Someone else did a movie much like this one. That director's name is Alfred Hitchcock, and that movie is called 'Rope'. Of course there isn't a murder in this film, but present screenwriters could all take a lesson in how difficult it is to carry a film by rounding characters through dialogue alone, while the real tensions lie in what is not said. Funny, smart, nuanced. And even though the ending could use some work, it never leaves the house, and it's meant to be a bit repetitive. It's called art. No one ever said it should go POW. Audiences have gotten to used to the dumbing down through gunfire. Again, screenwriters, learn something. The awards were doled out to this one for a reason. Uncle Bob and his M16 might not understand why.

Lincoln's main goal was to preserve the union. And DDL probably deserves another oscar for this. It plays on guilt and prejudices through overpowering speeches about such, but remember your history classes when being told how concerned people were about equal rights in the early 1800's. The Gettysburg address was about what--yes, preserving the union. How do you do that? By giving black people, a large majority of the southern population, the right to vote. This film might be considered boring/ or inflammatory, if told truthfully.

There is a tug of war within the literary world which asks "is 'Huckleberry Finn' or 'The Great Gatsby' the Great American Novel." Which is then the Great American film? Adaptations can hold weight in that argument, but when reading Fitzgerald, the mind's eye knows for certain that Gatsby stood far away from any spray-on-tan aesthetic this film is already displaying. Also Tobey Maguire's character, Nick, should also be heard and not seen for the most part. This is an extremely difficult adaptation because the audience/reader needs to be led to certain conclusions without being shown. What happens at the end? Who done it? Through narration we find these things out, and not through scene. Good luck to the moneymakers/filmmakers on this one. I imagine those who haven't read the book may stand and applaud the flashy youthfulness of this film, while those who know it's roots, may scoff at the bastardization. i feel this is a perfect line from the book. "It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment." Good luck, DiCaprio. Good Luck.

Some critics, and critics of critics, say you need to be a scholar to "understand it's contextual meaning." Read the summary, a depressed playwright takes decades to produce/direct a film of his own life (narcissistic much? should you care?) which he never actually accomplishes. Mixed with the monotone nature of this film and it's length, no matter what your education, there is something about your own life you will begin to question while watching. Is living as an existential pompous, dwelling in that murk, something you want to sleep through? Wake me when you can tell me what this film has done for you. ....yes...I'm still sleeping.