The Hunger Games - Part 1

[kickass]

Well, do you take fellow geeks reviews more seriously than professional critics?

To the General Audience WE are the fellow geeks you speak of. So tell me, is our opinion worth any less than theirs?

 

[John Locke]

Yes but the majority of the geeky types said that it was true to the book and to me that means the reviews are
good news. To most people that's good news. It's good to hear that fans of the book love it.

 

[kickass]

As I previously said, most of those geek sites eat up films like these. Meaning they are usually most likely to give those geek type films positive reviews. It's not always guaranteed, but it's accurate enough to where I would put money on it.

Doesn't mean you can always trust Ebert or the other more professional critics, but they tend to go in with out the nerd excitement.

Interesting. Had this film been getting awful reviews from /Film and all those other "geek sites" would you be saying the same thing? I can guarantee that people would be saying "Uh oh. Based on these early reviews, this isn't looking very good".

Furthermore, if these geek sites don't hold as much weight as the "professional" critics do, why even bother posting any of their reviews on these boards? They must account for something. And if all these sites/reviews get counted for Rotten Tomatoes then I will say they MUST account for something.

 

[kickass]

you should never trust an AICN review. read reviews from 10 different critics and SHH .

I have and they're all saying great things.

 

[Figs]

Interesting. Had this film been getting awful reviews from /Film and all those other "geek sites" would you be saying the same thing? I can guarantee that people would be saying "Uh oh. Based on these early reviews, this isn't looking very good".

I would be incredibly shocked if that happened.

Furthermore, if these geek sites don't hold as much weight as the "professional" critics do, why even bother posting any of their reviews on these boards? They must account for something. And if all these sites/reviews get counted for Rotten Tomatoes then I will say they MUST account for something.

I don't recall saying specifically that there reviews/opinions don't hold as much or any weight. I'm simply stating that if you are someone who takes the critics into account wait for all the critics to weigh in.

Some of those fan critics might be on the money about a certain film, but a lot of the time they give out positives for subpar fanboyish movies.

There opinions still hold weight, but there has been way too many times a subpar or bad film get glowing reviews from the fan critics who are the first to usually post their thoughts. All I'm really saying in the end is I don't always trust them. I wait to see a film first before I decide if I like it or not, it's just a lot of other people on the internet start seeing these glowing reviews for a movie they are hyped for and are all over it with comments like "this movie is going to be great!" or "look at all these critics who loved it, it is going to do so well at the BO".

 

[John Locke]

Well technically people are saying it is going to do well at the BO because of the ticket sales

 

[Figs]

Well technically people are saying it is going to do well at the BO because of the ticket sales

When I typed in those fan quotes I didn't necessarily mean for this movie, but a lot of fanboy type movies over all.

So Friday nights numbers are looking good or are there midnight showings as well?

 

[dark_b]

Well technically people are saying it is going to do well at the BO because of the ticket sales

this movie will make its budget back and profit in 7 days. we knew that HG was going to make money for 30 days.

 

[ComicChick]

Anyone else going to the midnight shows? Or the first day shows?

4 of us are going to the 12:01 shows

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

I'm really glad Devin liked it. I know a lot of people on these boards don't care for him but I tend to agree with his opinions more often than not.

I agree. Although recently I felt he was way too easy on John Carter, if JJ Abrams had directed it he would have tore it a new one because the script was a huge mess.

 

[dark_b]

I agree. Although recently I felt he was way too easy on John Carter, if JJ Abrams had directed it he would have tore it a new one because the script was a huge mess.

true true true t:

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

true true true t:

He's one of the best reviewers around and usually when I disagree with him I just chalk it up to different tastes but I feel he was being totally disingenuous when it came to John Carter.

It's not a bad film but it is starring a block of T.V. wood and it's script is flat out both over and underwritten, (the villains motivation is much too vague), the pacing is off and the second half of the movie is tonally inconsistent with the first half. Star Trek too had a not so good script but it had a better cast, better direction and better pacing but that didn't stop him from *****ing about it constantly.

He was correct about Super 8's script as well but the movie again was saved by Abrams flawless casting and well done direction and decent pacing. Now I didn't like Super 8 as much as Star Trek so I don't feel the need to defend it as much.

