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There are two films being released later this year that I am very excited about.
'The Great Gatsby' is an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel directed by Baz Luhrmann who directed the late 90s version of Romeo & Juliet and Moulin Rouge in 2008.
Francis Ford Coppola made a very average adaptation starring Robert Redford in the 1970s.
Luhrmann's film will star Leonardo di Caprio and Tobey Maguire and is being given the full 3D treatment.
I'm looking forward to it mainly because The Great Gatsby is one of favourite 5 or 6 books. It is considered a masterpiece of 20th century literature.
It is about a young man named Jay Gatz from a simple background who falls in love with Daisy Buchanan whose "voice is full of money", a rich socialite, prior to World War One, to which he is drafted.
He loses contact with her during the war and she marries this rich guy.
After the war he becomes a self-made man through illicit means which are never fully established in the novel, although bootlegging is suggested. He reinvents himself ("he sprang from a platonic conception of himself", as Fitzgerald puts it} and takes the name Gatsby. He becomes a semi-mythical and enigmatic figure, lurking in the shadows of palace, biding his time.
Rather than approach Daisy directly, he buys a plot of land and a vast estate across the bay from where she lives and every night of the week, hosts grandiose and ostentatious parties, week after week, in the hope that Daisy will eventually attend one. He spends his time at night looking at a green light on Daisy's dock, a symbol of the New World and his flickering hope.
It captures the hedonistic years of 1920s America, 'The Jazz Age', an era of 'conspicuous consumption' and The American Dream.
Lurmann's films are postmodern yet original and I expect this film to be a leading contender for Academy Awards, and not just in the technical and more aesthetic categories.
Anyway, I know I have done a poor job of explaining what it is about, but if you have 2 minutes, check out this trailer, which is set to a brilliant tune by Jack White:
The other film I am looking forward to is the final part of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, 'The Dark Knight Rises'. I've loved superhero comics and films since I was a kid, and without doubt, 'The Dark Knight' is the greatest superhero film ever made, and one of the best action movies of any genre.
My expectations are tempered by the absence of Heath Ledger, but I know Nolan will deliver a brilliant experience, it's simply going to be epic. He's the kind of director whose films really suffer if the audience do not see them on the big screen (The Prestige, Inception). He's rebooting Superman next year with a film called The Man of Steel. Anyway, I defy anyone to go see The Dark Knight Rises and consider it not to be eight quid well spent.
The series was left on a poignant note at the end of The Dark Knight, with Batman taking the fall for the death of the city's hero, Harvey Dent, for the sake of the spirits of the people. He has become a pariah, an unknown savior, hunted by the authorities.
Nolan's films are dark, somehow both gothic and modern, and he is one of the great storytellers of our time. He brings Gotham City to life with no attempt to imitate either the comics themselves or the comic-book style of the 80s and 80s Batman films, which went off the boil.
Here is the most recent trailer:
Are there any other great films coming out this year that you are looking forward to?
'The Great Gatsby' is an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel directed by Baz Luhrmann who directed the late 90s version of Romeo & Juliet and Moulin Rouge in 2008.
Francis Ford Coppola made a very average adaptation starring Robert Redford in the 1970s.
Luhrmann's film will star Leonardo di Caprio and Tobey Maguire and is being given the full 3D treatment.
I'm looking forward to it mainly because The Great Gatsby is one of favourite 5 or 6 books. It is considered a masterpiece of 20th century literature.
It is about a young man named Jay Gatz from a simple background who falls in love with Daisy Buchanan whose "voice is full of money", a rich socialite, prior to World War One, to which he is drafted.
He loses contact with her during the war and she marries this rich guy.
After the war he becomes a self-made man through illicit means which are never fully established in the novel, although bootlegging is suggested. He reinvents himself ("he sprang from a platonic conception of himself", as Fitzgerald puts it} and takes the name Gatsby. He becomes a semi-mythical and enigmatic figure, lurking in the shadows of palace, biding his time.
Rather than approach Daisy directly, he buys a plot of land and a vast estate across the bay from where she lives and every night of the week, hosts grandiose and ostentatious parties, week after week, in the hope that Daisy will eventually attend one. He spends his time at night looking at a green light on Daisy's dock, a symbol of the New World and his flickering hope.
It captures the hedonistic years of 1920s America, 'The Jazz Age', an era of 'conspicuous consumption' and The American Dream.
Lurmann's films are postmodern yet original and I expect this film to be a leading contender for Academy Awards, and not just in the technical and more aesthetic categories.
Anyway, I know I have done a poor job of explaining what it is about, but if you have 2 minutes, check out this trailer, which is set to a brilliant tune by Jack White:
The other film I am looking forward to is the final part of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, 'The Dark Knight Rises'. I've loved superhero comics and films since I was a kid, and without doubt, 'The Dark Knight' is the greatest superhero film ever made, and one of the best action movies of any genre.
My expectations are tempered by the absence of Heath Ledger, but I know Nolan will deliver a brilliant experience, it's simply going to be epic. He's the kind of director whose films really suffer if the audience do not see them on the big screen (The Prestige, Inception). He's rebooting Superman next year with a film called The Man of Steel. Anyway, I defy anyone to go see The Dark Knight Rises and consider it not to be eight quid well spent.
The series was left on a poignant note at the end of The Dark Knight, with Batman taking the fall for the death of the city's hero, Harvey Dent, for the sake of the spirits of the people. He has become a pariah, an unknown savior, hunted by the authorities.
Nolan's films are dark, somehow both gothic and modern, and he is one of the great storytellers of our time. He brings Gotham City to life with no attempt to imitate either the comics themselves or the comic-book style of the 80s and 80s Batman films, which went off the boil.
Here is the most recent trailer:
Are there any other great films coming out this year that you are looking forward to?
