Three and a half days ago — an eon! — Australia director Baz Luhrman acknowledged to a Hollywood Reporter staffer that “there are those [who] don’t get” his widely disparaged film. Or rather, he meant, “a lot of the film scientists don’t get it. And it’s not just that that they don’t get it, but they hate it and they hate me , and they think I’m the black hole of cinema. They say, ‘He shouldn’t have made it, and he should die.'”

Nobody I know thinks Baz Luhrman is anything close to the black hole of cinema. They think of him, rather, as the cinematic adrenochrome dealer. A whirling, pixie-dust-sprinkling, gray-haired avatar of big, pumped and extreme. The wizard of cranked-up razmatazz for the sake of…well, cranked-up razmatazz! Mr. Look-at-Me, Look-At-What-I-Can-Do!

How badly, honestly, has Luhrman been hurt by the reception to Australia? What producer or distributor in the world, honestly, would begin to even consider funding/distributing a Baz Luhrman version of The Great Gatsby, which Lurhman mentions in the article? If I had the wherewithal and the freedom to say “yes” or “no,” I wouldn’t even flirt with the idea of of getting into bed with Luhrman on this project. Who would?