I just want him to stop letting his crush on Stanton and favoritism towards the material get in the way of his review. A great article can be written about just how weak that John Carter script was.

I really hope that his like of The Hunger Games isn't just some ******** dig at Twilight and is a genuine like for the film.

 

[jacobed]

http://collider.com/gary-ross-catching-fire-not-3d-hunger-games/152227/#more-152227

Catching Fire won't be in 3d

 

[dark_b]

if the studio changes their mind it will be in 3D.

 

[Blue Sugar]

I have always had a good eye for Elizabeth Banks but I never thought of her as great as from what I've seen of her as Effie. Looks like a really immersive and transformed performance.

 

[Project862006]

New Clip

Warning Of Hope

 

[ComicChick]

seneca's facial hair is pretty awesome

i wonder how hard it would be to get a local movie theater to give/sell me a copy of one of the movie posters after it's done playing in theaters. anyone ever attempted or had luck with this?

 

[CB Fan]

^ When I worked at a movie theatre no posters were given/sold to the public they were put in the employee break room and then up for grabs from there however studios are now being way more stricter on how many they send out alot are only sending out 2-3 posters for a film and when you got 20+ workers, well, good luck...the time to ask them would be about a two to three after the film is released.

 

[Project862006]

Variety Reviews Hunger Games

The first novel in Suzanne Collins' bestselling trilogy is a futuristic fight-to-the-death thriller driven by pure survival instinct, but the creative equivalent of that go-for-broke impulse is absent from director Gary Ross' "The Hunger Games." Proficient, involving, ever faithful to its source and centered around Jennifer Lawrence's impressive star turn, this much-anticipated, nearly 2 1/2-hour event picture should satiate fans, entertain the uninitiated and take an early lead among the year's top-grossing films. Yet in the face of near-certain commercial success, no one seems to have taken the artistic gambles that might have made this respectable adaptation a remarkable one.

Relentlessly paced, unflagging in its sense of peril and blessed with a spunky protagonist who can hold her own alongside Bella Swan and Lisbeth Salander in the pantheon of pop-lit heroines, Collins' latest book cycle seemed a logical candidate for adaptation from the get-go. Narrated in a first-person style that favors swift exposition over descriptive detail, the series also offers a filmmaker plenty of leeway not only in visualizing its dystopian world onscreen, but in tackling the real-world parallels implicit in this grim vision of totalitarian rule.
Bookended by scenes set in a high-tech city, the film quickly immerses the viewer in the mud and grime of District 12, the poorest of the dozen civilian sectors that make up the futuristic nation of Panem. The government maintains order through nationally televised bloodsports known as the Hunger Games, in which two "tributes" from each district, a boy and a girl, must participate in an annual winner-kills-all-and-takes-all bloodbath.

Pluckier and more resourceful than most is 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence), a skilled archer who hunts to provide for herself, her mother (Paula Malcomson) and her younger sister, Prim (Willow Shields). When Prim is selected at random to represent District 12 in the games, Katniss bravely volunteers to take her place and winds up paired with baker's son Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), with whom she shares a brief, vague history.

Accompanied by some leaden comic relief in the form of a drunken mentor (Woody Harrelson) and a garishly made-up escort (Elizabeth Banks), the two are whisked off to the Capital, an ivory tower of a city imagined as a fantastical explosion of color by production designer Philip Messina and costume designer Judianna Makovsky, among others. There, all 24 tributes are made over, trained for battle and interviewed by a beaming, blue-haired celebrity host (Stanley Tucci) as a prelude to this lethal mash-up of "Survivor," "American Idol" and, at one point, "Project Runway."

The questions raised here, regarding the morality of violence as entertainment and the brutality of pitting children against each other, have been addressed before, and to more potent effect, in films like "Series 7: The Contenders" and the shockingly violent Japanese actioner "Battle Royale." Yet if the satirical and topical elements aren't exactly fresh, the script (by Ross, Collins and Billy Ray) does give them a few knowing spins. Particularly shrewd are the behind-the-scenes moments when Panem's President Snow (a quietly malevolent Donald Sutherland) pressures Seneca (Wes Bentley), the keeper of the games, to maintain control of the situation, a subplot that reps one of the few deviations from the novel and lays the groundwork for "Catching Fire," the next film in the Lionsgate series.

