The Great Gatsby (2013) - Luhrmann exuberance and great stars create thrilling adaptation

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+ Shooting Star Actor of the Year: Joel Edgerton

 

 

An inviting collection of smartly dressed stars invite from this metallic-designed, expressionism-invoking poster for Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby

Nick Carraway is a young, hopeful bond salesman, who lives in Long Island as the neighbor of one of New York's richest, most mysterious bachelors, Mr. Jay Gatsby.

The Great Gatsby is written by Craig Pearce (Romeo + Juliet (1996)) and co-writer/co-producer/director Baz Luhrmann (Strictly Ballroom (1992)), adapting the same-titled 1925 novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald (This Side of Paradise (1920)).

Luhrmann experiments with using 3D, visual maneuvers and music, and some of it is cool (such as the scenes of Carraway being drunk) and succeeds, while other things don't: One thing is that the visual style lays an unreality on top of everything, which is sometimes too substantial to look past. And there are sound issues in a driving scene between Carraway and Gatsby.

But the prevailing visual impression is lush and irresistible. The cast is sumptuous, and they make this adaptation riveting: Jason Clarke (You Can't Stop the Murders (2003)) and Isla Fisher (Rango (2011)) are good in supporting roles; and Leonardo DiCaprio (The Aviator (2004)), Tobey Maguire (Roseanne (1991, TV-series)) and Carey Mulligan (The Greatest (2009)), - and especially awards-worthy is newcomer Joel Edgerton (Kinky Boots (2005)) as Tom Buchanan, - are all strong. The Great Gatsby is a thrilling, good-looking film, which is far superior to Jack Clayton's 1974 version.

 

Related post:

 

2013 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED VI]

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 105 mil. $

Box office: 353.6 mil. $

= Box office success (returned 3.36 times its cost)

[The Great Gatsby premiered 1 May (New York) and runs 142 minutes. Luhrmann moved with his family to New York in 2010 with the thought that he would shoot the film there. DiCaprio was paid 20 mil. $ for his performance. Shooting took place from September 2011 - January 2012 in Australia, including Sydney, and in New York. The film opened #2, behind hold-over hit Iron Man 3, to a 50 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another weekend in the top 5 (#3) and grossed 144.8 mil. $ (41 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Australia with 25.2 mil. $ (7.1 %) and the UK with 23.9 mil. $ (6.8 %). The film was nominated for 2 Oscars, which it both won: Best Costumes and Production Design. It also won 2/3 BAFTA nominations, was nominated for 3 Grammys, among other honors. Luhrmann returned with 2 commercials and The Get Down (2016, TV-series) but has yet to return to theaters again. DiCaprio returned in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013); Maguire in Labor Day (2013); Mulligan in Inside Llewyn Davis (2013); and Edgerton in Felony (2013). The Great Gatsby is rotten at 48 % with a 5.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Great Gatsby?

An Education (2009) - Scherfig, Hornby and Barber's tender and intelligent coming-of-age charmer

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+ Best English Movie of the Year + Best Period Movie of the Year + Best Shooting Star Actress of the Year (Carey Mulligan)

Peter Sarsgard and Carey Mulligan - in a dreamy dress - look delicate on one of the year's best posters, for Lone Scherfig's An Education

In 1961, Jenny is a young, hopeful woman with her life ahead of her, who walks right into the arms of a thrilling, older gentleman, who introduces her to many things new - and forces her into making a fateful decision.

An Education is written by Nick Hornby (Brooklyn (2015)), based on the same-titled 2009 memoir by Lynn Barber, and directed by Danish master filmmaker Lone Scherfig (Italian for Beginners/Italiensk for Begyndere (2000)).
It features a stellar cast led by Carey Mulligan (Never Let Me Go (2010)), who is nothing short of a revelation as Jenny. Peter Sarsgaard (Night Moves (2013)), Dominic Cooper (Miss You Already (2015)), Rosamund Pike (A Rather English Marriage (1999), TV movie), Olivia Williams (Hyde Park on Hudson (2012)), Emma Thompson (I Am Legend (2007)) and Alfred Molina (Swelter (2014)) provide the remarkably fine backup and range from good to formidable.
The film presents a compelling story that's smartly written and handsomely staged. SPOILER Only the father's confession in the end that he has been afraid his whole life seems too much like a written occurrence rather than as an authentic one. But it doesn't change the fact that An Education is an elegant crowd-pleaser. 

