer to have lived.” You can see the author’s influence in Nichols’ newest film, Mud, which not only competed for the Palme d’Or a year ago but is also one of the most engrossing and resonant coming-of-age dramas of recent memory.

Sailing the Pacific to Prove a Point

In 1947, Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl, along with five other men, sailed across the Pacific Ocean from Peru to the Polynesian Islands on a raft made of balsa wood and hemp rope, dubbed Kon-Tiki after after the Inca sun god. Heyerdahl mounted the expedition, in part, to prove his theory that South Americans settled in Polynesia during pre-Columbian times, despite the prevailing theory that the islands were settled by people from Asia.

From Now on, I'm a Golf Pro

Arthur Newman is the story of a man who gives himself permission to abandon his old life and assume a new identity simply because he’s in the throes of a midlife crisis. This would be Wallace Avery (Colin Firth), a divorced, incredibly unhappy Florida businessman whose dreams of becoming a pro golfer haven’t been realized.

A Broken Spirit Gets His Shot at Redemption

The Numbers Station opens with title cards explaining that intelligence agencies have sent encrypted assignments to agents in the field ever since World War II, that these assignments are untraceable because shortwave broadcasts of encrypted numbers aren’t at all like digital or cellular communications, and that governments deny the current use of numbers stations even though the numbers can still be heard.

No One is Innocent

Graceland is not merely a superbly constructed melodrama, it’s also an intense and emotionally devastating examination of class, politics, community, and the underhanded yet commonplace ways in which they can all be corrupted. Writer/director Ron Morales makes no distinction between good characters and bad characters; instead, he divides them into those that have a choice in the matter and those that don’t.