I saw “The Great Gatsby” yesterday. Gatsby is my favorite novel of all time. The movie was not the book and if your basis for slamming it is that it’s not the book, well, your standards and expectations probably need to be checked. Deciding beforehand that I’d not make my judgment of it dependent upon how it stands up to the book, I ended up having a nice time and enjoying the movie on its own terms. Those terms: “Hi, I’m a movie with not a ton of weight or importance, but I will be entertaining and you will leave realizing you could have spent the past couple of hours doing far worse things.” I can accept that. And it was way more entertaining than the Robert Redford version, which was snooze city.
Oh, and it might have helped that I saw it at a theater with a full bar and had Manhattans during the movie. But still, I think the thing woulda stood up on its own, not-too-weighty terms just fine without the drinks.
Other things that happened this weekend:
- Clint Hurdle talked about stats.
- We examined the Ichiro problem.
- We noted that you need to pay more attention to Paul Goldschmidt.
- More like LOLstros, amirite?
- A guy who went by the name Lurch in college and used to party with a girl I worked with back in the day got DFA’d.
- Heath Bell: baseball fan.
- Brian Cashman: master troll.
- Jake “The Snake” Roberts sighting.
- The Braves are likely to lose another reliever to Tommy John surgery.
- The Orioles’ streak of winning when up after seven ended.
- Ike Davis gets a vote of confidence.
- Instant replay is baseball’s version of gay marriage, apparently. You can’t just admit you were wrong to oppose it. Your view has to “evolve.”
- Matt Moore = Babe Ruth. At least in one weird factoidy way.
- Jason Grilli is this year’s Fernando Rodney. He should carry grilled cheese sandwiches in his belt instead of plantains.
Next up: the Star Trek movie. Which I’m guessing I’ll be way more fanboyish and far less clear-eyed about.