Related posts:

Lone Scherfig: 2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]

2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
Top 10: The best adaptations reviewed by Film Excess to date
Italian for Beginners/Italiensk for Begyndere (2000) - A perfect gem of a Dogme romcom

Watch a trailer for the film here 

Cost: 7.5 mil. $
Box office: 26 mil. $
= Box office success
[An Education premiered 18 January (Sundance) and runs 95 minutes. Shooting took place in Paris, France and in England, including in London and in the Twickenham Film Studios in Middlesex from March - April 2008. The film opened #39 in 4 theaters to a 139k $ first weekend in North America, where it peaked at #14 and in 761 theaters (different weeks; the screens spiked around Oscar time) and grossed 12.5 mil. $ (48 % of the total gross) during its 30 week-long engagement. Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 2.9 mil. $ (11.2 %) and Scherfig's native Denmark with 1.8 mil. $ (6.9 %). The film was nominated for 3 Oscars: For Best Picture (lost to The Hurt Locker), Actress (lost to Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side) and Best Adapted Screenplay (lost to Geoffrey Fletcher for Precious). It was also nominated for a Golden Globe, 8 BAFTAS - winning one, 6 British Independent Film Awards - winning one, a European Film Award, an Independent Spirit Award, won two National Board of Review awards, 3 Sundance awards - winning two, among many others. An Education is certified fresh at 94 % with a 7.9 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of An Education?

Shame (2011) or, That Empty Sex

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1 Time Film Excess Nominee:

Best Supporting Actress: Carrey Mulligan (lost to Agnieszka Grochowska for In Darkness)

A neat poster for Steve McQueen's Shame

QUICK REVIEW:

In Shame we follow a man living in New York, who is obsessed with sex. His sister shows up and lives at his place for a period, very much against his will, while she has an affair with his boss.

Shame is an intense film with long, uninterrupted takes, co-written by Abi Morgan (The Invisible Woman (2013)) and British director Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave (2013)). Due to the sexual tensions in the sex addiction-themed story, it has an attraction that McQueen's only previous feature, the dismal Hunger (2008) didn't have.
It is well-acted by especially a luminous Carey Mulligan (An Education (2009)), who gives what must be the saddest rendition of New York, New York ever put to film in one scene, and James Badge Dale (The Departed (2006)). Michael Fassbender (X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)) plays the self-destructive, unsympathetic lead, a character who, however, never attains much interest on my part.
The film's title, - Shame - doesn't seem to have any great relevance to what we see in the film. - Who feels shame? (No-one.) The lack of any back stories for the two main characters, besides an implication that they might both have ben subjected to sexual abuse as kids, also adds to the vibe that the film creates, which is that people with big sexual appetites are simply miserable. Film critic Donald Clarke of The Irish Times has, very incisively and apropos, called Shame's Puritanism "more than a little oppressive." It sure is. While the film is well-made and uncompromisingly downbeat, I also continue to find its style a bit auteur-pompous, and it will likely never become a favorite with me.

Related posts:

Steve McQueen: 12 Years a Slave (2013) - The inhumanity of slavery portrayed forcefully in awesome film
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]  

Carey Mulligan is amazing in Steve McQueen's Shame

Watch the trailer here

Cost: 4.2 mil. £
Box office: 11.1 mil. £
= Box office success
[Shame got an NC-17 rating in the US, which was accepted, even welcomed (perhaps mostly as a challenge) by its distributor there, Fox Searchlight Pictures, who paid 400k $ for the distribution rights. It made 4 mil. $ (36 % of the total gross) in the US. The film won many awards and nominations and made it onto many top 10 lists of the year, including the #2 spot on Roger Ebert's.]

What do you think of Shame?

Far from the Madding Crowd (2015) - Vinterberg's plush but grating English adaptation

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A romantically swooning poster for Thomas Vinterberg's Far from the Madding Crowd

Far from the Madding Crowd is the fourth adaptation of Thomas Hardy's (Jude the Obscure (1895)) 1874 novel of the same name. It is written by David Nicholls (Great Expectations (2012)) and directed by Danish master filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg (The Celebration/Festen (1998)).

Bathsheba is an attractive, eligible woman in 1870s England, where she inherits a farm and throws herself eagerly into attending it. She becomes courted by three very different men and has trouble finding the right one.

