Comments

1
SO BRAVE!
2
It's mostly about her pining for two love interests, actually.

That said, most women I know really enjoyed both the book - massive page turner - and the movie.

Check out The Boy with the Bike starting at the SIFF Uptown this week. It's like ... nothing else.
3
I barely knew what it was till last week. But the story sounds a lot like the Contagion story line in Wonder Woman comics, which was apparently written around the same time that the novel was. I found the Wonder Woman story chilling--I suspect in a way that The Hunger Games wouldn't be.

For what it's worth, I didn't care much for the film version of The Handmaid's Tale, but I thought the novel was amazing, so maybe the Hunger Games novel is worth a look.
4
You made the right decision, Frizzelle. It came across as really shoddy to me. Like it was short-hand for being an enjoyable movie without actually having the discipline to be an enjoyable movie.
5
I liked The Hunger Games. I liked this review more, though.
6
It was this generation's The Running Man. Which isn't a bad thing...
7
It's not just Paul who disagrees with you, but it does seem a little unfair to walk out of the Hunger Games before, say, the Hunger Games start, unless you were too sleepy to begin with (I will confess, something about train rides DO make me sleepy - see Atlas Shrugged). I actually appreciated the fact that it wasn't hyper-paced and over-CGIed and invincible-heroed in the way that most action movies are.
8
Hah hah, Will in Seattle claims to know women!
9
I was bored to death until the game actually started, but I was trapped and couldn't leave.
10
Do people die in massive numbers? If that happens I could sit through 45 minutes plus of boredom. But only if there is unbelievable death and destruction for the balance of the movie.
11
Story time:

Evidently there was some cross-promotion involving this movie and the Microsoft Store, in the service of which I am employed (in as much as being a third-party vendor is an employee). This involved a star from the film (I'm told it was Jennifer Lawrence, but I don't have a specific name) doing appearances/signings/meet and greets at MS Store locations throughout the country. Evidently these appearances were as exciting as you'd expect, as the star in question used her silvery autograph pen to doodle on the fancy custom-made MS Store tablecloths on the designated MS Store folding tables from the MS Store Mobile Event Kits. So that means I got to ship a round of new tablecloths out to all of the stores to replace the doodled-upon ones.

There's several layers of telephone game between myself and whatever happened at the actual stores, so there may be a few details wrong, but there you go.
12
@11, that made me just want to kill myself...
13
it didn't get any better, so you made the right decision.
14
Forty year old men who bitch and moan that they're bored watching young adult, and even children's, movies, need to shut up and get a life. Hunger Games is not The Perfect Human. Harry Potter is not Persona.

Instead of bragging that you walked out, apologize for not knowing the genre and walking in to begin with.

And why do guys who walk out of movies brag so loudly afterwards? Do they think it shows they have balls?
15
I didn't really enjoy the book, but I didn't see the movie yet. Don't ask me why I want to check out the film version...
16
They took an exceptional young adult novel and turned it into a mediocre movie. I don't blame any of the actors. I blame the director.

As a side note, if you ever get the chance to make the movie version of a wildly popular book series, please pay attention to the details. Every time you get something small wrong, it's like a little "fuck-you" to all the fans of the book.

***spoilers ahead***

To the makers of this film:

Buttercup the cat is yellow, not black and white
Rue dies before Katniss can cut her free, not after.
Maybe you can add in the cannon-fires for the deaths of the boy tribute from 2 and for Rue because you forgot in the theatrical release.
Peeta has blue eyes, not brown (What's up with that? Did the actor refuse to wear colored contacts?)
The Game Maker didn't stop Katniss and Peeta until they'd put the berries in their mouth. NOT WHEN THEY WERE JUST HOLDING THEM.

****end of spoilers****

I know that some will say that I'm being too nitpicky or not nitpicky enough. They certainly changed many more things than what I just listed but those I could write off as needed changes due to time restrictions. The ones I listed seemed like they were changed for no good reason.
17
@14: It totally does show they have balls! Only a totally badass rebel would have that kind of chutzpah. He left the cinema, then he ordered some sushi and didn't pay for it.
18
I almost walked out when it started turning into Twilight's love-triangle, but I wanted my $3 worth.
19
It was sufficient for what it was: a PG-13 version of Battle Royale for white people. My group picked apart all the logical, logistical, and societal-structure issues inherent in the premise of this movie, but we all still enjoyed it.
20
Aw, sweetie, look at you being all contrary and high brow!

