The Hunger Games

The first fifteen minutes of the new record-breaking smash The Hunger Games set in an Appalachian coal mining district are terrific, like stepping into one of Dorothea Lange’s Depression photos, where people in poverty are seen with dignity and integrity, yet the futuristic movie also mixes in overtones of Blade Runner and 1984, and Shirley Jackson’s classic story "The Lottery." When our heroine Katniss (the excellent Jennifer Lawrence from Winter’s Bone) volunteers to replace her younger sister in the nation’s annual televised teen survivalist deathmatch, the action moves to the city, and it leaves behind two of its greatest assets, the more important of which is nuance.

Suddenly hamfisted, the movie pounds home the point that the capital and the media are run by wicked queens wearing outrageous colors and braying like buffoons; in short, fabulous is evil. The audience knows it’s wrong because the good, drab people back home are starving and here the gluttons wear glitter. These scenes mock the shallowness of “style,” the ridiculousness of “design,” the stupidity of “sophistication.”

One exception to this is, of all people, the stylist, Cinna. I’m told in the books he is clearly gay. In the movie he is clearly Lenny Kravitz. His natural warmth is a very welcome respite from the shrill immortality of the aging glamour guys Stanley Tucci and Toby Jones. Happily, the bulk of the movie is spent efficiently if predictably in the woods watching the countdown to the inevitable winner. Not to flaunt my own butch Alaskan backcountry cred, but clearly the Hollywood suits didn’t bother to hire a naturalist. We’re warned that as many teens die of “exposure” as from being killed by their competitors. Given the movie’s ideal conditions in a temperate climate, this threat is about as realistic as opera singers shattering glasses with high notes or loud noises triggering avalanches.

If you like escapist entertainment, go see The Hunger Games. It’s important to upend the lie that boys won’t go see movies about girls. And it’s nice that out lesbian producer Nina Jacobson, fired by Disney, is enjoying a gigantic hit. It would be even nicer if she and Suzanne Collins (credited as one of three screenwriters) kept/ included some overtly queer-positive content. But lesbians have kickass Katniss, and gay men have the other great asset left behind in her hometown, Liam Hemsworth, Thor’s hotter brother, as well as a buff blond named Cato.

For readers who somehow missed the massive popularity of the trilogy: Last week Suzanne Collins became Kindle’s all-time best-selling author.

Comments

[xem tu vi]

A good movie

[whois the darkest childe]

re: "Not to flaunt my own butch Alaskan backcountry cred, but clearly the Hollywood suits didn’t bother to hire a naturalist. We’re warned that as many teens die of “exposure” as from being killed by their competitors. Given the movie’s ideal conditions in a temperate climate, this threat is about as realistic as opera singers shattering glasses with high notes or loud noises triggering avalanches."

-- Every year a unique area is constructed for the games with it's own self-contained environment and human-controllable weather patterns. For example, one year was a frozen tundra and many died from freezing to death. Also, the gamekeepers can adjust the temperature to unbearably hot or cold.

-- Also, most everyone who b*tches about the story, plot, climax, or conclusion to the first book (basing what they know purely on the movie) are failing to realize that the 3 books are really just one long story that continues from the beginning of 1 through the end of 3. It's not really a 'series' like Harry Potter where the same basic plot occurred time and again in each of the first 5 books. Many things that occur in the first book are there to set up stuff that happens later. Additionally, complaining the characters are flat and dimensional based on the movie is hardly fair, since the acting and directing are probably more to blame than the original text... and with respect to this..the main characters do change over the course of the 3 books.

[Joey]

I loved the movie, and only read a few pages of the book before seeing the movie, literally an hour or two before the movie started. I never watch a movie before the book, it goes book before the movie for me, plus the book is always better then the movie in my opinion, but i have enjoyed many movies that were based on a book that I read first, I just know now that you can't fit everything in a movie from a book, it is impossible. My other half had bought the book and had more interest than I, and didn't know much about the movie or the books or even know there was there was three books to it. I agree to see the movie, we did get mixed reviews before seeing it, we asked some people who saw it, and one person who read all the books said she was disappointed and did not enjoy the movie; another loved the movie but never read the books. So I thought we go see the movie, and my other half wanted to. So I watched and LOVED the movie, I only knew what happened from what I read, which in the movie is like the first 10 to 15 mins of it, roughly. But it is exciting, the actors are great, Jennifer Lawerence does a great job in my opinion, and so does the guy who played Peeta. I thought it was done awesomely.

Now that I have just finished reading the first book, and just got all three books in hard cover for my birthday recently, I can see what they mean, the ones who read the books and then watched the movie, it doesn't surprise me to see people be disappointed though when to go from the books to the movie though, but people are some times disappointed this way. Harry Potter was different, but it did continue its story in each book, it was not always the same, he did get older, he aged, and learned something new each time which he carried with him each year and each plot may seemed the same, it was really not, and it was always linked to him discovering more and about LordV. coming more into power each time till the final showdown. These books-The Hunger Games- is a continuing story like the "The Outlander Series". Which are another great books to read.

But I loved the movie still, and can't wait to see it again. I know some people I met more now, who have read the books who haven't seen the movie yet, but want to, who have heard things about it, who suggested that they should of played Katniss with a voice over, like the book, how you know what she was thinking and saw everything in her perspecitve, well somehow they could of played part of that with her voice over in the movie, and still show the scenes from the Captiol I think. They said it might help understand more. Which I think it would of. BUT they did describe some things in a different way in the movie, like how they talked about the Tracker Jackets, I think they were called in the book, by using the tv annoucer to descibe them in a break. But I can understand the dilema book fans have.

I still love the movie, it made me read the book more, and it got me interested in the books. Now I am reading the second book "Catching Fire", and I love it, I am almost half way though it, I am reading it faster then the first book and I can't put it down. I love the books too now.

(that is how I got interested in the Harry Potter books, someone asked to go see the first movie and so I did, and I loved it. It usually does not happen that way with me though.)

But I do recommend the movie, it is well done, and it is an awesome movie and I also recommend the books.

:)