The film has a fine cast led by the enchanting Carey Mulligan (An Education (2009)) and Matthias Schoenaerts (Bullhead (2011)). Michael Sheen (Frost/Nixon (2008)) is great in the film's most touching part as Mr. Boldwood, and Tom Sturridge (On the Road (2012)) makes a strong characterization of the loutish soldier.
There are neat costumes (by Janet Patterson (The Piano (1993))) and lovely countryside locales. - The film is shot on location in the part of England, where the story is actually set.

The details:

Far from the Madding Crowd is, in Vinterberg's hands here, a melodrama that has replaced, in its audiences, the heartache that usually accompanies the genre with knuckle-clenching frustration. This stems from Mulligan's character, SPOILER who has the answer to all of her problems literally right in front of her from the first shots of the film onwards, but simply can't seem to wrap her head around to seeing him. This is fatally annoying for the film, which also seems to drag out, though its story is mostly pretty predictable.
Fine performances, production values and respectability doesn't make a great film, if it feels as long as Far from the Madding Crowd, essentially because it spends its nearly two hours running time before it gives us what we want.
It is solid and meticulously made, but not exactly artistic. It does not become the film to break Vinterberg's not too formidable history of English-language movies (It's All About Love (2003) and Dear Wendy (2004) precedes it) that have not yet been good per se. He is soon releasing his second film this year, the Danish-language The Collective/Kollektivet (2015).

Related review:

Thomas Vinterberg: The Hunt/Jagten (2012) - Vinterberg's strongest film since 1998 is a reversed Celebration  
Dear Wendy (2004) - Vinterberg and Von Trier's unpopular, gun-themed mega-flop 

Watch the trailer here, - with the song Let No Man Steal Thy Thyme sung by Carey Mulligan and Michael Sheen

Cost: Unknown
Box office: 18.5 mil. $ and counting
= Uncertainty
[Without the film's budget released, it is impossible to know if Far from the Madding Crowd is close to breaking even yet. - But I think it has far to go yet, and probably will end up a minor flop. It has made 8.3 mil. $ (45 % of the total gross) in North America and a handsome 7.3 mil. $ in the UK (39 %).]

What do you think of Far from the Madding Crowd?
How does it compare to the novel and the earlier screen versions, if you have read or seen any of these?

Drive (2011) - Refn's muscle-flexing, über-cool audience favorite

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2 Time Film Excess Award Winner:

Best Sound
Best Score: Cliff Martinez

2 Time Film Excess Nominee:

Best Sound (won)
Best Score: Cliff Martinez (won)

+ Best Car Movie of the Year

Ryan Gosling looking spiff on the poster for Nicholas Winding Refn's Drive

Ryan Gosling (The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)) empathetically embodies the nameless driver, who is a stunt driver in the day and chauffeurs thugs at night, and who gets involved with an ugly story as his beautiful neighbor and her son get threatened by some people her out-from-jail husband owes money.

Danish master filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn's (Pusher II (2004)) Drive is an adaptation of James Sallis' (Moth (1993)) 2005 novel of the same name by Iranian screenwriter Hossein Amini (47 Ronin (2013)). It is a supremely stylish, coolly subdued and yet very hard-hitting car movie/crime-thriller romance.
The film has a cool sound side, brutal effects and juicy characters played by an exciting cast: Ron Perlman (Skin Trade (2014)) as a Jewish gangster, and Albert Brooks (I Love You, Daddy (2017)) as his reluctant partner are great, and Oscar Isaac (Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)) and Christina Hendricks (Bad Santa 2 (2016)) also give very good performances in smaller parts. It can be quarry figuring out what Drive says (if anything) under its radiantly cool splendor: It is essentially about loss of innocence, I think, which is smushed away by an ugly, criminal world, and this is why Carey Mulligan (Never Let Me Go (2010)) plays the one character who sticks out in it. - Everyone else is - or is getting - mired in the filth already.
The film's celebrated synth-heavy, pop-electro score by Cliff Martinez (Spring Breakers (2012)) is an integrated part of the film's attractive, pulpy package: Drive often looks and sounds like that an adaptation of the popular console game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002) might be like, stylistically paying tribute to the 1980s with a story that might as well take place in that decade, (it is quite universal really.)
For Refn, Drive is a recognizable continuation of his oevre about the knotty, violent-prone young man. It is also his international break-through, biggest triumph and most popular film to date, although it doesn't top three of his films in my book: Pusher II (2004), Valhalla Rising (2009) and Only God Forgives (2013).