I'm sorry that the young adult blockbuster offended your sensibilities.
21
Does it have failures of conventional wisdom logic as big as Children of Men did? Cuz if so, I might go see it, As I did still like CofM.

Until I remember the bit about kids killing kids. I'll leave that to people who like watching that sort of thing.
22
If you really aspire to be the next Lindy West, you're going to have to gain a lot more weight.
23
Oh fer chrissakes, Frizzelle. Let me guess: you're the type who would tell me a wide shot of an abandoned playground held for half an hour would demand the viewer question what "film" is.

Constant has the right metaphor: Hunger Games is a Snickers bar. Kind of pandering, not particularly nuanced, but delicious. Deal.

That you walked out after 45 minutes says much more about you than the movie.
24
@22 What the fuck, dude!
25
@24, he trolled ya but good there.
26

Why are you pedos going to movies for 12 year olds?

27
The review NPR aired last week emphasized that the movie was for kids & adults should adjust their expectations accordingly.
28
@16 - Those are just about the stupidest complaints I've ever heard. Please go put your head in a rain barrel. I'll come by and let you know when it's okay to come back up for air.
29

#27

It's not for adults at all.

When you stand in a movie line for an adult movie, and "Twilight" is playing in the next movie theatre it's all 12 year old girls.

You don't go see Twilight. Your nieces see Twilight.

Same with Hunger Games. Some how all the Infantile Adults in Seattle are all telling each other it's "ok" to cram their fat assess in with the middle schoolers because it's "for everyone".

It's not...stay out of the school yard perverts.

30
I agree: Hunger Games SUCKED!!!

Admittedly, my reason for hating it was that I own "Battle Royale," which Hunger Games is based on. However, instead of focusing on all the different reactions to being told "here's a gun, now go kill everyone" (the aspect of Battle Royale I like the most) we get a cliche love story and the tackiest costumes in existence.
31
@19 for most insightful Cineaste Post of the Day
32
Yeah, I was expecting a "lightning thief" hack job by Hollywood and was totally caught off guard by the professionalism by which it followed the book's narrative. BTW, I am often dragged to stupid teen movies by my two teenagers, I often get sucked into their juvenile literature that they leave laying around as well. Juvenile fiction has come a long way since I was a teen reader,
"Hunger Games" takes on some really serious themes that no author of teen fiction would touch even 5 years ago. War and rebellion, dystopian future themes, inequality and privilege, personal costs of killing and death, I can see why this was too much for Criss Frizelle to handle. Little too close to home? Or just too political for your taste?
A future where children are ritually sacrificed as a lessen to the subjugated districts of a Balkinized North America, I can see why this might be disturbing, especially after the last 10 years where we have been essentially doing just that to the nations of the Middle East. But maybe it's time to grow a pair and take a hard look at what we are doing to the generation of children that are soon to be adults, who have spend their childhood post 9-11 watching chicken hawks like Frizelle and Savage cheering the warriors from the homefront, unable to face the unsanitized consequences of their war.
33
I miss Lindy.
34
Movie Review/Movie Math

"Lord of the Flies" + "Running Man" = "The Hunger Games"

-What someone more clever would have written
35
Amen! I would have walked out had I not been packed in and had to crawl all over 20 people. So I dozed. The only other movie I should have walked out on but didnt was last year's "Tree of Life". This was right up there with that.
36
@29

They call that "projecting," right. We all know you're a repulsive creep.
37
@29 I saw "The Hunger Games" because my wife (a major in Children's Theater) and my daughter (a 17 year-old - well 17 year-old) recommended it. I liked the film, as an admirer of futurist fiction, as a long-time consumer of YAD fiction, and as a guy who had nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon.

So fuck you.
38
No twists? No twists?! Didn't you hear they CAST BLACK ACTORS AS GOOD GUYS?
40
you think you're so fucking cool fizzelle? i didn't even GO to the hunger games! how cool is that?
41
"There was not a single plot twist to be found on that long, long road. Every aspect of the movie unfolded exactly as you'd expect."

This is a kid's movie. If you through any plot twist in it, the theater becomes a shoutfest of questions: "Why did she do that?", "Who is that guy?", "I thought she was x!"
Be glad it was kept simple & straightforward.
42
Quite a gamut of comments, everything from "adults liking Hunger Games must be pedos" to "if you don't like Hunger Games, you are just a contrarian dick."

