I still think the best Scots-confuse-Americans story is the fact that Trainspotting was released here with subtitles. I had to explain to a few people that not only is the dialogue in English, there are Scottish accents a lot thicker than that around.

I got that one too when I was living in Saudi! "Do you have a pet camel?" I was like...you know they spit, right? Not the most amiable creatures in general, it has to be said.

I think this is an American thing. In the UK we'd call Morocco part of North Africa, or the Maghreb if we're being fancy (which is why when people ask me where I grew up I distinguish the time I spent in North Africa from the time I spent in the Gulf, because they're really very different places). A lot of the time…

Dude, the Grapes of Wrath obviously calls for death metal.

I just feel like it's not my place as a Brit to comment on the Great American Novel and where it's going, you know?

At least it didn't look like it was set in Studio 54, and Redford is charming. Part of the issue I'm having with the trailer is that DiCaprio looks like he's about to strangle someone with his bare hands. It's very odd.

I have issues with musicals in general, which I'm sure wasn't helping. I just kept going...why are they singing? Neither of these people can sing, why didn't they just dub it? I was cringing in sympathetic embarrassment.

So what I'm getting from this thread is that I should never add Australia to my Netflix queue.

That's how fans always react to books being filmed, though. Why get upset when they, predictably, do it with this one too? I really think you're reading too much into other people's comments - no one is actually saying that the sky will fall if this movie isn't very good. They're just saying that they think it's not…

He seems to be a love him or loathe him sort of filmmaker. Never saw Australia, but I couldn't make it all the way through Moulin Rouge. I actually fell asleep in the middle.

This is where I always find myself getting into conflicts about this issue. I'm quite happy to support sex workers, but I can't in good conscience support their customers, because I've lived in places where the sex trade is very prominent and seen the customers up close, and they're horrible. But a lot of sex worker…

I'm now trying to think of which name could read as either Scottish or Greek. (Is Scottish.)

It'll be interesting to see if she can pull off being unsympathetic. I don't think she's done that so far, played a character that's honestly not a very good person.

The point is that if you're going to be fannish and defensive about an artist who you love (which you're doing here with Lurhmann) then you have to accept the fact that other people may feel the same way, but about a different artist, or generally not like/dislike the things that you do. It's a bit silly to be chiding…

Ooh, I like Hailee Steinfeld, and she's the right age (Romeo and Juliet doesn't really work with older people unless you change the plot quite a bit, their decision making is too teenager-ish).

Hey, sleep deprivation can cause hallucinations...I'd probably assume that combined with reading too much sci fi as a teenager.

This comment is funny in that your own responses to the other comments here are so, well, fannish. If you're going to be fannish about Luhrmann, you have to allow people who're equally devoted to Gatsby the right to their own emotional responses too.

I still can't get over the fact that the person who wrote this repurposed Twilight fanfic is an adult, not a teenager. How does anyone over the age of about 13 write something like "he's my own Christian Grey flavor popsicle"? How do readers control the urge to laugh for long enough to masturbate?

That argument is a cop-out. If you're going to base a movie on a play, it is always to some extent going to be judged on how well it interprets the play, and compared to alternate interpretations.

Lurhmann movies always make me wish that I'd just ingested lots of cocaine, as that's the only way I can imagine finding them enthralling rather than irritating.