The Year Ahead Pt. 1

January and February are notorious for their terrible movies, mostly because that's where Hollywood decides to throw all their trash every year. This year we actually had a few decent movies (supposedly, I never saw them sadly): The Grey, Chronicle, and Haywire, among others. Still, all of those even had pretty mixed reactions. With January and February officially behind us though, it's time to actually start getting excited about movies again. To help you out, I'm starting a short segment listing movies you need to be looking forward to this year, broken down by category. Also, each segment will likely only list movies coming out within a month of or two of when the segment being posted. Hence why I'm not bringing up movies like The Avengers, Prometheus, or Lincoln yet. Witha ll that being said, let's get started!

The Hard to Ignore

The Hunger Games (March 23rd)

Admit it, you've read the books, or at least some of them. You've been sucked in to this simple, often annoying, yet completely addictive sci-fi teen fiction series. It's fantastic. I just started reading book 2 last night and found myself staying up far too late because of it. Now we're just nine days away from the movies' release, and my excitement is growing. Initially, I was entirely unexcited for this movie, but as more and more leaks get released from people who have seen it, I can't help but be enthusiastic. Word on the movie-blog street is that it's great, potentially even a new sci-fi classic. If you're already sick of hearing about this series, if you're getting flashbacks of the Twilight craze, here's a word of warning: It's just going to get worse. Buckle up and prepare to get annoyed by the fans. However, the best thing you can do is just to give up, give in, read the books and go see this movie when it comes out. You won't be disappointed. At least... I hope you won't be. (please be a good movie... )

The Ones You Haven't Heard Of

The Raid: Redemption (March 23rd)

Are you sick of all these wimpy action movies with tons of CGI explosions, fake fighting robots, terrible acting, and nothing but english speakers? Well this will probably be the movie for you. Once again, the press has been going crazy for this thing. It actually came out a year or two ago (or at least that's when it was first seen), and it's gotten nothing but praise. The way I've heard it described goes like this: "You know how most action movies have a few cool scenes here and there, then the last 15 or 20 minutes of the movie are the really awesome cool part? Well, those like 15 or 20 minutes of most action movies are spread out to about 80% of this movie. It's pure adrenaline." If you don't mind heavier violence and you didn't think that trailer above was awesome enough, I suggest you watch the original trailer instead. It will blow your mind. To pieces. Many pieces. I want to make trailers like that... [trailer music is everything, that one gets it right]

Moonrise Kingdom (May 16th)

Wes Anderson. Enough said. The genius behind The Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Royal Tenenbaums, and my favorite, The Darjeeling Limited, is back at it again. The funny thing is, I'm rarely ever incredible excited to see his movies, but every time I see one I absolutely love it. Sometimes the topic at hand appears strange and uninteresting (like Moonrise Kingdom), and yet, even then I find that I end up loving them. He isn't to be ignored. If you're ever looking for the definition of the word "quirky," watch a Wes Anderson movie.

The Not So Unnecessary

Titanic 3D (April 6th)

At about this point, you're seriously questioning a lot of things about me. I beg you not to dismiss this movie. Yes, it has some very corny scenes that have been made fun of in pop culture to no end. Yes it's a sappy love story. Yes it's being re-released in theaters in the completely unnecessary 3D format. Put all of that aside though. It's a genuinely great movie that has only been brought down BECAUSE of societies jokes. At the time, and for over a decade after, it was the highest grossing movie of all time because loved it. Now that it's been 15 years since its original release, there are many many people that have never even seen it. Releasing it in theaters again may seem like a moneygrab, but I don't have a problem with giving people all over he world an opportunity to see something in theaters that they've never seen before, or to re-create the theatrical experience of a great movie again. I say we should bring older movies back to theaters more often.

Side note: I don't enjoy 3D in movies, but James Cameron knows how to do 3D. He's the one that brought us Avatar, and even people that don't like 3D an admit that he did a great job with it there. This movie WILL look good in 3D, and if I go see it I'll probably see it in 3D. But you should know, it's also being re-released without the 3D attached. So you aren't forced into 3D.

The Questionably Awesome

Cabin in the Woods (April 13th)

I don't like horror movies at all. But I love sci-fi, I love unique takes on things, I love being surprised, and I love Joss Whedon's writing. This has all of that. It takes a completely and very intentionally stereotypical premise and goes an entirely different direction with it. It looks like great campy fun and I'm really curious to see how the movie ends. Cabin In the Woods is another one of those movies that could have fallen into the category of being completely unnecessary, but I don't think so. We need this new take on things. Will it be good though? No clue. It could be the lamest movie of the year. It could be campy to the point of becoming unbearable. I hope none of that is true though. I hope this movie exceeds expectations. It better, especially if it has an awesome band like The Naked and Famous in the trailer.

The Hunger Games [Book Review]

After well over a year of hearing about The Hunger Games trilogy in podcasts, from friends, from random people, etc, I finally gave it a shot. Admittedly, I was a little bit wary because of it's categorization as "young adult" fiction. However, with the movie coming out soon and everything, I decided I couldn't delay much longer. Thus, I broke down and read it.

Not gonna say a whole lot on it really except to say that the hype holds up. It's genuinely a very entertaining good read, and it goes places I really didn't expect it to go at all (especially in relation to the games). From the very first chapter or two my predictions started completely falling flat. The games themselves were enormously entertaining to read through, and took up a much larger portion of the book than I anticipated.

The only thing I really didn't like (and it is a huge thing) was the main character. Katniss. She was okay at the beginning, and I definitely understand her motivations and thought processes... but I was constantly annoyed with her, especially once the games started. She was so so clueless about how she was affecting other people for almost the whole book. That wasn't fun to read. It was annoying. It made me angry at her character. From the moment Gale entered the scene, I understood his perspective and where he was coming from. From the moment Peeta entered the scene, I understood his perspective and where he was coming from. I feel like at some point or another I've been in both of their positions. Katniss though? She had no freaking clue about anything. Everything with her felt extremely selfishly motivated and uncaring towards others' emotions. I couldn't handle it.

At this point, I'm debating whether I even want to read the 2nd book. All the end of the 1st book did was set up team Edward/Jacob situation that I don't care about at all. If there's a genuinely exciting plot with cool stuff going on, I'll read it, but I definitely don't feel like it's going there at this point.

It's strange. I'd still recommend the book to most people, and I genuinely did really really like it... so it's odd that I'm saying so much negative stuff. Maybe it's just a male thing. Maybe females really understand the conflicts that Katniss deals with. I think she deals with those conflicts in the poorest ways possible. She never cares about anyones' emotions except for her own and what the audience might be feeling. It's painful to even read.

What do y'all think? Am I just coming at things from the male perspective? Should I still move on to book 2, or is it exactly what I fear it will be?

The Hunger Games: 8/10