Lucky the [few] viewers of Baz Luhrman’s "The Great Gatsby" who come to the film virgin of the book, without even a brush with it in high-school. They can dive into the vulgarity of the jazz age depiction, replete with fireworks, flowing champagne, Charleston and period sound-track (with a dash of Jay-Z for the would-be cute and saucy note, much like the sneakers in Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette”). They can spend a dazzling two-plus hours

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is the billion-dollar staple of American high-school reading. At times, watching Baz Luhrmann’s fantasy “The Great Gatsby” feels like reliving the entire length of junior year. At other times, it reaches out to the green light and snatches what it’s after: a mad dream of one of America’s essential novels.

"The Great Gatsby" by Baz Luhrmann is exactly like what

Jackie (Bitsie Tulloch; pictured) is porcelain doll-fragile, her gaunt frame as rigid as her pulled-back hair. Her eyes, strewn with mascara, dance with hurt when something gets under her skin which is close to always. When her sister, Caroline (Marguerite Moreau), comes to visit her and her meek boyfriend Ryan (David Giuntoli), Caroline insists on taking them out to dinner, which turns out to be a surprise party. And when the boisterous group returns

In a movie where flying metal meets flying metaphors, “Iron Man 3” is like rooting for a good hammer. Billionaire playboy industrialist Tony Stark makes it possible to pilot a fleet of Iron Man outfits by remote control, while he munches In’N’Out burgers miles away. “Iron Man” has become “Iron Drone.” The real metaphor here is the empty suit. Among the faithful, that change won’t lead to tears for teenage theater hands to soak

Here’s a topic for sitting around the campfire: are the worst films by the best directors still better than 80% of what is released? Are say, "Bringing Out the Dead" or "The Hudsucker Proxy" still relative carrots for the eyes when compared to the "Transformer" movies? Terrence Malick’s "To the Wonder" is a lot more "The Prairie Home Companion" than "McCabe and Mrs. Miller." Following in the wake of his towering

Those expecting a traditional rock documentary on The National, mapping the heralded Brooklyn indie rock band’s trajectory from its shaky origins in 1999 to its gradual breakthrough as rock stars, will be sorely disappointed by “Mistaken for Strangers,” directed by National frontman Matt Berninger’s nine-years-younger brother, Tom Berninger. The film opened the Tribeca Film Festival on Wednesday night. Not that there isn’t

Contrary to her ideological and racial brethren (Malcolm X, Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, to name a few) Angela Davis has survived. She wasn't shot down like some of her peers who paid for their political committment with their own lives. No. Angela Davies is alive today and her story deserves to be told. And it's through a no-pretense documentary, without frills or gimmicks like in the glossy biopics that Hollywood is so good