Mega Hunger Games Review

When a movie adaptation of one of the biggest young adult series in history brings in the third biggest opening weekend of all time, you just know the movie is too big for just one reviewer. As such, several of us here at the Red Shirt Crew would like to give you our thoughts on the movie that has taken over the popular culture: The Hunger Games.

Grey Anderson


Setting aside the very fine action elements of this movie, I’d like to focus for a moment on something that was likely overlooked by many viewers but that stood above the plot and the action for me: The look and feel of the world. It is rare to see Hollywood put the effort into making a world come alive, and even less common than that to see them achieve a consistency and a beauty in the world on the level that The Hunger Games managed to pull off. 


Read more here.

Libby

I was just the slightest bit skeptical coming into “The Hunger Games” last Thursday night. I’d read the books, and although I liked them very much, I was doubtful about the filmmakers’ ability to create a successful adaptation, particularly in light of the nonsensical “Peeta vs. Gale” obsession. “The Hunger Games” books were never Harry Potter to me — I’ve always thought the writing left something to be desired — but the plots are genius, the characters are real, and the story is something from which we can all learn. (More on that later.) Perhaps most importantly, Katniss is one of a regrettably tiny company of strong female YA film leads, and so I really wanted the movie to get her right. I wasn’t disappointed.

From the very beginning, when a moronically-grinning Caesar Flickerman avers that the games “bring us together”, I was hooked. The sudden flash to Katniss’ home in District 12 (a brilliantly done set reminiscent of the Great Depression), sparked a feeling of tenseness that stayed with me throughout the rest of the film. The lead-up to Prim’s Reaping was painful for me; I think I had clenched my arms together and kept hoping, hoping, hoping even though I knew what was going to happen. An excellent decision on the movie-makers’ part was the way the camera trembled at particularly terrifying moments — I shake when I’m nervous, so it really brought Katniss’ plight home to me.

I could go on about the set forever, but I’ll just say that the Capitol and the Arena were done exactly the way the book described — with a few things added. The originality in some of the Capitol people’s appearances astounded me. And it was flashy, but it wasn’t obnoxious — it didn’t beg for attention, but it did supplement the story in all the right ways. The score also succeeded in this manner — I always think it’s tragic when a movie score draws attention away from events, and unlike the Harry Potter franchise, “The Hunger Games” didn’t do that once. (However, if you’re into that kind of thing, the tracks “Horn of Plenty”, “Searching for Peeta”, and “Rue’s Farewell” are particularly good. “Healing Katniss” is achingly lovely and my personal favorite.)

The two crowning glories of the film were Jennifer Lawrence’s performance as Katniss and the way a shocking young adult book became a tragic, mature, sweeping war film. These two achievements are wound up in each other — Katniss makes the story, and the story blends into Katniss. It’s beautiful to watch.

My favorite scene was the one featuring Katniss in the launch room just before entering the arena, when a perfectly-cast Lenny Kravitz as Cinna speaks to her for perhaps the last time. Lawrence literally shakes, and Kravitz shows painful awareness of the likely outcome. It’s acting genius, and touched me in a way I don’t think any film ever has before — I will admit I cried. Other perfect scenes are Katniss’ first silver parachute, President Snow and his roses, Peeta’s interactions with Haymitch, and the heartbreaking death of Rue.

Reading The Hunger Games, we all knew that it was about the death of children, and that it was horrible. But the film hit the mark in an entirely new way, and when it had finished, I didn’t speak to anyone for a while. Katniss and Peeta were depicted with such grim yet beautiful clarity that I needed to mourn before I could appreciate. And that is the mark of a truly good film.

Twenty Joe Woods Under the Sea

Alright. So I haven’t seen this movie. To be honest, I don’t really have that much of a desire to—I read the first book, but it doesn’t really seem to me like something I’d want to pay eight dollars to go see in theaters. I’ll wait until it’s at the Byrd.

Those of you who have seen/read the first book, however, should be intimately familiar with a character dear to many hearts: Rue. Without giving too much away, she’s from the only district poorer than the main character’s (or, at least, I think) and she plays a very integral role to the book. She’s arguably the second most important female character, and a real character of empowerment for the fans. I’m sure this character’s journey is well portrayed in the film, and this part of the book alone is worth seeing in some manner, be it reading or watching it.

I’m sure most of you, however, have heard of a group of individuals on social networks being, for some reason, outraged over the fact that Rue is black.