Nice work Slog, you never disapoint.
43
My biggest disappointment that they left out was the line, "Remember who the real enemy is." That's the core of the books, and they cut it.

Aside from that, it was pretty good.
44
@43 I think that line is in the next book, Catching Fire.
45
Wasn't this a kid's book made into a kid's movie? Why is it news that some adults found it simplistic?
46
Breaking: Seattle hipsters find young adult movie adaptation of young adult book to be predictable, lacking in hip. "There's no irony, " says one. "I used to like simple, light entertainment before it was cool, but now it's just bourgeois cliche," retorts another.
47
@30 demonstrates my favorite part of any comments section discussing "The Hunger Games" (book or movie): the folks who name-drop "Battle Royale" like they've uncovered some obscure foreign film, despite the 10 comments above it saying the same thing.

"The Hunger Games" is only based on "Battle Royale" if you've never seen/read "The Lottery," "The Running Man," "The Long Walk," "The Most Dangerous Game," or the five billion other works that use this plot. It's like saying any romance novel written after 1996 is based on "The Notebook."
48
@32: Do you Occupy people have to turn *everything* into a political issue? Maybe try listening to you teenagers instead of complaining about their taste in literature. Not everyone was reading Orwell at the age of 10.
49
Never read the book but knew what was going to happen before it did. I will not go see the next one. I came out of the theater depressed. Not one of my favorites. Guess I am the only one who thinks this but the Districts and the Capital ...just belong in two different movies. I talk show host looked like an ompa lompa and the lady that picked the two from the district looked like she was from Alice in Wonderland with Johnny Depp. ????
50
@47 THANK YOU. I do an involuntary eye-roll anytime someone name drops Battle Royale in a Hunger Games thread. And it happens every. single. time.
51
The movie was no better than the YA drivel from which it was adapted. Your expectations were too high.
52
@49, Um I think you missed the point. By a fucking mile. The Capitol is Tara and the Districts are the slave quarters. Or did you miss the whole totalitarian gov't, the forcing children from the Districts to fight to the death on tv, giving out fame and fortune to the victor as a sign of the Capitol's generosity, etc. The contrast is supposed to be stark. Think of the Capitol as the 1% and the Districts as the 99%. Only the Districts are comprised of slaves who are starved and face death if they dissent.
53
@47, I second @50's comment. It's really starting to drive me up a wall. It's like these people have only ever read 1 book and don't realize that ideas get recycled about 50 billion times in literature.
54
@46 OrsonWellesClap.gif
55
@52 If so many people are missing "the point" then the film has failed to make that point clear. The movie is called "The Hunger Games" but we don't see ANYBODY in it that looks particularly hungry. How are we supposed to know that these people are enslaved and starving when everyone we see looks healthy and relatively normal?

Personally, I liked the movie - except for the obligatory shaky-cam which made it impossible to know what was going on during the fight scenes. It isn't a great film, but it is far from the worst.
57
@47

I've read or seen all of your examples. Except for "The Long Walk", I don't see the use of teen/pre-teen kids on the level of "HG" and "BR".

"Battle Royale" seems a pretty apt comparison.
58
@47 - FTW.
59
@47 WHOOO!!! I'm guilty of describing it to people as "similar to Battle Royale", but to anyone who has the same literary background as me I tell them it's Roman Gladiatiorial Battle, crossed with "The Lottery" crossed with "Most Dangerous Game"
60
For everyone complaining about the comparisons of Hunger Games and Battle Royale in every thread you read; Just how many Hunger Games threads are you reading, anyway?
61
If you have to compare a movie to describe it how about "survivor" meets a Palistine intifada? Made for TV violence designed to recolonize? Maybe these teen dramas are just not obvious enough for adults, the kids I took to the showing got it right away.
62
@44, well that would explain it then, wouldn't it?

I lent my copy out so I can't check, but I bet you're right.
63
@14 YES.
@16 Exactly. What the WTF why the fuck did they make buttercup anything but yellow? The goddamned cats name is BUTTERCUP. Pretty much everything they changed for the movie I was like WHYYYYYYYYYYY.... The thing that bugged me the most was Haymitch telling Katniss he believed in her right before she went up the tube. That was Cinna jerks. Why would Haymitch be with Katniss there anyway? Hello, he was supposed to be mentoring TWO tributes. And he didn't believe in her... he was drunk, remember?

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