But once the games begin and the contenders are released into a densely forested arena, rigged with "Truman Show"-style cameras for maximum coverage and trackability, the film clings to Collins' text as if it were itself a survival guide. Readers may find themselves mentally checking off plot points as Katniss looks for water; flees fires; makes strategic use of a wasps' nest; tries to suss out whether Peeta loves her, wants to kill her or both; and uses her many years of hunting experience to evade, outwit and inevitably destroy her attackers.

Whatever its earlier shortcomings, the picture really should have spread its wings at this stage, morphing into a spare, stripped-down actioner fueled by sheer adrenaline and nonstop harrowing incident. That intention is evident enough in the darting handheld camerawork and quick cutting style favored here by the filmmakers, including d.p. Tom Stern and editors Stephen Mirrione and Juliette Welfling. Yet while the individual setpieces are well staged, they also feel a bit too neatly scheduled within the story's framework, and the frequent toggling between the arena and Seneca's control room only undercuts the momentum.

Lawrence, who auditioned brilliantly for this role with her even rawer turn in "Winter's Bone," again projects a heartrending combo of vulnerability, grit and soul while convincingly playing several years her junior. The camera remains so glued to her every expression and gesture that no one else, save perhaps Lenny Kravitz as Katniss' suave professional stylist, is given the opportunity to hold the screen against her.

The film does achieve a strong surge of emotion when Katniss forms an alliance with young tribute Rue (winning newcomer Amandla Stenberg), culminating in a stirring sequence that pauses to acknowledge the sheer, impossible inhumanity of the situation. Yet after this high point, things settle into a more prosaic, anticlimactic rhythm, and the central drama, pivoting on the nature of Katniss' and Peeta's relationship, never sparks to life.

What viewers are left with is a watchable enough picture that feels content to realize someone else's vision rather than claim it as its own. Any real sense of risk has been carefully ironed out: The PG-13 rating that ensures the film's suitability for its target audience also blunts the impact of the teen-on-teen bloodshed, most of it rendered in quick, oblique glimpses; whether this is the morally responsible decision is open to debate. Weirdest of all: Hunger, the one constant in Katniss' hard-scrabble life, barely even seems to register.

Ross, a reliable craftsman directing his first film since 2003's "Seabiscuit," makes a point of delineating between the haves and have-nots: While the Capital is an overlit, f/x-heavy wonderland, the bleak, desaturated images of rural-industrial poverty in District 12 could have been influenced by the photographs of Dorothea Lange. Given such wildly disparate parts (one scene suggests "Little House on the Prairie" invaded by Stormtroopers), the look doesn't entirely cohere, though auds will gladly suspend disbelief. Complementing James Newton Howard's orchestral score, the unusually lyrical, C&W-steeped soundtrack, boasting contributions from Arcade Fire, Maroon 5 and Taylor Swift, nicely suggests an America mired in an uncertain future.

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117947254/

 

[Blue Sugar]

Gahh, I hate those kind of pretentious and overblown reviews. It's like reading you general music review from pitchfork. So much text but never gets to the point of things.

 

[jmc]

I knew they'd wuss out on the violence.

 

[Liam_H]

That's not surprising, but that aspect might not save you from a flying pig.

 

[Blue Sugar]

It's not really a big deal for me that they "wussed" out the violence. It was never an essential part of the appeal for me. Hell I even think it got too much in the book with things like Cato's death and such, it distracted from the main appeal. Not saying I don't want any violence at all but it can be implied and be just as effective.

 

[jmc]

That's not surprising, but that aspect might not save you from a flying pig.

Quiet you!

 

[ComicChick]

It's not really a big deal for me that they "wussed" out the violence. It was never an essential part of the appeal for me. Hell I even think it got too much in the book with things like Cato's death and such, it distracted from the main appeal. Not saying I don't want any violence at all but it can be implied and be just as effective.

i kinda see the fact that they toned down the violence on something that is supposed to be seen as barbaric as these kids are fighting to the death is slightly ironic. i'm not complaining though. i think overexposure to death and violence numbs you to it, and for certain scenes and situations to have the impact they need, i guess the audience needs to not be overexposed to it, to see the ugliness and brutality of it all.

am i making sense? hardly any sleep so brain isn't alert yet heh