Really? Why would this be a problem for anyone? Firstly, Collins says directly in the book:

“…And most hauntingly, a twelve-year-old girl from District 11. She has dark brown skin and eyes, but other than that’s she’s very like Prim in size and demeanor…”

Yet apparently this was enough to surprise some individuals in a time where race issues are coming more and more to light. Thus I propose that racism, as a form of ignorance, is directly correlated with poor reading comprehension.

Doc Watson

I want to like this movie. I really do. There’s a solid plot, the characters interact well, and the general design of the movie sets itself up for success. Then why do I feel so…underwhelmed?

Here’s my prognosis. I feel the film suffers from three major flaws: one is poor marketing, one is poor composition, and one is a poor narrative choice. As a disclaimer, I have not read the book.

1) The film relies too much on the following of its readership.
2) The director uses nausea-inducing shaky-cam that detracts from the story at hand.
3) The American empire is far too generic and unremarkable.

Generally speaking, the hype of The Hunger Games outright refuses you even the slightest granule of information regarding the premise of the movie. The whole time of the growing readership and initial hype for the movie, people kept insisting that I read the book, giving generic praise of its quality in both recommendations and in trailers. When I asked what it was about or what made it so good, I generally got a reply like “You just have to read it to get it. Did I mention it’s really good?” What’s so hard to get about kids fighting each other in a game show to survive? Seems pretty straightforward to me. I mean, this isn’t exactly Charles Dickens; this is a popular teen novel.

Parts of the movie were literally unwatchable due to crappy camera-work. I can honestly say this is the first time anything has ever made me motion-sick. Several tense, dramatic, and moving moments were completely shattered by the fact that you can’t tell what’s going on at all. You want us to see this movie, right Gary Ross? Then let us.

Lastly, the totalitarian state was frustratingly droll. I don’t know if this was a flaw of the books or the movie, but there was absolutely nothing that made them unique; they were just another bland Orwellian regime. You could have replaced the oppressors with knights, elves, Nazis, or even aliens without changing the narrative at all. Make your regime stand out from the masses. Do something new instead of using dead tropes like generic police brutality, bad-guy uniformity, and a growing divide between the second and third estates to make your regime evil. Take a risk and surprise us!

All things considered, if you’re looking at killing some time at the movies this weekend, you can do a lot worse than The Hunger Games. It’s a solid story with decent casting, acting, and writing. I just wish they did a little bit more to really make this film shine.

Libby’s Embarrassing Poetry Problem

This week, Libby tries to read poetry for fun. How does it go? Read more to find out

So, I’ve been ordered to keep mum on The Hunger Games (Editor’s note: There’s a Mega-Review forthcoming, don’t worry), but I cannot lie and pretend it isn’t the only thing on my mind at the moment. In fact, it had enough of an impression on me that I’m feeling the need to see it again, if only to absorb it properly, as soon as possible. I’m not sure when I will be able to stop thinking about it every 30 seconds, but I do know that when a film does that, it is a good film.

And now I shall say no more about it.

Anyway — whilst I was hungering for the game last night, I was also thinking about Keats. Being an English major, I’ve taken several literature classes this year and enjoyed them very much. But I have also realized that I have what we might term an Embarrassing Poetry Problem.

Which is this: I have no idea how to read the bloody stuff.

The reason I’m an English major has something to do with reading James and the Giant Peach when I was six — my first novel — and watching my world expand. It has something to do with finding books like Harry Potter and Emma and Enna Burning and Hons and Rebels and The Book Thief during my teens that changed my views completely. It has something to do with my lifelong obsession with creative writing, and the beauty of a well-structured novel, and the spark that makes characters come to life. But it doesn’t have anything to do with poetry.

The trouble is that I’ve never read it for fun. I don’t know how to approach it. I’ve been reading novels all my life, but poetry is just something that has never interested me. I think part of it is that most of the time, poetry lacks a real story, and story is the entire reason I read. And when it does have a story — when it’s something like Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock”, for example — it often has so many metaphors and allusions that it takes real, arduous work to make sense of it. It isn’t the sort of thing you can understand initially, unless you are a very close reader. And I’ve always prized clarity and simplicity in writing, so this goes against all instinct.

“Use your five senses,” people say. “See what you feel. Look for imagery. Watch the meter.”

