The Great Gatsby (2013)

First, I have a confession. I have never read The Great Gatsby. It wasn't the first book that I discovered that I could pass a class without reading, but it is one of the few that I've always meant to go back and read. I'm pretty sure that this film doesn't get me any closer to knowing the story that Fitzgerald intended than any of the other movies based on the book that I've seen. But, I'm also quite sure none have gone to the excess that this film has.
Second, I have another confession. I love Baz Luhrman's films. Moulin Rouge is one of my favorite movies of all times. There is a certain slickness and cultural pastiche in his films - the good kind of slickness. The films seem almost mythical or like an adult fairy tale because they feel removed from us, yet hit the chords that reverberate with the audience, usually through his use of music. Luhrman uses the hipper pop music of the current society and plugs it into a story that one wouldn't expect to hear that kind of music with, yet it works.
Right off the bat, the main character in this film, Nick Carroway (Tobey Maguire) comes onscreen looking like ___ (Ewen McGregor) who is the main character in Moulin Rouge. As we get to know the character, that initial reaction is only strengthened. They look similar. They are naive in a similar way. They both step into these wild party worlds beyond their previous imaginings. They both fall in love with the star of this new world. They both write a novel about their events after their love dies.
Of course the stories are different, and the love the main character feels is different as fits each film. But, most strikingly, the use of music is different. Moulin Rouge is a musical. The Great Gatsby is a film with a fair amount of music. There is no point where any of the main characters break into song in this film, unlike Moulin Rouge. I'm fine with that, Luhrman has done that before. However his use of music is also more subtle. The beginnign of the film is filled with hip-hop and jazz but by the end of the film there is less and less of this music and more traditional movie mood music. The more Carroway becomes accustomed to the wild world of New York and Gatsby, the less modern music there is. This does make a point which I caught, but it also made teh movie a little more mundane.
If you like Luhrman's films, you'll like this film. But, you will wonder if he traded some of his trademark flare for a story that has been told so often.

THe Great Gatsby at IMDb

Pleasantville (1998)

Wow, this is an old movie - so old that the back of the DVD case lists the date in roman numerals, which took me just a couple of seconds to translate. What a great skill to have. 1998 you say? Why that's MCMXCVIII. (And the crowd goes wild...various pieces of women's underwear rain down upon the stage)
This was a movie I was never going to watch. It looked cheesey, and seeing that it was from the director of Big and Dave didn't help it. But, then I watched the Hunger Games and more importantly the DVD extras and liked how Gary Ross presented himself. And hey, who doesn't love Peter Parker and June Carter Cash?
I'm glad that I watched Pleasantville. Would it be too cheeky to say it was a pleasant movie? Okay, maybe a little. It was a nice story about normal kids thrust into a non-normal situation, and their coming of age. Plus, you gotta love any story where the fry cook discovers that his true love is as a painter and that his other true love is the married mother of his only employee.
Joan Allen is outstanding in this film, as is Jeff Daniels. Everyone else is good, but not really noteworthy, which considering the names of some of these heavy-hitters is a bit surprising. I have to think that if William H. Macy were given just a little more to work with that his character would have shined the whole way through, and not just in the end. Oh, there is one other name that is worth mentioning - Don Knotts. He played the t.v. repairman with a mix of devil and angel and child that was brilliant. I think it's easy to sell him short based on his career, but I doubt that he really has been given many chances to play anything more than the comic relief, which is too bad - he was conveying more with a look than any of the younger actors.
I wonder if Mr. Knotts is still alive? I had no idea how old this film was until after watching it, so when he first came on screen, my reaction was, "Hey! It's Don Freaki' Knotts! I didn't know he was still alive..." And then I enjoy the film and in order to write this check out the back of the case and see that it was released in MCMXCVIII, I mean 1998 (sorry), and now I feel a bit sad because he might not be still alive and for some reason that really bums me out. Okay Google, time to break it to me...

Pleasantville on IMDb