viz.

I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to view a trailer for Baz Luhrmann’s Great Gatsby adaptation yet, but I think I’ll see the film. This comment says nothing about my expectations for the film’s critical success, but rather reflects what a visual feast this production is sure to be. From what I can tell, the movie attempts to marry a 1920s aesthetic with the sorts of gratuitous celebrations I remember last seeing 1990s rap music videos. The parties in the Great Gatsby film, as you can glimpse above, seem to be indulgent and overly choreographed affairs. At times the frame rate even appears to slow down a bit (like the polo shot in the trailer above), and I think this is meant to give viewers an opportunity to take it all in. I remember first seeing this technique in rap music videos, when the director would give us a slow-motion pan shot of an eclectic street party. It’ll be interesting to see how successful Luhrmann’s marriage of this 1990s aesthetic is when added to the necessary narrative components of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece. One of my reservations is that there’s a way in which the novel is anxious about gratuitous wealth, especially about the ways wealth can potentially corrode moral fiber, and idealizing such parties seems out of step. My other reservation is that, judging from the trailers alone, the movie looks like a 2010s fashion catalogue.

Image Credit: Screenshot, http://greatgatsbygame.com/

All you beautiful little fools, let's have a mid-week party, shall we? In the spirit of good times, I'll draw your attention to the fact that, this week, what we talk about when we talk about Gatsby has changed. I'm not refering to the upcoming film, which will star Leonardo Dicaprio and Carey Mulligan. No, I'm talking about the video game version of the classic novel! Like ol' James Gatz himself, the game has surfaced from complete obscurity only to become the talk of the town. (According to internet buzz, the game was found at a yard sale.) Unless you've been living under a rock, you've likely seen this little gem already. Surely, your lit nerd or gamer friends have posted a link on facebook! In case you haven't taken a peek yet,  play a few rounds here.