Re: What was the last movie you watched?
Its fairly obvious, judging from when the film actually quotes the book, that the book has a subtlety to it. What is probably a party where many stand around drinking, the film turns into a modern rave. Unless I'm seriously misjudging 20's literature. The juxtaposition between the narration and what was actually going on shows that the novel has obviously been sensationalised. Perhaps the narration has been deliberately rewritten to stand out like a sore thumb (except the ending. That was actually quite well done I thought), but this is the guy who did Romeo and Juliet, which might have worked slightly better if they removed Shakespeare's language - but if they did that then the film would merely be bad rather than fascinatingly painful.
I wasn't saying that you should or shouldn't like the film. I'm saying that purists won't like the film because its clearly slapping about the source material a bit, but if you have no idea what the novel is about then your more likely to enjoy it because you won't be constantly yelling "THE BOOK DID IT BETTER", like I was throughout the majority of The Hobbit.
Since you've never actually read the book, how would you know when the film is actually quoting the book, and when it isn't? Also, why would you assume people in the 1920s were somehow altogether less prone to holding raves than today? In the book, the parties hosted by Gatsby are described as being extremely lavish, with (to give some random examples) an entire orchestra for the music and people (most of whom actually barely know Gatsby and turn up uninvited) drinking exotic cocktails and getting drunk (remembering that this is Prohibition era, after all) and dancing. So it's not just people standing around. Perhaps not entirely the same as a modern rave, but it's not difficult to imagine it in that context.
I haven't seen the film (though I've read the book), but I imagine Luhrmann is trying to give a modern context to a '20s-era party, and I think that would be quite successful at conveying the extreme wealth of Gatsby. In fact the entire novel is about sensationalisation, since James Gatz creates the false, larger-than-life persona of Jay Gatsby, whom everyone aspires to be like (in terms of material wealth, at least)--yet while secretly wanting to make things to be exactly the way they used to be, which is the one thing he cannot do.
Also, I for the most part thought Romeo + Juliet was actually well done--except for the usage of the original Shakespearean language, which made nearly all of the dialogue impenetrable and extremely confusing to me. (Aside from anything else, it made characters talking about their "swords" while using guns seem rather incongruous.)
And film adaptations that aren't faithful to the original source material (sometimes as a matter of necessity) are hardly anything new; there will always be purists who are going to be disappointed in any case. The only film based on a book that seemed to please nearly every fan of the book I can think of off the top of my head is Lord of the Rings. Also Watchmen, maybe, since I've heard it's widely regarded as one of the most faithfully adapted movies (though I haven't seen it so I wouldn't know).
&Smeagol make the most of being surrounded by single, educated women your own age on a regular basis in college
AquaMorph I dunno women are expensive
