The Great Gatsby (1974) - Great cast wasted in poorly directed adaptation

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A very classy, deliciously designed poster for Jack Clayton's The Great Gatsby

A bond salesman, who lives in a small Long Island apartment, becomes taken by his loaded neighbor Jay Gatsby, and he spends a good part of one 1920s summer in Gatsby's and other rich people's company.

The Great Gatsby is written by Francis Ford Coppola (The Rain People (1969)), adapting the same-titled 1925 novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Beautiful and Damned (1922)), and directed by Jack Clayton (Room at the Top (1959)).

The epochal novel is here transformed into a watered-down, boring, unreasonably long film. One presumption on the part of Clayton is that the grand party scenes are so lively and fascinating that we should just forget the characters and stare at the frivolities for large portions of time.

The four central characters are well-cast, and particularly Bruce Dern (The Big Town (1987)) is outstanding as the ornery bastard Tom Buchanan; but their experiences and feelings never really affect us as audiences. The costumes are lavish, but the direction here is more than dubious. In terms of cinematography The Great Gatsby has way too many zooms and travelings.

SPOILER The scenes of the last ten minutes, - the murder, meeting with Gatsby's father and the funeral, - are not bad, but they regrettably arrive at the end of a mess of a film.

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 7 mil. $ 

Box office: 20.5 mil. $ (North America only)

= Box office success (returned 2.92 times its cost domestically alone)

[The Great Gatsby premiered 27 March (New York) and runs 146 minutes. Coppola replaced Truman Capote as screenwriter but later complained: "The script that I wrote did not get made." Shooting took place from June - September 1973 in Rhode Island, New York and England. The international gross numbers are regrettably not reported online, and so it is hard to say if its success was mostly an American occurrence. The film was nominated for 2 Oscars and won both: For Best Costumes and Score (Nelson Riddle). It also won 1/4 Golden Globe nominations and 3 BAFTAs. Roger Ebert gave the film a 2.5/4 star review, translating to a notch over this one. The-Numbers.com assert that the film has made a further 4.9 mil. $ on a 2013 Blu-ray release domestically. Clayton returned with Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983). Robert Redford (All Is Lost (2013)) returned in The Great Waldo Pepper (1975); Mia Farrow (Hurricane (1979)) in Peter Pan (1976, TV movie) and theatrically in The Haunting of Julia (1977). The Great Gatsby is rotten at 39 % with a 5.00/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Great Gatsby?

Lymelife (2008) - The Martini brothers' coming-of-age indie fails to connect

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Fenced in domesticity with secrets and characters that are far apart are some of the messages from this cold poster for Derick Martini's Lymelife

We follow teenage boy Scott in Long Island in the 1970s during a period where fear for Lyme disease sweeps the suburban setting, Scott's father's infidelity uproots their family, and Scott loses his virginity.

Lymelife is written by brothers Steven Martini (Louis (2010)) and debuting co-writer/director/co-editor Derick Martini (The Curse of Downers Grove (2015)), based on their own experiences growing up.
I know the kind of film the Martinis were going for with Lymelife here; I know it down to the straw. - Unfortunately Lymelife never achieves being a good exponent for this type of indie coming-of-age drama. The expletive-stuffed dialog is wearying, and so is the youth violence and attempts at being raunchy by adding some blasphemy.
Teenage leads Rory Culkin (Gabriel (2014)) and Emma Roberts (The Blackcoat's Daughter (2015)) spent a good portion of the film half-naked, which feels gratuitous here, so it is up to the individual viewer whether to embrace or reject this. Alec Baldwin (It's Complicated (2009)) is engaged and identifies with his part as embattled family man and he is good here, but it can't save this youth movie, which doesn't feel very young, and which has a downbeat core which just doesn't provoke the desired reaction.

Culkin and Roberts give an interview about their work on the film here

Cost: Estimated 1.5 mil. $
Box office: 540k $
= Mega-flop (returned 0.36 times the cost)
[Lymelife premiered 8 September (Toronto International Film Festival, Canada) and runs 94 minutes. Shooting took place in New Jersey from March - April 2008. The film opened #54 to a 27k $ first weekend in 4 theaters in North America, where it peaked #43 and in 35 theaters, grossing 421k $ (78 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Russia with 71k $ (13.1 %) and South Korea with 32k $ (5.9 %). A few markets have undisclosed gross figures. The film won a critics' prize in Toronto. Roger Ebert gave it a 3.5/4 star review, translating to three notches higher than this one. Martini returned with The Proposal (2009, short) and theatrically with Hick (2011). Culkin returned in Twelve (2010), Roberts with a voice performance in The Flight Before Christmas (2008) and physically in Hotel for Dogs (2009), Baldwin in My Best Friend's Girl (2008). Lymelife is fresh at 63 % with a 6.1/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Lymelife?

Diggers (2006) - Marino and Dieckmann's film is a pleasant, funny change of pace

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The pleasant, low-key poster for Katherine Dieckmann's Diggers

QUICK REVIEW:

We are in a fishing community just an hour away from Manhattan in the 1970s. Shellfish giant South Shell is taking the work from the local clam diggers there. A young guy, Hunt's fisherman father now dies and leaves his boat to his son.

Paul Rudd (Ant-Man (2015)) is great as the middle-aged, lonesome man, who bitterly 'protects' his sister and comes up with excuses for his own unrealized dreams. He shares one sexy clam scene with Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under (2001-05)) in Diggers.
The humor of the film bears witness of a large absurd-comical talent in writer/co-star Ken Marino (Role Models (2008)). Diggers presents a neat little story with well-balanced doses of warmth and reality. It's really funny to boot.
Katherine Dieckmann (Motherhood (2009)) directed it.

Maura Tierney and Paul Rudd in Katherine Dieckmann's Diggers

Cost: 28 mil. $ (reported)
Box office: 24 mil. $ (reported)
= Uncertainty
[Both numbers are from Diggers' Wikipedia page, but I am skeptical as to the truthfulness of both of them. The budget seems very high, and the film grossed just under 60k $ in North American theaters in its very small theatrical release there. It premiered simultaneously on the HDNet channel that funded the film, and was released on DVD just days after, much as with Steven Soderbergh's Bubble (2005). Diggers' commercial destiny is hard to probe, but I will count it as a flop. Dieckmann's next film, the maligned Motherhood with Uma Thurman, seems to have ended her movie career prematurely.]

What do you think of Diggers?