The Final Take with Parker Mott

Jay Gatsby (DiCaprio) and Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan) reunite in "The Great Gatsby".

The initial reactions to Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby, which opened this year’s Cannes Film Festival, are strangely similar to the ones of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s original 1925 book. Both works were first critically rebuked, respected only for a single redeeming quality: Luhrmann’s style and Fitzgerald’s prose. People complained that the latter’s characters were “marionettes” and in Luhrmann’s adaptation it can argued that the characters are merely dancing puppets of a cinematic pageantry. (continue reading…)

Lincoln roams the ruins of Petersburg at the climax of the American Civil War in Steven Spielberg's masterful "Lincoln".

Lincoln is a bold and monumental achievement in filmmaking craftsmanship, and solidifies two irrefutable outcomes: Daniel Day-Lewis will win Best Actor at the Oscars for his role as the United States’s 16th president, and Janusz Kaminski will also take the Academy’s accolade for Cinematography. Both add depth, intrigue, and beauty to what may be Steven Spielberg’s finest, or at least most assured film. Its humanity and politics are remarkably brilliant. (continue reading…)

Ben Affleck and Bryan Cranston in "Argo".

You really want to believe in Argo, Ben Affleck’s third directed film about an extraordinary undercover international government operation that harks back to Alan J. Pakula’s 1970s political thrillers like All the President’s Men and The Parallax View (with a touch of Sidney Lumet’s Network). (continue reading…)

Rating: PG – Nudity
Run Time: 100 minutes

"Farewell, My Queen"

Queen Marie Antoinette, to my mind, was perhaps the first trophy wife in French history. It’s true the Bourbon Monarchy arranged its king’s marriage and, yes, the wedlock of king Louis XVI and queen Marie Antoinette was hardly physical at all. The history books generally agree that an unhealthy amount of the king’s expenditures went either to the American revolution or his wife. She was, paradoxically, considered both a model of the old regime and the inadequacies of French royalty. (continue reading…)

Rating: 130 minutes

Anonymous is Roland Emmerich’s chance to get serious. Funny how he chose to do so with a plot so absurd it makes his Independence Day look like a documentary. But this absurdity is part of Anonymous’s fascination – what if Shakespeare was a fraud? – and will surely present a warm smile (or maybe a cold scoff) from literature pundits everywhere. (continue reading…)

Rating: PG
Run Time: 100 minutes

A playful moment – of many – in "Hysteria".

Hysteria is about one of the greatest discoveries in history: the vibrator! You heard of it? Oh, it’s a nifty little device that brings seconds of pure ecstasy down below. Beforehand, doctors were all in a fuss over what caused women such excitement with the symptoms of shortness of breath, nervousness, muscle spasms, insomnia, and faintness. What was the diagnosis? The doctors deemed it “hysteria paroxysm”. Uh huh. (continue reading…)

2 Stars out of 4
(139 minutes)

The Princess of Montpensier.

Bertrand Tavernier’s The Princess of Montpensier is a hollow Romeo and Juliet’s tale, despite being thrusted into the idyllic and vast atmosphere of 16th century France. It presents conflicts, broken hearts, the filthiness of war, and the futility of peace without evoking enough feeling, or sensation beyond the striking visuals. It sets forth memorable themes, but never lets them simmer on the surface. They are there because the story requires them. (continue reading…)

3 Stars out of 4
(135 minutes)

John Smith (Farrell) and Pocahontas (Kilcher) discover love in The New World.

I was not convinced The New World would make for a Terrence Malick movie. Too much plot, arc, and romance. Yet again he managed to create a dispassionate Bonnie and Clyde (Badlands) and Saving Private Ryan (The Thin Red Line). So my skepticisms were assured in The New World, a story that’s greatest philosophical notion is the sense of discovery. Malick has not played historian or anthropologist here; here remains a studier of metaphysics. He scribbles drawings of the trees, sky, and shaking grass instead of discerning the melodramatic surfaces of the characters. Once again most of the story comes from above. (continue reading…)