"Al Gore made $200 million. Good for him!"

Said Meade. Acknowledging that I got the reference, I said, "But he didn't do it alone..."

Meade has his computer screen open to Drudge, the right 2/3 of which looks like this right now:



It's all about smiles, as the dolphin in the lower right corner makes clear. Meade says, "Wow, George P. Bush looks like Nixon," and I say, "And Obama too... strangely." The Gore smile is waxen. For all I know the pic is of a wax depiction of the GoreBot, the ManBearPig we've come to dread.

Meanwhile, there's Leo, our new Gatsby, apparently "vibrantly alive." The word "vibrant" appears only once in "The Great Gatsby":

He felt their presence all about the house, pervading the air with the shades and echoes of still vibrant emotions.

I think you know what to do with that sentence. And if not, my belief in the harmony of the universe — or the mystical shades and echoes of pink dolphins or the reliability of the Althouse commentariat — tells me that betamax3000 will show you the way.

New "Gatsby" trailer.

Now, with even more anachronistic pop music, including Beyonce singing Amy Winehouse.

Baz Luhrmann's "Gatsby."

If you loved "Moulin Rouge," as I did, you may find the new trailer thrilling:



I was literally thrilled. And I'm very skeptical of all movies. I resist going to the movies. I see one comment over at YouTube whining about this not being in 3D. 3D is a curse. I've vowed never again to see a movie shot in 3D unless it's in a 3D theater. I saw that most recent "Planet of the Apes" movie, which was shot as a 3D movie, in a non-3D theater, and it was full of dumb shots — objects placed in the extreme foreground, actors framed in a way that you could tell was for an effect that you weren't able to see. I'd love to see "Life of Pi," but I put off going, because it's such an ordeal to engage with a 3D experience, and now it's only around here in non-3D, and I can't go, because of my vow. I'm delighted that Luhrmann didn't mess up the visuals to pander to the 3D dweebs.

Here, you can read "The Great Gatsby" on line, in a nice format. This is one of my favorite books. What I like is that each sentence is good, on its own. Seriously. Test it out. "As my train emerged from the tunnel into sunlight, only the hot whistles of the National Biscuit Company broke the simmering hush at noon." Every sentence is a writer's inspiration. I'll vouch for that.

ADDED: A trailer was put out last summer using many of the same visuals and a very different audio track, and I blogged at the time: "It looks awful, with horrible acting." I'd forgotten that! Here's the old trailer:



But I did say: "But then I think it's like 'Moulin Rouge,' which can seem bad if you look at it the wrong way, and this new 'Gatsby; is in fact directed by the same person, Baz Luhrmann." There's a fine line — in some quarters — between garbage and greatness.