And I’ve tried this. And I did get somewhere. Earlier this year I found that I liked Spenser for his Faerie Queene epic and some of his quirky poems about mythical beasts. And I liked Blake for his pure Englishness and amusing little rhymes. But these have been very much the exception, and I like these poets for exactly the same reasons I like novelists. Their stuff is quirky and clever, or else sweeping and dramatic, and that’s the kind of thing I’ve always read.

Keats, on the other hand, is a different story.

People I really, really respect like Keats. Stephen Fry, for example, is a sworn Keats fan. J.K. Rowling has referenced him. The couple of other English majors I’ve mentioned my trouble to have all gasped, “You don’t like Keats?” I want desperately to like Keats. In fact, I want to like him so badly that I’ve decided I will, eventually, in exactly the same way I forced myself to like coffee. I’m just not exactly sure how. You can’t drink old poetry in the mornings with just a little less milk and sugar than the day before.

Here are the first few lines of his “Ode to a Grecian Urn”:

THOU still unravish’d bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape	5
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

On first glance, my brain goes “THIS IS DULL.”

Then I remember that I want to enjoy it, so I look very closely at it and think, “well, ‘foster-child of Silence and slow Time’ is a nice phrase. Actually it’s a very nice phrase. But I’m not sure what it means. Hmm.”

And apparently there’s only so much not-understanding that my brain can take, because — generally — after a few minutes of this, I will put the Keats down and go bury my nose in Jane Austen instead.

I think what I’m looking for is some kind of link — a reason to care, I suppose, since there are rarely well-rounded characters to care about. The feelings expressed in old poems are all very well and good, but I like context for feelings; a clear-cut situation as to their origin. And beautiful sunsets, clouds and daffodils are nice, but I am an incredibly unobservant person and do not have much observational ability even in my head. I know there’s a link somewhere — there must be, as Keats and his fellows are so well-liked by the Stephen Frys of the world — but I can’t seem to find it just yet, and that makes me sad.

So I’ve decided this is going to be a step-by-step process. Rome wasn’t built in a day, after all, as I’m sure the Roman poets would attest. For now I shall appreciate nice phrases and work on not being bored by the rest. With a little luck, I’ll be a Keats fangirl before the year is out.

Libby’s Literary Non-Tastes

Hello all!

I’m so sorry I’ve been AWOL for a couple of weeks; I keep having these devilish things called “second midterms” (which completely defeat the purpose of the word “midterm” and should therefore not be allowed to exist), but unfortunately I’ve been forced to study for them and so I have. *HEAVY SIGH* However, here I am! I don’t have much of a topic this week, as tests and quizzes tend to take up the kind of time that I’d normally spend nerdy-ing, but I’m generally decent at talking about books, so I shall.

Today, as you do, I stopped by the college bookstore after a Cheese Shop visit with my mother after arriving back at the Burg. She got coffee and I (much too caffeinated already) wandered into the fiction section. One thing I’ve noticed about our beloved college bookstore is that it is one of those places that only carries very specific things — things it thinks will sell, rather than books it thinks are good. (Apparently that’s the reality of running a decent business.) Actually, I think that’s a Barnes & Noble’s thing in general — it’s hard work to keep a bookstore afloat in this day and age — but this kind of sales technique means I’ve noticed patterns in the kinds of books that are being sold. Categories, of sorts.

So in this week’s blog entry, I’m going to be a mean, horrible, literary snob and write about two of those categories — categories that sometimes seem to make up the entire Barnes & Noble’s fiction section.

First of all, there’s the Dark Paranormal Romance. These things usually seem to cover the entire YA section of most bookstores — if I walk over there and just take a quick glance at it, I often don’t even see any other sort of book on the shelf. They usually have one-word titles (things like “Destiny” or “Immortal” or “Caged”; words that sound vaguely dark with the odd bit of kitsch thrown in) and covers depicting teenage girls with blood on their lips, wearing combat boots and black lace blouses that are probably too see-through to go out comfortably in public in. The blurb usually goes something like this…

Egbertina was just an ordinary girl — not very pretty, not very popular, always under the radar. But all that changes when she starts volunteering at the local blood bank and meets Benjamin. He’s a vampire — a Creature of the Night — and he’s dangerous. He can see through walls and clothing alike, and at night, he feasts on the blood of small rodents. Though he begs Egbertina to stay away from him, the beautiful strawberry-red color of his irises makes that impossible. 

