The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of those novels that everyone is told to read, usually for school, meaning spending hours dissecting every line for symbolism, so it can be easy to forget (or entirely miss) why the book is such a classic. It's the story of ambition, love, mystery, but more than that, of a time and a place, capturing in so few words, the true essence of a mere moment so poetically. There's no one better to capture that essence than the master of grand spectacle himself, director Baz Luhrmann.
This film is uptempo and opulent, every shot meticulously framed, like an Impressionist painting. Everything glimmers, from wardrobe to set decoration, evoking that very American form of optimism. I could go on and on, but the point is that, without doubt, the film is a visual masterpiece.
The acting, too, is splendid. Carey Mulligan is dewy and careworn all at once, all fluttering curtains and flowing curves, like spring with a hint of frost. In other words, utterly ravishing in the most heartbreaking way. I found Tobey Maguire (except for one brief instant of Spider-man 3 flashback) to be charmingly naive as Nick Carraway. Then there's Leonardo DiCaprio. Admittedly, he is possibly my favorite actor of our generation, and not just because of those piercing blue eyes, but I have it on good authority that it's not just me. He is truly magnificent as Jay Gatsby. He is the heart and soul, the epitome of the American dream, the perfect irresistible imagination with an unending sense of hope. As the kids say, he is just everything. Enough of my gushing, though.
Surprisingly, I did not find the use of hip-hop music to be entirely off-putting. At times, I thought it worked quite well. The one moment that seems to have bothered everyone I've talked to is the car pumping some Jay-Z that Nick & Gatsby pass on the bridge into Manhattan. Luhrmann justifies it by pointing out that hip-hop is something like the jazz of our time, but that doesn't make rap-loving flappers any less jarring.
The other departure from the novel, the decision to have Nick tell the story to a psychiatrist, is a choice I go back and forth on. I can see justifications for and against it. I don't hate it, but I don't love it either. It's the one niggling detail that is keeping me from pronouncing this as the movie of the year. As late-night host and comedian Craig Ferguson is fond of saying, I look forward to your letters.

Iron Man 3

First thing you need to know about Iron Man 3 is that it is infinitely superior to Iron Man 2, in every way. In fact, Iron Man 3 is just downright entertaining, from the beginning voice-over to the tag after the end credits. Tony Stark has come a long way since we first saw him giving drunken speeches in Las Vegas and Robert Downey, Jr. inhabits the character in such a comfortable way that brings home Stark's emotional intensity in this film. Pepper Potts, too, is fiercer than she's ever been (& Gwyneth Paltrow, who's just been named People Magazine's World's Most Beautiful Woman, may have done something no one else has yet been able to--inspire me to work out). Don Cheadle is back as Colonel Rhodes for his second Iron Man installment, and while I always enjoy his work, he just doesn't bring quite the same dry sarcasm to the role as Terrence Howard did in the first movie.
As for the new faces to the franchise, Ben Kingsley, Guy Pearce, and Rebecca Hall all play their parts magnificently. Kingsley especially is given the opportunity to really shine as anti-American terrorist The Mandarin. (If you're unfamiliar with Rebecca Hall, who doesn't get nearly enough screen time as Dr. Maya Hansen, go to your local video store and rent The Town. You're welcome.) I was also pleased that Jarvis, Stark's magnificent computer system voiced by Paul Bettany (who is marvelous), had a much bigger role in this film than in the previous two. Stark also meets a young boy in small town Tennessee who has no southern accent, but is still adorably precocious and steals almost every scene he shares with Downey, which is quite a feat.
The only glitch, if you'll pardon that joke, in the story is the overly complex and yet glaringly simplified baddies that Aldrich Killian (what a name!) creates. They come to be through a highly advanced neuro/biochemical science experiment, that thankfully they don't spend too much time explaining (I understood enough to know it wouldn't end well), but the side effects of this technology don't seem to make much sense and they're borderline bizarre (fire-breathing? really?). Maybe I don't get it because I've never read a comic book, but I preferred the straightforward greed of Obadiah in the first one. These Extremis patients do cause some exciting explosions, though, so perhaps we're not meant to look beyond that.
All things considered, Iron Man 3 is an excellent summer blockbuster and a good way to kick off the trifecta of films scheduled for release in the first three weeks of May (Iron Man 3, The Great Gatsby, & Star Trek: Into Darkness). Next up for Marvel fans is Thor: The Dark World, which hits theaters this November.