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

How Small We Are

Some of these are old, some newer. You may have seen a few before. All are phenomenal.

It's amazing how our perspective of time is so limited. These videos give us a glimpse of how small we are, and look at things in our world that we may take for granted or see as normal, but when viewed over a fast speed show an entirely different kind of beauty. They inspire awe.

How much greater and more amazing must God's view of our universe be?

I ordered these videos very intentionally. It starts out with a view of humanity across city scapes, which then fade into nature and places where no humans have touched, which then transitions to a video that shows both nature and cities together gorgeously, followed by the final video of the entire earth which shows the stark contrast between cities and nature from space.

Dark Knight Rises? Bane Rises!

Just got back from my screening of the prologue for The Dark Knight Rises! The film actually doesn't come out until next summer sometime, but they had a few sneak previews across the country at various IMAX theaters, and I was lucky enough to go. Fun fun!!

At the bottom of this post you'll find a plot description of everything that happened during the first 8 minutes of the movie. I don't think it's that spoilery at all, barely anything happens, but it is a fun sequence to set the movie up with. If you want to go in the movie blind, then ignore the last paragraph of this post. Otherwise, continue on to read what I thought about it!

It was good. No... it was great. It's exactly what I expected from Christopher Nolan. I still think I prefer the opening sequence to The Dark Knight (the Joker's bank heist), but this prologue was completely thrilling experience. There were some technical issues though. Watching it on IMAX was a little overwhelming. The movie literally took up the entire domed screen, so it was very disorienting at times. Additionally, Bane's voice (the primary antagonist) was extremely hard to understand, thus I felt like I missed out on a lot of the plot. I don't think it was a sound issue with the theater - I think it was Bane's accent combined with the fact that he's always speaking through a really awkward mask. Which, side note, Bane's medical issue is pretty ridiculous and interesting. This isn't revealed in what I saw today at all, but apparently the reason he has the mask is that he suffered some sort of a problem way back when, but the problem left him with enormous pain, so much pain that he would literally die because of the pain. Thus, the mask provides with him a constant stream of pain killers, allowing him to live. It's a weird deal.

Bottom line is that all this screening made me want to do is watch the whole movie, and go back and watch the first two again. It got me excited. It made me remember why I love movies. The full domed IMAX experience was awkward enough that I probably wouldn't do that again, but it was a great experience overall. Christopher Nolan hasn't lost his touch. I'm just curious to see where the movie goes from here. So much is still completely unknown about the movie, which is weird to say considering I just saw 8 minutes of it. Heck, we didn't even get to see Batman! The whole preview was entirely about Bane. I'll end with this though: The only thing the prologue needed was a bit of clarity, as I really didn't understand the "why" of most of it. And more batman.

Okay, below is a description of the whole prologue, or at least what I remembered from it! If you saw it and remember more, or know things I got wrong, or understand stuff better, please comment and let me know.

Also, I got a shirt, which is cool.

Plot of the Prologue

The movie begins with Commissioner Gordan speaking at what appears to be the funeral of Harvey Dent. He says some nice words, of which I've completely forgotten, then the scene ends and we fade to what appears to be a country in central Asia, though I could be completely wrong. The largest portion of the prologue starts here. A US commander of sorts is standing next to an airplane when a vehicle pulls up carrying three captured individuals, all with hoods over their heads. Apparently they have a connection to Bane (the primary antagonist of the movie), so the military guy takes them all into a plane then threatens to throw each one of them out until one of them spills the beans on Bane. After one of the hostages is shot, another begins to speak, but with a very odd, quite hard to understand, almost electronic voice with a thick eastern European accent. His mask is removed, and it turns out, he's Bane! Surprise! Saw that coming. Anyways, Bane stalls for a bit talking to the military guy while a C-130 cargo plane appears above the military plane. No one in the military plane seems to realize another plane has appeared above them. The military guy asks Bane if his whole plan was to get captured, which of course Bane replies affirmatively to, and then says that no one on board the plane will survive. Guys repel down from the C-130, break in to the military plane, and chaos ensues. The military plane has somehow now been attached to Bane's secret little C-130, but only by the tail. The C-130 goes faster, thus causing the military plane to fall perpendicular to the C-130. The forcing being applied to the plane are so great at this point that it begins ripping to pieces, all while chaos is still happening on the plane. Did I mention it doesn't look like he used any CGI at all? It appears they literally attached the plane to the C-130 and it literally ripped apart. Could be wrong, but I do know that Nolan very very sparingly uses CGI in anything. Anyways, to continue... At some point, Bane's henchmen start drawing blood out of one of the guys through a tube, and it appears to be very important. My guess is they took the plane just so they could get at these guys so they could get the blood, but really it's all unclear at this point. I can't understand much of what anyone is saying. It's just chaotic and blood is being drawn and a lot of people are dying and a plane is being destroyed. A few of Bane's men are on the outside of the plane now trying to blow the back of the military plane off so as to create a vertical opening heading back up to the C-130. The whole sequence ends with Bane grabbing on to one guy (one of his fellow henchmen, his sidekick? Or is it someone from the military plane that he's trying to capture? not sure), and they raise out of the rear of the plane heading back up towards the C-130. The military plane is then unhooked from the C-130, and it drops below. The purpose of the whole event??? Still not sure at all. The screen fades to black, and a bunch of extremely short clips from later parts of the movie play in an effort to get me excited to see more... which I'm already excited to see more but whatever! The end. Everyone leaves.

Wow, that was one massive paragraph. Sorry, English teachers across the world.

The Dark Knight Rises

Yes, yes in fact I WILL be going to see a 10 minute sneak preview of The Dark Knight Rises on Tuesday night at the IMAX in Huntsville (Space & Rocket Center)... for FREE.

Success.

I'll let you know how it is. But I'm guessing it's going to be unbelievable and mind blowing.

Directors

This is the kind of stuff I can watch beginning to end without getting bored in the least. Below is a roundtable interview with 6 pretty big and potentially award winning directors of movies this year.

Other places to find me

I like to write on here, but I don't write very often. You're more likely to find other posts at my tumblr, which can be found here: http://hurricanethroughme.tumblr.com/

Usually it's just a mish-mash of pictures and videos that I've found other places that I think are awesome. Example of the content you'll find below...



I still post here though and don't plan on leaving this behind any time soon. You just get to find things more often there! Different types of stuff I suppose.

Also, don't forget to follow me on twitter: https://twitter.com/andrewols

A Triumphant Return

... or not so much.

I haven't been posting on here basically because I make too big of a deal out of posting on here. I feel like I shouldn't post something unless it's super well done, or long, or well thought out, or useful. But the truth is, no one comes here to read anything anyways BECAUSE I don't post often at all!

So I plan on changing that by posting more completely useless stuff.

For instance, Huntsville doesn't get any good movies in theaters. I mine as well be in freakin Asia. Sure, we get big tentpole blockbusters and the typical romantic comedy and the holiday horror flick, but where are the legitimately good creative pictures?? Where is Melancholia? Where is Martha Marcy May Marlene? Where is Like Crazy? The Skin I Live In? The Descendents? Or Being Elmo?

Get with it, Huntsville, Alabama! Sure, you're no Nashville, Atlanta, or Birmingham, and I know you aren't a big enough city to actually attract much attention to these movies, but please! Just one theater! We have five, only two of which are even good. Surely one of those could do something different, attract a different type of audience and actually bring one indie movie to the theater every single month.

We never even got Attack the Block or Tree of Life this summer! Thank goodness for Netflix.

I suppose the only hope I have is Oscar season so some of the good ones will actually show up in theaters again once they win some awards...