As they begin their illicit romance, Egbertina finds she has a few dark secrets of her own… secrets that might hurt Benjamin more than he could hurt her. Will a bounty-hunter, a mysterious boy who calls himself a were-bumblebee, and a man who may or may not be Egbertina’s father keep them apart? Or will Egbertina and Benjamin manage to keep their romance… Clandestine?

(Clandestine being the title of the book, which, thankfully, does not exist.)

I completely understand why these books are appealing — they make you feel sort of naughty reading them, which is always nice, and who doesn’t want to meet a nice werewolf/vampire/faerie king thing and have them swear eternal love to you? The problem is, reading them makes me feel… well, idiotic. Who on earth can take all those blood splotches on the cover seriously? I inevitably end up laughing hysterically at them, showing them to everyone I know, going “THIS IS THE WORST THING EVER! BWAHAHAHA!” and eventually putting them down in favor of something that makes me want to find out what happens next, rather than knowing that Egbertina and Benjamin will live happily ever after in a sort of vampiric wonderland that hopefully doesn’t involve them chewing on anyone’s necks. It’s just not my thing.

(Sometimes I wonder why nobody has written a centaur romance yet. I asked this question of my family last week and there was a long silence. My little sister pointed out the problem of the horse’s bottom. Now I understand.)

Then there’s the Extraordinarily Deep and Lyrical Literary Novel. I’m probably in the vast minority of the world by not liking these books. I feel like maybe I’m missing something, but to me these books seem mainly like a mish-mash of random elements, told with as many metaphors as the author can think up, and tied up with a big fancy ribbon at the end containing much-too-many Deep Truths About Life.

The thing is, there are a LOT of these. I read an article once that said you could tell if a book was one of them if the word “lyrical” was used to describe the book on the back cover. (I’ve taken that as a warning sign ever since.) Another clue is when the cover says it’s a book about “the ties that keep us together” or “long-buried secrets”.

This is the kind of book where the author is very interested in a particular person or place or culture or disability or circumstance, and so they make their character interested in it too, usually doing research in order to uncover some sort of long-lost family secret, or solve some mystery, or go on some road trip. Everyone they meet seems to have some sort of Problem or Truth about themselves that they’re hiding, or (most often) something especially Interesting — they might have a disability, or be a minority race — and the main character helps them to solve their problems and make their lives better. I’ve noticed the main characters themselves tend to be fairly boring, except for whatever Problem leads them out through the plot. And for me, that tends to make the whole book boring.

I’ve found that these kinds of novels usually go like this…

Ermintrude, born into a Haitian-Creole family, was adopted by a typical All-American couple when her first family died in a horrible fire in Port-Au-Prince. She grows up normal and happy, until the fateful day when a mysterious letter addressed to her arrives in her mailbox. It says it’s from her father — he survived the fire, but just barely, and has spent the past twenty years recuperating from the terrible burns all over his face, which he never wanted his daughter to see. He tells Ermintrude that, if she agrees, he will meet her in Florida in two weeks’ time. 

Ermintrude, conflicted, takes a road trip across the United States, always tormented by the thought that maybe she doesn’t want to see her father after all. Along the way, she meets a circus performer with no arms, a happy young schoolgirl with worse burns than her father, a raucous Haitian-Creole family that stirs strange memories within Ermintrude, a rabbit with mysterious psychic abilities, and the strange young man who owns the rabbit, who might just turn out to be more than a friend…

And always does.

At any rate, I’m trying very hard to find books to read that aren’t one of the above, which is proving a bit tricky. I recently discovered Helen Oyeyemi, whose writing I’ve completely fallen in love with, so that’s tiding me over for a bit. And I read an interview last week with a French author called Amelie Nothomb who claims she’s “ugly without the hat!” (a beautiful black confection she was wearing in the interview photo), which I thought was such a funny thing to say that I might just have go out and read one of her books too. We’ll see.

As for NaNoWriMo… I may or may not finish. I’ve got some kind of dreadful Physics final coming up. I’m about 9,000 words away from the finish line, but since that finish line becomes a reality in three days, that’s a lot. Really a lot.

But I’ve never failed yet! So perhaps I’ll do a few late nights, force some word vomit out of myself, and finish the dang novel. It’s about gout and curses and bagpipers and a number of other bizarre things, and is worse than either of the two aforementioned book categories, and must never see the light of day (or else I’ll die of embarrassment), but it’s FUN. And so I want to finish.

I’ll let you know next week if that happens. 🙂

-Libby