Related posts:



Nicolas Winding Refn: 2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Only God Forgives (2013) - Violent beauty in Bangkok
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2011 in films - according to Film Excess  
Bronson (2008) or, Violent Man
Bleeder (1999) - Refn's mysterious second film 

Carey Mulligan and Ryan Gosling in probably the year's best movie kiss in Nicholas Winding Refn's Drive

Watch the great trailer for the movie here

Cost: 15 mil. $
Box office: 76.2 mil.$
= Big hit
[Refn won the Best Director award at Cannes, where Drive begun its very strong French reception that totaled 13.2 mil. $ (17 % of the total gross). It opened #2 in the US, where it racked in 35 mil. $ (46 % of the total gross).]

What do you think of Drive?
What is/are Refn's best film/s in your opinion?

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) - The Coens and a killer ensemble deliver cinematic gold

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+ Best Music Film of the Year

Gruffy poster for Ethan and Joel Coen's folk musician movie Inside Llewyn Davis

Inside Llewyn Davis is a dramedy period portrait of a week in the life of Davis, a struggling folk musician in New York anno 1961.

The character is inspired by the real Dave Van Ronk, who was a known musician in the New York folk music scene, but who never broke through to the public, although the inspiration is mostly music-wise, it appears.
The film is the story of a struggling, faltering artist, who is down to his last legs as a creative performing artist, and who spends most of his days securing his next couch to sleep on and mope about his unfulfilled existence. There are also plot points about a cat going missing, abortions and a hope-induced trip to Chicago.
The film is in a way sad, because it takes very real looks at some facts of life without sugarcoating them, - namely that not all great artists make the cut to the public, - but it is never heartbreaking, because Davis never succumbs to total desperation or despair. He is a character who holds his head high, - although it is a surly, moody head, - and defends his way of life, what he at one point claims "pays his rent", (although he doesn't actually ever pay any rent, because he doesn't have a place.) SPOILER He even takes a beating for his unfeeling arrogant heckling without sentimentality which both opens and ends the film in a very touching way.
People go in and out of each others' lives and sometimes rub up on each other, creating friction, (be the outcome sex, violence, kids, hatred or despair), and that is the thing which is showcased in Davis. It is very real, very disarming, and often hilarious. It dodges ever getting near to being a downer by having tons of dry and black humor and wonderful characters in it. There are awfully funny situations, (the first cat-scenes are extremely wonderful, for instance), and rich New York-characters like the lady at Davis' management's office. The trip to Chicago features a funny performance from John Goodman (Argo (2012)) as an obnoxious, unhealthy individual, but he is just one of so many who shine vigorously in the film:
Among its great performances especially Carey Mulligan (Drive (2011)) as a very bitter and angry woman, F. Murray Abraham (Amadeus (1984)) and Garrett Hedlund (Tron (2010)) excel. And Oscar Isaac (The Two Faces of January (2014)) is just so fine as Llewyn Davis, and his actual guitar-playing and singing are a marvel.

Oscar Isaac with cat in The Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis

The music is wonderful, and the songs get to have their space and make their impressions. The photography by Bruno Delbonnel is evocative; New York (and Chicago) is grim, wet, messy and cold in Davis. Nothing glamorous or romantic about the big cities or the land in between them here.
Some of the musicians who were around in the early 60s New York folk scene have complained that the film makes the environment at the time look dreary and sad, and that Ronk was a nicer guy than Davis; but the writer-director brothers Ethan and Joel Coen (The Big Lebowski (1998)) never claim that this is the film about Ronk, (check the title for that for instance!), and they are really free as artists to not make a happy-go-lucky folk musician movie, - in fact I for one am glad that they didn't.
Llewyn Davis in the film is a man who frequently is called an idiot, and who has more or less gotten used to seeing himself as a loser. But he is stubborn and believes in himself, and he has feelings and can write songs. It all makes him very human, and a very good acquaintance.
Inside Llewyn Davis is surely one of the best movie acquaintances of 2013, and one of the best Coen films ever. I can watch this one over and over again.

Related posts:

The Coen brothers: 2013 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED VI]

2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
Burn After Reading (2008) or, Idiocy 2008 
The Big Lebowski (1998) - The stoner comedy to reign over all
Barton Fink (1991) or, The Writer's Hell

Oscar Isaac and F. Murray Abraham in a 'climactic' song session in the film's Chicago-segment

Watch a trailer here. - The film is better!

Budget: 11 mil. $
Box office: 32.5 mil. $
= Big hit

What did you think of Llewyn Davis and the film?
Do you know any other fine movies about folk musicians?