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The Great Gatsby
A former bootlegger, now a multi-millionaire who inherited his wealth from his mentor is trying to reconnect with his ex-lover by recreating his love for her using his incredible wealth.
There are very few certainties in Hollywood. Certain directors are extremely dependable in delivering a great movie from a good-great script. There are a handful of them. And a Leonardo Dicaprio movie will make a profit and has 80-90% shot at Oscar glory, whether in nominations or wins. Its a commonly known statistic among Hollywood executives. So, most of the time whenever a script renders itself to epic scale filmmaking he will be the first one to be offered. Most of the times he will be the only one to be offered and they even gestate the project until he is freed up.But he knows his worth and he will do anything he can to maintain his brand of star power. So he will only work with top directors and wait for several years before making a project if those directors are not available.
Once a Dicaprio movie comes out there are lot of "money" guys aka agents , publicists , studio executives and producers with vested interested in its success. Even though its not their movie, since its Dicaprio's movie they want to get the project some recognition so that they can keep him around to green light risky projects . Since the movie is directed by auteurs , you get the attention of critics and since Dicaprio has been following the shtick for quite some time he has developed a major fan following similar to Tarantino but only bigger and add to that the usual fan following for a hot male movie star and you have recipe for financially successful movie.
Given all this support why is this movie not any good. It has all the usual Dicaprio tropes like Big budget with epic scale and story that will appeal to masses. But the problem lies in Baz Luhrmann. Who is not a consistent movie director. But it was still very calculated from Dicaprio's part to hire him to tell this type of story given that he made this kind of movies throughout his career. The movie is all style and no heart. There is no chemistry and no entertaining qualities to it. Oscar wins are expected in technical categories because of tens of millions thrown at them.
So all in all this movie is a snooze fest with no magic of the novel. But the most interesting aspect of the movie is that this movie is a case study in dissecting the strategy followed by Dicaprio for almost all his movie to get Oscar attention and box office hit . If this movie worked then no one would have pointed that out but the failure of this movie exposed the who strategy. A movie like Gravity or Life of pi just need to be good and they get Oscar attention . But for an actor like Dicaprio who is aiming to get oscar attention with every movie, you need a well thought out strategy. Funny thing is in an industry like hollywood which has worshipped Harvey Weinstein for decades despite all the allegations surrounding him, it's not that hard for an actor to repeat his Oscar strategy with every movie and not face any blowback.
A former bootlegger, now a multi-millionaire who inherited his wealth from his mentor is trying to reconnect with his ex-lover by recreating his love for her using his incredible wealth.
There are very few certainties in Hollywood. Certain directors are extremely dependable in delivering a great movie from a good-great script. There are a handful of them. And a Leonardo Dicaprio movie will make a profit and has 80-90% shot at Oscar glory, whether in nominations or wins. Its a commonly known statistic among Hollywood executives. So, most of the time whenever a script renders itself to epic scale filmmaking he will be the first one to be offered. Most of the times he will be the only one to be offered and they even gestate the project until he is freed up.But he knows his worth and he will do anything he can to maintain his brand of star power. So he will only work with top directors and wait for several years before making a project if those directors are not available.
Once a Dicaprio movie comes out there are lot of "money" guys aka agents , publicists , studio executives and producers with vested interested in its success. Even though its not their movie, since its Dicaprio's movie they want to get the project some recognition so that they can keep him around to green light risky projects . Since the movie is directed by auteurs , you get the attention of critics and since Dicaprio has been following the shtick for quite some time he has developed a major fan following similar to Tarantino but only bigger and add to that the usual fan following for a hot male movie star and you have recipe for financially successful movie.
Given all this support why is this movie not any good. It has all the usual Dicaprio tropes like Big budget with epic scale and story that will appeal to masses. But the problem lies in Baz Luhrmann. Who is not a consistent movie director. But it was still very calculated from Dicaprio's part to hire him to tell this type of story given that he made this kind of movies throughout his career. The movie is all style and no heart. There is no chemistry and no entertaining qualities to it. Oscar wins are expected in technical categories because of tens of millions thrown at them.
So all in all this movie is a snooze fest with no magic of the novel. But the most interesting aspect of the movie is that this movie is a case study in dissecting the strategy followed by Dicaprio for almost all his movie to get Oscar attention and box office hit . If this movie worked then no one would have pointed that out but the failure of this movie exposed the who strategy. A movie like Gravity or Life of pi just need to be good and they get Oscar attention . But for an actor like Dicaprio who is aiming to get oscar attention with every movie, you need a well thought out strategy. Funny thing is in an industry like hollywood which has worshipped Harvey Weinstein for decades despite all the allegations surrounding him, it's not that hard for an actor to repeat his Oscar strategy with every movie and not face any blowback.