The Greatest Gatsby -- Ever!

Rating: 9/10 (23 May 2014)

The movie is never as good as the book. "Remakes" are always retrograde. Those movies with anachronistic soundtracks are more distracting than interesting for "serious" films. Baz Lurhmann has proved all these truisms (to which I had more or less subscribed) wrong with this film. It may be my love of the source material, or the fact that I rather like Jay-Z and Frank Church, even when they're scoring a screenplay that references the Jazz Age with every page. But the music respects the Jazz Age even if it is not particularly constrained by it, the same way Gatsby is not constrained by the social pecking order in which he was expected to live & love, even if the film-maker was not constrained by FSG-era interpretations and projections of the author's vision.
As a native East Coaster I find this film nostalgic. As an ex- Californian I find it bursting with optimism and energy. As a transplant to the Midwest I sympathize with nearly *all* the characters. This is a superlative adaptation for the screen of the Great American Novel of the 20th Century. I love it, and look forward to sharing it with others so that I may enjoy it over and over again.