A little light culture: from our department of fearless predictions

The new film of The Great Gatsby, due out this summer unless it gets delayed once again, is going to be awful. There are just too many obstacles.

• Novels make bad movies. The genre calls for a TV series.
• Gatsby is particularly resistant to filming as it relies heavily on description and, while that might seem like a natural for a movie, turning descriptions into films never works.
• Baz Luhrmann is directing and he is a bombastic fraud who makes everything he touches into the worst sort of sentimental tripe. He embodies flaws even worse than those Fitzgerald saw in 1920s New York.
• What you can hear of the soundtrack in the preview is enough to make you throw up.